In Sweden, drowning is the most common fatal accident among children between the ages of one and six and is often the result of?a?lack?of?parental supervision. Insurance company Trygg-Hansa, which has worked with water safety for the past 65 years, wanted to create an initiative that encourages parents to keep?an eye?on?their children?by the water.?The brief was to come up with a new creative idea that could generate earned attention, to give Trygg-Hansa a platform to educate parents on the importance of supervision on the beach.

Campaign specific goals:

- Articles: 30

- Earned media reach: + 5 mm (Swedish population 10 mm)?

- Social Media reach: + 2 mm?

- Increase brand consideration among parents

- Increase in site visits: 50%?

Swedish parents spend more than three hours each day staring at their phone. But at the beach, swimming children need full attention. A short distraction can be the difference between life and death.

Insurance company Trygg-Hansa has donated thousands of lifebuoys to public beaches and docks over the years. But the solution to this challenge was to create a digital lifebuoy, with an innovative use of technology.

The creative idea was to transform the problem (the smartphone) into the solution – by creating Beach Mode, an app that makes your phone completely inaccessible when you are at the beach with your children. No scrolling, no social media, no podcasts, and no phone calls.

Releasing the Beach Mode app gave Trygg-Hansa a new platform, allowing them to spread their message about the importance of always keeping watch on swimming children at the beach.

In a media climate that constantly discusses the moral aspect of children’s screen time, the strategy was to address parents’ potentially life-threatening screen time habits when at the beach with swimming children. Swedes spend an average of 3.5 hours per day scrolling on their phones. Lack of parental supervision is the biggest danger for swimming children.

Trygg-Hansa’s Beach Mode app became the symbol of the lack of parental supervision. By communicating about the new Beach Mode app, and the importance of solely focusing on swimming children, we were able to educate parents and the general public in Sweden about the importance of supervision when swimming, as well as give concrete tips on what to think of and how to act around swimming children.? ?

National survey

To provide key insights. Results were also presented in a press release.

App development

In difference to Flight Mode, the Beach Mode app suspends all smartphone features: No scrolling, no social media, no podcasts, and no phone calls. The only feature that works is emergency calls. The app was given a clean design with one feature: to activate/de-active Beach Mode. The main style element is the red and white-colored life buoy icon. This is the core brand element and logo of Trygg-Hansa.

Communication

The app launched alongside an awareness campaign. The main asset was a short film portraying parents’ lack of supervision at the beach.

Materials

• Beach Mode app

• Campaign film (digital ads and organic social media posts)

• Dynamic banner ads: Automatic weather-based adoption to increase impact on sunny days

• Press materials

• Influencer collaboration with Sweden’s largest mummy blogger (Margaux Dietz).

The initiative took Sweden by storm, and the story was talked about in all major news outlets – making Beach Mode the most shared news story in Sweden during the summer (apart from the pandemic).

- Articles: 112?

- Most shared article of the summer in Swedish news media: 66,000

- Earned media reach: + 15 mm (Swedish population 10 mm)?

- Social Media reach: + 14 mm?

- Brand consideration among parents: +8%?

- Increase in site visits: 500%?

- The initiative gave ripple effects. Following the launch of Beach Mode several municipalities have banned mobile phones from swimming locations. And a large international phone manufacturer is working on building the function into the phone.??

- Fatal drownings among children: YTD 31% below average