Critics are slamming the fake, provocatively sexy, video sneaked onto YouTube by the Danish state tourist board, VisitDenmark, in an underhand manner earlier this month. But the controversial marketing ploy is seen by its sponsors as a huge success.
The video shows a young blonde Danish woman, “Karen,” with her baby, “August,” saying she wants to let the anonymous father know that he has a child in Denmark – the fruit of a single, casual encounter. “Karen” says she doesn’t even know the father’s name or country of origin, but she doesn’t “blame” him. It turns out, however, that the “mother” is in fact actress Ditte Arnth Jorgensen, who has launched a similar stunt video before, that “August” is not her baby, and that the video was produced by the Grey Group international advertising agency.
When Danish media revealed that the tourist board was behind the video, it was assailed for trying to sell the country by suggesting that willing young blondes were readily available. Similar disapproval was voiced by the media in Britain and other European countries, and even by some in the United States. Passport, the blog of the U.S. Foreign Policy magazine, described the video as “the worst tourist advertisement ever produced.” Others wondered exactly what clientele the tourist board was targeting – certainly not women, seniors, couples, or families.
With the outcry mounting, the tourist board announced that it had removed the video from YouTube – assuming such a thing to be possible after a video has gone viral – but not before it had already scored more than 800,000 hits. A Grey advertising representative hailed the video as “the most successful viral advertising ever,” saying it had “cut through the media clutter” – all for the same cost as a 30-second commercial aired a few times on Danish TV.
Dorte Kiilerich of VisitDenmark described the video as the “most effective thing we have ever done to market Denmark,” claiming that it shows Denmark as a place where women live in a free society and can make their own choices. “This is a good, sweet and really harmless story and it’s not unusual to sell false stories when you communicate,” Kiilerich said. That sounded laughable to the ad’s critics, especially the notion that it’s OK for government bodies to “sell false stories” – even though few may find that surprising.
