In 2022. The metaverse was the biggest hype you could think of. Facebook changed its name to "Meta" and the world couldn't stop talking about the new buzzword. All the while, brands were blindly flocking to the metaverse.

How could a city like Vienna that stands for real enjoyment – stand out from the crowd? We used the ongoing confusion about the metaverse to highlight a critically underrepresented topic: Mental health. If the metaverse was to be our future, what would existing as an avatar do to our psyche?

So we brought a Viennese icon back: Sigmund Freud. We turned him into an avatar and place him in Decentraland, the metaverse's biggest platform. At Genesis Plaza, he offered a talking cure for confused users. And sent the most confused ones on a free trip to Vienna.

The strategy was to adhere to the ongoing media confusion about the Metaverse. No one really knew what it was, let alone how it would be beneficiary to us. Our idea was born out of the strategic discovery that people among our target group felt it was time to take a break and think about the Metaverse – instead of simple following along the hype.

We announced the talking cure with Sigmund Freud via classical PR which resulted in global news coverage.

300 press articles worldwide reached more than 375 million people. While the digital Sigmund racked up more than 50 hours of user interaction, more than 500.000 people visited the campaign website for a trip to Vienna. Proofing that Vienna is just the city to take a break and have a think. Even in the midst of a global tourism crisis.