Have you heard about Youtube's "Karen26", a young Danish woman who decided to teach a foreign visitor just what "hygge" means, only to land with a bun in the oven for her efforts? Would you be willing to help her find the father of the child resulting from this one-night stand, a man of whom she remembers neither his nationality nor even his name? What if I then told you that this charming little video was actually cooked up by an ad agency, and paid for by VisitDenmark, the country's official tourist board, in the name of "viral marketing"?
Personally I think it's a little strange to sell one's country to the world by advertising that its full of promiscuous blondes, but what do I know? Then again, the Danes themselves don't seem to be too keen on this sort of branding (related article in Swedish here).
I can't vouch for the "promiscuous" part myself (not yet having the chance to find out), but I can verify that the streets of Copenhagen are impossibly full of tall, slender, gorgeous blonde women, the average Western heterosexual male's fantasies brought to life, in fact: hopefully they're a bit keener on contraception than the fictional "Karen26" supposedly was though ...
PS: I've just discovered Politiken's English-language article on the controversy.
The Danes are clearly trying to muscle in to a market sector currently dominated by the UK:
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-15066605_ITM
Posted by: www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkRplgpMa8DkCwvzMvY2zbVcWYdyiGcm4M | September 17, 2009 at 04:22 PM