European Parliament's Choose Your Future, created by &Co in Denmark for the 23–26 May 2019 European Elections, reached more than 130 million views worldwide.
European Parliament Choose Your Future Moved Denmark to Vote
Choose Your Future is a three-minute public service film produced for the European Parliament by &Co and European Broadcast Partners, launched in Denmark in April 2019, using footage of real births and a young girl's voiceover to urge citizens across the European Union to vote in the 23–26 May 2019 European Elections, according to Adsoftheworld.
The campaign launched on 25 April 2019, exactly one month before polling opened across EU member states, according to European Broadcast Partners documentation. Its strategic core was a single, emotionally direct proposition: the adults who vote in May 2019 are making decisions that will shape the world inherited by children not yet old enough to participate. By placing newborn children at the centre of the film rather than politicians or policy platforms, the European Parliament and its creative partners chose to sidestep the ideological divisions that had deepened across Europe in the years preceding the election, according to English Ahram Org Eg. Denmark served as both a production and broadcast market for the campaign, and the film was ultimately translated or subtitled into all official EU languages as well as several regional and national language variants, as documented by Europarl Europa Eu, giving it pan-European reach from a distinctly Danish creative origin.
The campaign existed within a broader participation ecosystem. A non-partisan platform, thistimeimvoting.eu, ran alongside the film, and by 2 May 2019 more than 270,000 people had registered their commitment to vote, according to reporting dated that day. Clapboard scores Choose Your Future at 82 out of 100, reflecting its creative coherence, emotional clarity, and demonstrable audience reach across the European public interest category.
The European Parliament identified voter apathy as the central threat to the legitimacy of the 2019 elections, according to Kardjali Bgvesti. Turnout in European Parliament elections had declined across successive cycles, and in Denmark, as across much of the EU, younger and first-time voters represented the segment least reliably mobilised by conventional civic messaging. The strategic answer developed by &Co in Copenhagen was not to argue for Europe but to reframe the act of voting as an intergenerational responsibility rather than a political preference.
Trine Aagaard Eisinger, Creative contractor for the European Parliament, stated to Reuters on 15 May 2019 that the main idea was to focus on what unites EU citizens and send a message of hope, according to En Wikipedia. That framing placed Choose Your Future in direct contrast to the adversarial register that had defined much political communication in the period, including the Brexit referendum campaign in the United Kingdom and the nationalist electoral movements gaining ground across continental Europe. Where competitors for public attention — among them national government voter-registration campaigns and party political broadcasts — relied on urgency and consequence, the European Parliament film chose aspiration and continuity.
The broader advertising environment for the 2019 European Elections was substantial. According to europarl.europa.eu, online political advertising connected with the 2019 European Parliament elections reached approximately €23 million, while Facebook alone recorded more than €23 million in political advertising spending during the election period, as reported by the same source. The European Parliament itself spent approximately €3.3 million on Facebook advertising from March through May 2019, according to europarl.europa.eu, making Choose Your Future the centrepiece of a well-resourced, multi-platform public interest strategy designed to reach Danish and European audiences at scale.
Frédéric Planchon directed Choose Your Future. Planchon, a French filmmaker with a background in documentary and commercial work, constructed the film around footage of real births and newborn children rather than actors or reconstructions, a choice that gives the campaign its documentary credibility and its emotional weight.
The film's voiceover is delivered from the perspective of a young girl addressing European adults directly, asking them to consider the kind of Europe she and her generation will inherit. Planchon stated to Reuters on 15 May 2019 that the message is a message of hope, and that this was all the more important given the prevalence of fear and tension in the political environment at the time. That directorial philosophy is visible in every formal decision: the film avoids graphics, slogans, and political imagery in favour of unmediated human experience, letting the intimacy of birth carry the argumentative load that a conventional public service campaign would assign to copy or narration.
The creative team at &Co in Copenhagen brought a precise set of collaborators to the project. Thomas Hoffman served as creative director, Rune Petersen as art director, and Johan Køhler as copywriter, according to campaign documentation. Social media planning was handled by Emil Towity and Morten Saxnæs. Production was developed and executed by European Broadcast Partners with &Co./NoA operating as the creative subcontractor, as documented by European Broadcast Partners. The film was produced in a format designed from the outset for multilingual distribution, with translation and subtitling into all official EU languages ensuring that the Danish-originated creative could function without adaptation loss across every European market ahead of the 23–26 May voting window.
Choose Your Future generated more than 75 million views in its first week following the 25 April 2019 launch, according to a measurement report issued on 2 May 2019 by European Broadcast Partners. Total reported views subsequently reached more than 130 million, as documented by europarl.europa.eu, placing the film among the most-watched European public interest films of its era. Alongside the film's reach, the thistimeimvoting.eu participation platform recorded more than 270,000 sign-ups by 2 May 2019, according to the same European Broadcast Partners report.
No independent third-party audit of the final view count is publicly available, and the relationship between film viewership and verified changes in turnout behaviour in Denmark specifically has not been established in published research. What the structural evidence does support is that Choose Your Future succeeded on its primary creative objective: it generated sustained organic sharing across social platforms during a period when political advertising was competing for attention in an exceptionally crowded European media environment. The decision to anchor the film in documentary footage of real births rather than constructed imagery gave it a shareability that scripted public service campaigns rarely achieve. In Denmark and across the EU, the campaign demonstrated that a public interest film built around hope rather than obligation can reach audiences that conventional civic messaging consistently fails to engage, a finding that remains instructive for European Parliament communications planning beyond the 2019 cycle.
Choose Your Future is a three-minute public service film made for the European Parliament by &Co in Denmark, launched on 25 April 2019. It uses footage of real births and a child's voiceover to encourage citizens to vote in the 23–26 May 2019 European Elections, framing the act of voting as a responsibility to future generations.
Frédéric Planchon directed Choose Your Future. Planchon is a French filmmaker who built the campaign around documentary footage of real births rather than actors. He told Reuters in May 2019 that the film was designed as a message of hope during a period of widespread political fear and tension across Europe.
Choose Your Future reached more than 75 million views in its first week, according to European Broadcast Partners. Total reported views exceeded 130 million, as documented by europarl.europa.eu. The accompanying thistimeimvoting.eu platform recorded more than 270,000 participation sign-ups by 2 May 2019, per the same source.
&Co, a Copenhagen-based creative agency, produced Choose Your Future as a subcontractor to European Broadcast Partners. The creative team included Thomas Hoffman as creative director, Rune Petersen as art director, and Johan Køhler as copywriter, with social media planning handled by Emil Towity and Morten Saxnæs.
The campaign focused on what unites EU citizens rather than what divides them, according to Trine Aagaard Eisinger, Creative contractor for the European Parliament, speaking to Reuters in May 2019. Real births and a child's voiceover reframed voting as an intergenerational duty rather than a political or ideological act.
Choose Your Future was translated or subtitled into all official EU languages as well as several regional and national language variants, according to europarl.europa.eu. This multilingual distribution strategy allowed the Danish-originated film to reach audiences across all European member states ahead of the 23–26 May 2019 voting period.
.webp)
Creative Collaboration Platform: The Backbone of Modern Creative WorkWhat is a creative collaboration platform?Clapboard defines a creative collaboration platform as the operational core for today’s distributed creative teams. This is not a collection of digital collaboration tools stitched together; Clapboard’s system
Understanding the Creative Production MarketplaceWhat is a Creative Production Marketplace?Clapboard defines a creative production marketplace as a structured ecosystem where brands, agencies, and production talent converge to execute video, advertising, and branded content at scale. Unlike the legacy agency or freelanREAD FULL ARTICLE
The Urgent Need for a Creative Production Operating SystemWhy Traditional Creative Production Models Break DownClapboard sees the creative production landscape shifting under pressure. Content velocity is no longer a buzzword—it’s a mandate. Modern advertising demands relentless output across dozens of channels, each wREAD FULL ARTICLE
.jpg&w=256&q=75)
