Formula One is the national sport of Finland. We’ve been very successful in it, but after the season 2009 things started to go wrong.

Kimi Raikkonen announced he’s not driving Formula One anymore, and the other Finn, Heikki Kovalainen, was about to drive for the rookie team Lotus, that was seconds slower per lap than the rest of the teams.

Our job was to convince the Finnish Formula One fans to continue watching Formula One live on MTV3 MAX pay-tv-channel. Even though the cost was 15 euros per month just to see Heikki Kovalainen being slow on track.

But anyway, Heikki is a Finn with the famous Finnish attitude of not giving up. And if Heikki is not giving up, the Finnish Formula One fans shouldn’t either.

So what we all should say is PERKELE; a Finnish swear word and synonym for the gutsy Finnish attitude.

The campaign turned out to be very successful. Nearly 90% of Finns remembered it, 60% said they liked it, a lot better than on average. Not to forget all the extra attention the campaign achieved all over the media in Finland and other countries as well.

The Finnish Formula One fans remained loyal to Heikki and the MTV3 MAX channel – and continued paying 15 euros per month to see Live Formula One broadcasting.

And if the campaign was good for MTV3 MAX, it was good for Heikki Kovalainen as well. The driver formerly known as ”Niceman” was now Mr Perkele – the man with the Finnish attitude. Not a bad image for a Formula One driver.

For TV we did a half-fictional tv-commercial of Heikki Kovalainen getting ready for the upcoming season – the Heikki Kovalainen Training Camp. A bit like Sylvester Stallone was getting ready in Rocky 4, but in a Finnish way, with the Perkele attitude.

Besides TV, this commercial was shown in the Lotus Formula One announcement party in London and later on was put in the Lotus web site and You Tube as well. Within days it became a big hit, people from all over the world giving thumbs up for Heikki and his attitude.

The same spirit was kept up in print, outdoor, web and radio advertising as well. And finally, inside the MTV3 SPORTS NEWS, we had "biographies" of all the well-known Formula One drivers in the world, proving tongue-in-cheek how they all are more or less Finnish.