An ad for Scandinavian Airlines was taken down just hours after its original posting on Tuesday after receiving backlash on social media, as viewers said the video detracts from Scandinavian culture and history.
The ad called “What is Scandinavian for real? Absolutely nothing” makes the bold statement that all things that are typically considered Scandinavian have been imported and Scandinavia was “brought here, bit by bit, by ordinary people who found the best of our home in other places.”
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For example, the ad credits Greece for democracy, Switzerland for parental leave and Persia for the Scandinavian windmills, just to name a few.
The ad may have been well-meaning in a globalist sense, but it has definitely rubbed Scandinavians the wrong way. Viewers like Bo Kleis Christensen took to social media, believing that the ad “crossed a vital cultural boundary for us, ordinary people.”
Scandinavian politicians within anti-immigration populist parties have particularly taken issue with the airline’s latest ad. Richard Jomshof, a lawmaker with the Sweden Democrats, stated that the video is “really devilish nonsense and self-hatred. Have always tried to fly with SAS, but never again. It’s a promise.”
Likewise, Soeren Espersen of the Danish People’s Party believes that the airline was “spitting on all that is truly Norwegian, truly Swedish and truly Danish with its disgusting commercial.”
Other viewers have found the commercial demeaning toward Scandinavians. David Delfs Erbo Andersen, an assistant professor at Denmark’s Aarhus University, says the video makes a false implication that all Scandinavians believe they invented things like maternity leave and democracy.
