Antti Tapani
Sportswear as rocket fuel
Client
Antti TapaniContributions
Web
Brand Strategy
New brand accelerates 17-fold increase in Prisma.fi clothing sales
S Group, a Finnish network of companies operating in the retail and service sectors, came to us in the beginning of 2019 with a bold idea. They wanted to change the perception of their hypermarket chain Prisma, from a store selling basic and cheap end clothing to one with great style and contemporary fashion. The idea: a clothing line in collaboration with beloved national superstar Antti Tuisku.
This of course came with some major challenges. Although Antti is a pop culture icon loved by many, he’s also a very controversial artist. We needed to create a brand with an edge that would still appeal to all of Prisma’s customers, one of the broadest target audiences you can think of in Finland. With an investment of this scale, it was crucial that the line would be successful from the beginning. We needed to achieve all of this without being pinned down as just another merchandising campaign with a star.
Success is a really weird thing
We wanted a narrative and tagline that really connected people with the message of the brand. Something relatable across all age groups, sexualities and genders.
Looking at Antti’s own career, much of his success came only when he finally dared to do things his own way, not trying to please others and living up to their expectations. We often fear things within ourselves that we believe other people would judge as weird, different, or abnormal, when in truth those very things
could prove to be our best assets.In this, we found a universal truth that everything we now consider normal was once, in fact, considered strange. That great was never normal.
Building the buzz
A mysterious AT symbol started appearing around the Finnish capital Helsinki in the spring of 2020. From this on we started posting similar materials on different channels, never quite connecting all the dots, but using only our tagline, symbol and 6 second videos with personal messages from our film cast.
Just a few weeks before launch, Antti dropped the bomb that tied all strings together by releasing our film via his personal Instagram channel. A few days later 2 million people received a printed fold‑out article in the most read magazine in Finland, Yhteishyvä (S Group member magazine).
In addition to Yhteishyvä, the clothing line also received a lot of earned media, being top news in Finland on its release date.