It’s been now already several weeks since the first Travel Guides (Matkaoppaat) reality show episode startet in Finnish channel4. It has started some great movements over the internet and I’m just going to analyze some of it, especially the impact. Overall I think it has been fascinating to watch, but the question remains, does it really increase sales?

In the first episode an old man (Veikko) is a bit lost and is really angry not finding the right bus and is complaining about it to the detur guide. Enough of words have a look at your self (sorry it’s in Finnish but you’ll get the picture)

Now this is where the fun started :) Nelonen created a fan page for Veikko on Facebook which claims that once the group gets 100 000 fans Nelonen (channel4) will buy Veikko another trip. The reality show is just hilarious and I think most of the younger generation watching it, would never ever go for a package trip. It’s just that sarcasm that makes it work, people are loving it (some episodes has been a little bit boring without any action). Now, what happened to Veikko’s fan page? It rocked to the skies and it has now over 30k fans (pretty good when you only have 5m people living in the country) and Nelonen decided to drop the number from 100k to 30k, which means Veikko earned a free trip to somewhere paid by Nelonen. Now which makes the whole fan page interesting is that when you genuinely are trying to do something good for someone instead of seeking for attention (spam people) you get attraction. People are more willing to join something that will do good instead going to a channel, page or group where you immediately know it’s just for broadcasting information. Great illustration of that broadcast model is the new Audi Finland fan page which has a great competition (don’t get me wrong) where you can win an Audi A3 when they reach 50k fans. The deepest intention is to get visibility and as many people as possible so they can what? add value? Current status for them is around 20k fans. I would bet that around 90% of these fans don’t care about Audi they are just for the sake of winning the car, so the question is: What happens to them afterwards?

Enough of analyzing how to run successful facebook page and see what’s there for Nelonen vs. Detur? Nelonen has announced the sold the rights for the reality show for multiple countries which equals money…check… Loads of people are watching the show which equals more advertising which equals money… check… now the remaining question is what does Detur get out from this? I would assume they are the “sponsor” (equals money for Nelonen) but will this sell more Detur trips? My gut feeling says No at least amongst the younger generation it might even decrease their sales. What about older generation? are they looking the show in the similar way as younger generation with some sarcasm? I don’t know and time will tell.