After just a few days, the marketing campaign about the tourist country Sweden, where Visit Sweden wants to settle the score with Switzerland over which country is which, has had an impact in global media in more than 35 countries.

In Visit Sweden's own digital channels alone, the reach is over one million people during the first days of the campaign and with hundreds of positive and encouraging comments from Swiss people and the rest of the world.

In an initial survey of 500 respondents who saw the campaign, over 70% said they are now more interested in traveling to Sweden than before. 

During the first days of the campaign, which was launched on October 23, over 500 news articles have been published about Sweden in over 35 countries on several continents, based on Visit Sweden's campaign with a total of millions of readers. 

Among other things, several articles were published in Forbes, in the French Le Figaro, in the Italian Corriere della Sera and in one of Switzerland's largest daily newspapers, Neue Zuricher Zeitung, and the campaign's message has created very positive engagement from Swiss people and Swiss media, embassies and IKEA in Switzerland.

The campaign has thus reached far more than the ten countries that Visit Sweden has focused its marketing on this time: Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, France, the USA and China as well as Switzerland, Norway, Denmark and Finland.

– Colleagues who have worked for Visit Sweden for 20 years say that no previous campaign has received this large, positive response in such a short time, says Visit Sweden's CEO Susanne Andersson.

– We are of course extremely happy about the large and positive response that has actually taken us by surprise a bit, says Susanne. We knew it was a good campaign with a fun twist – but that it would be received so well so quickly…

Now Visit Sweden has begun to be reached by people's and media's own film clips, where they suggest different distributions of the countries' different characteristics.

– We receive lots of positive comments and short films where private individuals, influencers and media now make their own lists and distributions of the countries' various assets. Among other things, many people think that we should keep the sour herring for ourselves, laughs Susanne.

Following the positive response from the world, Visit Sweden has now expanded and accelerated the campaign with various types of digital advertising according to plan.

– We are now turning up the campaign's visibility another step to maximize the positive image that the campaign spreads about Sweden as a tourist destination, says Susanne.

To the very few, exclusively in Sweden, who are vaguely offended by Visit Sweden's perhaps slightly odd campaign approach and timing, Susanne says:

– We in fantastic, democratic Sweden with free speech, openness and tolerance should not sit silent. Instead, we should do everything we can to attract more people to come here and take part in and be inspired by our Swedish values and perhaps take some of them home after a successful holiday.

According to the press release.