swedish police

 

The video was made ahead of a national public holiday, urging people to be safer on the roads. Within the first 24 hours of being published on the local police station’s Facebook site, it was shared by over 25,000 people –an impressive number for the small Scandinavian country.

The Swedish lyrics included musical gems such as “Use your blinkers”, “don’t speed”, ”keep the distance to the next car” and “you will reach your destination even though you drive safe style”.

Police at the local station explain they had two goals when producing the video in their spare time.

“We wanted to show that we are not as stiff and boring as we appear to be,” police officer Johan from Ringsjöbygden station told local news media Aftonbladet.se.  ”And the traffic engages a lot of people.”

The post has since been removed by the local police station, but only because they did not want to get in copyright trouble for using Psy’s mega hit song. But should the Swedish police also be concerned that the video has damaged its brand?

I believe the Swedish police did overstep the line from good cop to silly cops with the tongue-in-cheek video. Although the response was mainly positive from the public, it’s very unlikely the dancing police really reached their target audience – reckless and DUI drivers – with the key message.

Contrast this with two campaigns the Red PR Group has recently completed: the Suncorp Lowndesy Goes Local for Safer Queensland Roads tour and Queensland Fire & Rescue Service (QFRS) annual “Don’t be a fool, change you smoke alarm battery” community education campaign. Both of these are behaviour change campaigns that balance humour with an important message. The difference between Swedish police’s video and these campaigns was that the later were carefully aligned to the brand values and therefore didn’t undermine the reputation of the organisation they it was attempting to promote.

And although it’s a great move for police to be active on social media and make themselves more transparent and approachable to the public, they need to be careful not do diminish their authority and become jokes. And I hate to be the bad cop here, but as far as the police’s secondary motive goes, to appear less ‘stiff’ and ’boring’, that’s just part of their jobs.  At the end of the day, their primary goal is to maintain law and order.

In other words, I think the Swedish police need to rein it in – not gallop Gangnam style.

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac-yNM3lQmw&list=PL_Cc4Q54OtjjKr4T8Q_NhHdeTq1PZViyR&index=6

Mira Palomäki

15 Years of Fame