The board decides on the shore, not in the brochure

When Vana, a shipyard in Turku, launched a 12-metre electric passenger vessel, there were few buyers and slow decisions. A city procurement takes 12 to 18 months, and the decision is made by a board whose members have never been on board.

The specifications were fine. The problem was imagination: the board tried to picture, from a drawing in a brochure, how the vessel would look at their own shore on a summer morning.

Procurement is not won at the tender

B2B marketing often assumes that selling starts with the request for tender. In public procurement, though, the tender is written from what its author has already seen and believes is possible. Once the board has watched the vessel glide quietly through the archipelago, a requirement for quiet, emission-free service ends up in the tender.

So we made the material for three readers:

• the board member, who decides on the picture in their head
• the procurement specialist, who needs images and figures for the appendix
• the harbour master, who asks whether the vessel fits the pier.

A film without music

The launch film, “Quietly there”, has no music and no voice. There is only water, wind and gulls. That is what an electric vessel sounds like, and the viewer gets it without a single figure.

The board watched the film and immediately asked when they could take a test ride.

We cut six short versions for LinkedIn and trade fairs. The same images went into the procurement brochure, so the decision maker sees the same vessel in the meeting and in the appendix.

What to take from this

In a long sales cycle, film travels with the buyer from one meeting to the next, long after the launch. In the first year, three cities took a test ride and two placed an order. The full Vana story.