STARTING POINT

After eight years as the world’s happiest capital, Helsinki faced an unexpected challenge: happiness had stopped making headlines. The ranking had become a statistic rather than a story people could feel, share, or care about. We needed to make happiness interesting again – not by saying it louder, but by making it tangible, experiential and relevant to a global audience.

At the same time, Helsinki was preparing to host the World Dog Show, welcoming nearly 20,000 international dog visitors. It was a chance to turn the moment into meaningful PR, rooted in the city’s values of everyday wellbeing, inclusivity and connection to nature.

INSIGHT

The key insight was simple: happiness is most powerful when it’s shown and felt. Research shows people respond more to authentic, everyday joy than grand statements or spectacles. That’s why Helsinki chose to demonstrate happiness through something universally loved and emotionally resonant: dogs.

The World Dog Show became the global trigger, and the city itself the media platform. By inviting dogs and their humans to experience Helsinki together, happiness could be transformed into something shareable and genuinely newsworthy.

CREATIVE SOLUTION

Rather than telling the world how happy Helsinki is, we let dogs show it. The idea was to create the world’s first sightseeing route designed specifically for dogs by reimagining popular tourist attractions from a dog’s point of view.

Dogs and their owners became storytellers and the bridge between local authenticity and global emotion. Through playful, unexpected dog-first landmarks, Helsinki’s happiness was visible, walkable, and impossible not to smile at.

EXECUTION

The Doggy Route to Happiness turned Helsinki into a curated, city-wide experience for dogs and dog lovers. The route included dog-friendly highlights such as Café Dogatta, The Stickelius Monument, a Dog island (Rajasaari) and a dedicated portrait dogographer capturing joyful moments.

The activation was supported by an earned-first PR strategy, influencer participation and highly visual content designed to travel across borders online. From dog-height outdoor ads to social sharing by visitors and locals, the execution ensured the idea lived everywhere dogs and people go: streets, parks, feeds and headlines.

RESULTS

The campaign exceeded every objective by turning Helsinki’s happiness from a claim into a lived, shareable experience. Over a thousand dogs joined in, filling the route with wagging tails and real-life interaction that no traditional message could replicate. Online, the idea travelled fast: social media engagement surpassed 2 million interactions and generated over a 100 mentions, driven largely by organic posts from owners documenting each stop.

International audiences didn’t just watch, they reacted. The story earned over 300 media hits worldwide and reached over 260 million people globally, while comments from abroad celebrated Helsinki as a uniquely dog-friendly city, with many saying they now wanted to visit (or even move). Most importantly, the campaign made Helsinki’s key message headline-worthy again: happiness was visible, walkable, and shared by the world.