1. Starting Point

Kela needed to guide its customers through different stages of their service paths and offer high-quality, journalistic content about Kela’s benefits and services – as a counterbalance to hearsay. Communication about social security had to become more relatable and easier to understand.

Kela has collaborated with Otavamedia since 2016, when the planning and development of Kela’s Elämässä.fi customer online media began. The platform was launched at the beginning of 2017.
  
Elämässä.fi was renewed in 2021 and again in early 2025. During the latest renewal, Otavamedia worked with Kela to create new, engaging editorial concepts that serve the media’s purpose even better, along with a fresh new visual identity.

2. Overview

Otavamedia’s solution was a human-centered online media, Elämässä.fi, featuring authentic and touching customer stories. These stories help readers understand what social security can mean in various life situations – their own or their loved ones’. The content offers peer support, suggests solutions, and guides customers through different stages of Kela’s service path, such as kela.fi and OmaKela e-service. As a counterbalance to rumors, Elämässä.fi provides high-quality, human-centered, and expert-driven journalistic content about Kela’s benefits and services.

Otavamedia conceptualized and launched the media in 2017, with renewals in 2021 and again in early 2025. In 2021, video content was added to make the stories even more vivid. The latest renewal focused on both the editorial concepts and visual appearance – both redesigned by Otavamedia in close cooperation with Kela. The concepts were refined together in joint workshops.

The renewed story concepts were designed to stand out more distinctly from Kela’s other channels in terms of content. Elämässä.fi was defined as the channel that operates on an emotional level, while Kela’s other web channels serve as sources of information. To achieve this, four distinct story concepts were developed – each narrating the everyday lives of ordinary people from different perspectives.

The new visual identity was built with a mobile-first mindset. According to user data, a growing number of visitors accessed the media via mobile devices, so the design needed to function especially well on mobile. The color palette was refreshed to align with Kela’s renewed brand colors. The media, long known for its warm yellow tones, adopted a new, fresh pastel palette. Typography was also brought closer to Kela’s brand. Accessibility was a key design principle throughout – all articles are also available in audio format.

The renewed imagery of Elämässä.fi follows Kela’s brand photography concept but takes it one step further, focusing even more on human emotion. Photos and videos depict everyday life authentically and tell the story powerfully through visuals.

The renewal also considered the integration of online articles into Kela’s social media channels, supporting both audience growth and brand recognition. Articles are adapted into short-form stories and videos optimized for social media.

3. Results

Together with Kela, we have evaluated the Elämässä.fi website using both quantitative and qualitative goals. Quantitatively, ambitious visitor targets were set. Over the years, Otavamedia has produced more than 500 Elämässä.fi customer stories in Finnish and Swedish. These stories reach nearly half a million Finns annually. Traffic has been driven effectively through strong SEO optimization, complemented by Kela’s own paid campaigns. Reader engagement with Elämässä.fi content – both on the website and social media – has steadily increased year after year.

The most important qualitative goal has been communicating complex social security benefits in a clear and understandable way through personal stories. The stories have successfully guided customers to Kela’s correct service paths via embedded links. At the same time, the media has strengthened Kela’s brand image as an approachable and encouraging source of reliable information.