We have been providing consulting and execution on a multifaceted approach to showcasing the best of Finland as part of a PR campaign to raise Finland’s profile as a destination and bring more Japanese tourists.

Finland ranked first in the UN’s 2023 World Happiness Report, we decided to put together an event in Tokyo where visitors can experience happiness the way the Finns do it with all five senses. More than 50 media and influencers, generating more than 100 pieces of media coverage. The campaign received far more applications than anticipated and created a healthy amount of buzz.
The PR plan we put into action leveraging the sauna craze in Japan in combination with a focus on Finland as the birthplace of the sauna. We invited people in the media and other influencers to Finland to experience an authentic sauna firsthand and then introduce some of the newer types of saunas, including ones focused on art and design. The project also collaborated with local filming for TV dramas like “Sauna-ers: Hayato Isomura and the Men Who Love Saunas [Saunaazu: Isomura Hayato to Sauna o ai suru otokotachi]” and invitations for on location appearances on programs like “We’ll Go Check It Out for You—RIA-TOTSU West [Anata no kawari ni mite kimasu! Ria-totsu WEST]” all contributing to stronger associations between Finland and saunas.

We’ve held press tours, invited influencers, and had other media events every year (except during the coronavirus pandemic). Each year we’ve had a different theme—examples include saunas, happiness, design, and sustainability and then produced the tours with content centered around those themes to feature the best of what Finland has to offer from a variety of different angles. With our staff on site to support guests during the tours have all gone smoothly, scheduling interviews, providing language support, and more through rich experience running press tours and events. We also garnered a full issue feature on Finland in the popular travel magazine Transit in 2022 as a follow-on campaign from the press tours, including deep dives into culture, history, and more.

This provided PR exposure worth more than 400 million yen in advertising over the full year of 2022 and contributed to raising Finland’s profile as a destination.