The Danish Socialist Party (SF) saw a surge in popularity between 2005 and 2011. This stemmed from SF’s ability to appeal to millennial voters through a rebellious spirit and unconventional campaigns.

After gaining 9.2% of the popular vote in the 2011 elections, the Party joined the government with big hopes for change.

However, as soon as they became part of the establishment, SF began losing support. Between 2011 and 2016, their popularity plummeted with indications that it was only going one way: downwards.

Meanwhile, a cultural tension was growing in Denmark.

Continuous problems with immigration and the aftermath of the recent financial crisis fuelled a heated debate about globalisation, leading to a fragmented political landscape whereby SF’s voters dispersed across parties with more radical stands, often with nationalistic sentiments.

SF needed a new approach to show that they were still the same bold Party that offered an alternative to the bourgeoning right-wing populism. However, with a limited budget this would be no easy task.

SF needed an idea that would be impossible to ignore. Whilst money might not be able to take us far, we knew that we had to come up with an idea that could travel and spark conversations despite our small budget.

The perfect opportunity presented itself when Donald Trump started dragging Denmark into his presidential campaign – and political opponent Ted Cruz states in a debate, “if [Trump] were President, he would nuke Denmark”.

In many ways, Trump is the antithesis of Danish values of social connectivity like “hygge”, “welfare”, and “equality”. Unsurprisingly, research showed that many Danes, especially millennials, feared the prospect of having Trump as the leader of the free world.

With 43 million people joining the election conversation on Facebook, and Donald Trump being one of the top ten most talked about topics on Twitter globally, this was SF’s chance to leverage this dynamic as a mechanism to get its message across and regain popularity.

We wrapped a bus that went through the busiest parts of Copenhagen with a tongue-in-cheek statement placed on the side of the bus. It read: “AmericansAbroadVote.org”, encouraging Americans living in Denmark or other foreign countries to vote to prevent Trump from being elected as President of the United States of America.

It was a bold move for this small Party, but it proved to be an international success and captured the zeitgeist not only of the Danish population, but of people around the world.

Instead of staying silent, SF saw this as an opportunity to raise their voice (and political popularity) by standing up to the loudmouthed bully.

By simply rolling their eyes at what was going on the other side of the world, SF reminded Americans living abroad that their votes mattered. In doing so, SF reclaimed its position as a rebellious and youthful Party, breaking a downward spiral and making its popularity rise.

The campaign had a reach of 5.7 billion, was shared over 615,000 times and had an ROMI of €18.70 per €1 invested.