The Open Letter - Visit Stockholm | Clapboard Ad Archive
Welcome to Stockholm – The Open City! represents Visit Stockholm and agency Volontaire’s assertive 2018 push to reposition the Swedish capital as a diverse, cosmopolitan hub within the global travel and leisure market category, deploying a digital-first narrative that dismantles the well-trodden stereotypes of Scandinavian homogeneity. Central to the campaign is a live-casted film featuring families from the Middle East and Asia, teenage punks, skaters, climbers, wheelchair users, a priest, and other global visitors, each captured at iconic locations across the city. The campaign eschews conventional tourism tropes in favor of a direct, personality-forward approach that Clapboard’s taxonomy would classify as FORMAT#10 — Associated User Imagery, leveraging real, relatable profiles to extend the invitation of the city itself. Rather than foregrounding architectural landmarks or culinary novelties, the film becomes an open letter to the world’s lovers, haters, and hesitators, challenging preconceptions and amplifying the city’s inclusive credentials through consciously diverse casting and situational authenticity. Volontaire anchors the communication in human texture, conveying that Stockholm’s appeal lies not in exclusivity but in its willingness to welcome and be shaped by every kind of visitor — a message reinforced by the campaign’s refusal to impose a linear, product-driven narrative or problem/solution construct. With over 5.3 million views, the film demonstrates the scalability of emotional storytelling at a time when destination brands increasingly compete on the dynamic, lived social fabric of their cities rather than static branding cues. The sheer variety of visitor profiles aligns seamlessly with Visit Stockholm’s mission to attract tourism while subtly encouraging new residents, underscoring not just tolerance but active, daily cohabitation of differences. The campaign’s single media asset is a calculated play for global attention, using live-action social proof and digital amplification to drive traffic to the Visit Stockholm website, all while positioning the capital as The Capital of Scandinavia in tone and intent. The campaign earns 74/100 in Clapboard’s global creative archive. This work matters because it sets a new creative standard for hospitality and tourism marketing, showing that cities win the battle for hearts and minds when they showcase radical openness not as strategy, but as lived reality.
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