Metsä Wood's Metsä Wood’s Plan B campaign wins silver in Effie Awards Finland
Metsä Wood's Plan B campaign was recognized with an award in in the Effie Awards, which is the most prestigious marketing contest in Finland. Effie Awards Finland is a competition which measures the performance of marketing communications, effectiveness in particular. Of the prize winners, Plan B was the only B2B campaign, and the only one aiming to increase the export of products. Plan B's specialty in relation to competing campaigns was the fact that it has been carried out without any paid advertising.The objective of Plan B campaign is to increase the business for Laminated Veneer Lumber (LVL) in the USA and Central Europe, especially in Germany, England and France. In Finland, the product is well-known, but in other countries awareness can still be improved. The US LVL market is at the heart of Metsä Wood's strategy, and now there has been a lot of positive attention in the media thanks to the campaign.
"Our goal is to get more architects, structural designers and builders excited about Kerto LVL and possibilities it offers for building industry. In order to get our message through in the professional media we needed a new and somewhat provocative approach. All plans we made are real and designed by world class professionals in their field. The US LVL market is at the heart of our strategy, and now we have gained a lot of positive media attention there", says Mikko Saavalainen, SVP, Business Development from Metsä Wood.
"Plan B is just one part of our marketing. We do a lot of traditional marketing activities as well. Through PR, we have released a lot of other material e.g. presented numerous reference projects in various markets", Saavalainen continues.
The advertising agency behind Plan B campaign is Hasan & Partners and Metsä Wood’s Partner in international PR is communications agency SEK Public and its international Cohn & Wolfe network. The campaign sought an alternative approach to traditional reference cases and a more appealing option for paid advertising.
Account Director Reino Tikkanen from Hasan & Partners: “The aim of Plan B is to inspire the industry to take a fresh look at Nordic Premium Wood, while also demonstrating its properties in a new and unusual manner. We don’t want to rebuild the Empire State Building or the Colosseum, what we want to do is inspire architects and engineers to look again at this incredible material.”
Also SEK Public’s CEO Sari Siikasalmi is pleased with campaign’s results: Paid advertising is not the best means to reach Metsä Wood’s heavily dispersed and skeptical target group. Continuous dialogue with local journalists paid off and the media accepted Plan B as a truly credible case study of the future of construction. We have reached over 225 million people in eight countries, and all this is just gained publicity. The impact of social media increases the number even further.”
The Effie Award winning campaigns were announced at Get tomorrow Event hosted by Sanoma Media Finland in the Finlandia-house on 29th October. The Finnish Association of Marketing Communication Agencies (MTL) organized the competition now for the 14th time.
Watch the competition video (vimeo) about Plan B –campaign by Hasan & Partners.