Tidningsutgivarna är en branschorganisation som arbetar för fria och konkurrenskraftiga medier för ett öppet och demokratiskt samhälle

Celebrating one hundered years

When the Swedish regional media house Norran celebrated its one hundred year anniversary in 2010, they turned the whole year into one long branding campaign. They wrote HUNDRED to symbolise the letters that have written the newspaper's history and given impact to its' journalism. The goal was to move the paper’s position from paper monopolist to innovative media partner in the frontline of digital development.
Examples of activities: The newspaper changed its' name from “Norra Västerbotten” to the nickname “Norran” with the message: “We give up – now our name is what you think our name should be”. Symbolizing the ongoing structural change: audience choice before editors choice. Norran published a series of one HUNDRED: reasons to love the local region, where readers contributed to the content. Norran arranged “HUNDRED: growth”, which was a think tank conference with one hundred invited VIP:s discussing ideas for a better development of the region.

Norran also launched “HUNDRED: easy to read”, which was a democracy strengthening activity to make elections to the Swedish parliament in 2010 easier to understand for the 25 per cent of the population that do not understand standard level Swedish. “HUNDRED: Christmas spirit” was an outdoor Christmas marketplace with stands, Christmas songs, real reindeers, fireplaces and a huge Christmas tree, aimed at creating pride and strengthening the community. The final was a splendid display of fireworks - and a switch, at Midnight New Years Eve to an animated logotype on the website, to symbolize that the webb is so much more than two dimensional texts and still pictures.

Bidrag till ENPA:s 50 ideas for the future of newspapers in Europe.