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Finland looks to market Santa throughout year
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As a brand, Santa Claus has one major flaw: he is only valuable for a few weeks at the end of each year. In Finland, they’re trying to do something about this.
Petri Paarnio, director of Santa Claus Licensing, the firm with the rights to market the Santa Claus name in Finland, wants to see him bring joy to children’s hearts but also to generate business — all year round and all around the world, starting with China.
“Santa Claus is an icon. He stands for symbols like good health, solidarity, and values like giving without always expecting something in return,” Paarnio said.
Santa Claus Licensing and Finnish tourist authorities both feel the iconic brand could spawn a multi-million euro industry including computer games, international events, theme parks and merchandising.
As it is, thousands of tourists flock each Christmas to the Arctic city of Rovaniemi, the capital of Finland’s northernmost Lapland region, in search of the “authentic” Santa Claus experience.
But the sparsely populated area, which claims the North Pole’s most famous resident as its own, is not content with only filling hotels, activity centers, stores and restaurants over the holiday period.
“Father Christmas is Finland’s best known brand but we’ve not made the most of his image as Finnish,” Parnio said. “Maybe because Christmas just takes place over a short period.”
Though the country is in the grip of recession and budgetary austerity, the Finnish parliament in December gave the green light for 300,000 euros (US$410,000) in funding to promote Finnish Santa Claus in China.
“In Europe, Christmas is a short period. But in Asia, Father Christmas could be promoted as a completely separate character,” said Paarnio.
For the past two years the white-bearded man of the north has made the trip from Rovaniemi to Fukushima in Japan to raise the spirits of children affected by the 2011 tsunami.
In contrast to the roly-poly American Santa, the Finnish variety has no black boots or belt but wears light brown boots. He also wears a long red cloak — not the red suit of the well-known American character — and sports a much longer white beard.
The challenge, however, will be to convince consumers the Finnish Santa is the real thing.
But putting a price tag on his worth may be going a step too far — even for those who do it for a living.
“The concept of Santa Claus is not protected by copyright so its market value is next to zero,” said Mika Maliranta, head of research at the economic think-tank ETLA.
Trying to put a market value on Father Christmas may also be seen as offensive.
“Maybe the Christmas period is commercial enough already,” said Finnish stock market analyst Mikael Rautanen.
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