Music Wins

Teosto is generally known as a Finnish organization for music creators, but the scope of its operations and its international significance remain unknown to many. The internationalization of the music industry brings with it a wide variety of needs: from the perspective of Teosto, a young creator aiming for global markets and an estate preserving the heritage of classical music represent very different types of stakeholders.

As an organization for music creators and publishers, it is important for Teosto to be able to operate in an increasingly international and technological music licensing market, where music is used in ever-new ways.

At the same time, the spread of artificial intelligence is shaping music creation, challenging copyrights, and increasing the need to emphasize the value of authentic, human-made music. These market changes created pressure to update Teosto's strategy. To support the internal and external communication of the updated strategy, Teosto's brand identity was also clarified.

The brand renewal process widely involved both music creators and music users. A key question was clarifying the brand’s target audience. Although Teosto serves the entire field of music industry operators, future music creators, for whom internationalism is a natural part of their activities, were defined as the brand’s primary target audience.

The renewed brand identity crystallized into the promise:

‍Music wins.

The slogan combines both sides of Teosto’s purpose. It reflects optimism toward the future of music, belief in creativity and expression, and the flourishing of new generations of music creators. At the same time, it underlines Teosto’s role in ensuring that when music wins, music creators receive fair compensation for it. Because music only wins when music creators also win.

We wanted to ensure that the renewal also speaks to current stakeholders. We updated the brand personality and visual look; we kept the familiar logo but created new, modern ways to use it. Brand elements were linked to the world of music in a more relevant way than before, and a touch of edginess that resonates with the target audience was introduced.

The visual identity takes its cues directly from the way music is made. Inspired by chords, rhythms and sampling pads, we created a visual language that is vibrant, dynamic and alive. The graphic elements bring the energy and movement of music into the identity, creating a distinctive system that can constantly shift, combine and evolve: much like music itself.

The desire was to link the brand renewal to the updated strategy, and therefore it was important that Teosto’s entire management team and board of directors made a strong contribution to the work.

The renewed brand strategy and identity was introduced internally in 2026.

Teosto’s Director of Communications, Vappu Aura, summed up the sentiment: “The project progressed consistently and on schedule throughout the entire journey, but in such a way that enough space was left for the participation of relevant parties, creative thinking, and innovation.”