Sweden has always been a forward-thinking country and it abolished censorship as the first country in the world in 1776, exactly 250 years ago. In order to celebrate this magnificent anniversary, Swedish Tourist Association set up a phone number which connects the caller to a random Swedish citizen, who has been registered as ambassador. You don’t believe your ears? Call +46 771 793 336, pay the same as for an international call, and enjoy a chat about Swedish culture, nature, language or about anything you fancy.

The calls are completely anonymous and your number shall never be shared, as they all go through a switchboard. To start the conversation, you can simply say “Hallå!” or “Hej!” for hello and then be pleased to find out that all the ambassadors speak English and are so kind to share their thoughts on various topics. Just bear in mind that all these calls are monitored and recorded for security reasons. In case no one picks up, they might possibly be asleep (Sweden is in the GMT+1 time zone), although if the first Swede you are calling cannot answer, you’ll be automatically forwarded to another one, until someone answers.

This remarkable campaign by WPP agency Ingo Stockholm has been greatly appreciated and received a Direct Lions Grand Prix at the 2016 Cannes Lions festival. Even Swedish (and world’s) most popular Youtuber with about 46 million subscribers, Felix Kjellberg aka Pewdiepie, tried calling his home country and see how well-known he actually is.

Take a look at a little statistic about the campaign by Ingo Stockholm below:
Calls received: Over 130,000
Swedish Ambassadors: Over 25,000
Talk Time: Over 270 days
Number of countries who called: 180
You can find more up-to-date numbers on the Swedish Number’s website.

Credits:
Swedish Tourist Association & Ingo Stockholm