Lernia is one of Sweden’s biggest education and staffing companies. They educate 35.000 people each year, many of which are immigrants who take part in the Swedish for Immigrants course (SFI). Lernia also hires almost 4.500 people every year, many of which have a foreign background. It gives them a unique position on the Swedish labour market in terms of recruitment, education and staffing that lead to integration and diversity. However, few people know what separates Lernia from their competitors.

We needed to increase brand awareness and strengthen Lernias position as a force of integration on the labour market in Sweden. We also needed to create an emotional connection to the brand that could help them stand out when compared to its competitors.

Sweden has welcomed the most immigrants in Europe relative to its population making integration an important social issue. Research shows that friendship at the workplace is key for successful integration. Unfortunately, Swedes are the worst in the world at making new friends according to a global survey. Newly arrived immigrants attend Swedish For Immigrants (SFI) to learn the language and get tools to integrate. But

as the latter is hard due to the Swedes lack of social skills, we needed to find a way to create more friendships at workplaces.

The solution: Interaction For Swedes (IFS), a take on the SFI course but aimed at Swedes instead. It’s a deck of cards with 36 research-based questions designed to lead to interaction and friendships. The questions gradually become more personal thus making you feel closer to the person you are talking to, a method established and developed in psychological research.

Sweden has welcomed the most immigrants in Europe relative to its population making integration a highly relevant issue. To spark interest we wanted Swedes to reflect upon their role in the integration of immigrants. To add news value and credibility we made a survey and collaborated with a well-known psychologist in both the course and launch. As the target audience are both B2B and people participating in their educations we needed a broad approach. By making a deck of cards we created engaging and easy to use content - the questions were divided into three parts, perfect for a coffee break at work.

Our strategy was to tap into the discussion about integration using a trickle-down PR-strategy. For a broader result, media segments not common to Lernia, like lifestyle and health media were contacted with customized content. Lernia is present all over Sweden, so local media was also especially important.

To get the discussion started the deck of cards was distributed to Lernias own offices all over Sweden and hundreds more of their client’s workplaces. At the same time we made it available on Lernia’s home page where anyone who was interested could order the deck of cards to their own workplace.

Our media target was both national and local media, as well as media in other segments. Two weeks prior to the launch we contacted key media in relevant segments to give them background material and a heads up. This was important as we wanted the discussions about this important subject to filter down.

On launch day we did a broad media outreach. We launched the initiative with an experiment, where we filmed the first eight that conducted the course. The film was distributed in social and digital channels to further explain the issue and get the discussion going.

Brand awareness increased from 12-18 percent and brand knowledge went up from 26-34 percent. There was an increase in people saying they would prefer Lernia over other comparable options, from 5-9 percent. Lernia also recognized a substantial increase in business leads during and after the campaign period.

The campaign was featured in all targeted media segments, overall reach 7 300 000. Lernia had three times more press clippings during the campaign month than the same month the previous year. The project sparked a societal discussion about integration as right wing media opposed the initiative. The film got 4 625 500 views and we reached over one million people in social media. The demand for the deck of cards from workspaces and the public exceeded expectations and was reprinted repeatedly. Sweden climbed one spot on the list in the yearly global survey and is no longer the world’s most unfriendly country.