Never Forget. To Vote.

Background

Sveriges Socialdemokratiska Ungdomsfo¨rbund, or SSU, was a part of the Swedish Social Democratic Youth League.

In the run-up to the European parliamentary elections they wanted to communicate the importance of elections in the democratic process and, at the same time, build a sense of pride in the organisation, which would help them recruit new members.

Idea

To warn of the growing threat of right-wing movements across Europe, the idea was to ask Rainer Ho¨ss, the grandson of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Ho¨ss, to front the campaign.

To urge young Swedes to vote, he fronted a film in which he described his past and what happened the last time Europe looked away.

With support from the actor Stephen Fry, a digital protest march was organised through Thunderclap to take place a few days before the elections.

More than 80 SSU ambassadors including musicians, actors, activists and Holocaust survivors supported the campaign with their own posts on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Hundreds of leaflets and posters were distributed to schools and in public places by volunteers.

Results

The movie was shared more than 50,000 times.

The campaign had an earned media reach of more than 100 million people and was featured by The Daily Mail, Al Jazeera, Le Figaro, El Mundo, Der Spiegel and Haaretz.

30,000 people contacted Rainer Ho¨ss to offer support.

The digital protest march reached 7,881,424 people.

For the first time in a European election, the turnout in Sweden was above 50% and the SSU recruited 800 new members.

While extreme right parties still gained some ground, opposition also became stronger and more visible. Never Forget. To Vote won the support of people right across the political spectrum.

Our Thoughts

The greatest single enemy to democracy is apathy. Because there is no resistance to them, right-wing movements gain momentum. Advertising has pointed this out plenty of times in the past but what makes this different is not just his unique perspective on the holocaust but the fact that Rainer Höss was currently ‘hot’ in the media already. He had just written a book, ‘The Legacy of the Commandant’, to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. He had made it his full-time job to use his name as a weapon against what it once represented. All of that publicity got caught up and became a part of the SSU campaign, which was astute.