How to make Finland’s best-known unknown brand more visible?
CLIENT
YEAR
SCOPE
Myllyn Paras
2020-
Communications and media relations,
Events,
Influencers,
Social media and content production,
Sustainability communications
Myllyn Paras is the market leader in macaroni and frozen products in Finland. It’s also Finland’s 4th most respected food brand with almost 100 years of history as a responsible domestic food producer. Myllyn Paras also turns production side streams into energy not only for its own use but also for more than 200 local homes nearby the factory. Despite all these positives, Myllyn Paras had a problem that Mellakka had to solve.
Myllyn Paras was an everyday brand that was hugely known and yet unknown at the same time. Its products could be found in the dry goods cupboard of almost every Finnish home. Yet the brand was still invisible in many ways; in the typically Finnish way, it didn’t really shout about itself or its existence but instead let its actions do the talking.
Myllyn Paras was keen to boost sales, and Mellakka was tasked with making the invisible visible. Mellakka had just produced a one-year action plan for the company when Covid hit Finland in early spring 2020. When the Government stated in a live news broadcast that it was restricting movement within the country and at its external borders, people rushed to shops and began to hoard. Store shelves and even central warehouses were emptied of staple foods: long-lasting, familiar and safe products that went unnoticed in everyday life – like macaroni.
The Myllyn Paras production plant in a small city called Hyvinkää went into overdrive as a result of the hoarding. It sourced as many ingredients as it could, its mill grinded in three shifts, and its pasta machines ran all night.
Mellakka recognised immediately that this was our opportunity! It did not take much hinting for the media to find their way to the empty shelves in the shops to wonder where all that Finnish pasta really comes from. At this point, Mellakka had everything thought out and ready in advance. The CEO of Myllyn Paras Miska Kuusela reassured the nation in live news broadcasts and articles that the food supply chain would continue to operate even in these exceptional circumstances. Stocks of domestic grain would last a long time, the mills would continue to grind, the pasta machines would continue to run and the shops would
continue to sell. Dozens of stories about hoarding pasta were crystallised in the headline of a news story on MTV3: Hoarders will hoard, but the Myllyn Paras CEO promises: “Macaroni will not run out in Finland”. And it never did run out either!
Mellakka’s collaboration with Myllyn Paras has involved much more than the Covid crisis, of course. Mellakka have run a light art event, had Finland’s top TV and radio personality Sami Kuronen bake on social media and Mellakka run a pop-up frozen food sales campaign to support the local sports club – not to mention the annual Finnish Championships in Gingerbread Baking. In addition, Mellakka communicated through the media how tart dough is made by Myllyn Paras in its “Santa’s Workshop” even in the middle of summer and organised a related live event on social media.
