Virén Chair

FORTUM | VIREN CHAIR

TBWA\HELSINKI

To show the full potential of Circo® recycled plastics, we needed to create a never-before-seen way of marketing a raw material. Instead of a basic demo, we designed a product that tells a story. Using Fortum Circo®, we created The Virén Chair, a chair that always picks itself up if it falls, using nothing but motion and its own design. Inspired by Finnish runner Lasse Virén, who fell in the 10,000m final of 1972 Olympics, but got up, won gold, and even set a new world record – the chair literally stands up for recycled plastics, demonstrating the versatility, quality and durability of Fortum Circo®.

IMPACT:

So far the Viren chair has succeeded in its primary objective of  sparking the interest of  the target audiences, yielding dozens of new contacts from furniture manufacturers and designers since the launch. The targeted social and PR launch reached 14,9 million people, increasing affinity not only inside the company but also among investors, partners and key stakeholders. The Virén chair enabled Fortum to successfully expand its business to an entirely new category, and due to it, Circo is now in the process of being adopted by one of Finland’s biggest furniture manufacturers, Isku.

Getting designers and furniture manufacturers to use Circo in their production is a big step in increasing the use of recycled plastics, and making more industries to see plastic not as potential waste, but wasted potential.