Tourism advertising has one obvious problem: you can show people almost everything about a destination except what it actually smells like.
Finland’s Turku Archipelago has decided to solve that by hiring someone to smell it for everyone.
The tourism board is recruiting an official “Nose” to spend five to seven days exploring the islands, evaluating everything from sea air and pine forests to saunas and freshly baked bread. The campaign, appropriately called “Get a Nose Job,”stars French actor Lambert Wilson and was created by United Imaginations.
Yes, This Is A Real Job
The joke works because the job itself is genuine.
The successful applicant will receive €2,000 plus travel and accommodation to visit the archipelago in May or June 2027. Their assignment is to smell their way across the region, describe what they encounter and document the experience through photos and video for Visit Turku Archipelago’s social channels.
Applications are equally on-brand. Candidates have until October 25 to post a public Instagram or TikTok video demonstrating their smelling technique and ability to describe a scent. No perfume training is required, although applicants do need the right to work in Finland and must be comfortable on camera.
Lambert Wilson sets the tone in the campaign film, reluctantly sniffing fish soup, sauna, wet wool, rope and even deer droppings while playing up the contrast between Parisian sophistication and the considerably earthier smells of the Finnish archipelago.
Selling The One Thing You Can’t Put In An Ad
That is what makes the idea stronger than the pun.
Destinations usually compete with increasingly beautiful versions of the same assets: beaches, landscapes, hotels, food and sunsets. Turku has chosen something no photograph or video can actually reproduce.
Smell.
By turning that limitation into the campaign itself, Visit Turku Archipelago creates curiosity around an experience people can only fully understand by going there.
And the job gives the idea another life. The recruitment generates applications and social content now. The person eventually hired becomes another content engine when they actually travel through the islands next year.
Most tourism campaigns try to show you what a place feels like.
Turku found a much better reason to go find out for yourself.
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