Skift Take
Your editor -- recently renamed Ilmari Aalto -- believes this is a fun way to get people talking about a country they don't usually talk about -- and mispronounce many names when they do.
Visit Finland punches above its weight when it comes to digital initiatives.
The VisitFinland website was included as one of the 20 best designed tourism websites in our spotlight last year. It has also produced one-off projects like the Laplication, an iOS app that brings a virtual Northern Lights to users iPhones and iPads (see video below).
Inspired by the Travoltify name generator that made light of John Travolta’s Oscar-night flub, Visit Finland is giving users a chance to Finnify their names with the Finngenerator web-based app.
Users tell the app their gender, type in their name, and hit ‘Generate.’ The result says: “The generator has spoken. From now on you are called Ohto Järvi,” or whatever a user’s name generates. It is followed by a description of each word — in this case “Ohto — A bear, king of the forest” and “Järvi – Lake.”
Many of the names generated in the app come from the Finnish 19th-century epic poem Kalevala.
The Finngenerator went live first on the Japanese-language version of VisitFinland, followed by the English-language version. A Chinese-language Finngenerator will be launched in China in April.
Finngenerator campaign was planned and executed by SEK and media agency Voitto. The application was produced by Byroo.
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Photo credit: Tell Visit Finland your name, and they'll give you a new Finnish one. Visit Finland