In mid-July, Estonia was shaken by the visit of YouTuber and streamer IShowSpeed. Some chased him through Tallinn on electric scooters, while others had no idea who he even was or why Enterprise Estonia was supporting his Baltic tour with €30,000. Now that some time has passed since the event, Visit Estonia’s Director Anneli Lepp shares her thoughts on what happened.
To be honest, I had not heard much about Speed before his trip to Estonia. I did not realise how many fans he actually has. I did not expect young people to be like CIA agents, picking up on every word he said and figuring out where he would go next. I did not know he was that much of an idol. That surprised even me. But what matters is trying to understand, not to judge.
It was surprising that Speed’s visit created such a media storm – more than 70 local media mentions appeared in the first week alone. Many famous content creators have visited Estonia, but usually that level of interest has not followed. Then again, none of the others have had as many supporters as Speed, who has nearly 80 million followers across different social media platforms.
One of the biggest lessons for me was that we need to stay in touch with the world. One of the most important realisations that has taken shape over time, both through personal experience and feedback from target groups, is how important it is to stay aware of international developments. Marketing decisions are often made based on one’s own experience and age, but that does not necessarily reflect the expectations of the target group. Looking ahead, it is important to understand the wider context and the changing world.
In tourism it is the same – we have to think about the people who will be travelling in the future. Young people get their information from TikTok and other social media platforms, and through that they also influence their parents’ travel decisions.
For example, when I was young, I could not really suggest to my parents where to travel. My seven-year-old son, however, is desperate to go to Japan because he constantly watches travel videos.
We can criticise young people, but even my grandmother used to say that youth is doomed. Her grandmother probably said the same, and so did her grandmother’s grandmother. For some reason, every generation thinks the next one is completely hopeless.
Society is simply moving in the direction where digital media and YouTubers hold power, and people are live 24/7. The question is not whether we like it or not – we cannot really do anything about that. But we should be better informed and not jump straight to criticism.
We controlled the narrative
Friends and acquaintances wrote to me asking why we were spending money on this. It is important to understand that Speed would have come to Estonia anyway – our €30,000 did not bring him here.
His team first contacted a Latvian agency to put together the programme. But we wanted to build the programme ourselves, to have a say, and to control the narrative. We wanted to avoid Estonia being presented as some Soviet country or in any other undesirable way. We wanted to decide how Estonia would be shown. Speed’s team barely changed our programme at all – except for cancelling the Old Town walk for security reasons.
We designed the programme so we could show both our culture and our digital state. In just a couple of days, we had to put together a schedule that would interest him. We got a lot of feedback asking why we did one thing or another – why did we dance the kaerajaan? We wanted to find something distinctly Estonian that would not overlap with the places he was visiting elsewhere. He danced the kaerajaan because it is the easiest dance to teach.
We also received criticism over why he met Prime Minister Kristen Michal. Some accused us of political advertising. Honestly, that was not the case. Initially we asked whether a meeting with President Alar Karis might be possible, but unfortunately he was out of the country. It made no difference which party the prime minister belongs to. We were simply lucky that the prime minister had a free moment and was willing to meet him.
Later I heard from Speed’s manager that their team was happy with everything – we were quick and we came up with an interesting programme. This is completely subjective, but watching the stream, it seemed to me that we did a better job than Latvia and Lithuania.
A huge thank you goes to project manager Kaarel Kõvatu, who worked until late at night to put the programme together and to make the schedule fit. People usually do not realise how intense the work behind events like this actually is.
We need to work harder than the big players
Visit Estonia’s goal is to bring foreign tourists to Estonia and to increase export revenue. By the end of July, Speed’s livestream had reached 7.7 million views.
There are hundreds of clips on TikTok cut from the livestream that took place in Estonia – some of them have over half a million views. These bring traffic to our social media channels and help create travel interest.
Searches for Estonia in the United States rose by 28% over two days. Visit Estonia’s website received 13% more visitors from the US. The stream and clips will continue to live on for a long time – they are not disappearing from the internet anytime soon. It is also important that Latvia and Lithuania were visible too, because from a tourism perspective they are important to us.
We calculated that the value of 7.7 million livestream impressions amounted to €154,000. That is how much we would actually have had to pay to reach an audience of that size. This time, we managed to capture that mass audience five times more cheaply.
Although we received a great deal of criticism, Speed’s visit had positive effects beyond the numbers. The media discussion it sparked certainly helped raise awareness about generational differences and media consumption.
From our point of view, it is positive that marketing was put under such a big spotlight. I want to say that marketing is not a cost – it is an investment in the future. We are now thinking about how to make even more use of this visit among young people. We did the job, but we do not want it to be just a one-off. It needs to create longer-term benefit.
In Estonia and the Baltics, we must not forget that we are very small – the world does not know us. Even when people know the Baltic states exist, they may still have an outdated image of us. They do not know that we are a modern society. As small countries, we simply have to work harder than the big destinations.
To close, a heartfelt passage from the thank-you letter sent to Enterprise Estonia by Bolt and Starship Technologies feels fitting: “This project helped strengthen Estonia’s image as an innovative, open, and creative hub where next-generation mobility, smart logistics, and vibrant cultural heritage come together. We are very pleased with the cooperation and look forward to new opportunities to carry out similar projects in the future. Actions like this not only increase Estonia’s visibility, but also create strong collaboration ties between the private and public sectors.”
Overview of other influencer visits connected to Enterprise Estonia
Treasures of Estonia – Bettany Hughes
Name of invited guest: Bettany Hughes, British historian and host.
Visit period and duration: 2023, 2024, 2025. Up to 10 days on site.
Project or campaign: Treasures of Estonia
Reach: international – BBC World News, BBC Select, Viasat History, Channel 4 UK.
Result: the first season episode has reached nearly 2 billion views worldwide. Advertising value equivalent reached €18 million. The programme was also covered by The Times, Daily Mail, The Sunday Express, The Independent Podcast, BBC Radio 4, and Wanderlust Magazine.
Background: because the cooperation was successful for both sides, the film team decided to return to Estonia, and a second season about Estonia has already been filmed this year.
Kitchen Impossible – Tim Mälzer
Invited guest: Tim Mälzer, celebrity chef from Germany.
Project or campaign: Kitchen Impossible – Baltic special.
Description: a cooking competition in which Tim Mälzer competes against top local chefs. Estonia was represented by Tõnis Siigur and Matthias Diether.
Visit period and duration: September 2023, 3 to 4 days on site.
Result: the programme reached 7.5 million viewers in Germany on VOX, part of the RTL group, with a market share of about 7.2%.
Euronews – Discover Estonia
Invited guest: presenter Anca Ulea.
Visit period and duration: June 2023, 5 days on site.
Project or campaign: Discover Estonia
Result: the TV campaign reached 38 million viewers globally and 141 million impressions. In Europe it reached 24 million viewers and 89 million impressions. The digital campaign generated 1.7 million impressions. Articles were read 52,000 times by 42,000 unique users. Brand awareness grew by 269%, and 66% of viewers considered Estonia a safe destination.
USA – ABC News “Good Morning America”
Invited guest: presenter Maggie Rulli.
Visit period and duration: June 2024.
Project or campaign: Good Morning America – Tips to travel on a budget to Estonia
Result: audience of 2.83 million viewers per episode, making it the largest morning programme in the United States.
Influencers
Giulio Gröbert
Visit period and duration: 25 September to 1 October 2023.
Project or campaign: press trip of German influencer and photographer Giulio Gröbert.
Followers: 3.6 million.
Result: estimated potential impressions across all campaign posts – 111 million. Estimated media value – €980,000.
Kristine Garklava
Visit period and duration: 1 to 5 November 2024.
Project or campaign: press trip of Latvian influencer and public figure Kristine Garklava.
Followers: 78,000.
Result: estimated potential impressions across all campaign posts – 468,000. Estimated media value – €25,000.
Brent Timm and Katie
Visit period and duration: 10 to 19 December 2024.
Project or campaign: press trip of US influencers Brent and Katie.
Followers: 1.5 million across all channels combined.
Result: estimated potential impressions across all campaign posts – 24.6 million. Estimated media value – €2.6 million.
Kjetil Krogstad
Visit period and duration: 30 April to 4 May 2025.
Project or campaign: press trip of Norwegian influencer Kjetil Krogstad in cooperation with Visit Tallinn.
Followers: 1.4 million.
Result: estimated potential impressions across all campaign posts – 9.4 million. Estimated media value – €513,000.
Results of all influencer collaborations in 2024
Influencers involved: 19
Result: estimated potential impressions across all campaign posts – 77.1 million. Estimated media value – €20.7 million.
The article was published on 11 August 2025 on the website of the Estonian Marketing Association.