Race of Dro­nes Oulu

Known as the tech­no­lo­gy city of Fin­land, Oulu also wants to be an inter­na­tio­nal city of events – the Euro­pean Capi­tal of Cul­tu­re 2026. Race of Dro­nes Oulu att­rac­ted 40 inter­na­tio­nal dro­ne pilots to com­pe­te in an exci­ting world cup that was open to audience.

STARTING POINT

The stra­te­gic focus points of the City of Oulu are:

1. A vibrant Oulu is growing and beco­ming more inter­na­tio­nal
2. Att­rac­ti­ve Oulu – a city of Nort­hern natu­re and cul­tu­re
3. Grip­ping Oulu – a city of smi­les and high level of exper­ti­se

To sup­port the­se focus points we wan­ted to orga­ni­se an inter­na­tio­nal event with one of the fas­test growing sports of the world – dro­ne racing.

We wan­ted to rein­force Oulu’s pro­fi­ling as a fore­run­ner of eSports and dro­ne flying. We also wan­ted to strengt­hen Oulu’s repu­ta­tion as a city of tech­no­lo­gy.

Chal­len­ge

The event nee­ded its look. And it nee­ded its cause. How do you visual­ly com­mu­nica­te the exci­te­ment and the ener­gy of a dro­ne race? How to att­ract audience new to the sports and encou­ra­ge inter­na­tio­nal racers to par­tici­pa­te? How to make sure it’s an exci­ting event for all?

solu­tion

The name of the event – Race of Dro­nes Oulu – is inter­na­tio­nal, sono­rous and easi­ly memo­rable. The visual iden­ti­ty for­med to be sty­lish and simple but also dis­tinct. The visua­li­ty exu­des futu­re, fast colours of lights, speed and modern sha­pes.

Based on the­se gui­de­li­nes, we built a web­si­te, which was the main source of infor­ma­tion of the event. We inden­ti­fied the main tar­get group to be between the ages 13 and 25, and the­re­fo­re the mar­ke­ting efforts were focused on social media throug­hout the pro­ject– Ins­ta­gram, You­Tu­be and Face­book.

An impres­si­ve race track was built in Oulu Hall whe­re, thanks to mag­ni­ficent ligh­ting, the visua­li­ty of the track was power­ful.

End result

Con­tes­tant spots of Race of Dro­nes Oulu were quickly fil­led with 40 inter­na­tio­nal dro­ne pilots. Con­tes­tants from eight dif­fe­rent count­ries gat­he­red to Oulu Hall. An audience of 1,400 people arri­ved to wit­ness exci­ting com­pe­ti­tion. The com­pe­ti­tion had a good media cove­ra­ge – Ilta­sa­no­mat, Kale­va, Oulu­leh­ti, Radio Poo­ki and Fin­nish broadcas­ting Com­pa­ny YLE all repor­ted about the event.

Sole­ly the onli­ne news of Kale­va, Ilta­sa­no­mat, MSN and Radio Poo­ki reac­hed 1,861,665 people. Also only with Face­book adver­ti­sing 82,024 people were reac­hed, which is almost the half of the people of Oulu. The event page had 4,906 views and ave­ra­ge time spent on the page was over 4 minu­tes.

Role of työ­maa

• event concept and name design
• visual and grap­hic design
• web page design
• com­mu­nica­tions
• mar­ke­ting – social media, google ads, You­Tu­be
• PR
• mar­ke­ting mate­rials – caps, flyers, shirts, screen mate­rials and lar­ge for­mat prints for the event
• event plan­ning
• repor­ting