Hartwall and Freedomly: the benefits of a freelance partner for a large brand company

Challenge

Dozens of brands, needs that change fast

Misme Halonen leads Hartwall's paid media team, which plans, runs and optimises campaigns for more than 30 brands — from local favourites such as Original Long Drink, Novelle and Vichy to global partners such as Heineken and VSPT. With this many brands, needs change from one week to the next, often very quickly. For the team to keep up, external partners have to move at the same pace.

The traditional options — a large agency or hiring more in-house staff — cannot always adapt to sudden, changing needs as fast as the business creates them.

Freelancers are a natural solution here: speed, flexibility and often lower costs. For a large company, however, working with them is heavy in practice. Finding and evaluating the right people takes time, and few teams have time to spare. Every new freelancer means agreeing payment terms and setting up a new supplier. <b>A good idea easily goes unrealised.</b>

Solution

The benefits of freelancers, without the friction

Misme is responsible for the cooperation between Hartwall and Freedomly. Freedomly works as a turnkey partner: Hartwall gets the benefits of freelancers without having to search for and evaluate the right people or handle the administration.

“I would never have enough time to search the open market for different freelancers. The fact that Freedomly handles the evaluation and gives us a few ready options is what makes using freelancers possible in the first place. Invoicing also goes quickly and smoothly through Freedomly: we don’t have to agree payment terms separately with every freelancer or go through all the administrative work that setting up a new supplier requires in a large company.”

Misme Halonen

Head of Paid Media

How it works

A simple, scalable model

The model is deliberately simple. Hartwall doesn’t have to run the whole process itself — describing the need is enough, and the work moves forward without extra steps.

01

Brief

Hartwall describes the need

02

Introductions

Freedomly presents a few selected freelancers with their rates

03

Selection

Hartwall picks the best fit

04

Delivery

The assignment continues directly with the freelancer

The freelancers you hire become a group of trusted talent that every team can easily use.

Continuity is what makes it run smoothly. “All our projects go through the same contact person, who has learned our needs and knows which freelancers we have used before,” Halonen says.

Results

Faster and more cost-effective access to the right talent

Hartwall’s teams find the right person quickly and cost-effectively, and the choice isn’t limited to a small group of freelancers. When the right skills are always available, more ideas move from plan to finished work. “This has made it possible for us to respond to campaign needs that would otherwise go unrealised because of the schedule,” Halonen says.

The same shows in urgent projects. When a media campaign suddenly needed summery, UGC-style video material, the right freelancer was found immediately.

“Above all, working with Freedomly has given us real speed and agility. Turnaround times for individual projects have clearly become shorter.”

Misme Halonen

Head of Paid Media

Along with speed, the model has also proved cost-effective — without compromising on quality.

“Not every project needs a large team,” Halonen says. “With Freedomly we can quickly find the right specialist for a specific need. Sometimes one expert is enough; other times a larger team or an agency partner is the best solution. The most important thing is to choose the most suitable way of working for each project.”