New Year’s Eve is a nightmare for dogs, especially in urban areas. Fireworks can cause them tremors, panic attacks and even lifelong trauma. However, on the streets where people celebrate with fireworks, the dogs’ terror goes unnoticed. Most animals spend the night hiding in their homes with their owners.

Musti Group is the Nordics’ largest pet retailer. With their New Year’s campaign, they wanted to help Finnish dogs and dog owners during the scariest hours of the year. This required a creative idea that would get people in urban areas to move further away from residential buildings when shooting off their fireworks. Additionally, the brand wanted to solidify their position as the advocate of pets and pet owners, increasing their brand preference and recommendation.

It was quickly realised that the only media which could effectively reach the celebrating people in the heat of the moment was outdoor advertising.

The reactive outdoor campaign was a massive success for both the dogs living around Finland and the Musti Group brand.

The post-campaign study showed that a whopping 35.9% of Finnish dog owners reported that the campaign made the night easier for their pet. That means that over 250 000 dogs around Finland had a less scary New Year’s Eve. Seeing what fireworks do to nearby animals made people move further away from residential buildings when shooting off their fireworks.

Finnish pet owners loved the campaign, and the brand perception of Musti Group skyrocketed compared to the same time last year.

Top of mind +31%

Consideration +41%

Preference +23%

Recommendation +140%

Ad recall +73%

The digital outdoor advertising featured a dog that reacted to the sounds of nearby fireworks in real time, showing the negative effects that fireworks have on pets.

The reactivity of the outdoor advertising was created with a combination of audio sensors and animation loops. Whenever the sensors caught a sudden spike in the audio signal, one of many animation loops were triggered, causing the dog to react with no more than a one and a half second delay.

After the reaction, the dog returned to its idle animation loop, ready to react again. If several fireworks were going off in quick succession, the dog would remain in its frightened state until it was quiet enough to return to the idle state.

In Finland, consumers prefer buying and shooting off their own fireworks over the fireworks shows organised by cities or other official instances.

This causes a lot of problems especially in the urban areas, where people shoot off their fireworks too close to residential buildings. Each year, fireworks cause a significant amount of stress and even lifelong trauma to pets.