In this campaign, strategy, insights and research were crucial parts of the idea and end result. In fact, it was ”the idea behind the idea” that was the big idea. When we had that, all that was left was tonality, execution and comms planing. The fact that our agency see strategy and creative as one process, where planners and creatives work tightly together from day one, was definitely beneficial in the making of this campaign.

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 – in all 21 regions that Visit Sweden have divided the country in. 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.

During the pandemic, tourism came to a stop. So, when countries opened up and people were able to think about travel again, there was a need to put Sweden back on the map. But Sweden was not alone In this situation – and the competition consisted of far more popular tourism destinations. So we really had to stand out. We had to find a surprising and interesting way in. The idea also had to be unique for Sweden. A generic tourism campaign would probably just draw people to Switzerland or Norway. In addition to this, Visit Sweden had a huge budget challenge. While Dubai can do a Hollywood production with Jessica Alba and Switzerland use Robert DeNiro and Roger Federer, we had an extremely limited budget. So instead of relying on media spend or a big production, we needed a creative idea that could realize the goal of global impact.

In the search for a strong and unique PR idea, we rejected several ideas that felt too much like PR stunts. So the first breakthrough moment was when we came to think about IKEA, and the fact that they have named hundreds of products after places in Sweden. But the real breakthrough was when we did research and planning, and were reminded of IKEA’s extreme worldwide fame and pop cultural status. That was also when we fully realized that outside of Sweden, names like Bolmen, Ektorp and Kallax were only known as IKEA furniture. We found that people have been speculating over the ”mysterious” names for years, and that they have been used for entertainment in stand-up comedy, memes, Youtube sketches and talkshows like Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon and The Ellen Show. All of this engagement, interest and curiosity in IKEA could be used to our advantage.

The key message was ”Discover the originals” – referring to the places that has given name to IKEA products. And the creative idea was to reclaim the names, and let people know that Bolmen is more than a toilet brush, Ektorp more than a sofa etc. The strategy and research in combination with the creative idea gave us a strong, fun, unexpected and unique story that we knew would engage both media and the target audience. And since the story was so relevant, the places were always present. The story was told through film, social assets, native articles, visitsweden.com and a press release. And to really maximize the PR potential, we didn’t limit ourselves to using words. We took action. So, together with local politicians, we launched a new official tourism slogan for lake Bolmen: Bolmen – more than an IKEA toilet brush.

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. And the billboard, which only existed