Why Finnish Companies Struggle to Scale Visual Communication Internationally

TL,DRThe most famous and known brands in Finland make outstanding products, and still lack in sales as the motion content crafted by these companies is only Finland-focused. If we talk about a motion designing company in Finland that works for clients globally, the mentioned problem does not relate to the product’s quality but also how well visual communication carries its importance in the international markets. In this blog, we discuss four silent credibility killers that impact visual communication across geographies and show how INKLUSIVE handles them.

The most straightforward evaluation of Finland’s business situation was created by McKinsey in August, 2025. Finland’s successful ventures have been growing at an annual rate of 3% since the last 10 years, whereas the global growing average is 8%. 

The key elements mentioned in the report were: ambition, investment & corporate culture. But then there is one element, which is not stated in the report, that connects with every Finland’s marketing manager involved in negotiations outside. And that is the advantage of visual communication. The moment your brand starts marketing itself abroad, you face something in which the investor knows nothing about your company, unaware about the context, and thus finds motion content meaningless.

That is the exact turning point at which motion design resolves itself, or multiplies the problem. The motion graphic design services in Finland caters to the audience that can be presumed to have shared cultural context and credibility. Markets internationally do not presume credibility.

The most venture capital in Europe is raised by Finland itself., which is setting records for capital raised with its record-setting round for Oura, at $875 million for Series E funding, IQM, at $300 million-plus for Series B and ICEYE at €200 million in fundraising efforts valued at €2.4 billion. These firms are now operating globally and appealing to investors like Fidelity and Ten Eleven, an audience who determines credibility by what they see first.

Scale-Up Moment: The Realities of Visual Communication for Finnish Companies

The following companies are not just fictional examples but also they are at the point in their development where the value of motion communication becomes clear in the terms of valuation, partnerships, and abroad perceptions of the market.

All of them, currently, are making visual content for the following reasons: investor communications, product explanations, partner pitches, presentations, which makes them move from one time zone to another, and also switching from one language and cultural context to another.

Four Friction Points Finnish Brands Face While Scaling Visually

Friction Point #1: Motion Tailored For Slush Won’t Convert In Singapore

The Finnish startup ecosystem created its own visual language through multiple Slush conferences held annually in Helsinki, which recently hosted almost 14k participants from around the world. This is where an ecosystem shorthand works perfectly. Local investors have all the cues about Finnish deeptech credibility and don’t expect the motion graphic design company in Finland to educate them, they only need to convince them.

But this same asset delivered to an institutional investor in Singapore, a procurement manager in Dubai or Series B fund in San Francisco will enter into a completely different context. All of the pace, data representation, and storytelling assumptions that work flawlessly for audiences who understand their ecosystem don’t work for an external audience who don’t have them.

Finnish brands focus primarily on tangible results rather than vanity metrics with the ROI and conversion rate being the main KPIs. And this approach needs to apply to motion design briefs as well. And the answer to the question “What does this brand want to say?” will be “What does this particular international audience need to believe, and within how many seconds?”

INKLUSIVE’s solution to this challenge: Rework the brief based on the needs of a receiving audience, not a sending one. All motion assets created for international audiences will go through the audience analysis stage prior to motion creation. Same story. Different entry point.

Friction Point #2: Team Scaling Destroys Visual Consistency

A Finnish startup that used to make all creative decisions as part of a 5-person founding team at Seed stage now has teams operating out of Helsinki, London, and Singapore in Series B round. All of them create motion assets independently. Which means all of them take slight visual decisions differently. After two financing rounds, one company turns into three different companies visually speaking through its key touchpoints.

As many as 70% of Finnish businesses rank among the weakest in terms of organizational health factors such as resource distribution, with too many of the latter allocated for middle management while sales and technical development suffer. Creative process usually experiences the same – divided across different teams without clear ownership resulting in inconsistencies destroying the credibility that product had.

According to research, visual branding consistency may impact revenue up to 23% positively. But in an international B2B market, where decision-makers evaluate the brand by their LinkedIn presence, pitch deck and conference appearance long before even engaging in direct conversation with a sales representative, this inconsistency becomes a credibility signal in reverse.

INKLUSIVE’s solution to this problem: One Creative Manager takes full responsibility for all outputs. Brand motion system is created from scratch, not a style guide, but the actual creative infrastructure that scales but doesn’t split. All the assets, be it an Helsinki investor presentation or Singapore partner summary, have the same visual language and logic behind them. Standard brief. Same quality bar. Same 48-hour delivery window.

Friction Point 3: Loss of Credibility Due to Oversimplification of Technical Products in International Market

Explanations about quantum computing in front of a Finnish deeptech peer and in front of a European institutional investor who is introduced to this concept for the first time differ drastically. There’s a reason why this kind of failure is inevitable for studios: to communicate with the international audience, the studios simplify, losing credibility. The product gets comprehensible but loses integrity.

Our successes like Oura, IQM, and ICEYE prove that Finnish deeptech is far ahead of many nations in terms of quality. But this advantage comes from technical expertise and substance. By trying to simplify this asset to make it accessible, you lose all its integrity.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” — Leonardo da Vinci

In a case when a Finnish technical brand needs to address the international audience via motion design, one condition can’t be broken: it’s better to simplify communication but never reduce the substance. One verified conclusion per frame. The data presented in the form of a verdict, not just in large volumes. The technical substance remains unaltered in the way it is structured.

INKLUSIVE’s approach to the problem: Dual-audience motion design. The asset can work on two levels simultaneously: the audience sees a straightforward conclusion in seconds while the technical side of the presentation is presented in all its details to be understood by the experts. INKLUSIVE creates a motion design brief for each project with precise audience-level mapping.

Friction Point 4: Sustainability Claims Are Not Interchangeable

A Finnish cleantech company will easily succeed in making its environmental positioning clear within Helsinki: where sustainability standards are well understood, and any greenwashing will be immediately noticed. The transition towards sustainable growth in Finland is currently taking place very rapidly, with more than 79 green projects worth €8.5 billion going to develop throughout the nation in 2025 alone. Thus, Finns have become pretty experienced in assessing sustainability claims.

But this knowledge is not interchangeable, especially if we talk about the visual dimension of it. The same visuals that can be used for your Finnish audience will look like greenwashing to any other audience in the world, because these visual patterns are familiar to anyone. Green icons, leaf motifs, carbon-neutral badges, animations of wind turbines, this is all a visual equivalent of greenwashing in international markets.

INKLUSIVE’s approach to the problem: Sustainability is designed structurally, not visually. It’s embedded into the way data is sequenced, presented, highlighted. It manifests in the way the visual identity of the asset looks: in its moderation and restraint. Sustainability will not be included in the asset as an additional value point, it will shape the brief since the start of the process.

What the Right Brief Looks Like at Each Stage of Global Growth

It’s at this stage that most Finnish companies fail to convince their investors. An asset made for Seed will not do well at Series B. A brief made for a domestic audience does not convince foreigners.

On average, sales presentations will be shared internally with 3.7 people who did not attend the initial pitch meeting. In Finnish B2B transactions with a global reach, which are evaluated by procurement teams across multiple time zones, that figure would almost certainly be higher. Motion content designed to work exclusively with a live presenter in the room is not a sales tool. It is a liability that multiplies exponentially with every additional internal reviewer of the presentation who does not receive the material in person.

INKLUSIVE’s Operating Standard: Applied to Finnish Brands

INKLUSIVE is a creative studio working with more than 780 brands in global markets, ranging from Brookfield Asset Management, Salesforce, Carrier Corporation, Hero MotoCorp, and ABInBev. The sheer diversity of that list of clients is not a portfolio statistic. Rather, it is a unique discipline in its own right, allowing INKLUSIVE to understand the demands of visual content based on the market, the buyer, and the stage of funding required before even determining the design of the motion.

Beyond the realm of a traditional creative motion graphic design agency that produces motion graphics, INKLUSIVE’s operations ensure alignment between the output and the expectations of the market, buyer psyche, and deal stage.

For all Finnish brands at any phase of their international growth, the process follows a simple logic of results over aesthetics:

• A designated Creative Manager undergoes a training session focused on the client brand, its industry, targeted markets, and buyer demographics, and handles all outputs thereafter as a single point of accountability
• All deliverables, motion design, explainer videos, investor pitches, data visualisations, and social media content are delivered within two days, subject to an eight-step quality control measure on each file
• Two versions of each project created by default: a live presentation format, and a self-converting format designed for independent review by every subsequent stakeholder
• Flexible plans can grow, pause, or adjust volume according to what the client’s pipeline demands at any given time, with no contractual restrictions or penalties

“Good design is good business.” — Thomas J. Watson Jr., Former CEO, IBM

Of all the best motion design companies in Finland operating in international space, the distinction does not lie in quality of delivery. Rather, it lies in designing the motion to foster belief in the minds of an international audience, not simply in creating visually appealing designs.

The Finnish government recently issued a document titled “Growth Strategy for the Creative Economy 2025–2030,” which explicitly outlines the intent to promote internationalisation and increase the international visibility of Finnish brands. However, closing the gap between intent and practical success requires motion design tailored to the standards demanded by international markets, rather than to the standards applied domestically.

The Point

Finnish companies that have been highly successful domestically, including Oura ($1.5B in projected revenue by 2026), ICEYE (operational in five allied nations), and IQM (solidifying Europe’s position in quantum computing), do not face issues of product quality. On occasion, however, they are constrained by the discrepancy between the precise mechanisms of their products’ functionality and the degree to which these mechanisms are comprehended by international evaluators. Operating as a motion design company in Finland, INKLUSIVE ensures motion designs start with the questions of the international audience, not the assumptions of the brand. From that point on, the brief is written, and for Finnish brands seeking to grow internationally, that is the key to motion that explains and converts.