I was lucky enough to be visiting Tallinn that weekend and went along to see what all the fuss was about, imagine my surprise to see scantilly clad ladies marketing Kaspersky's Anti-Virus software in a way that I have never seen Anti-Virus software marketed before. The three ladies were approximately twenty years of age and all dressed up as little red riding hood but with a more considerable amount of cleavage, incredibly short skirts and fishnet stockings. They were quick to hand out a copy of Kaspersky's "Personal Security" edition of their Anti-Virus product from a woven hand basket. What an incredibly small box, what was inside? A USB memory stick with Kaspersky on it perhaps? It couldn't be a CD, even the mini CDs would not fit in that. Instead I found one packaged condom, not software but "soft-wear"!
I stared at it for a while in disbelief, it was a clever marketing ploy but I wondered whether this kind of marketing would alienate business users. But the more time I spent in Tallinn the more I realised that this was a perfect marketing ploy. Tallinn is the seventh most technologically advanced city in the world and the New York Times recently proclaimed it the "Silicon Valley on the Baltic Sea". Free wi-fi is available all over the city and indeed over a great proportion of the urbanised country. Wherever you go you will see young professionals and students alike with a coffee in one hand and a laptop sitting on park benches or in one of the many new cafes and bars that have sprung up in the wake of communism. Unlike most of the old Eastern Bloc countries, Estonia is managing to retain the young demographic where most other countries are losing the young portion of the population to the West. The answer is simple, Estonia is investing in it's future, it wants people to stay. Kaspersky was marketing to the young dynamic population that is responsible for the likes of Skype and Kazaa ... and it's working. (Thanks to Michal for taking the time to take the photos above)
