The archive · Public & Social · Marketing decision · 2022–2024
Gotland crowns its ugliest lawn to save water — the joke goes global
Facing a summer drought, Sweden's Gotland turns not watering your lawn into a proud contest — global press follows, and it scales into The World's Ugliest Lawn.
Region Gotland · Differ Agency
What it had to solve
During Gotland's 2022 summer water shortage, lawns dried up and the island needed residents to stop watering grass. Region Gotland and Differ wanted communication that changed behavior without finger-wagging, in the playful tone the island already used in its brand platform.
How it works
In the summer of 2022 the Swedish island of Gotland faced a water shortage and dry, brown lawns. Instead of lecturing residents, Region Gotland and agency Differ launched a competition for the island's ugliest lawn: the browner and drier the grass, the better, and its proud owner earned a title. 'Communication becomes disarming and fun,' said Mimmi Gibson, acting brand and marketing manager at Region Gotland, 'instead of finger-pointing.'
Only about twenty Gotlanders sent in entries, but the joke travelled far beyond the island. AdAge, The Guardian and The Washington Post wrote about the contest, and the island's water manager reported a tendency toward lower water use in Visby that summer — an effect Region Gotland attributed in part to the campaign.
In 2023 Region Gotland scaled the idea into The World's Ugliest Lawn, enlisting actress and environmentalist Shailene Woodley to challenge the world to save water by celebrating dry lawns. Entries arrived from the USA, Germany, France, Australia, the UK, Canada, Croatia and Sweden, and in January 2024 an international jury named Kathleen Murray of Tasmania the first world champion.
The campaign turned doing the right thing into a game people wanted to win: brown became a point of pride, the contest became annual, and similar ugly-lawn competitions appeared in Canada, the US and Sweden.
Why it lands
- It flipped the social norm: instead of shaming people for ugly lawns, it made not watering grass a status worth competing for.
- It fit the client's own voice — humorous, self-aware island communication — so the message felt native rather than imposed.
- The single simple rule (send a photo of your dry lawn) made it easy to join and easy for the media to retell.
- Scaling a local joke into a global contest with a celebrity call-to-action multiplied its reach without diluting the idea.
What it did
Water use in Visby showed a downward tendency that summer, and the local joke reached global media including AdAge, The Guardian and The Washington Post. The 2023 edition generated an earned reach of 2 billion, drew entries from eight countries, and inspired copycat ugly-lawn contests in Canada, the US and Sweden.
What you can take
To change behavior, invert the shame: when the desired action — a dry, unwatered lawn — is celebrated as a prize instead of punished as neglect, people join the joke instead of defending themselves.
Since then
The World's Ugliest Lawn became an annual contest: entries for the 2026 edition were still being accepted by email at the end of 2025. The initiative was praised by the OECD and the European Union, appeared in schoolbooks in the Netherlands and the US, and continued to attract coverage — The Guardian alone published several articles on it from 2022 onward. It was shortlisted in the PR category at Cannes Lions, won Silver at Spinn, reached the second round of the One Show's Green Pencil, and made the European shortlist at the ANDY Awards.
Sources
- The World's Ugliest Lawn
- Region Gotlands tävlingskampanj spreds över världen: "Hade vi inte räknat med"
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