Posts Tagged Business
Oil exploitation in the North Sea: Looking to the future
Posted by admin in Photos and videos on March 27, 2010
Marketing genius, Norwegian style
Posted by admin in News, Uncategorized on December 19, 2009
How do you market a destination? Well, you can do it the traditional way, spending millions of pounds or dollars advertising in magazines, newspapers, on TV and on the net. Or you can, with a bit of imagination, come up with something more effective – and cheaper. But you have to think outside the box. Scandinavians have always been good at this, and the Norwegians proved it again this month by marketing their country in a rather unexpected way.
I’m talking of course about the two online games that have been doing the rounds recently, both of them developed by Innovation Norway, the people behind Visit Norway. The first one, My Northern Lights, is a tool that allows you to create a beautiful on-screen aurora borealis to share with the world (while at the same time learning more about Tromsø and northern Norway). It’s been popping up on many a Norway-related blog and website in the past fortnight, and some 4,200 ’skies’ have already been created.
But the real cracker has been the Holmenkollen Ski Jump 2. The game, which was only launched a few days ago (16 Dec), was played over 500,000 times in the first 24 hours alone. In fact it was so popular that the server called it quit for a while on the first day, as it couldn’t handle the demand. When you think it cost a mere 300,000 kroner to develop, it becomes obvious it was a very smart business decision. It’s also a great way to reach out to a younger audience, and promote Oslo, and Norway, as a holiday destination to millions around the world (the game is available in 9 languages). Impressive stuff.
The first version of the game, which was launched in 2006 and was available in English, German and Norwegian only, has been downloaded 130 million times by some 16 million players worldwide, with 3 million of those then continuing on from the game page to the Visit Oslo page. If the success of the new game is anything to go by, the future looks promising for Visit Oslo, and the Nordic World Ski Championships in 2011.
Try them for yourself:
Østfold in Pictures: Borregaard, Sarpsborg
Posted by admin in Photos and videos on November 10, 2009
Business and economy
Posted by admin in Uncategorized on November 10, 2009
The most important business sectors in Østfold are farming, forestry and industry. Timber converting is what drives the local industry – many of the newspapers sold in Europe come from timber from the huge forests in Indre Østfold. Borregaard in Sarpsborg, located by one of Norway’s most powerful waterfalls, is probably the most famous. The other two are Peterson Group in Moss (you’ll see the heaps of sawdust near Møller byen if you go there), and Saugbruksforeningen in Halden (a huge plant in the Tistedal Valley). All three export billions of Norwegian kroner worth of goods each year and are also major players on the global market.
Halden is emerging as one of the country’s major IT cities (the Institute for Energy Technology, aka IFE, Østfold University College and various other IT companies are all located here), while Fredrikstad is home to many food companies. Tourism potential is also big, with attractions such as Gamlebyen in Fredrikstad, the Fredriksten Fortress in Halden, and the Hvaler archipelago attracting quite a few tourists in summer. But so far it’s mainly Norwegians and Swedes from south of the border who’ve been taking advantage of the huge potential the region has to offer.