Potential travelers in major cities around the world live hectic lives, restless and saturated with noise pollution and social media. Finnish Lapland offers the perfect setting for balance and relaxation, following the global trends of mindfulness and wellbeing.

Sound has a remarkable effect on human thinking and behavior. And the best sounds relax our bodies and relieve stress and anxiety. Listening to the sounds of waves and water relieves stress and anxiety, among other things. This is the inspiration at the core of the Sound of Lapland concept: to let Finnish Lapland appear as a different kind of destination, far from the ordinary, by utilizing the human senses, especially hearing. SCAPES provides a counterbalance and a way out of stressful situations: on your commute, going to bed, or even working in noisy environments – whenever you need to calm down.

01 Project overview

The project included concept design, sound design and production as well as content creation. House of Lapland was in charge of distributing the materials.

Category/Industry: Hospitality & Destination marketing

Services: Concept design, experiential design, sound design, visual design, film and photo production

Year: 2020-2021

02 Challenge

The travel and tourism industry is booming in Finnish Lapland. For the growth to continue, Lapland needs to become more of a year-round destination.

Potential travelers in major cities around the world live hectic lives, restless and saturated with noise pollution and social media. Finnish Lapland offers the perfect setting for balance and relaxation, so we focused on this aspect, following the global trends of mindfulness and wellbeing.

Sound has a remarkable effect on human thinking and behavior. And the best sounds relax our bodies and relieve stress and anxiety.

03 Creative Solution

Sound of Lapland is a journey to the heart of Lapland. It’s a concept focusing on creating awareness towards Lapland as a travel destination – through sound. The concept creates, inspires and enables sound use in different ways, bringing up Lapland’s year-round strengths through sound themes. As the concept focuses on sound, it introduces entirely new distribution channels for destination marketing.

As a part of Sound of Lapland, we created the SCAPES campaign. It focused on atmosphere, bringing out the distinct features experienced in Lapland through soundscapes and imagery. Every piece of content tells a story about the importance, meaning and inspiration behind the world of sounds. Lapland is the perfect protagonist to this story, given its purest of nature, full of extremes and experiences. We believe that Lapland’s unique atmosphere is the perfect space for creativity. We want to inspire creatives and professionals to explore the possibilities of Lapland.

SCAPES provides a counterbalance and a way out of stressful situations: on your commute, going to bed, or even working in noisy environments – whenever you need to calm down.

04 Implementation

Lapland became a recording artist with Sound of Lapland – SCAPES. It’s a collection of eight different soundscapes recorded in Finnish Lapland. Each soundscape is a kind of song and together, they create an album. We created artist profiles on Spotify, Soundcloud, Apple Music, and YouTube Music to release the soundscapes in two stages. Three singles were released in Spring 2019 and the whole album in November 2019. The album release event was held in Los Angeles, USA, with media, influencers, film and music producers in attendance. To support the soundscapes, we created videos and 360° videos which were released on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

The campaign also includes a soundbank, the Lapland Sound Collection, with dozens of audio clips that can be utilized for music production, presentations… whatever our fans want to get creative with.

Eight Soundscapes for Inspiration, Focus and Relaxation

The Sound of Lapland soundscapes reflect the eight seasons of Lapland. Each has a distinctive take on the region and captures a special mood linked to the season at hand.

Forestsong (A Wander Through the Woods With Singing Birds)

This soundscape happens in a forest covered in autumn colors. There’s a woman wandering around the scenery, picking berries and listening to the birds singing all around her.

Arctic Freeflow (Water Streaming Between Two Fells)

Between the mighty fells of Pallas, there’s a stream of crystal clear water flowing downwards. In the soundscape, the listener floats along the stream and experiences the soft Arctic winds, harmonizing with the flow of water.

Frost & Fire (Cabin Life on a Freezing Winter Day)

On a freezing cold mid-winter day, the best way to stay warm in a cozy cabin is to keep the fire burning in the fireplace. Adding wood to the fire, enjoying the warmth as you are reading a book or writing your thoughts down – this is the epitome of being present. The crackling fire helps you focus and relax.

Snow Giants (Walking Through a Frozen World)

With temperatures below -30 °C, only the bravest dare to venture outside. With this soundscape, you can join an intrepid hiker on a stroll through a forest of snow-covered trees. There’s hardly a noise to be heard from the surrounding forest, save for some branches cracking under the pressure of the snow.

Ice Jam (River Ice Breaking Up in Late Spring)

In springtime, as the sun starts to melt the snow and ice, it’s a sight to gaze at the packed blocks of ice on the rivers. The cracking and squeaks promise that something is about to happen: the huge blocks of ice will soon start to flow.

Royal Family (Reindeer Herd Grazing in the Wilderness)

This soundscape is all about reindeer, gathered together to feast on the edge of a marsh. The baby reindeer calling for their mothers is a true sign of spring in Lapland.

Midnight Rider (Mountain Biking Under the Midnight Sun)

Action can be relaxing, too! This soundscape focuses on mountain bikers who climb up a fell and roll down the gravel-covered path under the Midnight Sun in Ylläs.

Whispering Waters (Gentle Waves Rippling in the Nightless Night)

The waters of Lemmenjoki offer a great way to experience the nightless night. Paddling in the tranquility, occasionally stopping to listen to the surrounding nature, is a great way to find inner peace.

The Artwork behind Sound of Lapland and Scapes

To stand out from the sea of nature sound album covers, SCAPES utilises a collection of abstract 3D-style renderings of the actual footage from the recording locations.

Each single cover represents a mood constructed with color tones and individual shapes. They create a modern and intriguing set of artworks that reflect the soundscapes in a way that sparks the imagination.

We wanted to be unconventional within the genre and let the digitally formed shapes and colours inspire our listeners. The SCAPES artwork celebrates our nature and its eight distinctive seasons with the medium of cover art. Once the listener discovers the real landscape and activity behind the digital shapes, the experience instantly becomes deeper and more meaningful.

05 Impact

The Sound Of Lapland – SCAPES releases received a lot of international media attention. In Japan, 30 different medias covered SCAPES, tipping the potential media reach past 200 million. (Source: Meltwater media-analytics). On Spotify, the 30 second spot of SCAPES was heard over 4.5 million times and the SCAPES songs have been featured on over 150 different Spotify playlists. In addition to this, the supporting content was seen over 15 million times. The SCAPES soundscapes and audio from the soundbank have been streamed tens of thousands of times, and the number continues to rise.