Airline ad about imported Scandi traditions sparks turbulence

A new commercial from airline SAS challenging the authenticity of Scandinavian traditions has provoked furore in the form of cyber attacks, a wave of social media anger and bomb threats against the ad agency behind it. On Thursday morning, Danish police cordoned off the area around the Copenhagen offices of the ad agency which created the newly released commercial, according to an AFP reporter at the scene.

The cordon was lifted several hours later. Copenhagen police said a bomb threat had been emailed to the agency but that police had found nothing. Published to YouTube on Tuesday, the ad asks "What is truly Scandinavian?," and then answers with "Absolutely nothing... everything is copied". "We're no better than our Viking ancestors," says an actor, before an off-screen voice says: "We take everything we like on our trips abroad, adjust it a little bit et voila!"

It then goes on to list the origin of iconic Scandinavian staples like Swedish meatballs - which were originally imported from Turkey - and Danish pastries, brought to Denmark by Austrian bakers.

SAS, founded jointly by Sweden, Denmark and Norway in 1946, said in a statement that the commercial was meant to convey the message "that travel enriches us." But it sparked anger among some in Scandinavia, where the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants since 2015 has led to fiery debates about integration and Scandinavian identity.

"What complete damn nonsense and self loathing," Richard Jomshof, a Swedish member of parliament representing the populist Sweden Democrats, wrote in a Facebook post. In Sweden and Denmark, neo-Nazi circles, typically very active online, also criticised the clip.

"The ad is taking a political stance implying that everyone is welcome. This is obviously a sensitive message in a time of xenophobia," communications professor Lars Thoger Christensen of Copenhagen Business School told AFP. In Denmark, Soren Espersen, deputy head of the anti-immigration Danish People's Party that dictated the country's restrictive immigration policy for two decades, told newspaper Ekstrabladet he was shocked.