Visit Porvoo brought the entire city's visual world together in one place

Along the Porvoo River, about half an hour east of Helsinki, a row of red-ochre riverside warehouses stands close to the water. Together with the cobblestone streets and colourful wooden houses of Old Porvoo, they form one of Finland's most photographed landscapes – one image is enough for everyone to instantly recognise which city it is.

Porvoo is Finland's second oldest city after Turku and one of the country's six medieval towns, with roots dating back to the 14th century. Today, the city is home to over 50,000 residents and is one of Finland's most popular tourist destinations, loved equally by visitors and Finns alike.

A city whose identity relies so strongly on visuals also has a great need for images. At Visit Porvoo, Tanja Peisala is responsible for city marketing, and the visual material is used not only by the marketing team but by the entire city organisation – from sports and culture to communications and recruitment. Mediaflow is the hub where all of that content comes together.

The Challenge

How does an entire city keep its image library together?

Before Mediaflow was in place, images were scattered everywhere. They were stored on individual computers, in various systems, and with different people – and that dispersion made everyday work unnecessarily burdensome.

– Before Mediaflow, our image situation was almost chaotic, in the sense that we had been using visual material for years. Porvoo is a very visual city, so there were an enormous number of images, and they were saved in very different places, says Tanja Peisala.

As a city organisation, the demand for images is high, and many different departments need access to the same material. When each department stored their images in their own way, both sharing and maintaining an overview became a challenge.

– Having the material so spread out was incredibly difficult for us, says Tanja.

The Solution

A shared image library for the entire city

When Visit Porvoo began looking for a way to consolidate their images, there were few tools that could do what they needed. That Mediaflow reached out at exactly that moment turned out to be perfectly timed.

– Mediaflow was an innovative product, with the breadth it offered for storing and sharing images. There was no similar product available in Finland, and that inspired us to choose Mediaflow, says Tanja Peisala.

Today, the images are gathered in one and the same place, accessible to the entire organisation. Mediaflow is also integrated with the city's websites, porvoo.fi and visitporvoo.fi, so that images can be retrieved, cropped, and adapted directly from there.

– Having all images in one place, and being able to use them directly from there via Mediaflow on the website, crop and edit them – that has been a really big deal for us, says Tanja.

With the material consolidated, it also became easier to keep things in order that needed to be right. Image rights and consent forms, which had previously been scattered, are now managed in the same place as the images.

– What I've been most pleased about is the GDPR tool. We can ask our participants for consent in advance, and tag the right people in the right images when we upload them. It's an incredibly useful tool, says Tanja Peisala.

To enable more people in the organisation to use the images independently, the team has set up ready-made formats for different channels.

– Many people aren't professionals at image editing, but they need a specific size for a specific channel. We've been able to define the size in advance, which has made their work easier, she says.

The Result

The right image, in the right place, in the right format

With a shared image library, the way of working has fundamentally changed. The best images reach more people, and material flows more freely between the city's departments, the media, and the tourism industry.

– Now the best marketing images are available both in our internal use and with the media externally. And if an individual department – for example in sports or culture – arranges a photoshoot, we can then use that material in the city's communications and marketing. That's possible now, when everything is in the same place, says Tanja Peisala.

The demand for images and video continues to grow, and along with that, the breadth of the image library has become a strength in itself.

– We use visual material every day, and today we have a much wider image bank for marketing than we had five or ten years ago, she says.

Tanja Peisala's advice to others who recognise themselves in the old image chaos is simple: dare to take the step.

– If you need a tool for managing and sharing images – whether it concerns photo permissions or anything else – it's really worth daring to look at the alternatives. It feels like a big step, but once you've taken it you realise: wow, this is so much easier, when everything is in the same place.

About Porvoo and Visit Porvoo

Porvoo – known in Swedish as Borgå – is Finland's second oldest city after Turku and one of the country's six medieval towns. The city has just over 50,000 residents and is located approximately 50 kilometres east of Helsinki. It is known for Old Porvoo and the red riverside warehouses along the river, one of Finland's most photographed landscapes and one of the country's most popular tourist destinations. Visit Porvoo is responsible for the city's tourism and destination marketing.