ARCHIVEVisit Oslo Dares Travelers to Question the City Itself
Visit Oslo's 'Is it Even a City?' is a 2024 travel film campaign produced by Norwegian agency NewsLab AS that positions Oslo as an authentic urban destination by letting a sceptical local resident make the case — reluctantly, candidly, and in English — directly to an international audience.
The campaign launched on June 24, 2024, in Norway, with a single film asset distributed via YouTube. At its centre is Halfdan, a 31-year-old Oslo resident who delivers an unvarnished, quietly humorous assessment of the city he calls home. The character is played by actor Bendik Aunan, and the narrative device is deliberate: rather than assembling glossy montages of fjords and architecture, the film leans into the kind of self-deprecating honesty that tends to disarm viewers who have grown weary of conventional destination marketing. The film is conducted in English, a strategic choice that positions Oslo for an international travel audience well beyond Norway's domestic market.
The campaign sits within a clear creative lineage. Visit Oslo had previously run 'Oslo is Rubbish' in 2019, which used humour to highlight the city's environmental credentials, and 'Oslo Sceptics' in 2021, which featured ordinary residents persuading rural acquaintances that Oslo had something to offer them, as reported by media-marketing.com. 'Is it Even a City?' extends that progression, sharpening the ironic self-questioning into a single, memorable title that doubles as an invitation. The provocative question embedded in the campaign name functions as a search hook, a conversation starter, and a reframing device in one. The Clapboard Score for this campaign stands at 78 out of 100, reflecting strong creative distinctiveness and measurable audience engagement relative to the travel and tourism category.
ARCHIVEVisit Oslo targets a traveller who is actively suspicious of polished destination marketing. The strategic rationale behind 'Is it Even a City?' is rooted in the recognition that authenticity, delivered with wit, travels further than aspiration, delivered with gloss. By centering the campaign on a local resident's honest reservations rather than a curated highlight reel, NewsLab AS constructed a narrative designed to feel discovered rather than sold.
In Norway, and across the broader European travel market, the competition for international visitor attention is significant. Established Nordic destinations such as Copenhagen, promoted aggressively by Wonderful Copenhagen, and Stockholm, backed by Visit Stockholm, regularly command higher baseline recognition among international travellers planning Scandinavian itineraries. Visit Oslo's decision to lean into ambiguity — asking whether Oslo even qualifies as a city in the conventional sense — differentiates the brand from competitors who default to superlatives and scenic spectacle. The dry, irreverent tone draws on a register that feels distinctly Norwegian, grounding the campaign's international appeal in something genuinely local rather than generically cosmopolitan.
The film's distribution via YouTube, as a single media asset, reflects a disciplined channel strategy. Rather than fragmenting across multiple formats, the campaign concentrated its reach on a platform that rewards watch time, shares, and comment engagement. According to c-mw.net, one million organic views were recorded within the first few days of publication. The travel and tourism destination-marketing sector is a growing global market, and within that environment, campaigns that generate organic conversation represent a meaningful return on creative investment. The choice to broadcast in English further amplifies reach, ensuring the film is accessible to the international visitors Oslo is most directly trying to attract.
Director August Jorfald of NewsLab AS helmed the production of 'Is it Even a City?', bringing a documentary sensibility to what is, structurally, a destination advertisement. According to lbbonline.com, Jorfald described the production as running with a very light crew — a deliberately lean approach that contributes directly to the film's texture. The result feels closer to an observed portrait than a commissioned marketing piece, which is precisely the effect the strategy requires.
The creative style draws conscious inspiration from Norwegian cinema. As reported by lbbonline.com, the visual and tonal approach references the work of filmmakers Joachim Trier and Kristoffer Borgli — both known internationally for quiet observational comedy and understated emotional realism. That lineage gives 'Is it Even a City?' a cinematic credibility that most destination films do not attempt. Actor Bendik Aunan embodies Halfdan with the kind of deadpan restraint that could easily tip into parody but never does, maintaining the character's believability across the film's runtime.
The choice to work in a single-asset format — one film, one character, one line of inquiry — is itself a creative decision. It resists the instinct to demonstrate Oslo's breadth through rapid-cut variety and instead allows the city to emerge gradually, through the gaps in Halfdan's reluctant endorsements. Marketing Manager Anne-Signe Fagereng of VisitOSLO addressed this directly, stating, as quoted by c-mw.net on July 3, 2024: 'The reason we dared to use this honest humour in an international campaign is to get attention, and it works.' The campaign's English-language delivery, combined with its dry Norwegian comic register, positions the film as something that rewards sharing — the kind of asset that travels organically precisely because it does not feel like it was built to do so.
Visit Oslo's 'Is it Even a City?' generated one million organic views within its first few days of release, according to VisitOSLO Marketing Manager Anne-Signe Fagereng as reported by c-mw.net. The film ultimately exceeded fifteen million organic views across social platforms, as reported by lbbonline.com and media-marketing.com — a figure that places it among the most widely distributed destination marketing films produced in Norway in recent years.
The search behaviour data attached to the campaign is particularly significant. According to lbbonline.com, in the five weeks following the June 24, 2024 launch, there were 7.4 million searches for flights to Oslo, representing a seventeen percent increase compared to the preceding five-week period — equivalent to more than one million additional searches. That correlation between a single film asset and measurable top-of-funnel travel intent represents the kind of outcome that destination marketers pursue but rarely document with this degree of specificity.
Recognition from the industry followed. VisitOSLO won the ICCA Best Marketing Award on October 23, 2024, at the 63rd ICCA Congress held in Abu Dhabi, as confirmed by iccaworld.org. The award was contested against Business Events Australia and Tourism Winnipeg, making the win a genuinely competitive result on an international stage. Little Black Book published strongly positive editorial coverage on August 12, 2024, characterising the work as dry and irreverent, according to lbbonline.com. Taken together, the campaign's performance across organic reach, audience engagement, flight-search uplift, and industry recognition establishes 'Is it Even a City?' as a structurally effective and verifiably impactful piece of travel and tourism communication.
'Is it Even a City?' is a 2024 travel film by Visit Oslo, produced by Norwegian agency NewsLab AS. The campaign features a local Oslo resident named Halfdan, played by actor Bendik Aunan, delivering a candid and humorous opinion of his city. It launched on June 24, 2024, and is distributed in English via YouTube to attract international visitors to Norway.
August Jorfald of NewsLab AS directed 'Is it Even a City?' for Visit Oslo. Jorfald ran the production with a deliberately light crew, drawing on the observational filmmaking traditions of Norwegian directors Joachim Trier and Kristoffer Borgli. His approach gave the campaign a documentary quality that distinguishes it from conventional destination marketing films.
The 'Is it Even a City?' campaign exceeded fifteen million organic views across social platforms, according to lbbonline.com and media-marketing.com. Within its first few days of publication alone, the film recorded one million organic views. On YouTube, the campaign accumulated over 1.4 million views and more than 36,000 likes, reflecting sustained international audience engagement.
VisitOSLO won the ICCA Best Marketing Award on October 23, 2024, at the 63rd ICCA Congress in Abu Dhabi, as confirmed by iccaworld.org. The campaign competed against Business Events Australia and Tourism Winnipeg. The award recognises outstanding marketing achievement in the international meetings and events industry, validating the campaign's impact beyond consumer audiences.
Visit Oslo replaced scenic spectacle with a sceptical local resident's honest opinion, a format that deliberately subverts destination marketing conventions. The approach continues a creative lineage including 'Oslo is Rubbish' in 2019 and 'Oslo Sceptics' in 2021, as reported by media-marketing.com. The ironic, self-questioning tone and English-language delivery are designed to generate organic sharing among international travellers seeking authentic experiences.
In the five weeks after the June 2024 launch, there were 7.4 million searches for flights to Oslo — a seventeen percent increase versus the preceding five-week period, according to lbbonline.com. That uplift represents more than one million additional searches, providing direct evidence that the film translated creative impact into measurable top-of-funnel travel intent for Norway's capital.
.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
