The Land of Free Press campaign had essentially a target group of two people: Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. It took an unconventional approach to defending freedom of the press by addressing the two presidents directly and calling them out on their attacks against the media. This turned the campaign into a call to arms for the media and general public alike to pay attention to the state of press freedom and take action in its defence. With its outright address towards the presidents, it succeeded in producing an immediate response from news outlets and the public worldwide.

Helsingin Sanomat is the largest newspaper in the Nordics and the epitome of quality journalism in its home country, Finland. The last few years have been a time of transformation for the paper in renewing its subscription base with a younger, under 40-year-old audience. To achieve this objective, the paper focuses on communicating its relevance and purpose in society through value-driven actions.

One of these values is press freedom – a cornerstone of the brand. That, however, is globally at risk at the moment, not least because of the actions of presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. In June 2018, the two presidents announced they would hold their first official summit in Helsinki, Finland, opening an opportunity for Helsingin Sanomat to act on behalf of press freedom. The objective was to gain global attention to the cause of protecting press freedom, while communicating what the brand stands for.

Presidents Putin and Trump are known for their critical stance towards the free press. While Putin’s grip on the free media is on its own tyrannical and totalitarian level, Trump’s assumed status as the leader of the free world makes his aggression towards the press all the more worrisome. Tapping into the high-level summit, the news event of the day, offered a unique opportunity to highlight the importance of press freedom.

In the World Press Freedom Index, Russia ranks 148th out of 180 and the United States hold the 45th place. Finland, on the other hand, has consistently ranked in the top 5. Hence, the paper decided to show the presidents the meaning of press freedom by welcoming them to the Land of Free Press and calling them out on their attacks against the media in an outdoor campaign placed directly on their route from the airport to the summit.

In order to renew its subscription base and sustain a viable business model, Helsingin Sanomat needs to attract an urban, under 40-year-old demographic. This necessitates underlining the brand’s relevance to modern society through value-driven actions and communication.

The paper’s approach to executing this has been coined in the phrase: “make matters matter.” Surfacing important and topical matters and making them feel more interesting and noteworthy is at the brand’s core. Tapping into topical themes has proven to be an effective strategy for many brands, but especially for a news brand timeliness is a key factor.

In this campaign, Helsingin Sanomat focused on protecting the cornerstone of trustworthy journalism, press freedom. The Trump-Putin summit offered the perfect opportunity for “making matters matter” while communicating the brand’s core values. The aim was to awaken people and media to the importance of press freedom and inspire them to take action on its defence.

Helsingin Sanomat created an outdoor campaign that targeted the two presidents directly as they drove from the airport to the summit. They were escorted to the summit by 300 billboards and posters containing the newspaper’s actual headlines that dealt with both presidents’ relationship with the free media. There is no better way to celebrate press freedom than to show what has already been published. These headlines were accompanied by the tagline “Mr. President, welcome to the land of free press.”

The media execution was integral to the campaign. There are a number of routes the presidents could have taken, but for security reasons the actual route was not disclosed. The various routes were analyzed based on their viability and the number of alternatives was brought down to three. A total of 20 different creative assets were manually assigned to every available billboard along the three routes.

The campaign sparked an international discussion on the state of press freedom, generating more than 1,25 billion earned impressions through 1 million social interactions and 2600 news articles in 55 countries, totaling 12 million euros in earned media value. It ignited a global movement to protect press freedom with media outlets publishing studies on press freedom, and hundreds of papers releasing editorials on its defence, lead by the initiative of the Boston Globe. In addition, Finland’s ranking rose from 4th to 2nd in the World Press Freedom Index. The campaign was specifically listed as a key contributor in the report.

There was a 33 % lift on the paper’s brand image as measured by YouGov brand index. Fueled by the positive image, B2B-sales surpassed set targets by 10 %. The paper reached a 19 % year-on-year growth in new subscriptions in the following month without other differentiating activities.