The Norwegian capital has been praised for its unconventional advertisement. Video / Visit OSLO
It’s been described as “the best tourism commercial you’ve ever seen” and “unconventional but hilarious” by companies such as Fast Company and Business Insider.
Yet, Visit Oslo’s viral advertisement sounds like a vicious slam of the Norweigan capital.
Filmed like a documentary, the 1.45-minute video follows Halfdan (played by Norwegian actor Bendik Aunan); a 31-year-old local who “unfortunately” lives in Oslo.
“I wouldn’t come here, to be honest,” Halfden says at the start of the video, which follows him as he wanders around pointing out everything he dislikes.
The genius of the advertisement, however, is that all the things Halfdan hates are qualities that describe an underrated city not yet overrun by tourists.
Walking around a gallery, Halfden asks whether art is really “worth it” if you don’t have to wait in a queue for “a couple of hours”; a subtle dig at famous spots like the Louvre or Florence’s Uffizi.
“It’s no Mona Lisa”, he says despondently while standing in front of Edvard Munch’s iconic painting, The Scream.
Getting into a Michelin-star restaurant is also too easy, Halfden moans, saying he often walks in off the street and gets a table.
“I’m not even famous, I mean, what does that tell you?” suggesting the availability means it’s no good.
Yet, the news is music to the ears of any traveller who has been turned away from a great restaurant in a new city because of a weeks-long waitlist.
Sitting at an outside bar decorated with fairy lights and friends enjoying a drink, Halfdan describes Oslo as a ‘village’ with obvious distaste, saying you can easily bump into the King or Prime Minister and walk across the city in 30 minutes.
To Halfdan, this makes everything “too available” and not exclusive enough but sounds like a dream compared to sprawling cities jam-packed with visitors.
Like a good relationship, Halfden believes a city should be “hard to get”, implying Oslo is simply too easy to enjoy, which, again, is another green flag for those considering a visit.
The video has been viewed more than 1.7 million times on TikTok and almost 400,000 times on Youtube, with the most liked comment reading: “I think this is the best tourism commercial I’ve ever seen”.
On X (formerly Twitter), dozens have shared the video, with one person calling it the “best tourism campaign” they’ve seen in a long time.
“Nah, compared to the ads for NY and Paris… is it even a campaign?” Visit Oslo’s account replies cheekily.
This isn’t the first time Oslo has had some fun with its tourism campaigns. In 2019, it ran a campaign called Oslo is Rubbish, featuring a woman calling various places or objects “garbage” and “waste”, while subtly pointing out Oslo’s sustainability efforts.
Other Nordic countries have also employed tongue-in-cheek humour in their advertising campaigns. In 2023, a Visit Sweden campaign focused on how tourists mistake it for Switzerland, while Visit Iceland parodied Facebook’s Metaverse in 2021.
