TALLINN HOLIDAY ALBUM

TitleTALLINN HOLIDAY ALBUM
BrandFINAVIA
Product/ServiceHELSINKI AIRPORT
Category A04. Travel, Leisure, Retail, Restaurants & Fast Food Chains
Entrant TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Idea Creation FINAVIA Vantaa, FINLAND
Idea Creation 2 TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Media Placement DAGMAR Helsinki, FINLAND
PR TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Production TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Credits
Name Company Position
Anna Tuomi Finavia Head of Marketing
Maija Ilvonen Finavia Communications Manager
Pinja Kallis Finavia Communications Specialist
Mikko Pietilä TBWA\Helsinki Executive Creative Director
Simone Bocedi TBWA\Helsinki Senior Content Strategist
Aleksi Erma TBWA\Helsinki Copywriter
MAtti Virtanen TBWA\Helsinki Art Director
Annika Wikstén TBWA\Helsinki Account Manager
Virpi Grönlund TBWA\Helsinki Account Director
Joona Stedt TBWA\Helsinki Project Manager
Katariina Ollari TBWA\Helsinki Content Producer
Veikko Heikkilä TBWA\Helsinki Junior Art Director
Eemeli Tani TBWA\Helsinki Performance & Analytics Manager
Rasmus Kuusisto TBWA\Helsinki Data & Insight Trainee
Suvi Höytö TBWA\Helsinki Designer Trainee
Riikka Hallenberg Dagmar Oy Senior Client Director
Eveliina Virtapelto Dagmar Oy Client Manager
Minna Puurtinen Dagmar Oy OOH Planner

Why is this work relevant for Direct?

Helsinki Airport’s campaign created a customer relationship in a new market – Tallinn – by engaging directly with the audience living in the city. The airport’s route network was advertised with an outdoor campaign which used the Instagram photos of Tallinners who had already traveled to Helsinki Airport direct destinations. The outdoor ads were also used to encourage other travelers to hashtag their travel photos on Instagram with #tallinnareisialbum, which generated several hundred participations. These Instagram posts tagged with #tallinnareisialbum were then put up on outdoor ads in the second phase of the campaign.

Background

Helsinki Airport is looking to grow its business by attracting passengers from the neighboring markets of Finland. The brief for the Tallinn market was clear: increase the awareness of Helsinki Airport as a viable option for traveling Tallinners. The route network of Helsinki Airport is inarguably better than Tallinn Airport’s, as Helsinki Airport offers 160 direct destinations and Tallinn Airport only 35. Tallinners still have the option to use connecting flights from other European airports. The aim of the campaign was to communicate the fact that Tallinners can avoid that one extra flight by starting their trip from Helsinki Airport. Reaching Helsinki Airport is easy as it’s only 86 kilometers away from Tallinn, and ferries cross the Gulf of Finland several times a day.

Describe the creative idea (30% of vote)

The spearhead of the campaign was communicating the destinations you can fly directly to from Helsinki Airport. As a foreign competitor expanding to a new market, it was crucial to engage the new audience in a way that embraced the locals. This lead to the idea of advertising the route network of Helsinki Airport with authentic Instagram pictures that traveling Tallinners had taken in these destinations. Not fake or polished travel imagery, but real experiences of our audience’s peers. The other part of the idea was to disrupt the use of media. The Instagram pictures were made physical by placing them on outdoor ads in their original Instagram-like format. This created a collective holiday album Tallinners, showcased on the streets of the city.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

Authenticity is at the core of Helsinki Airport's advertising. Tallinn Holiday Album took this further by placing the passengers' real images in the center of the campaign. The username, location, and comment on each Instagram image appeared on billboards to keep the campaign as authentic as possible. First, we searched for Tallinners that had traveled to the destinations in Helsinki Airport's route network and contacted them for permission to use their pictures. We wanted to find Tallinners that were eager to participate because they liked the idea. The ads were also used to encourage others to hashtag their travel photos with #tallinnareisialbum, expanding the campaign into social media. The tagged photos were also used in outdoor advertisements. Tallinn’s relatively small size of the population played a significant role in the strategy. We covered 85% of all Tallinn’s outdoor advertisements, so most Tallinners saw someone they knew on an outdoor ad.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

The campaign was divided into two phases. First, we placed over a hundred unique billboards in the city of Tallinn and around the harbor, the two targeted areas where Helsinki Airport's audience was most likely to be engaged. Each billboard also had a unique campaign message, which referenced to the destination in the image. The idea was for Helsinki Airport to play the role of a user on Instagram, commenting on the photos in an original and positive way. The outdoor ads were also used as direct call-to-actions to use #tallinreisialbum. In the second phase of the campaign, we changed all the billboards to the newly tagged pictures on Instagram.

List the results (30% of vote)

Born as an outdoor campaign, Tallinn Holiday Album exceeded everyone's expectations by expanding to social media without any online advertising, organic or sponsored content from Helsinki Airport. The campaign was featured in every major news outlet in Estonia, reaching a total of 3 809 361 people, most of which from the targeted market. With a population of 453 000, the outdoor campaign reached every citizen of Tallinn over 90 times. The Tallinners loved the campaign so much they extensively used #tallinnareisialbum hashtag to tag their holiday photos for a chance to get on a billboard. The organic user-generated content created a staggering 72625 likes and 1866 comments on Instagram alone. For the first time ever the social sentiment of Helsinki Airport among Tallinners was 100% positive.