HELPING BEGIN THE HEALING PROCESS

Research has shown Swedes to be one of the most innovative, tech aware, connected people in the world. However, they are also among the most socially isolated; on an emotional level, this makes them ill equipped to handle sensitive, life-changing events. They simply keep feelings locked up without knowing how to understand and express them.

When it comes to handling grief, the lack of physical connections and relationships impede the healing process. We realized that this was a role typically filled by the Church, but now, people lack modern rituals that fit within their digitally connected lives. We understood that the first step, just expressing your grief, is the hardest part. We needed to make this action easier with the Church of Sweden acting as the medium for their expression.

ONE CLICK GRIEF RELEASE

We placed LED candles in public places all over Sweden and created a digital platform where people could light one of these candles to honour a loved one, with a single click. People could even write a message in the platform and inspire passers-by to understand grief is something we all experience.

To make the connection stronger, 360-degree cameras captured the candles and location in a scrollable panorama where you oriented yourself using your phone’s gyroscope. As you clicked to light your candle, an updated image with your lit candle highlighted was returned to you for sharing or just as a memory.

The campaign was launched with paid and unpaid influencers and a set of films profiling the stories of three people who lost loved ones. We amplified these films in social media to reach awareness, continuously optimizing the targeting based on available data.

The campaign lived for just six days, but produced a response that can only be described as overwhelming.

Social media interactions with the Church of Sweden increased over 200%, and saw over 24,000 daily expressions in the subject of grief. The Church of Sweden had 180K (objective: 100K) unique visitors at the campaign site. Media impressions reached an estimated 16.4 million and the films were watched over 500K times.

The perception of the church as modern rose from 9% to 60% (objective = 25%), as accessible rose from 43% to 72% (objective = 50%) and as open for everyone rose from 63% to 88% (objective = 70%).

The campaign clearly triggered a much-needed public conversation about grief, as people from 104 different countries lit candles.