Hot Swedish Dads Doing Baby Yoga Teach Women About Parental Leave

WASA, the world's most famous yellow and blue Crisp Bread has today together with StrawberryFrog New York, its creative agency for the USA, launched a new advertising strategy relying on branded content.

"The backdrop of this story is Sweden. The first story features Clarissa an American architect who is on a business trip to Sweden. What she experiences there changes her perspective on life and what she eats, and of course WASA Crisp Bread has a staring role.

Sweden is hot in the USA right now. There is the new TV Show on NBC called "Welcome to Sweden" produced by Amy Poehler, there is another new TV show from Sweden that's the talk of the town called Crimes of Passion, and Johan Skarsgård the Swedish actor on HBO's True Blood. Now there's the new Wasa campaign. 

The Swedish culture is aspirational for us in the USA. There is a perception that they have a healthier view on work-life balance and live a more natural lifestyle. One cultural phenomenon is that new parents in Sweden can have a whopping 12 months of parental leave when their newborn arrives. And that is the backdrop for this film featuring Clarissa, an American business woman on a work trip to Stockholm.  She wants to relax after a long day of business meeting by going to a local yoga class.  But she finds her class is only attended by new fathers, and to her delight a funny surprise unfolds which you have to see,” says Scott Goodson, Founder of StrawberryFrog.

The production was done in Sweden by Stockholm director Oskar Bård and his production company Hobby Films, working closely with Scott Goodson at StrawberryFrog New York who wrote the film, Christine Piper, the account lead. Courtney Trent Agency Producer, Lucas Rodriguez, the WASA account planner.

“Scott Goodson and his team at StrawberryFrog have a world class reputation and we feel their work adds real drive to our marketing efforts for WASA in the United States," says Eugenio Perrier, VP Marketing for the Americas for Barilla (who owns Wasa). “With all the innovation happening in the marketing space and the excitement and opportunity, we felt a new approach was needed in our advertising."

Scott Goodson, says: “We were thrilled with this appointment as we get to work with a top innovative marketer and his team on an iconic Swedish brand and help them in their ambition to be the number one crisp bread in the US. We are doing this by creating quality content with the production values, speed and economies of scale more what you get in the entertainment industry with story telling and longer format scripts."