An original territorial marketing initiative
The project developed a new type of territorial marketing based on pessimism, a landmark feature of the Puolanka village.
By turning pessimism into a positive brand, the project used wicked humour for territorial marketing purposes. Local youth were actively involved in association activities and producing social media content.
The project brought tangible benefits to local tourism and other businesses, local people, Puolanka’s cultural production and the marketing of the municipality.
The project managed to turn the negative into positive and to gain visibility and new visitors for the municipality of Puolanka by coming up with a new type of territorial marketing. At the same time, this helped develop and increase cultural activities and a sense of belonging and community. The project also improved the town’s services and created employment opportunities for young people. Follow-up activities were designed and implemented using further LEADER funding.
The project gained strong social media coverage which led to dozens of newspaper articles published in different countries. It attracted the attention of international media and the project is now part of an international study on smart shrinkage.