Title of the Campaign: Tallinn Street Food Festival (TTTF)
Contest category: Event PR
Summary
Tallinn Street Food Festival was first of a kind street food event in the Baltics. The idea: to promote
street food in Estonia; to get positive attention to Telliskivi Creative City in Tallinn.
Challenges:
– negative image of streetfood: it means “stinky burgers” for most people in Estonia;
– fears and skepticism by cafes-restaurants.
We communicated a “fresh” idea, broke the myths about streetfood and motivated people to try
something new.
Turning Telliskivi fans to our evangelists (virality), honest and proactive media relations and
cooperation with EXPO Milan 2015 Estonian team were the key factors of PR.
The results: 48 vendors, 12000 visitors, positive media coverage.
Pre – research/situation
No street food festival was held in the Baltics before. There was a lack of understanding in the public
about what is good street food as there are only a few vendors in Estonia (no diversity). At the same
time street food is trending in the world.
Street food’s public reputation in Estonia was rather negative, people only can think of street food as
untasty and unhealthy burgers eaten at night after parties.
Telliskivi Creative City needed to promote the area, motivate new audience and tenants to Telliskivi.
There were indications of demand for street food, but we had to create it. We had all the
opportunities (area, dining places, loyal fans) to become a “hotspot” of street food.
The target audience:
– local food lovers
– young professionals and active people living in the nearby areas
– independent travelers
No specific research was done before TTTF, but we had a test-event that gave us proof of concept. In
April we celebrated the birthday of Telliskivi Creative City. In „Gourmet night” all the cafes-restaurantsbars in Telliskivi „came outside” and made special offers. The number of guests was double as we
expected. The communication of „Gourmet night” was focused on the „freshness” of the idea. The
results encouraged us to organize TTTF.
Challenge
- Negative image of street food
- Lack of good street food vendors, scepticism about the festival
- No previous experience in Estonia
We cooperated with EXPO Milan 2015 Estonian team who organized competition for finding Estonian
street food. We understood that people had never thought of street food in Estonian context.
Objectives
1.
To promote streetfood as tasty and fulfilling way of eating in Estonia; to promote Telliskivi
Creative City as the place for tasting good street food.
KPI: positive media coverage in at least 5 out of 10 TOP media channels in Estonia.
2.
To attract people to visit Telliskivi Creative City and the festival, and get them to actually
come to Telliskivi Loomelinnak and spend quality time there.
KPI: 7000 festival visitors.
3.
To present Telliskivi Creative City as an attractive environment for businesses (for both – the
existing tenants as well as the new ones).
KPI’s: 20 food vendors present in the festival; ¾ satisfied with the festival.
Strategy
It was a low budget campaing – only small investments to outdoor media and printed posters-flyers.
Most of the communication was done in public media and in internet (primarily social media).
Cornerstones of Strategy
• Our fans are our evangelists – when the loyal customers will come, others would probably come as
well. As our fans are on Facebook, we focused on communication in that channel.
• Freshness – we provided something that was never done before in Estonia. Cosmopolitanism (world
trend coming to Estonia) and national pride were involved (EXPO Milan 2015 Estonian Street Food
Competition).
• Focus on quality – we skipped low quality providers, focused on preferred gourmet cafes and
independent stands. We communicated it clearly and made exclusive offers to recognized businesses.
• Honesty and openness – we answered to all the questions-comments, communicated openly
possible risks of the festival (queues, long waiting times, cash-only policy etc). We analyzed publicly
the results and explained what we’ll do better next year.
Implementation
1.
Message that this unique festival will take place (for public and for vendors) was sent out via
social media and e-mail one month before the event.
The information started spreading virally. Interested vendors contacted from day 1, people attended
the Facebook event, it spread virally! No advertising investment was done in Facebook.
2.
After 1,5 weeks the website was launched. We published the event on all free online event
sites and on visitestonia.com.
3.
Two weeks before the event we started active media communication by using press releases
and visiting talkshows in TV and radio. The activities were coordinated with EXPO Milan 2015 Estonian
team. We visited media shows together when possible.
4.
Last two weeks our communication concentrated on two directions:
- In social media we promoted interesting food vendors and the programme, explained practicalities.
- In media communication we explained the main ideas of the event and practicalities as well as
introduced Estonian street food.
5.
Last week we had an outdoor campaign on 20 billboards in Tallinn, Pärnu, Tartu.
Two rules of social media we had – we answer all questions that arise in our social media channels.
We keep expectations rather low than “overpromote” ourselves!
The communication was implemented as planned!
Documented Results
The number of visitors
The goal: 7000
Actual: 12000
The number of vendors
The Goal: 20
Actual: 48
Satisfaction of vendors
The Goal: at least ¾ are happy
Actual: according to the short survey 45 out of 48 vendors confirmed that they were satisfied with the
results and they would like to take part in next year's festival.
Food vendors sold 20000+ portions of food.
Positive media coverage
The Goal: 5 out of TOP 10 media channels
Actual:
• Video news in TV 3 and Kanal 2, two interviews in Estonian National Broadcast.
• Online news and video stories in Postimees Online, Delfi, Õhtuleht Online, Äripäev, EPL Online (all
the main channels).
• Interviews in 4 of TOP 10 Estonian radio channels - Raadio 2, Klassikaraadio, Vikerraadio, Kuku
raadio.
• Printed story (the whole page) in Äripäev (leading business newspaper).
Confidential Information
• The festival was successful also financially. Every 1 € invested to festival brought back 1,4 €.
• Marketing and communication cost per real visitor (present in the festival): 0,28 €.
• Sponsor of the event – Santa Maria – agreed to sponsor TTTF immediately after the festival.
Links
Tallinn Street Food Festival website
Facebook event of TTTF (in Estonian)
News in Estonian National Broadcast
Video summary of the festival in Youtube
http://tallinnstreetfoodfest.com
https://www.facebook.com/events/753892667978079/
http://news.err.ee/v/entertainment/1e154000-e7ee-4b47b001-80c875fea840
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K-w20MFMNA