How do you promote a destination where there's nothing to see? 

Despite the growing trend of nature-related tourism, Visit Sweden struggled to attract international tourists to the countryside. Compared to Norwegian fjords, Icelandic volcanoes and other epic nature destinations, Sweden's nature seems dull.

In a visually driven category defined by sight-seeing and Instagram moments, our challenge was to redefine the tourist experience beyond aesthetics.

The brief: make Sweden’s nature captivating to international travellers on a limited budget.

Objectives: 

- Increase destination awareness

- Increase positive perception

- Increase intention to travel

- Earn global attention 

- Create engagement 

To attract today’s travellers, who crave something unique, we had to out-drama the competition on entirely new terms.

Audio, a cost-effective medium with the power to intimately and immersively bring stories to life, has seen a revival and is a top 5 channel for Visit Sweden's audience – perfect for this campaign.

In a time of mysticism, occultism and dark tourism, Sweden harnessed an unseen asset: mythical creatures inhabiting our woods.

Introducing, Spellbound by Sweden, another dimension of travel experience through the power of sound.

We partnered with international horror writer John Ajvide Lindqvist, creating a haunting audio story experience based on Swedish folklore.

We geo-locked the full audio story to the forests of Sweden, luring people into the unknown, daring them to come and experience it.

And teased the world with a trailer during Halloween.

Instead of hijacking social feeds with beautiful views, we captured imaginations with soul stealing sounds.

The audio experience was enriched with local horror stories and mystical sites across the country, bewitching global media and visitors, setting an unexpected tourism standard.

We directed people to a micro-site with information about Sweden's mythical creatures, their rumoured habitats, and the best locations in Sweden for the full audio story.

We launched around Halloween to tap into the peak of horror and occultism, using multiple channels simultaneously to create ‘a happening’, generating hype and awareness of the story.

The teaser was released globally, but the full story was geo locked and only available in the Swedish forests.

An integrated video campaign across YouTube and premium UK and US publishers ran alongside an audio campaign across SoundCloud, Spotify and YouTube, to maximize the audio link, and drive incremental reach.

Paid social was used for awareness and shareability and traffic optimized META campaigns to drive traffic to our campaign site.

Finally, we partnered with Vice, a partner with a high reach and trust amongst our audience, who produced additional custom multimedia content: The A-Z Of Swedish Mythology and FolkLore’.

The guide was pushed across Vice online platforms and multiple social media platforms to drive consumers onwards to the campaign microsite.

Spellbound by Sweden unlocked a new dimension of the travel experience through the power of sound. It turned category norms upside down and put stories old as time at the centre of the zeitgeist. In a time of visual overload, the geo-locked audio-adventure introduced a new, more emotional way to experience a place – even its darker sides. 

The idea earned global attention and record high engagement – media even sent reporters for a first-hand experience. It broke into lifestyle, entertainment, news media and beyond. 

The concept created lasting impact beyond marketing. Providing rich ground for new travel experience ideas. 

Brand: 

Destination awareness +16% 

Culturally rich destination: +14% 

Travel intent: +5% 

Campaign: 

Earned reach: 1.3 BN across 34 countries 

Audio completion rate: 98% 

Video completion rate: 85% 

Engagement rate on campaign site: +144% above benchmark