FORTUM CIRCO® HANDLE

Innovation Eurobest Award

Case Film

Presentation Image

TitleFORTUM CIRCO® HANDLE
BrandFORTUM
Product/ServiceFORTUM CIRCO® RECYCLED PLASTIC
Category A02. Applied Innovation
Entrant TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Idea Creation TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
PR TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Credits
Name Company Position
Jussi Mälkiä Fortum Brand Manager
Aki Koskinen Fortum Vice President, Brand
Jyrki Poutanen TBWA\Helsinki Chief Creative Officer
Anna Masalin TBWA\Helsinki Executive Account Director
Ville Ohtonen TBWA\Helsinki Creative Director
Satu Heikkonen TBWA\Helsinki Account Manager
Juhana Hokkanen TBWA\Helsinki Innovation Director
Umberto Onza TBWA\Helsinki Lead Innovation Designer
Teemu Lappalainen TBWA\Helsinki Art Director
Melissa Kuitunen TBWA\Helsinki Content Producer
Saana Sundberg TBWA\Helsinki Junior Communication Specialist
Lara Ala-Olla TBWA\Helsinki Designer
Fanny Haga TBWA\Helsinki Photographer
Eemeli Tani TBWA\Helsinki Manager, Performance & Analytics
Ellen Lindbom TBWA\Helsinki Data & Insight Trainee
Tuukka Tikkanen TBWA\Helsinki Film Producer
Mikko Kuoppasalmi TBWA\Helsinki Editor
Mikko Pietilä TBWA\Helsinki Executive Creative Director
Erno Reinikainen TBWA\Helsinki Creative Director
Mikko Kaivo-oja TBWA\Helsinki Associate Creative Director

Why is this work relevant for Innovation?

Fortum Circo® Handle is a door handle supplement, which revolutionizes opening doors in public places: it allows you to open any door with your arm, without touching them with your hands, thus helping avoid infections.It is made from 100% recycled Fortum Circo® plastic. It embodies what innovations are about: seeing issues and using familiar things to solve them in novel ways. Fortum Circo® Handle is also truly easy to use and extremely useful, especially in the post-Covid world.

Background

Clean-energy company Fortum is also the leading producer of recycled plastic in the Nordics. They collect waste plastic from both consumer plastic packaging waste and industrial waste, grind it and manufacture Fortum Circo® plastic pellets, a versatile recycled raw material for nearly any plastic products. In its home market Finland, Fortum is only known as an energy company. The brief was to raise awareness about Fortum Circo® plastics and to enforce the perception of Fortum as a circular economy company. Originally, the brief was met with two ideas which both involved a presence in large global events in 2020. As Covid-19 hit the world in spring 2020, it was soon evident that the whole campaign had to be rethought in radically new circumstances. The original campaign ideas involving entertainment felt not only impossible to execute, but also too light in approach.

Describe the idea

Fortum quickly realized one issue it could help through innovation: better hand hygiene on surfaces in public places. Especially door and cabinet handles in stores get touched by thousands of clients every day, making them hotspots for infections. Electric doors with motion detectors would have solved the problem, but switching every single door and cabinet in every store would have taken months (if not years) and cost billions per country. That’s why Fortum created the Fortum Circo® Handle: a simple add-on suiting all types of existing door handles, allowing people to open doors with their arm, minimizing touching the handles with their palms and fingers. It not only prevents infections, but also helps disabled, who have trouble grabbing handles or lack finger strength, open doors more easily. Fortum Circo® Handle is manufactured from Fortum’s 100% recycled Circo® plastic, using no virgin materials.

What were the key dates in the development process?

31.3. Idea presented to the client 2.4. Idea chosen, design process started 10.4. First model versions 3d-printed, testing started 15.4. Right version chosen, 3d-printing of the pilot batch started 19.4. Piloting batch installed into stores 20.4. Piloting started 25.4. & 3.5. User interviews 10.5. Piloting ended 25.5. Negotiations with mass-production partners started 15.6. Mass-production partner (Fiskars) announced 1.7. Mass-production for global distribution (by Fiskars) started

Describe the innovation / technology

Fortum Circo® Handle is a simple add-on for different types of door handles (freezers, refrigerators, etc…) inside grocery stores. The Handle is made from three parts: the handle, the connector and the insert to fit different types of doors. By attaching the add-on to the existing handles, the user can open the doors without touching the handle with their fingers or palms. The Fortum Circo® Handle was taken to be mass production by Fiskars. So making this design giant a client of Fortum and continuing the spread of the product itself.

Describe the expectations / outcome

The projects’ outcomes were perfect for Fortum. Making the design giant Fiskars an active client with a product that was originally designed and created by Fortum is a good commercial match. Through Fiskars the mass production is done with ease as they already have production lines to match this type of production. By demonstrating how through design, innovation and using recycled plastics - a product from Fortum - we can help people in these times of pandemic we also demonstrated to Fortum’s clients that their Circo® -plastic is a great product for producing everyday products.