IM Sweden - Det Nya Landet / The New Country (2016) :90 (Sweden)

It's my job here to stay objective on the commercial's topic and comment on the advert's execution instead, but sometimes this gets difficult. This is one of those times.

This talking head choddy soup is visually a poor man's Benetton-portraits of people nodding "yes" like hypnotized subjects, representing various ethnic groups, sexes, and ages. Meanwhile, the VO is an equally edited mishmash of sound portraits where the voice actors have dialects from the north to the south in Sweden, and various foreign accents as well.

And when the VO says "Everyone needs to be integrated, even established Swedes" it sounds like Queen Silvia herself with her distinct German-Portuguese accent.

There is no way back. Sweden will never again be what it once was. Europe needs a safe place for refugees. Now we must seek the way forward, and find a way for everyone to live together. It's time to realize that new Swedes will come to take up space, with culture, language and habits, and it's time to view this as a positive force. To be Swedish must become more than just skin colour, and birth place. It must be allowed to be you, me, and everyone together. It's not just new Swedes that will have to be integrated. Everyone needs to be integrated, even established Swedes. Integration is about reciprocity. Lets create a future that is built from equal parts reality and belief in the future. Let us build a country where we put aside fears and hate. We all have the new country within us. In our approach, thinking and behavior. It is time that we together create a country, which is proud, inclusive and sustainable. Something new. The New Country. #TheNewCountry

IM Sweden / Individuell Människohjälp is a development organization partially funded by the Swedish government.

You can check the hashtag and see that the reactions to this ad are in a word polarised.

This propaganda piece is basically scolding Swedes and "new Swedes" - a term which is politically incorrect to use in Swedish media with this one exception - for not integrating enough with each other and the current onslaught of refugees.
It's well known that Sweden takes in more refugees per capita than any other country in the developed world, and it's also well known that the current refugee crisis has become too much for Sweden to handle. You can fill a bucket with a drop of water at a time, but don't be surprised if it overflows dramatically when you open the tap to the max. No ads can change the reality of that. And certainly not a poor man's Benetton-choddy with copy that gives me creepy Orwellian vibes.

Client: IM Sweden