A moving story

DESCRIPTION

Sotka, an established Finnish furniture company, was well-known among older target groups but wanted to reach out to younger segments, an audience with whom it lacked appeal.
One special target group was identified as “first-time movers”, including people leaving their homes for university.
Its idea was to create a community called ‘Muuttajat’ (‘Movers’) in the largest youth site in Finland, IRC-Galleria.net. The community became an invaluable source of information about moving, covering topics such as how to change your address and contents insurance. Furthermore, users could leave ads for apartments, room-mates and general housing-themed bulletins.
The community aspect was enhanced by encouraging users to chat with each other and share their moving experiences. As young people are smart and critical of traditional marketing, Sotka’s presence was actually low-key, putting emphasis on being a useful service to increase brand goodwill without being intrusive.
More than 10,000 users signed up during the first few weeks of the community. Several hundred ads searching for and offering apartments were posted and almost a thousand moving stories were shared. The project was deemed such a success that it has been scheduled to run at least to the end of 2009.

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