Visit Sweden has a clear but challenging objective: with extremely limited funds, create global awareness about, and interest in, Sweden as a destination. This means that a campaign not only has to present appealing locations, but also be so interesting that media all over the world picks up the story. For this campaign, it was also important that we presented locations all across Sweden. The brief was to come up with and execute a global PR driven campaign (with The US, United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands as main markets). The objectives were to generate global impact and present Swedish destinations via organic articles and on visitsweden.com.

With a minimal budget we had to think outside the box. The idea to reclaim the names from IKEA gave us the opportunity to show our beautiful destinations in an interesting, engaging and PR-friendly way. The campaign started with a big event by lake Bolmen, where we unveiled the lake’s new, official slogan: Bolmen – more than an IKEA toilet brush. The event was hosted by local politicians and drew both residents and media. In the film we told the story about how IKEA had stolen the names and showed even more destinations. Both activities were distributed through a global press release. In addition to this we had some digital assets, native articles and, of course, visitsweden.com where we had a guide to the 21 Swedish destinations.

We decided to use IKEA’s fame and pop cultural status because of three main reasons. 1: it was extremely relevant – IKEA’s products and our places share the same names. 2: IKEA’s product names were already generating engagement and interest, and had been used for entertainment in stand-up comedy, memes, Youtube sketches and talkshows like Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and The Ellen Show. 3: The idea made it possible to present tourism destinations in a surprising, engaging and news-worthy way.

The key message was ”Discover the originals” – referring to the places that has given name to IKEA products. The target audience were global tourists interested in unique and unexploited destinations. The integrated PR campaign consisted of an event where we unveiled lake Bolmen’s new official slogan, a film that told the full story, social assets, merch and of course the press release.

The campaign started with a big event by lake Bolmen, where we unveiled the lake’s new, official slogan: Bolmen – more than an IKEA toilet brush. The event was hosted by local politicians and drew both residents and media. Material from the event was used in the press release that was distributed the next day, together with an entertaining film in which we told the story (about how IKEA had stolen the names) and showed even more destinations. In addition to this we had some digital assets, native articles and, of course, visitsweden.com where we had a guide to 21 Swedish destinations. We decided to work with slogans because it was relevant, but also because of the connection to pop culture. Everyone knows ”I love NY” and ”What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”. And in that world our slogans really stood out.

The results exceeded everyone’s expectations and the set goals. The campaign generated more than 700 articles and 300 blog posts in 49 countries, with a potential organic reach of 2,1 billion. The story was covered by news-, travel-, lifestyle- and design media, including CNN, BBC, The Fast Company, Lonely Planet and Apartment Therapy. The impact was also reflected on visitsweden.com, where ”average time on page” increased with 82 %, to 7,49 min.

The few native articles we had performed really well, a proof that consumers really engaged with the story. ”Number of readers” exceeded the goals with 148 % and dwell time was 176 % over benchmark. The paid views for the 15 s versions beat benchmark on most points. For example, in the UK the completion rate was 88 % (benchmark 70 %).

All measurable results show that the campaign had great impact on both media and consumers.