Back to the awesomeness in #CSH16!

Dear guests of the Campaigning Summit Helsinki 2016 last friday!

Thank You for attending the first Campaigning Summit in Helsinki ever, hosted by Robert Torvelainen & Daniel Jyllikoski. The event was completely non-profit and organized by volunteers.

We had an absolutely great day of learning stuff about campaigning. It is totally impossible to sum up all in one story. But we try.

As the first speaker we heard the campaign director Ravn Jakob Ohlsson, who has ten years of experience working with digital communication with five years focused solely on NGO’s and political organisations. He introduced us to the secrets about the Filter Bubble, the result of a personalized web search. He also pointed out that earned media online is internal communications.

When asked by our hostess Ida to give a message to the audience, Jakob said: ”Work with what you believe in.”

‘Nuff said!

Next, we had the priviledge of having on stage Senni Moilanen, the figurehead of the Finnish campaign Tahdon13 that ultimately led to the equal marriage law actualizing in March 2017.

Senni told us a story from her high school years, when she was kicked out from class for standing up for her friends. The best way to stand up is not being silent.

Senni gave us an important advice: ”It’s ok to be angry. Use your anger to be more powerful.”

At this point, whether we needed to know or not, our host Antti wanted to share with us the information about not going for a chairman seat in any political party. Thank you Antti!

But without that detail he may not have introduced us to our panelists: Niklas Kaskeala (Protect Our Winters), Heidi Korva (Fashion Revolution), Ilona Ahti (Mouka Filmi) and Jukka Kajan (Joukon Voima).

Antti and the panelist discussed about the key for reaching out for people. Heidi Korva believed that one’s cause needs to be inspirational and one must work hard to get people to work with them. Jukka Kajan thought that people don’t tend to tell anyone what they believe in. ”That’s why”, he added, ”show your face. Speak out loud. Provide people with something they can identify themselves with. But, having a good story is the essence and you have to know who you want to talk to.”

Ilona Ahti, an impact producer, agreed. ”A good campaign tells a really good story.”

But wait a sec! Just when our panel started to heat up, the stage was to be given to a British guy Michael Sanders.

He is the head of research at the Behavioural Insights Team working under the UK’s Prime Minister’s office. And Sanders has got some serious stuff done. By getting stuff done we mean of course the people paying taxes voluntarily! And how communicating with different tactics can affect the amount of money given to charities. The latter was tested with affluent investment bankers divided in four groups. The behavioural stuff he has done is robusting RCT by testing whether or not something works or not. And that’s how you are able to decide what to do next.

Sanders explained that by using statistics you can make everything correlate. One can indicate how margarine use correlates with people getting a divorce. So, one should really know how to affect general public with statistics and how to measure the right parts of things. Yep, kind of important stuff here.

As thrilling as Sanders was, just in time before the campaigning summittees got starved they got served with some delicious lasagne. Yam! Good for them!

And the energy refill was indeed needed, because our next speaker got in stage and had some serious stuff to say.

The next speaker was Gørill Husby Moore, a strategic PR advisor on politics and society in the communications agency Trigger.

Due to the technical difficulties we faced, Moore was not able to display the videos. Something in the Summit wasn’t having a good afternoon.

Moore explained that the sky is the limit regarding the possibilities in communications. She illustrated the climate of campaigning, marketing and communications through olive oil.

Yes, olive oil. Instead of having to buy the only olive oil that is available, in 2016 we can choose the provider. Therefore, all the olive oils in the market are forced to compete. Consumers have more insight on the products and services they want. They want the story of the olive oil, not just any oil.

The way to overcome that, Moore feels that ”we need to prove that we care. We need to fight for our target groups.” And, instead of being a product provider one needs to be a social actor.

That was deep, wasn’t it?

Luckily, our next speaker didn’t give up on olive oils. Paula Miettinen, a customer driven content marketing professional from the tele-operator company DNA, were of the opinion that tele-operators are comparable to olive oils.

She also feels that people are terrified of the digitalization. Thus, DNA wants to make it less scary by thinking about the true meaning of DNA’s existence and by being the forerunners in admitting that everyone is allowed to have an opinion. Not just some random dudes.

Our host Juhana then apologizes for the technical issues that (to be honest) gave the speakers quite a lot of grief.

Together Moore and Miettinen came to the conclusion that listening to the customer in marketing and campaigning is important. Well, that was a relief. As olive oil customers ourselves, gladly we are listened to.

After this realization, Merja Mähkä from Ellun Kanat Communications Agency wants to introduce us to the new mindset of communications.

She reminds all the campaign planners to understand that people live overpowered by information. If we want to know something, the answer is given 10 minutes to form.

So if you are selling us olive oil, make sure your olive oil stands out, then!

But what needs to be done? Mähkä tells us to practice, to find time, to be ready and to react. So, a company first and foremost needs to find time to strategize the communications from the arrhythmia of doing the same old things.

Well, I think we can all learn from that!

But what is our next speaker Markus Gull gonna teach us? Well, we get to know he likes to swear. He uses the word ”fuck” all the time, and that is totally fine whatsoever.

Markus Gull thinks that a campaign needs a story. A relevant story. And a story not about you but your customer.

He takes us back to the notion that Donald Duck is a cool dude. By that we mean literally, because Gull has actually brought Donald Duck to the Campaigning Summit. Donald Duck sits on the table beside him.

”Mickey Mouse is best friends with a cop. Give me a break!” says Gull.

Donald Duck, instead, is the antihero that everyone likes. He’s the dude people empathize with. But to scale your story, you must have it right. Then you can adjust it to another audience.

After the impressive words, our hostess Reetta asks how to avoid failing like Veet & The Friday Evening Full of Fun by Shaving.

Mähkä is of the opinion that they would have needed to reply in the social media with some other technique than autoreplies.

Mr. Gull points out that ”nobody knows anything. Stories have their life, that’s what makes them strong and vulnerable.”

Phew, what an afternoon full of serious knowledge! The audience was craving for coffee and we provided. Coffee and some delicious snacks.

But #CSH16 had still more awesomeness to come. Next, the awesomeness was embodied in Nick Allen, the guy from #FightFor15, a game-changing campaign to raise wages and unionize millions of working people in the United States.

Nick Allen is an American guy. He has a cool accent.

But as a campaign, #FightFor15 is not alone. It’s cooperating for example with #BlackLivesMatter campaign. Allen says, it is a conscious decision to unite. Nick Allen also thinks that the reason for Trumps’ success thus far is the fact that he is pushing the wage issue in the elections 2016. Who would’ve thought, and what the hell does Trump stand for?

Allen acknowledges that the union is gonna put everything out there in the presidential campaigning season.

But we didn’t get enough of the Americans. You see, next we were welcoming to stage Shane D’Aprile, the man who has a unique insight into the inner workings of the world’s most complicated, sophisticated and expensive political campaign — the 2016 US Presidential elections.

D’Aprile is asking the organizers for the “last orders signal” for his speech by pointing out he’s an American guy and Americans like to speak. That he shall have. Although, it turns out that he was forced to skip a few slides by the constraints that the #CSH16 organizers set up in terms of time limits. Too bad, we would’ve liked to see the slides. Properly.

D’Aprile reminds us that the ground work for the next campaign starts when the previous one ends. He strongly suggests that the basic stuff is built for a big campaign.

Just in case y’all need this info for… a presidential campaign, for instance.

Our host Patrik had so much stuff to ask. He wanted to know whether or not Trump is spicing up the presidential campaigns.

D’Aprile and Allen don’t have a super-clear vision about that. D’Aprile does remind us, though, for that Bush spent a whole lot of money to his campaign and only got under 25% of votes. So what does that tell you?

Don’t ask us, we don’t know. Maybe he is a spice, maybe not. That we will see in the fall when the actual rivalry is undertaken. Both dudes estimate that we have Trump and Hillary Clinton on board.

To sum up some general themes in #CSH16, our speakers had something to say.

They underlined the importance of being brave and having the courage of doing your stuff. They spoke for the meaning of stories and the notion of taking the customers seriously. But, also remembering to measure. Measuring preferably the right things, but at least some things. After all, you are not the only olive oil in the world.

Well, how did this awesomeness happen?

Well, first of all, thank you so much for the guests and all of our speakers: Ravn Jakob Ohlsson, Senni Moilanen, Niklas Kaskeala, Heidi Korva, Ilona Ahti, Jukka Kajan, Michael Sanders, Gørill Husby Moore, Paula Miettinen, Merja Mähkä, Marcus Gull, Nick Allen and Shane D’Aprile.

Also our team includes multi-talented people from various places.

We thank our sponsors for the trust:

Text: Lilja Kettunen

The photos and the video: Emilia Kangasluoma.