Case Secto Automotive Labs: Promoting sustainable driving through positive publicity
In December 2022, we established our own development department, Secto Automotive Labs. Its main purpose is to promote the necessity of sustainable change through positive and interesting communication.
Already during Secto Automotive Labs’ inaugural year, solid foundation and credibility were established to its operations. Visibility was achieved mainly through competitions. The Labs rally team was the first one to use “electric fuel” – fuel manufactured of carbon dioxide and fossil-free hydrogen – during the 2021 season, with low-fossil lubricants following in 2022. In 2023, these innovations went through ca. four thousand test kilometres.
In the 2023 rally season, driver duo Heikki Kovalainen and Janni Hussi featured in the Secto Automotive Labs team. Their commitment to the values and communication of the project helped us gain significant visibility and raise discussion about the versatility of sustainable driving. In 2024, Secto Automotive Labs concentrated on promoting the message of sustainability through media, events and international collaboration partnerships. Several leading car manufacturers use the low-fossil lubricant developed within the Secto Automotive Labs framework.
Collaboration with Schaeffler Group, known for its innovations in movement technology, in introducing our low-fossil lubricant in the Innovation Taxi project generated a lot of international visibility. Schaeffler has been the innovation partner of DTM series since 2023. The Audi R8 LMS GT2 of Innovation Taxi is an impressive technology platform that is used for example at exhibition races. Besides electric fuel, sustainable lubricants are the latest innovative addition to DTM Innovation Taxi project for the 2024 and 2025 seasons.
Our goal is to be the thought leader of sustainable driving
The most important task of Secto Automotive Labs is to actively communicate the message of sustainable driving to the most important target groups: automotive industry operators, clients, collaboration partners and societal decision-makers – both in Finland and internationally.
Our goal is to be the thought leader of sustainable driving. We want to be profiled as the experts in future driving. We have held influencer presentations in several important economic, sustainability and car sports events. Race driver Heikki Kovalainen and CEO Matias Henkola have featured as our speakers.
We will strengthen our collaboration with Heikki Kovalainen, who is one of the most famous and most popular race drivers in the world. Kovalainen has played a significant role in our collaboration ventures since 2022, and already during our first common season he developed into an extremely committed and competent promoter for sustainable driving. Our influencer vision for 2025 is to be even more clearly present through him.
Secto is the main partner of the Finnish WRC rally. This collaboration has brought Secto Automotive Labs wide publicity in the world’s biggest car sports media, the most significant of which being DirtFish, a publication out of United States with more than a million followers in social media for its videos and articles. In 2024, Secto was mentioned in almost 70 publications, while five publications were created purely out of Secto Automotive Labs and Secto. The operations of Secto Automotive Labs have been visibly covered also by Finnish newspapers and financial publications.