Title	CITY SKIS – THE WORLD'S FIRST URBAN SKI SHARE
Brand	THE CITY OF LAHTI
Product/Service	EUROPEAN GREEN CAPITAL 2021
Category	D02. Use of Events & Stunts
Entrant	TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Idea Creation	TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Media Placement	TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Media Placement 2	CITY OF LAHTI Lahti, FINLAND
PR	TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Production	TBWA\HELSINKI, FINLAND
Production 2	CITY OF LAHTI Lahti, FINLAND

Name	Company	Position
Jyrki Poutanen	TBWA\Helsinki	Creative Direction
Mikko Pietilä	TBWA\Helsinki	Creative Direction
Markus Nieminen	TBWA\Helsinki	Creative Direction
Maria Kuorikoski	TBWA\Helsinki	Creative, copywriter
Tuomas Karvonen	TBWA\Helsinki	Creative, content strategy
Teemu Lappalainen	TBWA\Helsinki	Art Direction
Jenni Mällinen	TBWA\Helsinki	Art Direction
Tommi Selander	TBWA\Helsinki	Graphic Designer
Ella Komulainen	TBWA\Helsinki	Account Director
Maija Naumanen	TBWA\Helsinki	Project management
Paula Sonne	TBWA\Helsinki	PR
Sara Pitzén	TBWA\Helsinki	PR
Saana Simander	TBWA\Helsinki	PR
Ville Hackzell	TBWA\Helsinki	Video editor
Aku Koskinen	TBWA\Helsinki	DoP
Johanna Tarvainen	TBWA\Helsinki	Video production

Why is this work relevant for PR?

European Green Capital is a title given out annually by the European Commission to a forerunner in urban sustainability. Usually, the year is full of international visitors and delegates and public events promoting sustainability. For 2021, Lahti had to create a new strategy that would engage local and international audiences, promote the city’s sustainability initiatives and inspire other cities – remotely. This work demonstrates how we turned local heritage into an innovative PR approach to generate global visibility and interest towards Lahti’s sustainable urban lifestyle, while engaging local audiences in a socially distanced way.

Background

European Green Capital is an annual title given out by the European Commission to promote environmentally friendly urban living. It’s awarded to cities with an impressive record in sustainability and can act as an inspiring role model and promote best practices to all other European cities. Our brief was to help Lahti achieve these goals despite a ban on public events and international visitors. We needed to create a new idea for a purely earned media driven approach that would get the attention of global news media, promote Lahti’s innovative approach towards urban sustainability and generate interest towards a small, unknown city that followed major capitals like Oslo, Copenhagen, Lisbon and Stockholm as European Green Capital. The main objectives were to secure international media coverage for Lahti as the new Green Capital, positive sentiment with local audiences and spread awareness for Lahti’s green initiatives to inspire other cities.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

We decided to promote Lahti’s green innovations by creating a new one that would catch the world's interest: the world’s first urban ski sharing program. Lahti is known for cross-country skiing and, more recently, its ambitious climate action, so a celebration of snow and winter sports was a fitting way to promote their work to save Nordic winters. The Lahti region has already lost a month of snow coverage to climate change. To set up the program, we set up ski sharing points made out of sustainable local wood and stocked with recycled second-hand skis in central locations across the city. New ski trails were laid on sidewalks and the central market square.. The system was free to use and based on trust that the users would return the equipment after use. Messaging in Lahti’s local channels focused on celebrating and saving Finland’s snowy winters through climate action.

Describe the PR strategy (30% of vote)

Internationally, the idea relied on Finnish quirkiness and the exotic notion of skis as a mode of public transport. In global PR we targeted news, sustainability and travel media. The key message focused on sustainable urban mobility, using the skis as a way to talk about the role of transportation in fighting climate change, and Lahti’s other sustainable mobility innovations. Locally, we wanted to generate pride over Lahti’s sustainability action and communicate that the Green Capital year was something for the locals to enjoy, despite nearly all planned events being cancelled due to the pandemic. Here, in addition to local residents, our target audience consisted of other cities and national decision makers, so getting good coverage in Finnish news media was crucial. In the PR kit, we included a short video introducing the ski sharing program, a press release detailing the project and Lahti’s other climate initiatives and some photos.

Describe the PR execution (20% of vote)

The City Skis were in place during the peak snowy season of January and February. The first PR push was made to Finnish media on 20 January, timed to coincide with the international Lahti Ski Games, followed by a global press release on 26 January. The press kit was distributed to 5,127 journalists at 1,177 outlets. The journalists were chosen based on their previous interests on subjects such as winter sports and skiing, travel and modes of micro transport, such as bike shares. Regionally, distribution focused on Europe, North America and Japan. Individualised pitches were made to 12 Finnish newspapers and TV stations and 22 international news outlets, including Reuters, who picked up the story for further distribution. Journalists who were able to travel to Lahti were invited to test the skis themselves, resulting in 5 TV interviews given while skiing around the city.

List the results (30% of vote)

In Finland, the City Skis were covered by nearly all main media outlets and featured on 5 major TV news broadcasts and talk shows. Overall, the City Skis gained 859 earned mentions and a potential reach of 1.9 billion and an earned media value of 17.5 million euros, according to Meltwater. In addition to dozens of short videos and news stories covering the surprising idea, the project and its sustainability message was covered in depth by several top tier media, including Forbes, Fast Company, Euronews, France 24, BMFTV, The Independent, El Periodico and La Repubblica, with several of them, including The Independent and La Repubblica, running several extensive follow-up stories on Lahti from a travel and sustainable urban living perspective. Generally, the tone of the coverage was overwhelmingly positive. The local response was very positive, with residents eagerly testing out the skis and sharing their excitement on social media and a number of days when all skis at the sharing stations were in use at the same time. The overall sentiment towards the Green Capital year was measured before and after the activities and post-campaign results showed a 15% increase in local resident’s positive attitude, with the number of those viewing the initiative favourably rising from 66% to 76% in Q1. Additionally, 51% of locals said that earned media was the preferred and most important channel for following the Green Capital year.