The Swedish Number
Swedish Tourist Association (Svenska Turistföreningen)2016
The Swedish Number is a 2016 live phone line for Swedish Tourist Association, created by INGO, Stockholm.
The line
The first country in the world with its own phone number.
Why it works
A country that picked up the phone. To mark 250 years since Sweden's 1766 law abolishing censorship, the Swedish Tourist Association gave the nation its own phone number: anyone abroad could dial +46 771 793 336 and be put through, at random, to one of tens of thousands of ordinary Swedes who had registered as volunteer ambassadors — no training, no script, free to talk about anything. Over the 79 days the line was open it connected 188,625 calls from 186 countries to 32,069 Swedes, according to the award entry, with nothing spent on bought media. It won the Direct Grand Prix at Cannes 2016 and a D&AD Black Pencil. It is studied as destination marketing that swapped claims for access: rather than telling the world Sweden is open and curious, it handed strangers a direct line to the evidence — and accepted the risk of whoever answered.
Techniques
- Participation Lets anyone abroad dial a single number and talk freely with a random Swede, while thousands of citizens sign up to answer.
- Plain folks Puts ordinary volunteers, with no training or script, on the line as the country's ambassadors instead of polished tourism claims.
- Demonstration Proves the country's openness and curiosity by handing strangers a direct line to the evidence and accepting whoever answers.
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