Central Finland is known for
pure nature and educational traditions

Jyväskylä Regional Development Company Jykes Ltd
International Central Finland Project
11 November 2009

International reputation of Central Finland investigated in Human Technology Survey 2009

Central Finland is known for pure nature and educational traditions

According to a newly published survey, pure nature and good opportunities for education and research are perceived as the best features of Central Finland, even though the advertisement of the nature themes borders on exaggeration. Themes in which the reputation expectations are not fully met yet are mostly related to the working life and transport connections.

The reputation of Central Finland was investigated by e-mail questionnaires and key person interviews in an extensive Human Technology Region 2009 survey during last spring and summer. The question-naires were sent to groups of foreigners who had visited the region, students, the media and decision-makers. There were 835 responses in all, most of which were received from people living in Central Finland or from work-related visitors to Central Finland. There were 200 foreign respondents in all, which is approximately one fourth of the total number. The response percentage was 28%. In addition, twelve key persons from Fínland and abroad were interviewed by phone. The survey was commis-sioned by organisations participating in the "International Central Finland" project and carried out by Mediatum Ltd, a research and consulting company specialised in reputation management. The project is administered by the Jyväskylä Regional Development Company Jykes Ltd.

The aim of the survey was to investigate whether the internal and external reputation of Central Finland correspond to the set targets. The international target reputation of the Central Finland was defined three years ago as "The Human Technology Region". The three core messages of the public image goal of Central Finland are "Good life", "Refining skills and know-how" and "Functional networks", the first two of which have been successfully communicated. At the current stage, the region's reputation management has succeeded best in educational institution environments, where human technology themes are experienced as attractive. However, the "Functional networks" theme still involves some challenges. For instance, there is room for improvement in openness and co-operation, particularly in the opinion of Central Finnish respondents. All respondent groups were dissatisfied with the transport connections. According to foreign respondents, the main challenges of the region are the creation of attractive jobs and a positive price image. These challenges have already been answered to some extent by the new "Work with us" web service designed for work-based immigrants. The service is found at the www.humantechnology.fi portal which presents Central Finland in larger scope as well.

The Human Technology brand has turned out to be a functional and attractive tool in the international marketing of Central Finland. The theme is experienced as positive and describes well the expectations, regarding the combination of high technology and nature, that various interest groups have towards the marketing of Central Finland. Thirty-five percent of the respondents were already connecting the Hu-man Technology theme with Central Finland, even though the target was only 25%. The familiarity of the brand is not, however, very high: half of all the respondents, and 65% of the for-eign respondents did not remember seeing the "Human Technology" logo before. Thus, brand commu-nication should be a target of investment in the future.

The region's international marketing material was considered to be fairly conspicuous, attractive and pleasant. The foreign respondents did not like the multi-storey buildings rising in the background of the picture of the Jyväsjärvi lake, but would rather see Jyväskylä as an urbane small town in the midst of nature. The researcher indeed recommended that the heart of the area, the Jyväskylä region, should be marketed as a "pocket-sized metropol" rather than as a big city. All in all, more prominence and bold-ness was hoped from the marketing.

In comparing the attractiveness of different regions, Jyväskylä succeeded surprisingly well across the board. When asked how attractive the following regions – Jyväskylä, Oulu, Gothenburg, Poznan, Hanover, Malaga and Tartu – were, all respondent groups placed Jyväskylä at the top. Jyväskylä com-petes in attractiveness mostly with Gothenburg. The researcher explains the result as follows: due to the Human Technology brand and the related reputation management, Jyväskylä has surpassed the other cities in attractiveness, even though the others have reached top marks in various competitiveness sur-veys in the past. Without reputation management, the result would not be equally good.

A shared strategy is going to be designed for the international marketing of Central Finland on the basis of the reputation survey results. A shared look and message was considered important in all quarters. "I find it [a shared regional brand] very important indeed. More and more, we are headed in a direction in which we talk about a "Europe of regions" rather than a "Europe of states". Regions must be able to stand out from the crowd," said a person in charge of developing university education in a key person interview. Another key person, promoting foreign investments in Finland, described the challenge of the future aptly: "A business profile should be created for Central Finland. At the moment, it is difficult to perceive one." The survey offers good tools for summarising the core message about Central Finland for the international marketing of the region. Jyväskylä is an excellent spearhead spurring interest to-wards Central Finland, but it is crucial that the entire region benefits from investing in the shared brand.

The whole survey can be read here (in Finnish)

Päivi Tervonen, Information and Communications Officer, International Central Finland Project, Jyväskylä Regional Development Company Jykes Ltd, paivi.tervonen@jykes.fi, Tel.+358 207 715 669, www.humantechnology.fi

Taisto Lehikoinen, Ph.D., Managing Director, Mediatum Ltd, taisto.lehikoinen@mediatum.fi Tel. +358 10 440 3601, Mobile +358 50 586 6116

The term Human Technology refers to a multidisciplinary field of science that examines Information Technol-ogy from the perspective of human needs and requirements. Central Finland is one of the world leaders in this field. Human Technology is about user-friendly IT, technology developed for the needs of the elderly, for making communication between school and parents easier, or for measuring and promoting people's physical well-being. Human Technology is also a larger, more universal concept. It embraces the notion of a safe, human-scale living environment with excellent services in all walks of life, in a region of high technology, where the development and use of first-rate technological solutions forms part of people’s everyday lives.

International Central Finland project develops tools for companies and organisations in the region to promote their internationalisation. The project aims also to increase the attractiveness of Central Finland. The fruits of the project include the Human Technology brand designed for the province of Central Finland, internationalisation services for companies, and supporting services for international project work. The Human Technology website www.humantechnology.fi is a versatile promotion channel for Central Finland, serving not only immigrants but also international companies, investors, students, potential new inhabitants and tourists.