Getting even deeper - task no. 3
Tom of Finland products are quite popular in Finland. The main character is probably Finlayson – they produce a wide range of ToF related products, which are quite expensive (at least that’s my impression after checking out Finlayson store in Hansa Shopping Centre, but I’m a foreigner so maybe I’m wrong). For example ToF towel costs almost 60€ or an apron for 40€. The Tom of Finland themed products are countless. You can find beddings, framed prints, rugs, textiles, home decorations and daily accessories, books, calendars, cologne, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom stuff, caps, magnets, mugs, T-shirts, art rugs and pillows, fire blankets, limited edition jacket, adult products and tools, stationery, textiles, coffee, smartphone covers, condoms, ceramics, apparel, greeting cards, keytags. There is also ToF musical, upcoming movie.
Other important actors are Posti and Tom of Finland foundation. As far as money go - it’s hard to assess how much money does ToF industry involve and I can’t find any information about that on the Internet or anywhere else.
As for the disruptors – I guess that USA can be considered as a threat. Even though Tom of Finland comes from Turku, the US seem to leech on it’s image. Americans organise a whole bunch of ToF events, like exhibitions for example.
Our target group
We had some problems witch choosing one particular target group at the beginning. Then we came up with the idea of organising Tom of Finland Festival, which helped us to determine the group we want to target our event at. The festival would be held in summer, Turku, it would last for a few days (as most of the festivals do). We mostly want our target group to be people aged 20-30. Also, we want people both from Finland and outside come to the festival, so our target group is rather international I’d say. Taking under the consideration the age of people attending our festival, it would probably be mostly students and all kinds of artists interested in ToF, also LGBT community.
We feel like there are enough ToF products in the market area. ToF fans and people interested in it (preferably ages 20-30) are searching for an experience, some kind of an adventure which will create new memories.
It seems like tourism in Finland is growing and more and more people are coming here in order to see something interesting and foreign. Overnight stays by resident tourists increased by 2.3 per cent in August from last year and Finnish accommodation establishments recorded good 1.5 million of them. The number of nights spent by foreign tourists grew by 1.5 per cent and totalled nearly 668,000. A total of nearly 2.2 million overnight stays were recorded at Finnish accommodation establishments in August 2016, which was 2.1 per cent more than in August 2015.
Also, According to Statistics Finland's preliminary data, Finnish residents travelled eagerly to both Estonia and Sweden in May to August 2016. The number of trips made to Great Britain and Croatia also grew from the year before. The number of trips to Turkey absolutely plummeted. Russia regained its allure and after a couple of quieter years travel to the eastern neighbour returned to normal levels. More trips with paid accommodation were made in Finland than in the corresponding period of the previous year.
There are over 700 000 people aged 20-30 in Finland. About other countries: roughly 52% of the world's population is under 30-years-old.
Our main target group is people over 20 years old which are - once again - mostly students. Finnish government is spending more money on education of students than before (the percentage grew from 2008-2010). Also, “In comparison to other OECD countries, Finland spends a larger amount of public resources on tertiary education: the annual expenditure per student in Finland is EUR 16 714 against the OECD average of EUR 13 528.”
I guess there is really a lot of Tom of Finland products but – as I said before – I feel like people are looking for something more than just materialistic objects. What’s probably missing is the experience of Tom of Finland, that would create some great memories worth remembering for the rest of your life.
