Guerilla Marketing

I started to dig deeper into the word marketing after we dicussed in our Inno gruop the need of it in Kustavin Kipinä. I especially searched for interesting examples of guerilla marketing and I found this site; http://www.creativeguerrillamarketing.com/guerrilla-marketing/122-must-see-guerilla-marketing-examples/

Very creative indeed! There really is no limit to what you can do, your own thoughts is what’s stopping you. Everyone is creative, the challenge is to use and find tools to trigger your creativity. 

 

Kustavi

Kustavin Kipinä is in Kustavi, therefore I thought it would be good to also have some information about the town.

In Kustavi there is 887 inhabitants. There are about 3100 summer cottages there, which means that the amount of people really increases a lot during the summer. About 2000 islands belong to Kustavi. Kustavin neighbour towns are Brändö,Parainen, Naantali, Taivassalo ja Uusikaupunki. From Kustavi, Vuosnainen, goes a ferry to Åland Islands (Brändö). They also have ferry connections to Iniö.

On Kustavi homepage, you can find the tourism strategy for the town (in finnish);http://kustavi.fi/index.html?n=21478&Kustavin+kunnan+matkailustrategia

The strategy is really something we can use in our Inno project. It contains for example of their vision and goals and a SWOT-analyze. Great information!

Kustavi has a few bigger events. One of the biggest is Volter Kilpi literature week in July. Kilpi is a famous finnish author from Kustavi. They also have a salmon market that is quite known in august. Most events and happenings take place during the summer. Kustavi can be seen as a typical Finnish archipelago town that struggles with extending the seasons. Although I think Kustavi also have a challenge because they are maybe not the most well known town in Turku archipelago. They have a lot of competitors and need to stand out if they want more visitors and so they need to focus on their strengths.

One activity that I find interesting in town is climbing; they have good websites for people who enjoy climbing in the nature;  http://www.jammi.net/kalliot/ They also offer good services in fishing.

Kustavi’s homepages are quite poor in English and Swedish, but in Finnish they are really good and I took lot information from there and there is more to be taken; http://kustavi.fi/index.html?n=6030&Etusivu

 

 

 

 

Meeting with Pekka Kuru

 

On 2.4 our team had a meeting with Pekka Kuru, unfortunately I couldn’t participate in this meeting. But I got briefed by my teammates. 

The reason I put this text also in my personal portfolio although I wasn’t attending at the meeting is because the information they got from the meeting is very valuable for this project and is really something I learned a lot from and made my sights on this project more clear. 

The following text is from Teamlightbulbs blog written by Eeva Kirjonen http://teamlightbulb.wordpress.com/2013/04/04/getting-to-know-our-assignment/ :

The company offer services to mainly have small and middle-sixed companies.

There is no accommodation, but when needed could be arranged by co-operation with Laupusten Kartano. (Very upscale and luxury accommodation, has room for 25-28 person)

Food:

• Food is included in the package and it is made in Kipinä’s own kitchen. (They have two kitchens and third one is under construction).
• The cook is hired whenever needed.
• The food and the chefs are high class. Upscale food is a sign of hospitality, which brings comfort. Comfort again, is helping the customers with innovating and developing.
• At summertime, there’s this event when top chefs come to visit and prepare food for one week at a time.  Last summer there were 3 chefs and it was sold out, this year theres going to be 4 chefs and they are expecting 1000 customers.

Exhibitions:

• Reflects creativity, bravery and inner “dialog”.
• Alternating themes and pieces
• Very upscale pieces and artists
• Gallery is open to the audience from midsummer till August,  otherwise it is only open to the customers of Kipinä

 

So what do they want us to do?

 They want some innovation regarding marketing and sales development.

They want us to think what would be the reason that customers want to visit Kipinä.

Why would they choose it? Different kind of marketing tactics should be considered.

What could happen in Kustavi’s Kipinä at the wintertime? And how to get more clients from example Uusikaupunki and Laitila?

Kustavin Kipinä’s vision is

Archipelago tourism –> High quality -space (for development), -food and -art.

And the main goal is gain visitors from other parts in Finland to come and use these services.
Also Pekka Kuru mentioned that he could be in co-operation with boat companies. 

And finally, the main competitors for Kipinä are (as Pekka thinks) 
– Strandbo group
– Herrankukkaro
– Paratiisi saari
– Linnasmäki Oy

 —–

So after my teammates met Pekka we got more information and we got a clearer view of the task. We also got answers to our questions like how they market and what their vision is and what their competitors are. I think you can say that the companies competitors are companies who has the same concept; teambuilding with food and meeting and conference spaces. For me this helped me in making my view of Kustavin Kipinä better. I believe these answers made everything more concrete for me and I can see what needs there are. 

Kustavin kipinä – second working day

Our second working day 5.4 really gave us a chance to dig deeper in to what sort of company Kustavin Kipinä really is. Before this day I had prepared myself and I tried to get to know this company. Since I didn’t have a clue what this company is before Inno I wanted to do some research on my own. Basically I realized that most information is found on their website. Besides that I found some small articles, like; http://www.y-lehti.fi/arkisto/artikkeli/4600/

But their website gave me some relevant info that is good to know.

Kustavin Kipinä is a place for creativity, development and innovation. They are offering 4 different services.

1. Teambuilding, development in working places, leadership and feel good at work. Pekka Kura, CEO, have a company called Kehitysyhtiö Kura Oy. He is a socialworker, supervisor and coach. Helping him with these courses to companies is Päivi Granholm (työterveyspsykologi, työnohjaaja ja työyhteisövalmentaja), Tarja Porthan (työterveyspsykologi, psykoterapeutti (YET), työnohjaaja) and Esa Kohtamäki (KM, konsultti).Food. They have pop –up restaurant, which means that they invite famous chefs for a time and people can then come and eat their food, this happens in the summer.  They also offer courses in being a chef.  Per-Erik Silver is some sort of head chef at Kustavin Kipinä.
2. Food. They have pop –up restaurant, which means that they invite famous chefs for a time and people can then come and eat their food, this happens in the summer.  They also offer courses in being a chef.  Per-Erik Silver is some sort of head chef at Kustavin Kipinä.
3. Art exhibitions. At Kustavin Kipinä they have art exhibitions. This is maybe the part that is most different and makes the company to stand out of the crowd.
4. Party and meetings. Besides coming for teambuilding it’s also possible to just organize a meeting in Kustavin Kipinä. The biggest room has space for 30 people. Their meeting facility is made for avout 15 persons. In summer time they also have a terrace with roof; it has space for 20 people. When they are serving buffet the whole building can take in about 70 persons. They also have a sauna available.

So after I gathered this information we had our working day. Before lunch we thought about the future. Our assignment was to think about Kustavin Kipinä in the year 2025. The tasks were given by Johanna Ollila and Sari Miettinen from Finland future research centre. What happens then and how would the company look like if everything was perfect? We had many ideas but we were supposed to choose one. We choose winter season and how it could look like in 2025. We used a tool to see the whole picture of our thoughts on 2025:

Political: permission(s)

Enviromental: -climate change

-rules/restrictions for organic food

-sustainable development

Social: -Charity

-More staff – a team feeling and team spirit

Technological: Equipment needed

Economic: – (Future) Challenges (like a recession)

Values: Charity

This resulted in a short story we wrote and presented to rest of Inno teams.

After lunch we talked about how to be as prepared as possible for Kunstenniemi., since this was the last time we saw each other before it. We also did a new SWOT on Kustavin Kipinä, since we then knew a lot more than the first time we did it.

S -nature, peaceful and quite -the design of the place -good food -they offer team building -famous artists and photographers -they know what they want -they are up-to-date	W -people should be more aware of it and what they offer -they could extend their season -lack of accommodation -the beach is far away -you can’t go there by yourself all year around -the homepage should be improved -No all-year around staff – no working team at the place
O -could be more popular with better marketing -developing the concept even more -“repeating “events -extended season -Co-operation with other companies -More wide market (marketing for the target groups)	T -Competitors -The location -maybe confusing concept -Recession – fewer customers

Kustavin kipinä – first working day

My team’s assignment giver is Kustavin Kipinä http://kustavinkipina.fi/. Kustavi is a city quite close to Turku. I’ve been there for about 1 h when I waited for the ferry to Brändö, Åland. That’s the only experience I have of Kustavi and before Inno58h I never heard about Kustavin Kipinä. So for me this company is completely new and the city as well is an undiscovered area for me.

 

 

So on our first working day we started to discuss what the place was about and what you can do there. Kustavin Kipinä is a modern building in Kustavi. They offer food, teambuilding for companies, art exhibitions and is also a place for meetings and parties. We did a SWOT analyze on the place 15.3.

S -nature -modern -different -beautiful environment -unique -various -peaceful location	W -lack of accommodation -Not visual-poor marketing -Confusing; many services->questions arise .
O -more thoughtful marketing -Clear vision -Who are they aiming for? -Increase tourism in Kustavi ->collaboration with the town	T -Seasons -No info – No customers

After the first working day I learned a lot more about Kustavin Kipinä and I’m really happy I got this assignment. Our gruop started to get to know eachother and we made up a plan on  how to progress. I left TAMK after this first day and I felt really excited.

Inside Innovation – Hur man får det att hända

I read  ”Inside innovation – How to make it happen”, a book written by Bertil Hök, Raoul Stubbe and Lasse Tenerz. The book explains what an innovator is. Mainly by describing real stories of how ideas of innovators have become a known thing. The authors have lot examples from their own life and their expertise. They are physics and researchers and the stories include a lot of concrete products. I like the simple language in the book and the effort in making it funny and interesting to the readers. The authors points out that it’s no handbook on how to be an innovator. The main idea is to explain the process on how everything starts with a simple idea from a person who takes a chance and wants to make his idea for real. An innovation is the result of a process. Then convincing an investor in his idea and how everything goes from there. The innovator sees a problem and wants to find a solution. It’s also important to remember that nobody is born as an innovator, everybody can be it. Innovators need passion, a clear vision of what to accomplish and courage, courage to put an effort on an idea. It’s often a risk, a risk you are willing to take?

The authors list 7 deadly sins for an innovator that I thougt were cleaver;

1.       To put time on wrong things

To like your idea so much that you avoid the problems it might cause can be simple. You’re blown away with your own idea that you are blind to unpleasant possibilities, which leads you to;

 2.       Fooling yourself

You need to know what you are doing.  You might need more competence in some areas, learn more or get help. This leads us to death sin number three;

 3.       Not understanding what you’re doing

You should understand when you do not understand. How can you convince somebody that your idea is something to support when you’re not even understand it yourself, which leads us to;

 4.       Lack of courage

So you had an idea that could turn out to something great but when you started to work it turned out to be a bigger challenge than you could imagine.

 5.       “It’s the economy – stupid!”

The investors is feeling betrayed because it’s not going so good for you and the result is indistinct. But you don’t agree and want to continue;

 6.       Inability to handle conflicts

What am I doing? Why put so much effort on this? This is leading you to the last sin;

 7.       Giving up to soon

Maybe the idea wasn’t so good? Maybe I’m not a good innovator?

To do an innovation is not easy, that’s why many often fall into this circle of sins. There will be many challenges and you as an innovator need to keep your head high and believe in yourself. So you can convince others, the more people that support you the better. And make sure the people not only are family and friends because they don’t think the way you do since they are not working with the same. Convince people in the field that have knowledge and can help you.

I learned a lot about the process of an innovation and what an innovation really is and I belive I can use my new knowledge in Inno. I absolutely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in innovation or how to come up with new ideas.

 

 – Emilia

First working day (post from team lightbulbs blog)

Last friday was our first Working day at Turun Ammattikorkeakoulu. It was also the first time we all met eachother in team Lightbulb. We learned more about our assignment giver;http://kustavinkipina.fi/ and more about the town of Kustavi. Our heads are starting to create ideas and we are insipred to continue the work with this project. On this day we also met the other teams taking part in Inno and they presented their assignment givers and their thoughts on that. We look forward to the next working day 5.4 and of course when we go to Kunstenniemi 15-17.4 where the real work and brainstorming will happen! This is going to be a lot of fun!

-Emilia

Presentation (post on team lightbulbs blog)

Greetings!

My name is Emilia Blomqvist, I’m 22 year old and come from a small town called Nykarleby.  I’m a part of co-operative Toptimal, www.toptimal.fi ; we’re the third year tourism students at Novia University of Applied Science. I’m a reliable and ambitious person with big dreams. My plan is to graduate this christmas and after that let the world take me somewhere. I don’t know what I really will do in a few years, but it doesn’t scare me at all, quite the opposite, I’m excited about it.

I joined Inno because I like working in teams and doing projects, since that’s the way I study with Toptimal. But now I got the opportunity to work in a new team with people outside my school who study something else. I’m looking forward to this challenge and hoping it will be great!