Metsä Group has built a new bioeconomy mill in Äänekoski, Finland. It's the largest wood-processing mill in the Northern hemisphere. The total cost is over 1.2 billion euros, making it the biggest investment in the forest industry in Finland, ever.

Metsä wanted to built a visitor center next to the new mill. A center that they could take their target groups to and make them Metsä believers.

The objective was to design and then implement - all the way to opening day - an experience that would be both memorable and fun but also really tell Metsä's story.

That after your visit, you'd know about Metsä and their business and you'd really feel like you'd experienced something new. Something you'd never seen before. Something that would tie into Metsä and make you see just how unique they are.

The creative idea was to be just as bold and innovative as Metsä themselves are.

The Metsä biomill is the first of its kind: it harnesses a next-gen process of wood processing that has never been achieved on this scale before. The mill does not use any fossil fuels at all. In fact, it produces energy in excess of its own needs and actually powers other mills. It's literally something from the future.

We knew that in order to tell the story of a cutting-edge operator, you need to be cutting-edge yourself. We felt strongly about being just as innovative in our storytelling as Metsä is in their business.

Whatever we would do, we'd have to match Metsä in terms of innovation. This is simply it. We knew that if we could do that, we could tell the Metsä story the way it deserved to be told.

Our audience are capital investors, decision makers, forest owners and even internally, Metsä employees.

Our strategy was to tell Metsä's story through their five business units - and the different products they all produce. It all starts with the Finnish forest and the trees that are being harvested - and continues all the way to the outer edges of the world where finally the end products are exported to. It's essentially the story of the forest: the sapling is born, it's harvested and processed into products lasting centuries, eventually returning back to the soil where it once sprang from, to be born again.

Benefits:

-this linear story is easily digested by all of our various target groups

-allows us to talk about circular bioeconomy that is Metsä's core

-enables us to communicate various messages about Metsä values (sustainability, biodiversity, responsibility)

-allow us to tie Metsä's actions to global level

Pro Nemus has been a tremendous success, probably even more so than we could have anticipated. We knew we had put our best effort into it, but its reception has caught us by suprise.

The center opened on June 16, 2018. After the summer holiday season was over, it has been fully booked. Currently they are accepting reservations until January 2019, and it's completely full. From dusk till dawn, Pro Nemus is filled with visitors going through our experiences.

Whenever they open up another month for booking, it fills up immediately. Metsä estimates that the center will be at 100% utilisation rate at least for the next two years. Because of this, Metsä can't even hold internal tours for their own employees.

There is no better result for Metsä than the utilisation rate: they are having people come in voluntarily to hear about the Metsä story for two hours.