Trailblazers of the Creative Road: Martti Laaksonen and Jaakko Rantala

In the Trailblazers of the Creative Road series, published as part of our SEK 90 anniversary year, we share the stories of current and former SEK people. First to share their experiences and views are Martti Laaksonen, who led the agency as CEO a few decades ago, and our current captain, Jaakko Rantala.

Martti “Mara” Laaksonen was SEK's long-serving CEO in the 1980s and 1990s. Jaakko, too, has been part of SEK across several decades. He has been CEO since 2017.

How did you end up in the industry?

Martti: I didn't consciously choose advertising; advertising chose me. After finishing school, I worked at a shoe factory in Germany, then as a sales representative and at a market research agency. Then a former classmate asked me to join a company called Indahl as marketing manager. Our brands included Hellä Mietonen and Erittäin Hieno Suomalainen.

Jaakko: I came into the industry when I joined SEK in 2001. I had been an intern at the embassy in Singapore, where I got to know people from Nokia. Mobile was calling, so I joined a technology start-up founded in Hong Kong. When I came back to Finland, I was asked to be a producer on the Nokia account. At SEK I could combine my technology background with advertising and marketing, which had always interested me.

What have you done at SEK?

Martti: I joined to lead a planning group in the late 1970s. Even then SEK had a reputation as a creative agency, and rightly so. Many of the best people in the business worked here. Back then we created, among other things, Paulig's Craftspeople (Kädentaitajat) and the gold cup for Presidentti coffee. I was CEO of SEK&Grey from 1985 to 1995.

Jaakko: My first stint at SEK lasted five years. After that, from 2006 to 2010, I worked at various agencies in London. In 2010 I returned to SEK as a group head and client director on the Finnair team. In 2016 I helped merge SEK Pro into SEK Point. I became CEO of SEK in its current form in 2017.

SEK has been a pioneer in the industry many times over its long history. Was something created in your time that had never been done before?

Martti: Working in planning groups was progressive in my day. All the necessary expertise was brought together in one group, which was very much self-directed. Knowing that the groups had the power to decide for themselves how things were done gave them enormous ambition. And because success was also rewarded, the work was rewarding. This way of working was one of the cornerstones of SEK becoming the largest agency in Finland. Not forgetting, of course, the people, who were the best talent in the country.

The father of the planning groups, by the way, was Kari Mannerla, who also created the board game Afrikan tähti.

Jaakko: We have of course done a lot of great client work, but I would highlight how we have grown from traditional advertising into diverse, multichannel content production, and how different areas of expertise have been welded together. Sometimes it feels as if we are a modern news agency. Recently, for example, moving image, social media and influencer marketing have become a larger share of what we do. With AI, we are also developing entirely new services.

We still work in groups, but the aim is always to build the team from the people best suited to the client, regardless of group boundaries.

What was, or has been, the best thing about your years at SEK?

Martti: Without a doubt, the transformation that took place at SEK from the 1980s to the late 1990s: the company's rise from loss-making to highly profitable. A huge number of things came together to make SEK a winning team.

After all, a CEO's job is to help the team come together. I have often thought that this is a strange profession. Being CEO of an advertising agency is a thing of its own and calls for the skill of leading people. Or rather, the skill of being and living with people.

Jaakko: I'm with Martti on this one. When I started as CEO, four SEK companies had been combined into one and profitability was weak. It has been wonderful to see how success has fed people's belief in the work and how trust has gradually been built. We have turned a downward spiral into an upward one, and SEK is once again the largest agency.

A big part of this has been the change in culture. The star culture that once prevailed has disappeared and collaboration has taken its place. We work as one team across disciplines, in close and open collaboration with the client.

Martti: Working in planning groups already meant back then that it didn't matter whose idea it was, as long as it came from us. That was hard for some, because advertising is an industry of strong personalities and characters, and everyone likes to pick up awards. An idea could also come from the client or from any member of the team. For example, the “Tosi on” line for Kansallis-Osake-Pankki was first said by our office cleaner, who overheard our discussion and said, “tosi, toi on totta” (“true, that's true”).

Is there a particular moment that has stayed with you?

Martti: Agency life is so nuanced, unique and rewarding that it is quite impossible to name a single moment. There are a huge number of them. Often the highlights are about success, but often also about the process that produced the winning work. Only afterwards might you notice how great it was, the way different people contributed and how that big idea was born that, for example, significantly increased the value of the client's product.

Jaakko: There are lots of great moments, but there are also less great ones. No two days are the same. When everything goes well, this is the best workplace in the world. When you lose a pitch or something else unpleasant happens, the mood is very different again. The ups and downs are fascinating. You have to tolerate uncertainty and enjoy competing. And the best thing, of course, is the wonderful people here.

Martti: A colleague once said that the agency business is such that just when you think everything is fine, you can already hear the rapids roaring somewhere in the distance.

Jaakko: That's exactly it. SEK's journey and long history really are unique. It's great to meet today's SEK people whose grandparents or parents worked here.