This Finnish Village Doesn’t Make for Good Brand Films, But it Does Make Good Vodka

Finnish alcohol company Altia cooperated with marketing agency Bob the Robot to create a courageous brand renewal for iconic Finnish vodka brand, Koskenkorva. The renewal led to excellent results, looking at both brand awareness and sales.

Internationally awarded Koskenkorva Vodka is one of the most iconic brands in Finland but the international market share of the product has been rather minuscule for a long time. In order to reach more of the potential the product has, Altia decided to renew the Koskenkorva Vodka brand. 

“The marketing strategy had been based on the same glamour style as other international competitors’ strategies,” said a Bob The Robot representative. “In the process of developing the brand strategy it became clear that Koskenkorva needed to share its real story. Koskenkorva needed to be rooted and real. The good news was the Koskenkorva has an amazing story – now we just need to share it. We took the brand back to where it all started: the Koskenkorva village. In the core of the relaunch was a brand film which focused on telling the fine story of the Koskenkorva village and its people.” 

The brand film was a huge success and gained significant global attention. Sales increased noticeably in all key markets. Koskenkorva also gained new distributors not only in Finland but also in Germany, Norway, The Netherlands and Great Britain.

"The greatest achievement of the project and specifically the brand film, was the listing of British Marks & Spencer. Marks & Spencer reached out to Altia after seeing the brand film and ultimately the product ended up in 130 of their stores."