Title	THE SWEDISH NUMBER
Brand	THE SWEDISH TOURIST ASSOCIATION
Product/Service	SWEDEN
Category	A01. Creative Effectiveness
Entrant	INGO Stockholm, SWEDEN
Idea Creation	INGO Stockholm, SWEDEN
Production	INGO Stockholm, SWEDEN
Additional Company	GREY NEW YORK, USA
Additional Company 2	COHN & WOLFE Stockholm, SWEDEN

Name	Company	Position
Björn Ståhl	INGO Sthlm	Creative Director/Executive Creative Director
Joachim Ewert	INGO Sthlm	Account Director
Magnus Ivansson	INGO Sthlm	Copywriter
Gustav Westman	INGO Sthlm	Art Director
Julia Blomquist	INGO Sthlm	Planner
Magnus Ling	Swedish Tourist Association	General Secretary
Jenny Engström	Swedish Tourist Association	Head of Communication
Johanna Murray	Swedish Tourist Association	Account Manager

Please provide a 500 word summary of your entry below.

The Swedish Tourist Association (STF) was founded in 1885 and manages hotels and hostels all over Sweden. STF's main source of income comes from their membership base in forms of membership fees and guest nights in hostels. Between 2007-2015 STF had experienced a dramatic decline in memberships. In order to stop the decline in memberships a new younger target audience was identified. Research revealed that the new target audience were more interested in travelling the rest of the world, in fact this younger target was really not interested in Sweden’s natural outback, or travelling to it. Another problem was that Swedes by nature were not very nationalistic. We needed to find a way to make them interested in discovering more about their own country in a less overt way. We discovered that while Swedes didn’t talk about Sweden with each other, they were more than happy express their pride and actively promote Sweden when talking to foreigner. So our key insight was – Swedes don't express pride about their country... unless they're talking to someone from another country. Our solution was to create a platform for Swedes to have conversations about Sweden with foreigners and in that way instil pride and curiosity both amongst Swedes themselves and the people they spoke to. The platform became a phone number, as a matter of fact the world’s first number that led to an entire country rather than one person. Our social media insights in combination with no budget for paid media resulted in a PR driven strategy. The PR effort was split in two main launches - a national and international. Swedish people often read many international publications and national media often report on what international media write. The strategy was to achieve a spin off effect where national media wrote about the number, then international media would pick it up and national media would write about it again. STF saw a 7,5% increase in memberships via the webb and 41,6% of these members came in during the 3 months directly after the campaign. They also saw a 70% increase in new memberships in the age segment 16-25 years and a 35% increase in members in the age segment 25-30 compared to the previous year. This has historically been the most difficult group for STF to reach. There was also an increase in renewal of memberships amongst existing members compared to 2015. By initiating The Swedish Number and giving the brand of Sweden to the Swedes themselves STF created over 180 000 unique meetings between Swedes and people from all over the world and became one of the most talked about campaigns of 2016 generating 9,324 billion media impressions and a estimated PR value of xxx euro.