Huhtamäki – Think Circle: virtual stakeholder communications

OBJECT: “The year 2020 was all-around different for Huhtamaki: our new strategy responding to upheavals in circularity of food industry was launched simultaneously to our centennial celebrations. The time was right to bring Huhtamaki forward as the thought leader in sustainable food packaging solutions and solver in circularity. With Think Circle – consisting of a virtual roundtable event, a thorough expert report and a web platform – we wanted to start the dialogue in a bold manner and facilitate a platform where the discussion could continue in the future with stakeholders.

The leading idea was as follows: if the whole value chain isn’t considered when making choices on innovation, legislation or other related matters, can the end result benefit one party but bring considerable damage to another business – or even worse – sustainability.

We invited leaders from academia, business, NGOs and policymakers to start the open dialogue and represent varying views and backgrounds. Our mission was ambitious: create a forum with our most important stakeholders, that directly addresses the biggest challenges we face creating a truly sustainable circular economy. Simultaneously, the goal was to react to EU’s Green Deal’s ambitious objectives for building a more sustainable food and packaging industry, while also maintaining companies’ businesses and strengthening the conditions for growth.”

– Thomasine Kamerling, Executive Vice President, Sustainability and Communications, Huhtamaki

INSIGHT: Focusing on Huhtamaki’s role as a thought leader and solver in circularity provided suitable themes for sending the company to its new century. The solution was to build Think Circle – a concept that made it possible to establish Huhtamaki a big role as dialogue starter and gatherer of the round table – quite literally. The concept strengthens Huhtamaki’s role as an active player in the food and packaging industry.

CREATIVE: We produced the Think Circle panel discussion, expert report and designed a web platform that combines these outputs. The dialogue will continue under Think Circle theme in the future with new articles and event content.

The roundtable discussion was produced via Miltton Contactless – our platform for digital event solutions that bridge virtual and online interaction. On the day of the event we published the Think Circle expert report, where in addition to the five panelists, eight leaders in food and packaging industries and experts in circularity addressed the themes of sustainability in business, legislation and society. Huhtamaki wanted to offer their stakeholders a possibility to discuss their very own premises, and the outcome is a fascinating read. The articles and panel highlights were published on the Think Circle website and discussion around the themes will continue in 2021.

Think Circle’s visual identity was built on the previous brand update made for Huhtamaki but modified to be recognizably different to the brand image through usage of colours. With confident simplicity, Huhtamaki’s graphic circle element idea was utilised as circles resonate well with the themes of circularity – symbolically but also literally: the circle is not complete, if one of its parts is missing from the dialogue. We created new circles to describe the various voices of different stakeholders needed in the discussion.

SUCCESS:

Think Circle was a successful campaign that started a widespread conversation and roused interest. Huhtamaki was able to create and foster valuable relations with many of its stakeholders that were widely represented in Think Circle’s participants and audiences. In total, 506 attendees registered to the panel discussion event, from which 92% also subscribed to information on future events and 98% wished to receive the expert report.

Stakeholders were represented extensively in the panel audience and report receivers: customers (15,6%), industry-related actors (12,5%) and NGOs (7,1%) formed a majority. The panel discussion and the expert report sparked conversation and interest across social media platforms both during and after the event. Huhtamaki was convinced of the event’s successful execution and decided to create a series of similar events in the future: in 2021, Huhtamaki will organize additional Think Circle events around the world and also continue offering new content on the web platform www.think-circle.com.