MAKEY MAKEY

TitleMAKEY MAKEY
BrandTEKNIKFÖRETAGEN - ASSOCIATION OF SWEDISH ENGINEERING INDUSTRIES
Product/ServiceTECH EDUCATION AWARENESS
Category D03. Webisodes / Series
Entrant VOLONTAIRE Stockholm, SWEDEN
Idea Creation VOLONTAIRE Stockholm, SWEDEN
Media Placement VOLONTAIRE Stockholm, SWEDEN
Media Placement 2 UNITED SCREENS Stockholm, SWEDEN
PR VOLONTAIRE Stockholm, SWEDEN
Production VOLONTAIRE Stockholm, SWEDEN
Production 2 UNITED SCREENS Stockholm, SWEDEN
Credits
Name Company Position
Carl Unger Volontaire Account Director/CEO
Sara Ekholm Volontaire Planner
Christian Åkerhielm Volontaire PR-Strategist
Sanna Tidbeck Volontaire Producer
Rasmus Nilsson Volontaire Creative Director
Alexandra Dannberg Volontaire Copywriter
Rikard Linder Volontaire Art Director

The Campaign

Every spring, Sweden's 15-year olds make the important choice of what they want to study in high school. In the months leading up to their decision, The Swedish Engineering Industries teamed up with Therese Lindgren – Sweden's most popular YouTuber and every tween girl's big sister. Therese Lindgren isn't your typical engineer. Her hugely popular YouTube channel is a quirky mix of fashion tips, makeup reviews and food recipes. Still, she's an engineer with a degree in system analysis and member of Mensa. In the miniseries 'Therese's Tech Takeover', Therese Lindgren challenges how we talk tech and encourages girls to have fun with technology – with hopes to inspire them to choose the Technology programme in high school.

Creative Execution

The miniseries and web format 'Therese's Tech Takeover' is streamed from Therese Lindgren's own YouTube channel – the largest one in Sweden – reaching practically the entire target audience. As every tween girl's big sister AND an engineer in system analysis, Therese is in a unique position to inspire and empower a new generation of tech talent. In her show, Therese talks about her personal interest in technology, from basic programming and 3D-printing to building her own selfie machine – destroying the myth that you can't be both beauty expert and technical genius. The first season has gotten over a million views so far, and the comment section continues to live as a ongoing discussion among Swedish girls about which tech schools to apply to and what education possibilities exist.

With well over a million views, 'Therese's Tech Takeover' has reached practically all 15-year old girls in Sweden before starting high school. It's even made its way into classrooms all over the country, as teaching material. Statistically, the sponsored miniseries is 8 percent more popular than Therese's own content, with over 3 000 comments discussing engineering and tech. Needless to say, it’s been renewed for a second season. 'Therese's Tech Takeover' empowers a whole new generation of girls by challenging stereotypes about engineers, proving that tech genius comes in many forms.

Thanks to having such a defined target audience – 150 000 Swedish girls aged 13–15 – we know exactly where to reach them. 89 percent of them watch YouTube weekly, making up a substantial part of Therese Lindgren's 500 000 subscribers. The challenge isn't to reach them – it's to talk to them in a way that changes the conversation on a topic that mostly engages lone, nerdy boys and show girls that technology is something for them. The ambition is not to attract girls to a male subject, but to broaden the subject itself so that it becomes relevant to more people. And most importantly: to make tech fun.