Influencers brought attention to Finnish Food Day 2024
When influencers inspired different generations to discuss the importance of Finnish food, the Finnish Food Day campaign shot to a record result.
How to get people under thirty interested in Finnish food?
For the majority of Finns (70–80%), the domestic origin of food is an important selection criterion in stores, and especially older age groups understand the value of food from their own country. Younger people, aged 18–29, also appreciate food, but they do not find reasons to favour Finnish food as easily.
The most domestic food in the store can be identified by the Hyvää Suomesta label administered by the Finfood – Finnish Food Information, which indicates that both the work and the raw material in the food are from your own country.
The purpose of Ruokatieto is to promote the appreciation of Finnish food. Together with its member companies and the whole of Finland, Ruokatieto wants to celebrate the food of its own country and its makers annually, on the Finnish Food Day on 4 September.
The message that unites different generations highlighted the importance of continuity for all of us
The aim of the 2024 Finnish Food Day campaign was to influence young people aged 18–30 and 30–40 with families in particular, i.e. those target groups for whom the reasons for choosing Finnish food are not yet crystal clear.
We wanted to communicate clearly and emotionally to the most important target groups how favouring domestic food affects both individuals and society as a whole.
In our communications, we tell about the work of the Finnish food chain.
Dagmar was able to brilliantly sum up the benefits of food from her own country in three points. We will continue to use them actively in the future.
The relationship with food, recipes and appreciation of domesticity are passed down from generation to generation, partly like tradition. In the campaign, we wanted to bring different generations together to discuss the importance of Finnish food throughout different times. In what ways does the food of one’s own country also bring security to future generations?
“Food, work, security” moved to different channels with an influencer
The main message of the campaign, “Food, work, security”, concretizes in three words what Finnish food with the Hyvää Suomesta label offers to individuals and at the same time to society as a whole.
We designed a multi-channel concept for the campaign, which was built almost entirely around content produced by influencers relevant to the target groups in all media.
We chose influencers who speak to young people and those with families as the faces of the campaign: Hermanni with his grandmother and Nata Salmela with her father and child Benkku. In this way, we got behind the campaign message not only the strength brought by influencers who speak to the target groups, but also a dialogue that unites generations.
Influencers produced content for social media, outdoor advertising, radio and shopping centre announcements
Although the campaign was aimed at a wide reach, we left out the TV advertising of previous years from the media menu, and built the campaign around social media, outdoor advertising, radio and shopping centre announcements. We were sure that even though the influencers are not familiar faces and voices in the mass media, the content would still work as compelling advertising. For those who also recognise familiar people, the impact would be exceptionally strong.
In the content of the campaign, Hermanni and her grandmother and Nata and her family talked about their own relationship with Finnish food and the relationship they learned through their family. For example, on a radio spot, Hermanni asked his grandmother to tell her about her reasons for always favouring Finnish food.
In outdoor advertising, the photo and video material produced by the influencers was combined with the Hyvää Suomesta label and the main message of the campaign.
In their own channels, Nata and Hermanni shared, among other things, childhood food memories and recipes passed down from one generation to the next.
Content produced by influencers was shared on Ruokatieto’s social media channels, and recipes produced by influencers were added to the Finnish Food Day website.
The audio, image and video material was produced by the influencers themselves, because we wanted to maintain a sense of authenticity compared to material filmed or recorded in the studio.
An excerpt from Hermannis and grandma’s YouTube video
Results improved from the previous year in all areas
The success of the imaginary campaign was measured with a campaign survey, the results of which were excellent.
We managed to improve the results of previous years in every area, from reach to message delivery and attention value. The improvement was particularly visible in the young people and the target group with families, which this year had been set as the main target groups.
The improved results of the campaign inspire us to continue.
You learn something new every year, and now the lessons learned produced even better results with less media investment. We are satisfied.
The influencer marketing in the campaign worked significantly better than average (Dagmar’s research database) – in other words, the grandmother and family brought a new kind of impact to commercial cooperation with influencers. Content produced by influencers, for example, as part of outdoor and radio advertising, also received numerous positive comments in the open feedback of the campaign survey.
40% total attention value (previous 36%)
21% remembering influencers (previous year 17%, average 12%)
65% recognizability of advertising: good (53% in the previous year)
34% advertising standout: good (previous year 24%)
35% advertising provides new information: good (28% in the previous year)
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