Danish couples have 1.73 kids, which is below replacement levels
+ READ ARTICLEA Danish ad urging couples to “Do It For Mom” has released a blush-inducing, tongue-in-cheek ad to encourage Danes to travel and get busy. (Warning: the video is NSFW.)
The video starts off with gloomy music and images of an elderly woman who seems to feel empty and sad without a grandchild by her side. “But don’t despair,” the announcer says. “We may have found the solution.” Citing statistics that suggest that couples have 51% more sex while on an exotic, romantic holiday, the ad then shows a young couple in a series of situations dripping with innuendo.
“Send your child on an active holiday and get a grandchild within nine months,” the ad cheerily suggests, before offering a booking discount of 1,000 DK (about $150) and an “activity package,” but also a special deal for singles wanting to mingle.
With a nosediving birth rate—in 2012, Danish women were having 1.73 births each—Denmark is searching for increasingly unorthodox methods to encourage a baby boom. The Scandinavian country is technically not behind the ad—travel company Spies Travels is—but Denmark isn’t exactly against the ad either.
The country is taking its diving birth rates seriously, attempting not only “date night” childcare and special masses to encourage birth, but also attempts to avoid government shutdowns in exchange for more kids.
Sound familiar? The same company put out an equally provocative ad a couple years calling for couples to go on holiday and “Do it for Denmark!” Spotting the plus sign on a pregnancy test meant a couple would be eligible to get three years’ worth of baby supplies.
That ad might not have done the trick though. For a travel company and a nationalistic urge to somehow up population, Spies implores: “If they won’t do it for their country, surely they will do it for their mother?”