What do F-Secure and the loveable Moomin trolls have in common? The answer is that they both originate in Finland and both are internationally recognized, albeit for different things. F-Secure struck on the idea to combine marketing forces with the Moomins for the consumer product F-Secure Internet Security 2006 and following the launch in April this year sales in Japan are showing very healthy signs.
The Moomins first appeared in a series of books by Finnish writer Tove Jansson published in her native Swedish in 1945. The carefree life and adventures of this family of Scandinavian trolls with their large snouts and stout round bodies was a success with Scandinavian audiences. Their growing success in the rest of Europe was helped along by their appearance in the form of a comic strip in English carried in the London Evening News less than a decade later. These were also syndicated in other languages making the Moomins increasingly known among children and adults around the world.
The last strip was published in 1975 but their modern renaissance came when the Japanese turned the characters into an animation series thus guaranteeing their continued popularity in Europe and new interest in Asia. The Moomin characters' enormous popularity in Japan is not solely thanks to an enthusiastic audience of children - many generations of Japanese also enjoy the offbeat adventures of these characters and their cartoon-like qualities are well suited to the Anime phenomenon so characteristic of the Japanese.
To add to the general humour that the Moomins bring to F-Secure's product line, the co-branded version was released at the turn of March into April and many pundits assumed that the announcement was an April Fool's Day hoax. But true it was - the new version of the F-Secure Internet Security 2006 product completewith the Moomin user interface was released in Japan as a box product and later made available in Japanese and English on sale at the F-Secure e-store later that month.
Speaking at the launch, Mikko Hypponen, the Chief Research Officer at F-Secure was quick to draw a comparison of virus writers with the Moomin characters' only major criminal, Stinky, who's antics often cause trouble in the otherwise peaceful Moominvalley. Hypponen also pointed out F-Secure's wish to be as forthright and energetic as Jansson's Little My character in its efforts to defeat the bad guys. F-Secure for its part will continue to develop its consumer product to ensure that everyone under its protection can enjoy a safe surfing experience.
This sentiment was also echoed by F-Secure's Global Marketing Director, Pär Andler who stated: "Through the new Moomin-version of its Internet Security 2006 product, F-Secure believes that Internet users from now on can experience that unique feeling of safety that has become a trademark of the Moominvalley, and with their families enjoy that general atmosphere of things being pretty much as they should be. Just like in Moominvalley.
The Moomin user interface version of Internet Security 2006 is available at
F-Secure's e-store: click here
Author: Mark Woods, Corporate Communicator
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