TBWA\Helsinki Turns Articles into Art for Helsingin Sanomat Newspaper

Helsingin Sanomat is the most influential news media in Finland with a mission to stand in the frontline of meaningful journalism against clickbait headlines and fake news. 

TBWA\Helsinki were tasked with illustrating the importance of quality journalism in form of a poster campaign and to highlight the different viewpoints to the actual issues our society is facing today.

To highlight these issues, the agency created The Art of Journalism. The most in-depth and well-written articles of Helsingin Sanomat were given into the hands of Finland's twelve most celebrated visual artists. They turned these millions of words into 12 pieces of (poster)art. In addition to those, the current topic of machines potentially taking over human jobs was depicted and visualised by IBM Watson AI.

Each of the 12 artists represented different visual genres/crafts; illustrators, graffiti artists, photographers, textile artists, graphic designers, font designers and visual journalists. They were given a vast amount of the most in-depth Helsingin Sanomat articles and an opportunity to then pick a theme that resonated with him/her the most.

 

For the 13th piece, IBM Watson analysed thousands of Helsingin Sanomat articles, broke them down into images, colours and compositions and ‘stitched’ together a data-centered version of the world today. The only given guideline for all the artists was to create the work around a ‘grid’ made of the iconic outlines of Helsingin Sanomat logo.

 

What started as a poster/OOH campaign, expanded to digital platforms such as AR and social media. The posters were also on display at art exhibitions. They decorated the streets of Helsinki as urban outdoor exhibitions as they mainly appeared, not as single OOH’s, but as location take-overs (bus stops etc.).

 

According to TBWA\Helsinki’s results, the message seems to have struck home. The amount of subscribers grew for the first time in 25 years. The campaign reached 11,242,000 consumers. Instead of forcing advertising on consumers, HS turned its core content into pieces that people spent time with. Members of the public purchased individual pieces for their homes with the revenue going to charity.