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TEEMU SUVIALA: "WHEN THERE'S AN ATMOSPHERE OF TRUST, YOU LOOSEN UP, HAVE FUN AND TAKE MORE RISKS"

Mark Tungate 2024-07-10

The Global CCO of Landor talks about building a creative environment around a culture of connectivity and confidence. 

TEEMU SUVIALA: "WHEN THERE'S AN ATMOSPHERE OF TRUST, YOU LOOSEN UP, HAVE FUN AND TAKE MORE RISKS"#2

Photo by Aleksi Niemelä

When Teemu Suviala strolls up to the café table in Cannes, the first things I notice are his oversized steel-rimmed spectacles and stylish attire, with plenty of colour and texture. Once we get chatting, I’m not surprised to discover that he’s passionate about all forms of design, including fashion.

“I’m a fairly new spectacles wearer,” he smiles, when I praise his choice of eyewear, “so I’m trying out different things.”

Experimentation is part of his job description – and maybe even his mission in life. He was appointed Global Chief Creative Officer of Landor in February 2023 after five years at Meta. (“They were great people,” he says of Meta. “The gulf between the way the media portrayed us and what I experienced was sometimes disheartening.”)

Born in Finland, he started out as a cartoonist at the age of just 15. “There was a magazine in Finland, a little like a raunchier version of MAD magazine. I sent the editor some of my cartoons, not really expecting anything. He called me back a month later and said: ‘How would you like your own page in the magazine?’ So that’s where my journey started.”

When he was 18 he applied to design school, intending to become an illustrator. His interests soon veered towards graphic design: “I’d always been interested in graffiti, typographical forms, record covers…But the school opened my mind to other areas of design as well, from industrial design to all things interactive. In Finland it’s easy to get close to your fellow design students if you’re curious, so I was constantly exposed to other disciplines.”

The power to transform

Multi-disciplinarity is very much at the heart of Landor, as evidenced by its own multi-sensorial brand: a watery new logo, an ultramarine colour palette and “an always moving system that pushes water to new extremes.” When Walter Landor founded the company in 1941, it was based on a boat in San Francisco harbour. Teemu explains: “Today Landor’s brand nods to that pioneering heritage, but also inspires and unites the globally diverse group around a common purpose: to position brands for competitive advantage.”

He adds that, over the last few years, Landor has been growing both geographically and in terms of its offering. The latter can be divided into three sections: Consulting, Design and Experience. This toolkit is bolstered by specialists within the group: sonic branding experts amp; architectural design practice BDG; motion design specialist ManvsMachine, and creative technology and experience design company Deeplocal.

TEEMU SUVIALA: "WHEN THERE'S AN ATMOSPHERE OF TRUST, YOU LOOSEN UP, HAVE FUN AND TAKE MORE RISKS"#3

“The purpose of the recent rebranding was to clarify what we do and tell this new story. But we didn’t want to lose the origin story, so we expressed our legacy as a company that was founded on water. There’s a comparison between the transformative power of water and the power we have to transform brands.”

As we’re in Cannes, I ask about the overlap between advertising, design and branding. Landor is part of WPP and often collaborates with the ad agencies in its network. “The borders between these worlds are blurring,” Teemu agrees, “but the idea is always at the centre. A client comes to you with a problem, you interrogate that problem, and then you find the best possible path to solving it.”

He was hired by Landor to “elevate creativity”, which in practice means building a culture that celebrates ideas, is obsessed with craft, and is willing to take risks. He mentions creating an atmosphere of “psychological safety”, which he feels is vital in any organisation. “When there’s an atmosphere of trust, you loosen up, have fun and take more risks.”

Another aspect of his job is about breaking down the silos between disciplines. “I really believe in a multi-dimensional creative organisation. On the one hand you have a classic pyramidal reporting structure, but on top of that you have a spiderweb of connections. Almost like a neural network, where each individual is one neuron, and they’re constantly connecting to create new circuits. Within those unexpected connections, ideas rise up.”

Innovating from a solid core

Teemu has remarked elsewhere about the need to simplify brands in a world saturated with messages and experiences. “You touch your phone about 2500 times a day – double that if you’re a heavy user. There are so many interactions now, whether they’re coming from human beings or brands, that it’s a really messy environment.”

To break through, brands – and maybe humans too – need to define their identities. What are their beliefs, values, their mission, what do they want to contribute? The watchwords for a successful brand, Teemu suggests, are “simplicity, relevance and difference”.

“Once you have that simplicity and your relevant difference established, it makes you more resilient, so you can try new things. It’s really hard to experiment when you have a messy core, because everything can fall apart. If the core is solid, you can be braver with far less danger of collateral damage.”

You touch your phone about 2500 times a day – double that if you’re a heavy user. There are so many interactions now...that it’s a really messy environment

At Cannes, Landor showcased its work for the Milan Symphony Orchestra, which also has a beautiful simplicity to it. The branding references three elements: the Duomo cathedral, music, and the Futurism art movement. “The challenge was: how do you visualise music in a way that’s true to Milan and the orchestra?”

Of course there’s also a sonic element. Teemu encourages brands to embrace touchpoints beyond the visual, including wearable devices and haptics. Even neural implants may not be far away. That may sound scary to some of us, but it’s not in Teemu’s nature to recoil from innovation.

“I sometimes say I have a Buddhist approach to design. In Buddhism, the struggle comes from resisting change. It’s better to go with it. If there’s a wave coming, it’s better to surf it.”




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