Sven Kramer is a multiple World and Olympic champion speed skating, an incontestable hero in the Netherlands, and the perfect person to encourage young people to learn to skate. That’s why we put him ‘inside’ the iconic chair most Dutch people use for balance, during the their first attempts at ice skating.

We used this recognizable chair and combined it with today’s technology. This resulted in a high-tech skating chair with touchpads on the backrest, which analyse your skating technique and give personalised tips from Sven Kramer, through a speaker. Making it more fun to learn the skills, and inspiring users to persevere.

The chairs were launched at Amsterdam’s Olympic Stadium ice rink, the place during the Olympics for skating, national sports media, and festivities. Everyone could give them a go, and learn how to skate from Olympic hero Sven Kramer.

We put dozens of chairs on the ice rink at Amsterdam’s Olympic Stadium. This iconic backdrop is the place to ice skate and for all the skating media to come together for their Olympic reports. Huge numbers of attendees saw the beginners learn to skate with the chairs, at the centre of the stadium, and they were able to try the chairs out themselves as well.

The chair was launched through national PR at the start of the Olympic Games, on the ice rink in the stadium. A TV ad and social media content showed how fun it is to skate with the chair with KPN technology and Sven Kramer. The outdoor campaign stimulated even more people to skate at the Olympic Stadium. After the Olympic Games extra chairs are produced and made available at 70 local ice rinks throughout the Netherlands.

The launch of the skate chair immediately garnered widespread attention across the country through PR. The Olympic Stadium, where the skate chairs were visible and available during the Olympic Games, was the place to skate during the Olympic Games, to experience the games and was the focal point for national sports media. This resulted in massive visibility.

In total there were hundreds of thousands of skating visits on the rink where the chairs were used. This year extra chairs will be made available at 70 local ice rinks attracting approximately 2 million visitors and where 200.000 primary school children will learn to skate and This way we are able get more and more young skaters enthusiastic about the sport, and a new generation will learn to skate from the top skater in the world.