GoMore teamed up with Sanoma to enter the Finnish market

GoMore is a Danish car sharing company, providing a platform for private people and companies to rent cars. It has operations in Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland and Spain, and recently Finland.

In late 2020, the company had a simple goal: reaching its target audiences as quickly as possible while also establishing itself as a relatively new service in Finland.

Different options for entering a new market

As a herald of change and virtually non-existent local business, GoMore knew it had to make an effective start. “We wanted to reach critical masses quickly and cost-effectively, and communicate our competitive edge in a new market,” says GoMore’s Market Manager Boris Perkiö, who headed the new market launch.

“Sanoma’s core is in providing direct access to its own channels”

They had broadcasting advertising in mind, and there were different ways to go about this. One was to enter the market through an advertising agency. Another was to approach broadcasters directly. Sanoma provided a hybrid model, offering campaign support, along with direct access to its channels.

“While we did have experience of entering new markets, we were an unknown player in Finland, uncertain of what was to happen,” Perkiö points out.

“Sanoma’s core is in providing direct access to its own channels, which were optimal for reaching our target audience,” says Perkiö.

Advertising for the masses

Key Account Manager at Sanoma, Olavi Kajantie, has been actively involved in designing and executing the campaigns together with GoMore. “We considered different options, as we wanted to provide GoMore with just the right channel mix and messaging for reaching their audience,” Kajantie says. “A television and video-on-demand solution seemed like a good fit.”

The collaboration resulted in a launch of extensive advertising campaigns, the first kicking off at the start of 2021. Sanoma was involved in both designing and implementing campaigns.

The campaigns incorporated both linear and streaming television advertising. Most were segmented into periods of a few weeks, with one also spanning the entire summer.

At the time of writing this article, three campaigns have been carried out. One more campaign is set to take place towards the end of the year.

Results in important metrics

Expectations for the advertising efforts were high. “During the first year, when the turnover is very low, it is a question of life and death whether these campaigns succeed.”

As an online platform, GoMore measures all activities. One key metric is conversion. This includes conversion in new registrations – i.e. the share of visitors to the website registering for the service and becoming a member at GoMore – as well as the share of these persons taking action, such as creating a new car profile.

“Conversion rates during the campaign periods doubled in comparison to the reference period”

Perkiö reveals that conversion rates during the campaign periods doubled in comparison to the reference period. Comparing a three-week campaign period with a reference period with no ongoing advertising revealed at least a 100% increase in new user registrations, new car profiles and rental bookings.

Long-term and side effects

While long-term and indirect effects will be combed more closely after the first year, Perkiö points out that visibility has clearly peaked during campaigns. Appearing in mass media resulted in reporters contacting the company, along with cities, which have included GoMore in development workshops together with public authorities.

“We have been able to bring a new way of owning cars into the Finnish mindset on a large scale”

This means visibility in just the right public discussions for the company, which also had a need to educate Finns in a new sharing concept.

“We have been able to bring a new way of owning cars into the Finnish mindset on a large scale,” Perkiö points out. “It appears that our mass advertising efforts have truly paid off in this sense as well.”

The cumulative effects of the campaigns have also been notable. “The first campaign did well, but we had nothing to compare it to. With the following ones, we noticed that each campaign has performed better than the previous one.”

What’s next?

GoMore commends Sanoma for providing a framework for long-term collaboration in the Finnish market. “They has truly been able to see beyond the first year,” Perkiö says. “This is a long-term partnership, and we need collaborations like these entering a new market,” Perkiö states.

The final campaign takes place in November, after which it is time to do an inventory of results – and lay down a path for the year 2022.

Kajantie from Sanoma is very pleased with the collaboration with GoMore this year. “The results so far have been very promising, and we are looking forward to building on the work in the future.”

According to Perkiö, GoMore is now looking for more creative ways to communicate its car sharing mission to even larger audiences and keep up the great momentum in the market. Now GoMore is exploring the possibilities of utilising Sanoma’s advertising channel mix even more extensively.

“We have noticed that there are also other interesting advertising possibilities that we can carry out cost-efficiently with Sanoma. Now we have plenty to build on.”