What is a cooperative? This question is now being answered by popular Finnish social media influencers, each with their own style. The pioneering campaign aims to awaken young people aged 16 to 25.
Six young ambassadors have been chosen for this task. Cooperative-themed videos and images will be released in March-May and September-October 2022 on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. For more information on these channels, visit the campaign’s own website www.osuuskuntaelämää.fi. (in Finnish).
After the first month the results of the campaign are already impressive: In TikTok alone two of the influencer have gotten almost 500 000 views and 30 000 likes for their videos and posts about cooperation.
The campaign is funded by Pellervo Coop Center together with its members POP Bank Group, Tradeka Cooperative and the North Karelia Consumer Cooperative.
The contents are intended to emphasize equality of ownership, humanity, the pursuit of a good life and the thinking of future generations, and the fact that cooperatives are a means of solving problems. Sustainable economy, making an impact and community entrepreneurship have been chosen as perspectives.
Each social media ambassador has been given the freedom to design their messages and perspectives in a way that interests their existing followers. The content they create will also be redistributed from the campaign’s own TikTok and Instagram accounts. In this way, the campaign is given the greatest possible visibility and attention value. The social media accounts maintained by Pellervo have thus expanded quite a bit!
Underlying concern the poor knowledge of young people about coops
The campaign is based on concerns about young people’s poor knowledge of cooperatives. A study commissioned by Pellervo a year ago found that only four in ten adults under the age of thirty identify a cooperative as a company.
Younger people were chosen as the target group, even though creating messages that would address and interest them was considered a very challenging task. The hope is that the choices made by the social media co-operative ambassadors to describe cooperative ideas will also be useful in other ways of making co-operatives known.
Campaign content will be compiled on the campaign website and a joint video will be compiled at the end of the year.
TikTok: @osuuskuntaelämää
Instagram: @osuuskuntaelämää