The Tale About the Failed Santa: Forsman & Bodenfors for PostNord


PostNord, the biggest logistics company in Sweden, has in recent years been facing some challenges due to the drastic increase of parcels. Together with Forsman & Bodenfors Sweden – recently awarded Agency of the Year at Epica Awards 2018 – they have produced a tale to tell their consumers about all their improvements.
 
E-commerce in Sweden grows at a high pace and increased by 21% between 2016 and 2017. According to PostNord's own assessments, this growth rate will continue in 2018. The time around Black Friday and Christmas is one of the most hectic periods for the logistics industry. To better face the challenges ahead, PostNord has made several improvements – everything from building new terminals to improving their app. The new campaign is all about those improvements. 
– The story about Santa is primarily aimed at making people smile and drop their guard a couple centimeters, says Thomas Backteman, Communications Director at PostNord. We know that we are not as bad as the outside world perceives us, but to get people to listen, we understand that we have to start at a place where the Swedish people are. That is our intention with the film and we hope the audience will like it, concludes Thomas Backteman.
– This film is a humorous way of saying what a drastic change in the world means to a very undersized Santa Claus workshop. But clearly, the film could as well have been about PostNord, says Evelina Rönnung, Art Director at Forsman & Bodenfors.

Give us an overview of the campaign, what is it about and what was your role in the creation?

The objective of the campaign is to highlight the actions Postnord has taken in order to improve their postal service. But to get this message across, we hade to address the challenges Postnord has had during the last year when came to delivering packages in time. My role in this was as copywriter.

 

Was the brief for this holiday campaign any different that than the usual? What challenges did that present?

Postnord doesn´t normally do Christmas campaigns, but since the period from Black Friday is when their services are really put to the test, it was a relevant timing for communicating their improvements.

 

What inspired you to approach the campaign this way?

Actually, the inspiration came from a debate article written by the famous Swedish author Astrid Lindgren in 1976. The whole article was about such a boring thing as the high income taxes in Sweden, but was written in the form of an exciting fairytale. We thought that maybe that could be a way to turn the quite rational information about Postnord into something more interesting and engaging.

 

What’s a “behind the scenes” story that only you know about?

The reindeer was made in CGI, so the shots of Santa riding were made by putting him on a plank on wheels, pulled by a car. It was quite a scene to see him yelling on the plank, driving around in central Stockholm in full speed.

 

Are there any holiday ad tropes that you think should be retired by now?

Sorry, couldn´t come up with any.

 

What is your favorite holiday campaign of all time?

I´m not generally a big fan of holiday campaigns, but Old Spicé´s Ye olde exploding yule log is definitely a different take on the subject.

 

What can we expect from your agency in 2019?

Loads of interesting and surprising ideas, I hope.

 

What do you think the advertising industry's New Year’s resolution should be?

Don't present any crap. If noone presents anything crappy, the world will be soaked in brilliant work.