Finnish insurer set YouTube's Hydraulic Press Channel on fire

A Finnish business insurer wanted to reach entrepreneurs without 'simply selling insurance', working with YouTube's Hydraulic Press Channel (1.5M+ followers) in the star's first large-scale Finnish brand deal.

A 90-second video mirroring Lauri Vuohensilta's authentic production style: he crushes a box of matches, then a gas lighter, then a pack — which explodes and engulfs his arm in flames until a teammate douses him with an extinguisher. The video then reveals Lauri and 270,000 Finnish entrepreneurs like him face unexpected dangers daily, ending with a controlled-stunt warning.

No view or sales figures reported. Lauri had over 1.5 million YouTube followers worldwide and had been featured by the Washington Post, Gizmodo and the London Metro.

LBB reported in November 2016 that Finnish business insurer LähiTapiola had teamed up with Lauri Vuohensilta of the Hydraulic Press Channel — famous for crushing a PlayStation, a diamond, a typewriter, a bowl of fruit and a Rubik's Cube — for a video created by agency hasan & partners.

In the minute-and-a-half video, made in Lauri's regular production style, he attempts to crush a box of matches, then a single gas lighter, before finishing with a pack of lighters that unexpectedly explodes, engulfing his arm in flames until a team member extinguishes him. The film then pivots to its point: Lauri and 270,000 other Finnish entrepreneurs face unexpected dangers every day and should take care of safety and insurance at work, closing with a warning that it was a controlled stunt.

Creative director Mikael Nemeschansky said the goal was an 'authentic look and feel' mirroring the channel's style, calling the work 'a public service announcement-cum-advert that's humorous yet packs a serious message'. Vuohensilta added that safety at work was close to his heart: 'Accidents can happen when you least expect them and so I felt this was an important story to tell.'

Entrepreneurs skip insurance ads, so the brand went where they already were — a 1.5M-follower YouTube channel.

The host's real mishap dramatises workplace risk better than any scripted safety claim.

Matching the channel's lo-fi style keeps the ad native; the reveal reframes it as a PSA.

A creator who genuinely cares about safety makes the message feel chosen, not bought.

Native advertising works when the brand disappears into the creator's format: the accident is the ad, and the insurance message is the punchline.

The video ran in November 2016 as Vuohensilta's first collaboration with a Finnish brand on this scale. No performance results were reported.