Sanoma

The Challenge

Ruutu is one of Finland's largest streaming services. The competition in this space is fierce – social media, alongside Katsomo, Netflix, HBO, and other streaming services, is vying for viewers' attention.

While linear TV viewers easily find Ruutu's content, the attention of the younger target audience is firmly fixed on TikTok and YouTube. Our goal was to make Ruutu appealing to a demographic for whom no dedicated content had been designed before. We wanted to encourage the Gen Z audience to log in to Ruutu and spend time engaging with its content.

‍Strategy

We realized that to be relevant to a young audience, Ruutu needed to adopt a new approach to producing entertainment. For Gen Z, YouTube is their television, and it was time to bring that YouTube experience to Ruutu. 

Young people respond well to recognizable and familiar content concepts, which often create trends and talking points. Instead of developing an entirely new format, we decided to leverage an idea already popular on YouTube and feature a performer familiar to the younger audience.

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Creative Idea

Together with YouTuber Daniel Ahola, we brought the 'police and robber' format – popular on YouTube and successfully utilized by Ahola – to Ruutu. Ahola was given free rein to create content in his own style, recognizing that an influencer is an expert on their target audience. The outcome is a completely new type of influencer collaboration, offering engaging entertainment for the younger demographic.

The series' script and style push the boundaries of linear television. The storytelling aimed to retain a YouTube-like feel: it gets straight to the point, the pace is fast, and the performers film themselves. Instead of high-quality, polished television visuals, the aesthetic is raw and authentic, resonating with young audiences. 

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Execution

In the 'Police and Robber' series, Daniel Ahola's police team hunts down well-known 'robbers' across Finland's major cities. The cast of competitors was assembled from popular young influencers and faces familiar from Ruutu. Participants included the YouTube trio Iha just imus, Jarppi and Jarno from The Dudesons, Valtteri Lehtinen and Janne Saarinen from the series Syke, beauty queens Alina Voronkova and Essi Unkuri, and Santtu, Helmi, and Weksi from the Meemitalo collective. 

The series' six episodes were released one at a time, first to the paid Ruutu+ service, and then to Ruutu, where they can be watched for free with Sanoma account credentials. The duration of the episodes was tailored to the preferences of the young target audience. Offering excitement, unexpected twists, and humor, the episodes are similar in length to YouTube videos. 

Watch the hit series on Ruutu: Watch the series here

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