Fortum and the City of Stockholm decided to work together to light up dark and unsafe areas using energy-efficient light sources. The city’s inhabitants were asked to identify areas that needed better lighting in order to create a safer and more pleasant city.

The hunt for the darkest places in Stockholm took place over a period of seven weeks. Voting was encouraged through an integrated brand campaign. The strategy was to use interest among the general public and the media in order to promote the campaign and therefore attract visitors to Fortum’s website. There was a dark Google map on the website, where people could nominate places and follow the vote. The people from Stockholm were able to get involved in the campaign using their mobiles, Facebook, Twitter, forums and blogs. The media was also involved and put the spotlight on the project. Getting people involved helped to promote this campaign, which was widely advertised through PR and social media. Almost 400 locations were nominated and more than 22,000 votes had been cast. Getting more lighting in the city became everyone’s concern and six dark places now enjoy better lighting because of Fortum and are now safer because of the people of Stockholm.

The hunt for the six darkest places in Stockholm took place over a period of seven weeks. The vote was promoted through an integrated brand campaign. All PR activities guided traffic to the Fortum’s website, where people could nominate and vote for different places. The website’s visitors could vote for locations by putting a lamp on a dark Google map or they could also nominate a place using their mobile.The media in Stockholm were lobbied and angles were used in the publicity work to create greater involvement. A collaboration was also started with inner city newspapers, which encouraged readers to vote for dark places in their particular area.Using social media as the starting point, a map was created of vulnerable people who go out in the dark, for example, dog owners, athletes and bar staff. The project was then communicated via blogs, Facebook and different forums.

The PR project was developed to ensure full activation in all communication disciplines. The involvement of the city’s population was the force behind the campaign. The PR activities had a total reach of 4.4 million people. PR was spread widely, with the project being highlighted on TV and radio, and in print media, the web, blogs, twitter tweets, entries on Facebook and on different forums.After the voting was over, almost 400 locations had been nominated and more than 22,000 votes had been cast. Fortum’s partner, the City of Stockholm, became so involved with the project that they promised to treat all the suggestions for dark places as proposals. A survey after the campaign showed that 85 percent said that they thought Fortum was the sponsor and 4 out of 10 thought that their attitude towards Fortum had been affected in a positive way.