Visit Stockholm Rewrites the Welcome Mat with The Open Letter
Visit Stockholm's "The Open Letter" is a 2018 digital campaign created by Swedish agency Volontaire that positions Stockholm as an unconditionally inclusive destination, addressing "lovers, haters and hesitators" across seven major social platforms with a single, humanist invitation to visit Sweden's capital city.
Launched in Sweden in January 2018, the campaign presents Stockholm not through landmarks or logistics but through a letter spoken in the first person — the city itself as narrator. The voiceover, delivered by an unnamed female voice personifying Stockholm, states plainly: "I don't know who you are, where you came from, who you voted for, what your family name implies… you're welcome anyhow, just as you are." That declaration anchors the entire creative and strategic framework. The destination is not selling an itinerary. It is making a civic promise.
Targeting audiences across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, WeChat, Weibo and even the comments sections of The New York Times, as reported by thedrum.com, the campaign reached well beyond conventional travel advertising channels. The choice of platforms signals a deliberate intent to intercept public discourse rather than simply interrupt leisure browsing. Reddit and newspaper comment threads are spaces defined by argument and division; placing a message of radical welcome there is itself an editorial act. In Sweden, where the campaign was published, this positioning carried particular resonance against a broader European conversation about identity, migration and national character. Thomas Andersson, CEO of Visit Stockholm, stated, as reported by Outthere Travel: "The idea that everything should be accessible for everyone is in the DNA of Stockholm. People across the world are curious about Sweden and Stockholm, in relation to our values of equality, sustainability, accessibility and much more. We believe that 'openness' is one of the things setting us apart." That framing transforms a tourism campaign into a values statement — and positions Stockholm not merely as a city to visit but as an idea to believe in.
Visit Stockholm launched "The Open Letter" at a moment when global travel was expanding but public trust in institutions and borders was contracting. The UN World Tourism Organization reported 1.083 billion international tourist arrivals during the first nine months of 2018, up 56 million arrivals from the same period in 2017, according to data cited by Connect Sandiego. International arrivals grew approximately five percent year-over-year during that period, with the UNWTO forecasting full-year 2018 growth of approximately four to five percent, as reported by union-services.com. Into this expanding but emotionally complex market, Visit Stockholm chose differentiation through values rather than volume.
The strategic rationale is precise. Competing Scandinavian destinations such as VisitDenmark and Visit Norway have historically leaned on landscape and lifestyle — fjords, design heritage, outdoor adventure — to position their capitals. Stockholm's creative platform under Volontaire made a different wager: that in a polarised international climate, a city declaring itself open to everyone regardless of identity, origin, political views or family background would occupy ground that scenery alone cannot claim. The campaign positioned Stockholm as "The Open City," as noted by visitstockholm.com, a designation that functions simultaneously as a tourism tagline and a civic identity.
The consumer insight driving the campaign is rooted in a tension. International audiences, particularly those in markets such as the United States, the Middle East and Asia — all represented by the visitors cast in the film — are curious about Sweden and Stockholm precisely because of what the country is perceived to stand for, as Thomas Andersson noted in remarks reported by outthere.travel. That curiosity is both an asset and an obligation. The campaign converts Stockholm's reputation for equality, sustainability and accessibility from a background assumption into an explicit, addressed invitation — spoken directly to anyone who may have doubted whether a place like Stockholm was meant for them.
The film at the centre of "The Open Letter" is built on a documentary instinct. Visitors to Stockholm were live cast — meaning recruited on location rather than selected through conventional casting calls — and filmed as they posed at scenic locations across the Swedish capital. The result is a portrait of the city that reflects its actual demographic texture rather than an aspirational fiction. Families from the Middle East and Asia, teenage punks, skaters, climbers, people in wheelchairs and a priest all appear within the same visual language, held together by the same voiceover address.
That creative decision carries structural weight. Live casting is a commitment to authenticity that conventional destination advertising rarely makes. Most travel films cast aspirational archetypes — the photogenic couple, the adventurous solo traveller — against backdrop landscapes. "The Open Letter" inverts the hierarchy: the people are the landscape. Stockholm's scenic locations serve as setting, not subject. The city becomes the frame within which human plurality is the actual spectacle.
The voiceover itself functions as the campaign's primary creative instrument. Delivered by an unnamed female voice personifying Stockholm, as documented in clapboard.com's campaign record, the letter's language is deliberate in what it refuses to know: identity, origin, voting history, family name. The rhetorical move is one of principled ignorance — the city does not need to know these things in order to welcome. That grammatical structure, the repeated "I don't know… you're welcome anyhow," transforms a monologue into a dialogue, compelling the viewer to fill in the blanks with their own particulars. Production credits for "The Open Letter" beyond the agency Volontaire and the client Visit Stockholm are not publicly documented in available sources. The Drum recognised the campaign as its Creative Work of the Week on January 22, 2018, with Senior Reporter Katie Deighton noting that the city was personified as a welcoming speaker communicating acceptance regardless of background, as reported by thedrum.com.
No verified performance data for "The Open Letter" — including reach figures, engagement rates, conversion metrics or visitor attribution — is publicly available from Visit Stockholm, Volontaire or any named third-party source. What can be assessed is the structural effectiveness of the campaign's design decisions and the independent recognition it received.
The Drum selected "The Open Letter" as Creative Work of the Week on January 22, 2018, as reported by thedrum.com, with Senior Reporter Katie Deighton providing the editorial framing that the campaign represented a meaningful act of destination positioning rather than a conventional travel advertisement. That recognition from a leading international trade publication within two weeks of the campaign's January 9 launch, as noted by thedrum.com, indicates rapid industry cut-through.
Structurally, the campaign's decision to publish across seven platforms — including Reddit and The New York Times comment sections, as reported by thedrum.com — demonstrates an intent to reach audiences in states of active opinion formation rather than passive consumption. For a destination marketing campaign competing in an expanding global travel market, that channel strategy is unusually confrontational in the best sense: it places a message of welcome precisely where division tends to live. The campaign's positioning of Stockholm as "The Open City," as documented by visitstockholm.com, also gives the platform longevity beyond a single film, functioning as a reusable brand foundation rather than a one-cycle execution. Clapboard rates "The Open Letter" 74 out of 100, recognising a strong strategic concept and an emotionally intelligent creative execution that is held back only by the absence of publicly verifiable outcome data.
"The Open Letter" is a 2018 digital campaign created by Volontaire for Visit Stockholm. It positions Stockholm as an unconditionally inclusive destination by addressing "lovers, haters and hesitators" through a voiceover that welcomes visitors regardless of identity, origin, political views or family background, as reported by thedrum.com.
Volontaire, a Swedish advertising agency, created "The Open Letter" for Visit Stockholm. The campaign was published in Sweden in January 2018 and distributed across seven social and digital platforms including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, WeChat, Weibo and The New York Times comments, as reported by thedrum.com.
Visit Stockholm distributed "The Open Letter" across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, WeChat, Weibo and The New York Times comment sections. The choice to target Reddit and newspaper comments reflected a deliberate strategy to reach audiences engaged in active public debate rather than passive content consumption, as reported by thedrum.com.
The campaign uses live casting, recruiting real visitors to Stockholm on location rather than through conventional casting. Families from the Middle East and Asia, skaters, punks, climbers, people in wheelchairs and a priest all appear on screen, while an unnamed female voiceover personifies Stockholm as a welcoming, non-judgmental city.
The Drum selected "The Open Letter" as Creative Work of the Week on January 22, 2018, as reported by thedrum.com. Senior Reporter Katie Deighton highlighted the campaign's personification of Stockholm as a welcoming speaker and its message of acceptance regardless of identity, origin or political background as its defining creative strength.
Clapboard rates "The Open Letter" 74 out of 100. The score reflects a strong strategic concept rooted in Stockholm's values of equality and openness, an emotionally intelligent creative execution using live casting, and a distinctive multi-platform distribution strategy, offset by the absence of publicly verifiable campaign performance data.
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