For Jørn Idar Almås Kvig of Oslo, Norway—an avid disc golfer and tournament director—a remarkable journey started just a few weeks ago when he received a message from his wife. She sent Kvig a link to a social media post from the Norwegian branch of French carmaker Citroën that she knew would appeal to him.
"They were looking for people who wanted to get a tattoo," said Kvig. "I'd been thinking about getting one related to disc golf but hadn't gone through with it yet."
So, Kvig replied to the post, hoping he might be chosen to get the free tattoo. And it didn't take long before he got a call. During the chat, he learned that footage of him getting the tattoo could be part of a Citroën commercial, and if he was still interested, he should come in for a meeting.
"At the meeting...they revealed that they wanted the person they chose to get a tattoo of a whale, and that the tattoo would be done inside a car," Kvig said. "Honestly, none of those really ticked my boxes. So the first evening after I talked to them, I was like, 'I'm not doing it. In a car? That's just not very safe.' But then I slept on it, and decided it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. How many people have a tattoo on their arm that was done in a car?"
However, Kvig insisted that if he was going to go through with this, the whale was a no-go, and he wanted a disc golf basket instead.
"I told them that if I'm going to have this permanently on my skin, I need it to be something I can relate to," said Kvig. "Also, I thought it could be a cool way to introduce more people to disc golf."
Citroën agreed to these conditions and flew Kvig to Stavanger, a city in southwestern Norway. Kvig even got them to buy his plane ticket to Stavanger early, giving him a chance to play a few rounds of disc golf before the big day.
When that day finally came, Kvig arrived on set and met his co-stars: professional rally car driver Mads Østberg, award-winning tattoo artist Jeanette Fjelldahl, and a Citroën C5 Aircross SUV. And though the commercial they shot showcases the car's speed, filming itself wasn't exactly speedy.
"There was a lot of waiting," Kvig said. "We went out at 6:30 in the morning, before sunrise. And then even though we had 12 hours, we had a risk of not getting it done before we had to leave because we all were leaving the same night we finished the shoot."
They did manage to get it all in, and below you can see the result, posted on Kvig's Vlog, The Frisbeer Guy:
When asked to describe the experience, Kvig listed a collage of interesting tidbits that stuck in his memory.
"I felt 100% safe, and it was really fun because he was such a good driver," Kvig began. "But I also had to stay still, and the tattoo artist was kind of small, so at some points she was really struggling to stay in place. At top speed, we were going 135 kilometers an hour [84 mph], which is really fast for the roads we were on. Also, once the driver stopped so fast, the car thought we had crashed and turned on the emergency lights."
In the big picture, the ad made from Kvig's eventful ride is introducing the idea of disc golf to hundreds of thousands across Norway.
"At this point, the ad has been running on Norway's two biggest TV channels for two weeks," Kvig said. "Also, from the looks of their Facebook and Instagram, Citroën has a reach of about 500,000 with their videos, and I can only assume the majority of them haven't heard about disc golf."
And though ecstatic about helping put something related to disc golf in front of so many eyes, Kvig also believes his relationship with the sport has been profoundly altered.
"This is like when disc golf and I got serious – we're official now," Kvig said.
