With a history of delivering newspapers by plane to remote parts of Sweden, it’s only natural for Pressbyrån to defend and promote freedom of speech. Teaming up with Reporters Without Borders, Pressbyrån has repeatedly done campaigns highlighting the importance of free press. On World Press Freedom Day, Pressbyrån wanted to highlight the impact and the influence of photo journalism. Every year, news photographers around the world are being harassed, injured and killed by people in power. This is a not only a serious threat to free press, but to the photograph itself as a vital source for true, impartial and powerful news reporting.

Sensitive content warnings in social media usually warns people of nudity and explicit content. But on World Press Freedom Day, we let Pressbyrån together with Reporters Without Borders hijack Instagram’s sensitive content warnings.

By changing the word ”people” to ”people in power”, the warning was given a totally new meaning. When swiping left, users were first met with seemingly ordinary images, which were then revealed to have been taken by photojournalists who have been harassed, threatened and even killed as a result. Their photos were obviously too sensitive for some people in power.

With a modest media budget, we knew we had to think smart for our message to come through. So we created assets so intriguing that people just had to swipe to see them. By using the well known phenomenon of sensitive content warnings, but flipping its meaning in an unexpected way, we wanted our message to hit hard. All assets, both digital and printed led to a campaign site where further information about the campaign and the photographers could be read.

The campaign went live on World Press Freedom Day, and ran for the following week primarily on Pressbyrån’s Instagram, supported by DOOH and print. We also replaced the front page of Swedens biggest newspaper with a censured version of our own, and put up a billboard outside the Russian Embassy to comment on the current war in Ukraine. When unlocking the QR-code on the billboard, embassy workers were faced with a photo taken by Maks Levin, a Ukrainian photographer recently killed while covering the conflict.

- Total reach: 4.7 million

- Total media spend: 19.000 USD

- Campaign site traffic: 60.000 unique visitors on World Press Freedom Day

- Picked up by Sweden’s largest morning show (Nyhetsmorgon)

- 19% increase in newspaper sales compared to previous year