SAS was founded by the Scandinavian member states to export the best of the region and import the best of the world.

Today, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway each hold about 24% of the companies shares - and the brand is in itself a piece of Scandinavias cultural heritage.

But with the advent of low-cost airlines and “flyskam” (the shame of flying, due to its impact on the climate) SAS needed to raise willingness to pay and remind Scandinavians of the importance of aviation on a societal level.

Scandinavians love international attention. When our welfare model is mentioned in the American election, when our parental leave is highlighted as something for other nations to aspire to, or when our cuisine is enjoyed abroad, we all shine with pride.

But most Scandinavians don’t know that all the things we love and take pride in traveled to our region. In a way, our home is comprised of souvenirs.

So, we wanted to ask the question: What is truly Scandinavian?

Through vignettes and snapshots from around the region, we created a campaign wherein Scandinavian cultural heritage is put under the loop. All to make the point that what makes Scandinavia truly unique is our wanderlust. We bring home the best of the world and integrate it into our home.

SAS is in itself part of Scandinavia’s cultural heritage. As an organization that’s partly owned by the 3 Scandinavian member states, its role in transporting Scandinavians out into the world and home again can’t be understated.

Through 7 iterations, the brand has communicated under the banner of “We Are Travelers” with the impact of traveling focused on the individual. But being under threat for low-cost airlines as well as “flyskam” (a term describing the shame and guilt of flying, due to its effect on the climate) SAS needed to shift focus towards their very reason for being on a cultural and societal level: traveling enrich our society.

And to do that, the “what is truly Scandinavian”-campaign was born, cleverly proving that Scandinavia would be radically different if Scandinavians - and therefore SAS - hadn’t ventured out into the world.

The campaign was due to run in several channels - ranging from out of home to various digital assets. Everything was set to launch in February and was planned to run for at least 4 whole weeks.

As we launched the hero film on SAS social channels, the film had 1000 reactions within the first 20 minutes and averaged 50 comments, likes, or shares per minute in the following hours.

In fact, the comment section became a battleground between extreme right-wing reactions and SAS social media team. Certain online communities (including 4chan and multiple subreddits) called to arms against our film, as they saw it as part of a conspiracy to destroy Scandinavian heritage.

This forced SAS to take the film down, and re-edit certain parts (also due to potentially dangerous factors - see confidential information for elaboration).

The film quickly attracted the attention of a certain demographic, who saw it as an attack on nationalism. And as SAS doesn’t want to be a platform of anti-semitic remarks, racism, or blatant calls for violence, the post was pulled from social media. And the campaign had to be held back in both frequency and completely pulled from certain channels.

Within the first 13 days, the campaign had 16.000% more engagement on Youtube than that of previous campaigns - with a smaller push. And 1,400% more on Facebook.

17% of our audience was reached organically, despite low frequency.

The campaign had more than 35.000 social media mentions, and 1167 editorial mentions in Scandinavia alone.

It is also worth mentioning that more than 70% of its many dislikes on Youtube came from outside of Scandinavia (mainly Russia, UK, and US)