GlobalCom’s market barometer: Finland

The GCPR-Blog team talked to Jukka Laikari co-founder of the IFPR Finland, the member of GlobalCom in Finland.

 

1. Which industries/markets are booming at the moment in Finland?

As many of the traditional success areas, like paper industry and Nokia seem more likely to reduce than increase their activities in Finland, some new industries are taking off. Game-cluster, following the success of Angry Birds is growing rapidly. Also on the areas of cleantech and water Finland has new international success stories to come. Kone (elevators) has a long steady track record of excellent results. But although headquartered in Espoo, only 5km from our offices, it employs 90 % of its workforce abroad.

2. What makes Finland currently so interesting for cleantech?

Environmental awareness has been a popular and important topic in Finland longer than in many other countries. There are excellent examples of great innovations on the fields of circulation, waste collection, air quality, waste water cleaning and lately also in wind energy – to mention some. As the home market is small, most of these companies have started to look for international markets on very early stage.  To succeed in international benchmarking and competition means that the products and services have to be of highest quality.

3. Why should companies from these industries start doing Public Relations in Finland?

Finland is a market where people and decision makers can be reached through media – we subscribe more newspapers and magazines than in most of the other countries. Largest circulations are on the level of 20 % of population (or 50 % of households), most popular TV-programs reach even higher rates. When your company or product gets visibility in the media, it will also be noticed.

Many cleantech and game industry companies are grown to the stage where they start to understand the power of corporate image – when competing of clients, government contracts and also the best employees, who never lack choices.

Positioning and visibility gained via public relations and the media, helps them to reach the top of mind of clients (through creative PR and marketing campaigns) and potential new employees (through strategic employer branding campaigns). Also for companies trying to conquer a new market or expand their market share a well planned and executed PR program with built-in content marketing is often one of the success factors. Angry Birds is most excellent example of this.