Reviewed: Scandinavian Airlines’ troll-baiting culture campaign /

Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) earlier this month ran into some turbulence with its What is truly Scandinavian? Campaign.

Devised by Danish agency &Co, the three-minute film revealed the true origins of many things believed to be Scandinavian. Swedish meatballs? Turkish. The Norwegian paperclip? American. Danish pastries? Austrian.

In fact nothing is truly Scandinavian, stated the tongue-in-cheek ad, inciting nationalist outrage, thousands of negative comments online, and even made one person angry enough to make a (hoax) bomb threat against &Co, the agency that created the campaign.

According to the brand, the anger directed against the film ad, which was first published on SAS’s social channels, came mostly from right-wing trolls. A report from Mother Jones appeared to validate this theory, pointing to posts on 4chan calling for an organised response to the ad and its message.

Nonetheless, in response to the criticism, the airline replaced the film with a new cut omitting the parts that angered right-wingers. The original video (see above) is still on YouTube, where it holds a 10:1 dislike to like ratio.

Brands that are seen to take a side on cultural issues (whether they mean to or not) must now prepare to become targets. At Most Contagious in December, Pankaj Bhalla, VP of shave care at Procter & Gamble, told us about the threats made against his family in the wake of Gillette’s The Best Men Can Be campaign.

But rather than let the most vocal malcontents dictate the conversation about whether SAS campaign did its job, we decided to ask creatives and strategists from Scandinavia what they thought about the ad, and get some actual expert opinion on the creative idea and execution.

Some laughed at the ad whilst others lauded it, and one told us he was advised by his PR to stay schtumm on the subject. Read on to find out what they thought and what lessons, if any, there are to learn.

Any advertising that enters public discussion should be considered successful. Of course, positivity in reception is a plus. But if I must choose between being seen and heard and not heard at all I choose the former.

Advertising should focus its energy in finding ways to create work that resonates with people. Currently, consumers no longer care about ads because they are meaningless, leading to billions being wasted.

As in all advertising, one could argue for and against how the company handled the initial media storm. But nevertheless, the campaign still revealed a debate in society, with people on both sides of the subject taking a stand.

They should have done a better market analysis to predict the reactions. Here in Sweden, for example, we have the Swedish Democrats [a right-wing party] gaining support, people are scared following recurring bomb attacks and so, as is human nature, the fear makes cultural identification much more important for people. So saying that it doesn't exist was always going to spark a reaction. 

The campaign opens the debate about if all brands need to take a stand. For me, although it might provide a form of creative gratitude, it doesn’t always make sense. People comparing this to Nike’s Dream Crazy forget that Nike consumers were already quite aligned with the debate. What this campaign does is alienate a growing right-wing population (who fly more) and supports the more left-wing one (who in Sweden fly less). For a brand like SAS, partly owned by both the Swedish and Danish governments, this campaign could have been better executed.

Storytelling-wise, if you ‘kill off’ Scandinavian culture in the first two seconds, people aren’t going to watch the rest. This means that the warm and humoristic tone of the remainder of the film is lost: they could have flipped the script and ended with the punchline instead to get the main message through, rather than hit viewers in the face with it at the beginning. This would have made the video less edgy, but perhaps more effective in the end.

The film is targeted at someone with a lot of time on their hands, and I found myself scrolling through the ad even before it hit the news. The core insight that our culture is created by mixing and lending from other cultures is nothing new. ‘Not even meatballs are Swedish’ is a common saying in Sweden. But in this case, I think the campaign has been slightly naïve – and thus made itself a target for a right-wing agenda that was ready to make the case that Swedish culture is under attack. Ultimately, if you’re going to poke the trolls, prepare to get yourself muddy and don’t forget to make sure your client is ready too.

There’s something beautiful about having such a human approach to travelling and bringing something home with you. The Scandinavian heritage is one that includes the Vikings who – along with killing a bunch of people – brought things back here and made our culture. Scandinavians are travellers, always have been and have always brought the best of the world home.

From a brand perspective, it works, and even creatively, the look and the feel of the ad is perfectly Scandinavian. When a message is a bit deeper than the average ad, it can be misread, which I think it has been. Learning from each other and taking ideas and inspiration from around the world is human, although it was a bold statement, the ad tells no lies.