Visit Sweden wanted to position the nation as a genuine destination for food and nature to increase tourism focused on these two areas. The target audience liked Sweden as a country, but didn’t see it as a destination for food and nature. They had an image of Swedish nature being inaccessible, time consuming and expensive. Furthermore, they thought Sweden’s culinary offering was unclear.

The brief was to create a global PR campaign that frames Sweden as the perfect destination for food and nature tourism. The campaign was meant to affect the audience early in the customer journey, and make them go from “lean back mode” to thinking about Sweden as a possible destination.

The objective was to contribute in positioning Sweden as one of the top 3 food and nature destinations within 4 years among the target group.

We knew that the target audience is searching for unique, innovative food experiences and that they’re drawn to “soft” nature adventures – unique experiences that aren’t too extreme. To earn their attention we decided to open up the whole country as a restaurant and invite them to discover Sweden’s natural pantry.

We brought Visit Sweden together with four Swedish Michelin-starred chefs and launched The Edible Country – a 100 million acre DIY gourmet restaurant. The chefs created an enticing menu, showcasing ingredients from nature, along with instructions on how to cook them, enabling visitors to prepare a do it yourself-gourmet meal in Swedish nature. For an easier experience, we also placed designed wooden tables with cooking kits across the country and made them bookable on the world’s most famous restaurant platform, free of charge.

The key insight was that unhealthy food has become an everyday staple for people around the world, while healthy alternatives are often perceived as complicated and inaccessible. There was an opportunity to prove that natural food can be just as tasty and easy to prepare. The key message of the campaign was “To highlight healthy and natural food available in nature, Sweden launches The Edible Country – a 100 million acre DIY gourmet restaurant.”

The target group is described as “curious explorers”, a group of frequent travelers in US, UK, France and Germany who want to do as much as possible when on vacation. They are searching for unique, innovative food experiences and are drawn to “soft” nature adventures.

Among the content, there were a press release, press images, a hero video explaining the concept, how-to videos with the chefs, a booking site and the menu.

To secure coverage in top media and spark interest in social media, key journalists as well as selected influencers from the target countries were invited to a pre-opening of The Edible Country at a forest location three months before the launch (with an embargo to the launch).

At the day of the launch, the journalists that had participated published their articles, which resulted in coverage in the prioritized media segments instantly. This was supported by additional media contacts. The booking site went live and reservations were made from people all over the world. The day after the launch, the influencers got to post their content and video content was distributed in social media.

The hero video was released together with imagery, raw material and cuts for social media, enabling media outlets to create their own content. Media with high social media integration was prioritized to spark distribution and online discussion.