Curators of Sweden (@sweden)
VisitSweden and the Swedish Institute2011
Curators of Sweden (@sweden) is a 2011 social media (Twitter) campaign for VisitSweden and the Swedish Institute, created by Volontaire, Stockholm.
Why it works
A country handed its official Twitter account to a different citizen every week. From 10 December 2011, VisitSweden and the Swedish Institute gave @sweden to one ordinary Swede at a time, free to tweet whatever they liked, so that the country would be pictured as a mosaic of many voices rather than one official one. The brand promise of openness was demonstrated rather than claimed, and it was tested almost at once, when curators posted things no tourism board would approve and the account was not censored. That is precisely why it is studied: as an experiment in how much control a brand will surrender to earn credibility. Despite a run of bad headlines it won one of two Cyber Grand Prix at Cannes 2012. The project ran for almost seven years; when it closed in 2018, 356 people had run the account and it had more than 146,000 followers.
Techniques
- Plain folks The country's official account is handed to a different ordinary citizen each week, picturing the nation as a mosaic of everyday voices.
- Ethos Leaving controversial tweets uncensored demonstrates the promised openness rather than claiming it, trading control for credibility.
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