Making Norway

Not every campaign needs a stunt. Making Norway was much quieter than that, and better for it. The brief was to create a series of short-form documentary films for the Frankfurt International Book Fair, then adapt them for social, with a focus on the lesser-known sides of Norwegian culture, people and traditions. The ambition was to show a richer, more thoughtful version of the country than people usually see in travel marketing.

That sort of project lives or dies on whether the storytelling can survive the move into social. My role was to bring that lens from the start: what subjects would hold attention, which stories had the strongest hook, what kind of pacing would work in-feed, and how to preserve depth without becoming worthy or slow. The end result was a set of films that still had texture and intelligence, but were built with enough clarity and momentum to work far beyond the original event context.

The series smashed its original target of 2.9 million views and ended up delivering 8.3 million across markets, alongside more than 155,000 clicks, shares, likes and comments. Performance highlights included a 53% YouTube view-through rate in the UK against a 38% goal, a 19.2% Facebook VTR in the US for the King’s Speech film against an 8% benchmark, and 38.75% engagement in Holland on one of the films.

Making Norway won “Best Branded Campaign” at the Epica Awards. Established in 1987, Epica is unique as it is the only creative prize judged by the press. A jury comprised of more than 200 magazines and websites from around the world, Epica offers links with and exposure to an unrivalled network of journalists who are specialists in their field, and receives thousands of entries every year from over 70 countries.