The Birch Boost
The birch boost is a project with the aim of exploring the unique qualities of Norwegian birch, and use these qualities to create a marketing boost for the material. I define marketing boost as an over exaggerated promotion aiming to draw attention to a certain matter.
The birch boost is a project challenging designer’s and consumer’s attitude to wood as an alive material, while also trying to spread awareness around the not exploited potential for production of birch in Norway.
«Birch needs a marketing boost in Norway» Nibio employee Katrin Zimmer said in an interview I did with her. I visited forest owner Helge Hvoslef, and he ment that the reason is that forest owners and designers do not take advantage of the birch as a material is because of lack in culture of doing so. Other Scandinavian countries like Finland and Sweden, are producing huge amount of quality birch, and exports it to for instance Norway.
My MA project is an attempt of giving Norwegian birch a new marketing boost. The qualities will be presented in an over exaggerated way to draw focus to the material. I want to dive into the unique qualities and characteristics of birch and present them with the goal of shining light on the potential usage of birch and to give the material new attention. To achieve my goal I need to be controversial when choosing which characteristics to work with and how to present them.
An example of a marketing strategy like this is in the fashion world, with the concept of catwalk.
On a catwalk, designers and fashion houses are presenting their collections and clothes in an over exaggerated way, showing fabrics, colors, seams and cuts. The clothes presented are often not ment to be off-the-rack garments.
