Influencer Marketing as a Communicative Tool – A Novel Approach for a Transport Infrastructure Project - Väylä
In 2018, the construction of the Lahti Southern Ring Road was well on its way. The Laune district was one of the areas affected, as the local school became completely surrounded by the tunnelling site. Primary and secondary school students did not follow any of the project’s information channels, and informing them about the progress and safety instructions was crucial. We decided to reach out to them through their own reference group, and this is where Arttu Lindeman, a young social media influencer, came into the picture.
Challenge
The southern ring road of Lahti, an extensive infrastructure venture led by the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency, is one of the transport projects decided on by the Finnish Government. Consisting of two works sites and three separate subprojects, it requires a technically challenging stretch of the road, involving, among other works, the building of several interchanges and tunnels.
The tunnelling works in the Liipola district presented a special challenge: The premises of the local elementary school became encircled by the construction site, and information about safety and temporary rerouting had to reach the young people in the district. What would be the best way to reach them, as they did not follow the Transport Infrastructure Agency’s website or social media? What would be the best to way to inform them about the best means to
Solution
In order to reach out to these people, we planned and carried out an influencer campaign with popular social media influencer Arttu Lindeman as the figurehead. In his humorous and insightful videos, Lindeman familiarised himself with data modelling, accompanied a construction worker on an excavator, had a go at tunnelling, interviewed pupils of the local school, and got acquainted with the city’s online map service.
The objective was to get maximum reach for the video clips, which in turn promoted the online map service and the construction project’s Facebook page. We devised a paid campaign to attract new viewers using non-skippable, 30-second, paid-per-view YouTube commercials, and sponsored Instagram and Facebook posts. Furthermore, we posted the videos on the project’s Facebook page for an additional boost.
548 150
impressions
8000 €
budjet
55 000
watched the whole video
Outcome
With the help of a popular social media influencer and a well-planned campaign, we were able to effectively deliver the message to the target audience: Organic and sponsored publications reached almost 24,000 people on Facebook, and the video attracted 55,719 views on Lindeman’s own YouTube channel. In addition, the posts and videos received several positive comments from young people in the area.
Key figures
• YouTube: The preview had a reach of 300,000 people, and a total of 55,000 people watched the entire video.
• Instagram: 171,000 viewers saw Arttu’s posts from his site excursions. More than 15,000 of Arttu’s followers liked the posts and nearly 150 people commented on it
• High engagement rate 24 organic shares and dozens of comments sparked off a total reach of nearly 24,000.
