A common tongue used to unite us in Sweden, but now we’re letting pronunciation drive us apart. To get people to question their bias towards immaculate pronunciation we went ahead and changed the foundation of what a perfect Swedish accent is. We created a voice sample of a “New Standard Swedish”.

A standard language is traditionally free from accents and linguistic deviations. But the “New Standard Swedish” is instead based on voice samples from around the country. Together with a renowned professor in linguistics, we morphed together the samples to create one collective voice. One voice that embraced all accents and dialects – instead of trying to erase them.

We never wanted to actually change our standard language. We wanted to make Swedes aware of how diversified our language is today and to make people understand how their bias against accents affects society in general and the workplace in particular.

We teased the news that Lernia suggested to change the standard language to key national media and local media to get the buzz going.

Three days later we released the “New Standard Voice” exclusively to key media. On the same day, we later did a broad media outreach with the voice-samples, the making-of video and a press release toward a broad range of media; from niche linguistic media to broad lifestyle websites.

Continuous media contact was coordinated by us to steer the discussion and clarify any messages gone awry. To follow up the discussions that had started select media were given interviews with our partnering clients (the Scouts and the Stockholm University Library), the partnering linguist, key local spokespersons and Lernia’s VP.

Lernia continuously posted news and answered questions on their Facebook page.

Lernia in only active on the Swedish market, so no international media were contacted for this campaign.

TIER 1

•Earned media reach: 64 million (population: 10 million) in almost all national press; printed, online, TV, podcasts and radio, as well as most local media.

•Coverage accounted for in the earned media reach mentioned both “Lernia” and the “New Standard Swedish”.

•Lernia’s digital press room received 1100 % more traffic than usual.

•High profile editorials discussed the problem with unjust bias against accents in job interviews.

•Local spokespersons and Lernia’s CEO were interviewed in local and national media.

•As expected, the initiative met resistance from right wing media. They claimed that Lernia was destroying the Swedish language. Mainstream media however defended the idea that everyone has the right to get a job regardless of accent and described the voice as a symbol for a more open society and inclusive labor market.

•The campaign was discussed in the Swedish Parliament and defended by the Minister of Enterprise and Innovation.

TIER 2

•Google trends: searches for ”Lernia” and ”Standard Swedish” reached an all-time high (both searches scored 100 in interest, never reaching above 25/50 over the past ten years).

•Youtube: the making-of video was on the top 10 list of trending videos in Sweden.

•3 companies joined: The Scouts used the voice for their answering-machine, Stockholm University Library used the voice to announce closing times and Virserums Art Gallery is using the voice in an exhibition.

•Visitors to the “New Standard Swedish” landing page on lernia.se stayed for an average of 13 min (compared to Lernia’s usual 1m30s average).