Hasta La Motion!

The Swedish Number, a creative campaign from The Swedish Tourist Association, won the Direct Grand Prix at 2016 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. In April 2016 The Swedish Tourist Association set up an official telephone number for Sweden, +46 771 793 336, allowing anyone in the world to call and have a conversation with a random Swedish person. Swedish residents are invited to register as official ambassadors, using a special smartphone app available on iTunes and Google Play. The project marks the 250th anniversary of the abolition of censorship in Sweden, and aims to promote the country’s celebrated diversity and equality. Since the launch of the number in April there have been 181921 incoming calls from 186 different countries.

“In troubled times, many countries try and limit communication between people, but we want to do just the opposite. So instead, we are making Sweden the first country in the world with its own phone number and giving our fellow Swedes the opportunity to answer the calls, express themselves and share their views, whatever they might be,” said Magnus Ling, General Secretary & CEO of the Swedish Tourist Association. “In doing so we want to show the real Sweden – a unique country worth visiting with the right of public access, sustainable tourism, and a rich cultural heritage. With The Swedish Number, our goal is to create more pride and knowledge about Sweden, both nationally and internationally.”

Stefan Löfven, Sweden’s Prime Minister, led the way by signing up as a Swedish Number ambassador.

The Swedish Tourist Association partnered with Intercom to create a switchboard that supports incoming phone calls 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Their cloud-based contact center is used to register ambassadors and connect all calls. The switchboard is designed to randomly choose one of the Swede ambassadors for each call. The Swedish Number can be accessed anywhere in the world by calling +46771 793336 (+46771 Sweden). Local numbers are provided for United Kingdom (+442038089899), Denmark (+4570806160), Poland (+48222922333), USA (+13012760600), Brazil (+556135500700), Germany (+4932221096868), France (+33974483777), Netherlands (+31852085000), Finland (+358753266266) and Norway (+4781511558).

The website, theswedishnumber.com, provides information on The Swedish Number, along with stats and links to the app.

The Swedish Number Credits

The Swedish Number campaign was developed at Ingo Stockholm by creative director Bjorn Stahl, copywriter Magnus Evanston, art director Gustav Westman, planner Julia Blomquist, global creative council chair Per Pedersen, SVP Talent Michelle Overall, senior account executive Ashley Pultz, account executive Leigh Harmon, account directors Joachim Ewert and Seagren Doran.
Account Director:Joachim Ewert, Seagren Doran

PR was handled at Cohn & Wolfe Stockholm and Grey PR, New York.

Filming was produced in-house, with Helifilm and director Björne Larsson.