In the summer sun a boy plays hide and seek with his friends, later is rewarded with the most Swedish snack of all, in fact it's our version of peanut butter and jelly - a fish roe-paste on hardboiled eggs. Yes, us Swedes are crazy but don't knock it until you've tried it.

Here's the TV commercial for the Social Democrats in Sweden's election 2010. It depicts the business hubub of swapping cards and having meetings, the action in an operating room, the firemen off to quell a fire ... and in each scene a bored looking teenager still in their jammies shuffling along with the group. "207000 young people want to join in" the super reads "We can't wait. Social Democrats"

There's a lot of unemployment for young people in Sweden, so this ad flirts directly with them (and possibly their parents who want them out of the house already).

Looks like I'll soon have to make a category just for political ads, as Sweden has begin airing election ads on the national TV channels that accept advertising (SVT is like BBC paid for by license fees and thus has no advertising). This election is ad-historical in that all of the political parties are bringing TV ads to the table, and you non-Swedes will be getting an eyeful of Swedish political advertising in the coming weeks. ;)

In this advert for the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO), the VO describes how your employer will have all these people on their side when you go to negotiate your salary. They'll have Human Resources, the companies law office, they might even get international legal consultation, and perhaps call some outsourcing experts. This ad has a few politically active people in it, you might recognize Anna Ardin who walks in from the right at the end. The VO ends with "Your boss also says it's best that you negotiate your salary on your own. If you want to even the odds, join LO (the union)"

The never-ending soap opera of what goes in at the local ICA store takes a sexy turn as Ulf seems to have spent his entire vacation working out and oiling up his skin. It begins when Cindy asks her co-workers what they've done on their vacations. Jerry, the downs syndrome trainee has "hung out", and the other guy doesn't answer as suddenly new and improved Ulf makes his entrance. With visual homage to the 2002 Satisfaction video by Benny Benassi as Ulf drills a hole in the floor in slow motion, the ad successfully mocks every aspect of sexism in advertising by turning it all on its head.

As I told readers of brandflakes, political commercials aren't as widespread around these parts as they are in the US. We don't have coroners "Igor" ads when they're fighting for re-elaction, nor do we get Mayor candidates doing the reverse reading trick in their ads.

We do get cinema ads, and this year all parties have decided to do a little bit of TV. Miljöpartiet (the green party) doesn't have a huge budget, and hope this ad will spread virally. In it the party leader VO's a simple statement: All around us are people who do things for the environment. Isn't it time we got a government who did the same?
Since we don't have a two-party system, the green party would join a coalition with the Social democrats and the Left Party (formerly known as the communist party), and not all environmentally conscious people like that combination, lovingly dubbed in the press "the red-green mess".

Still, pretty understated for a political ad, right?

Like the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health campaign created by Zig, Toronto - the Ronald McDonald House campaign have lifted their style from the real estate ads we see each day. But with a twist. Right now we have 14 families waiting. But nobody wants to move in... their first headline states, alluding to the usual queueing system Swedes endure for housing.

In real estate shop windows you'll find their ad stating "The house nobody wants to live in" begging for your attention. In local spots where "apartment for rent" ads normally appear, their note hangs stating "29 rooms and a kitchen that nobody wants"

While the shocked driver thanks his lucky stars that he's OK, James Lanman and friends group rush through the forest to deliver a special song: "Don't you worry about a thing"

The Popaganda music festival will be held at Eriksdalsbadet 27-28th of August 2010, and there's no better way to announce this and set the music mood than letting a bunch of young beautiful indie people take spectacular slow motion dives into the pool, is there?

If you are getting sick of the case studie clips that are blasting all sorts of social media logotypes over countless screenshots of whatever crazy idea is being presented... Watch this one, you'll like this one.

I sent some of the christmas cards to my friends and HOO BOY did they love them. People got all choked up. Sentimental saps! Especially YOU DigitalPR deeped. ;)

Anyway, thanks for getting me out of the doghouse with Mom CP+B, I usually forget the whole Xmas card thing.

As this stunt actually happened, I seriously contemplated going to that box. Yep. A box, where I'd save another person by taking their seat in the box. The thing that stopped me? I have offspring that need picking up from school, and doubted that I would be let out on time. The turnaround was often a lot quicker than I suspected it would be, which is rather surprising.

Good luck in Cannes with this one, guys.

Looks like the earlier ad from Tele2 this month, where one of Frank the sheep's colleagues is kidnapped has given the rival agencies and phone companies some ideas. In this ad Tre.se 'kidnap' the idea of black sheep, and have "Frank" parade into the the competitions shop to get his hands on the Nokia 7230, which is currently only available at 3 stores.

Someone just sent us this email with no credits whatsoever (seriously, quit that), and states;

We dunked a Ballerina Kladdkaka from 15 000 feet into a pool of milk. How do you dunk? http://www.ballerina.se

...So it looks like the usually sleepy brand of Ballerina tea time cookies are now entering Red Bull stunt area of advertising, with the simple question of how we dunk our cookies. I dunk mine in hot black coffee holding my pinkie up just so, which isn't nearly as exiting. It gets really messy at the end there, but then again "kladdkaka" literally means messy cookie, so I guess that works.

The idea of the campaign is to take a category that people care very little about and inject it with emotional meaning. Typically, white-good manufacturers talked about features like cooking temperatures, sizes and capacity. Instead we wanted to talk about what these objects help the consumer to deliver. Fun mealtimes, family warmth, magical moments with friends. These are the real end benefits. It was about shifting the conversation from things the consumer doesn't care about to those things they do.

One of Tele2's less-than-friendly competitors has kidnapped Daniel from the sheep-office of Tele2, demanding that they "stop being cheap". What should they do? Nothing.