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VIRAL

YouTube talking twins celebs to pitch Swedish broadband service

A viral clip of babies in conversation is Com Hem’s latest YouTube-inspired commercial, which premieres on television on Wednesday as the start of their autumn campaign.

YouTube talking twins celebs to pitch Swedish broadband service

The wildly popular clip of two babies engaged in lively conversation has over 30 million views on YouTube and has now been customized with subtitles to promote the newest broadband service Broadband 200 from telecom company Com Hem.

“With the help of the subtitles, we understand that the fiery debate is one twin trying to convince the other that ComHem can deliver broadband as fast as 200Mbit per second to over one million Swedish households,” said Annika Wink of Com Hem Marketing in a statement.

The video has also been edited to feature regular Com Hem commercial advocates Judith & Judith, who are shown perpetuating the babies’ dialogue.

In a second commercial for Broadband 200, Com Hem has chosen to mimic the YouTube phenomenon of talking through odd, restrictive circumstances.

The video shows Judith as she tries to tell customers about the new campaign with a wind-blower directed at her face, which gets increasingly stronger, doubling as an illustration of the increased speed of their broadband.

“The concept of basing commercials on funny YouTube phenomena is favourable from several perspectives. Firstly, it is relevant that we are dealing with material from the Internet world as it is this world Com Hem’s services provide access to,” said Wink.

“Firstly, an important part of our target audience is well-informed about a lot of things happening on the Internet. They’ll recognize what the video is based on directly and think it’s funny.”

“The films and the phenomena they are based on are also funny in themselves, you should be able to laugh and understand them even if you’ve never even been close to going on YouTube. Our advertising should feel popular and widespread, but also relevant and clever.”

Behind the campaign are Com Hem’s advertising agency King in collaboration with production company Tractor, who have released the videos on YouTube but will begin running them on television from Wednesday August 17.

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NORWAY

Norway Uni pulls coronavirus message citing ‘poorly developed’ US health system

One of Norway's leading universities has been forced to change a message warning overseas students of the US's "poorly developed health services", after it was dragged into a storm of criticism on social media.

Norway Uni pulls coronavirus message citing 'poorly developed' US health system
Norwegian University of Science and Technology is one of Norway's leading universities. Photo: NTNU
Over the weekend, the Norwegian Institute of Science and Technology posted a message on its Facebook page for its students on international postings,  advising them to heed the latest advice from Norway's foreign ministry on the coronavirus pandemic, and return back to Norway. 
 
“This applies especially,” the message said, “if you are staying in a country with poorly developed health services and infrastructure and/or collective infrastructure, for example the USA.” 
 
But on Monday, after a storm of social media criticism, the message was changed, stripping out all mention of the US. 
 
Anne Dahl, communications advisor for the university's rector, told state broadcaster NRK that the university had decided to change the post because the furore was distracting people from the serious underlying message. 
 
“We do not want the expression of a single phrase to overshadow important information, so the specific wording about the US was removed,” she wrote in an email. 
 
The original wording was quickly picked up by Twitter commentators in the US. 
 

It then got viral news coverage, with both conservative outlets like Fox News, and left-of-centre newspapers like the UK's Independent picking up the story. 
 
Several people flocked to the original post to attack the university in the comments. 
 
 
 
 
The post was then changed on Monday to remove all reference to the US. 
 
 
 
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