Swedish amusement park Liseberg in Gothenburg had a glorious campaign idea: to gain new customers by preventing them from going to vacations in Greece. “Some children are forced to to go Crete in summer – Guaranteed cheerful kids in our park Liseberg”, claims the poster that decorates streets of Gothenburg but also the company’s website. To see is a boy in tears, allegedly he is crying because of his upcoming vacation in Crete…
The poster shocked primarily the tourist sector in Crete, with the Association of Hoteliers in Chania complaining directly to the Swedish ambassador in Athens.
The president of the Association M. Giannoulis commented to local media Flashnews “I understand that this company wants to attract customer, but not with such methods.”
The Association sent a complain letter to Swedish embassy in Athens, to Foreign and Tourism Ministry and hope that Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni will solve the issue. Kefalogianni is due to visit Sweden on Thursday in an effort to stimulate the flow of Swedish tourists to Greece.
PS Amusement park Liseberg? Not amused!
UPDATE:
In KTG’s comment section we got following message at 8pm:
“the banner has been deleted
their reply before downloading this banner was
We love Crete,We are very sorry that the marketing campaign is not to your liking, but we would at the same time underline that the message has been taken out of context. This is not a campaign that belittles Crete; on the contrary Crete has been chosen as a holiday destination which is so good, that it can compare with Liseberg in the minds of children.
In short, the campaign compares Liseberg with three most popular holiday destinations for Swedish visitors – Crete, Mallorca and Italy. The campaign, which is humorous and very tongue-in-cheek, will run over two weeks, and in week two the campaign will have a different message.
Again, we apologize for the hurt feelings, but would again like to underline that this has far from been the intention of the campaign.
the banner at 7pm was deleted”
KTG checked the website and the boy crying in order to avoid Crete was indeed removed. But also replaced by a crying girl scared to go to … Mallorca, Spain. lol
the banner has been deleted
their reply before downloading this banner was
We love Crete,
We are very sorry that the marketing campaign is not to your liking, but we would at the same time underline that the message has been taken out of context. This is not a campaign that belittles Crete; on the contrary Crete has been chosen as a holiday destination which is so good, that it can compare with Liseberg in the minds of children.
In short, the campaign compares Liseberg with three most popular holiday destinations for Swedish visitors – Crete, Mallorca and Italy. The campaign, which is humorous and very tongue-in-cheek, will run over two weeks, and in week two the campaign will have a different message.
Again, we apologize for the hurt feelings, but would again like to underline that this has far from been the intention of the campaign.
the banner at 7pm was deleted
Thank you for letting us know! Of course, the message was taking out of context, however if the context in the mind of its creators needs 1o sentence for its explanation …well… not wonder people may misunderstand it.
I have to say the Greek response on this one is utterly absurd. The sentiment of the ad was in the lines of “some children are forced to eat ice-cream”. So it’s a joke based on the idea that it is completely insane not to want to go to Crete on holiday. Greeks should be proud that Crete is considered a dream destination for many Swedes for this type of campaign to actually work. The ad is fun just because it would be completely idiotic not to like a holiday in Crete.
But if you’re actively looking to be offended you might interpret it differently.
that’s the risk of douple-meaning ads, Anders.
recently a Greek company took down a tv-commercial showing a gay truck-driver, after the association complained. Now, there is a huge dispute about tv-commercial by toy-company with a popular singer – opponents criticize the ‘taste’ of the commercial. This ad will stay.
The fact that the ad needs “explaining” shows it is very ineffective. The companies responsible for this, both creators and publishers, obviously forgot the little inconvenience of common courtesy.
It is illegal in any country to name an individual, or even show a picture of an idividual, unless explicit permission is given, or it is somebody “in the public eye”, and even then there are lines you don’t cross. Hence the situation with the Kate Midleton pictures.
It is also illegal for anybody to name products after something or a place or a concept because it increases the chances of selling a product that isn’t related to the reference given. Hence the situation with “Greek Yoghurt” lately.
Why would it be ok to name a country, destination etc in relation to something that has absolutely nothing to do with the reference. If a so called amusement park in Sweden has to resort to belittling others rather than standing on it’s own merrit to get custom, then the owners operators should really be looking at their business model instead of creating cheap, crude and offensive advertising campaigns.
I agree with the last part. But there are countries where it is, in general not illegal to show someones portrait without their consent. It depends on the context. A person in a street market has, according to Dutch law no right to claim that kind of privacy. A person HAS almost always the right to refuse his portrait to be used commercially.
I hope you made a mistake in saying that in any coutry it is illegal to “name an individual…, unless explicit permission is given…” Because that would be total madness. And about depicting somebody in the public eye… I just read a piece about how a Dutch television maker recently showed a fake picture of Queen Beatrix and the soon to be King Willem Alexander in the nude, because they were supposed to dress like locals on a state visit to Papua New Guinea… (Pitty KTG doesn’t allow links anymore, ey?) 😀
Willem Alexander nude?
@Antonis, no I didn’t make a mistake, just didn’t want to go into a lengthy explanaiton of what this means in fine detail. Of course you can name somebody, what you can’t do is name somebody in context of commercial promotion. I can’t put up an ad stating that AntonisX endorses brand so and so, without your explicit permission. Equally so, you can’t sell just any yogurt as Greek yogurt, or any ham as Parma ham, etc. In that context, ads like this should also be off limits.
While being anecdotal about people in the public eye…Some years ago, an artist in Ireland depicted the then Taoiseach (prime minister) sitting on a toilet, naked. Now the guy was commonly known as BIFFO (which stands for: Big Ignorant F***** From Offaly), just to give you an idea. The image was secretly hung in an exhibition somehwere in Dublin, and of course drew a load of comments, articles, radio coverage etc. One radio station DJ got visited, while on air, by the police demanding information on the artist’s whereabouts etc. There was serious police activity trying to find this criminal, while at the same time heroin dealers, pimps , pick pockets etc. could not be kept at bay in the city due to “lack of resources”…
You simply don’t get it. It’s probably because you either don’t understand the language in the ad or don’t have a sense of what Swedes think about Crete. I hope I can shine some light on this for you. Swedes love Crete, and Greece has been the number one place for vacationing for many years. There is NO ONE in Sweden who would see this ad the way you do. It is an obvious joke to Swedes. The fact that you don’t know how loved Greece is by Swedish people is a shame (Crete being one of the three places mentioned in these ads should give you a hint). Another fact is that few Swedes ever choose between a trip to an amusement park and a trip abroad; that’s not a real choice. Again, it’s a joke! The last time I checked Greece had fallen to sixth place on the list of the Swede’s favorite place to travel, and that is disturbing to me, as I live in Greece and know how important it is to keep our tourism alive right now. These ads for Liseberg could help tourism, as they actually remind people of a place they used to love. It will certainly NOT do the opposite. These reactions from The hotel association in Chania, and others, however, will hardly attract visitors.
Thanks to greek reactions the ad-campaign has reached everyone in Sweden in a cheap and effective way. The reason we read this “news” is that we are both amused and amazed at the weird greek response; “How stupid are greek people? Don´t they have any sence of humor? How easily offended can anyone get?”
I guess Liseberg says thank you for all the help. (But I´m sure they feel bad for a lot of greeks who sit and feel embarrased over their countrymen.)
embarrased? why? in fact we plan to ask commission for promoting Liseberg
Ha ha!
And that was a reply to keeptalkinggreece….
KTG got it 🙂
Sweden always tries to find a way to offence the Greek, the italians and any other country in Southern Europe. Do they feel so depressed or can’t they find a civil way to advert their country? They believe they are so upper and so better, but as they offence in every possible way, they seem all but better than us.