The K-Group celebrates Finland's centenary and Finnish inventiveness with life hacks – clever practical tips

KESKO PRESS RELEASE 06.02.2017

The K-Group's joint Finland 100 project puts the spotlight on tights, life hacks and Finnish inventiveness. In honour of the centenary, the K-Group is looking for the best life hack of all time. It will release 100 life hack videos and a documentary analysing the Finnish national character from the perspective of life hacks. Throughout the year, a special bus will traverse the land of a thousand life hacks. The creator of the best life hack of all time will be awarded a K-gift voucher worth EUR 10,000.

Since 1974, Finns have suggested 100,000 life hacks for inclusion in the Niksi-Pirkka life hack column in the Pirkka magazine, and 40,000 of the tips have been published. It could even be said that the international life hack trend was originally invented in Finland. The K-Group celebrates Finland's centenary and Finnish creative craziness with life hacks.

Life hacks have always reflected their times. At the beginning, it was mainly women who developed shortcuts to make their everyday lives easier in a time when the country was less well off. Nowadays, life hackers come in all shapes and sizes, and many of the tricks are based on recycling, environmental friendliness or the power of the mind: fruit flies are less annoying if you imagine they are fairies. Modern life hacks can help people with things such as keeping their smartphones clean – for some reason, tights often seem to be involved.

"Finland is well known around the world for Nokia, Angry Birds and its education system, but the idea that Finns are slightly crazy folk seems just as prevalent. Life hacks combine a typically Finnish ability to take a practical approach to solving problems with a desire to share good things, but often in a rather tongue-in-cheek way," says Lauri Peltola, Executive Vice President at Kesko.

A special bus will tour Finland looking for the best life hack of all time

In honour of the centenary, the K-Group will release a documentary analysing the development of the Finnish national character from the perspective of life hacks. The documentary, entitled "Land of a thousand life hacks", will be shown on the Nelonen and Jim TV channels this week.

In the spring and summer, we will also be looking for the best life hack of all time and the hacker who created it. The K-Group will film and release 100 life hack videos. The public and a panel of judges will select the ten best life hacks for the final round, and the winner as voted for by the public will be revealed on Pirkka day – 1 September 2017. The creator of the best life hack of all time will be awarded a K-gift voucher worth EUR 10,000.

Throughout the competition, an orange life hack bus will travel the length and breadth of Finland, stopping at over 80 K-Rauta and K-Citymarket locations, as well as at summer festivals and other events. The life hack bus will contain an exhibition of the most popular life hacks and a video corner where people can enter the competition with their own life hack video. The life hack bus will begin its journey in Greater Helsinki, and it will make its first stops at K-Citymarket Koivukylä (10 February 2017) and K-Citymarket Itäkeskus (11 February 2017).

The 20 life hack videos in the first preliminary qualifying round were released today. To view the competition and cast a vote, visit http://www.niksienmaa.fi/. The website also shows the timetable for the life hack bus tour. You can also take in the atmosphere of the bus tour and watch life hack videos on the Niksi-Pirkka Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/NiksiPirkka/. 

Did you know?

• The Niksi-Pirkka story began in edition 1–2/1974 of the Pirkka magazine. The first life hacks included giving men's shirts a new lease of life as pillowcases and placing a soft towel at the bottom of the kitchen sink to protect valuable porcelain crockery.
• Since 1974, Finns have suggested more than 100,000 life hacks for inclusion in the Niksi-Pirkka life hack column in the Pirkka magazine. 40,000 of these life hacks have been published.
• Reading all 100,000 life hacks would take the average person about ten days – without any breaks.
• The life hacks published in the Niksi-Pirkka column feature 1,881 different tools. The most frequently used tools are tights, plastic bags, mobile phones, socks and plastic bottles. New tools quickly find their way into life hacks – one example is the selfie stick.

Further information:
Lauri Peltola, Executive Vice President, marketing, communications, responsibility and corporate relations, tel: +358 505 705 606, lauri.peltola@kesko.fi.
Jaakko Mäntyranta, Communications Officer, grocery trade division, tel: +358 50 371 7823, jaakko.mantyranta@kesko.fi.

The 45,000 exceptionally nice people of the K-Group work daily to make shopping fun for customers in our stores in the Nordic countries, the Baltic countries, Poland, Russia and Belarus. We help our more than 1,500 stores serve their customers in the grocery trade, the building and technical trade, and the car trade. We do our work with big heart while paying attention to society and the environment. We are already the most responsible food retailer in the world and are constantly trying out something new. We are doing this to provide good choices both on the shelves of the local stores and online. www.kesko.fi

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