We took all this researched and created Happy Place upon that – the world’s first Virtual Reality experience for pain relief for the public. Happy Place distracts the brain from focusing on temporary pain through a virtual world. In this world, people feel less pain and make them think more happy thoughts, which is a crucial thing to lower pain. The world consists of an imaginary, low polygon, landscape, next to a fireplace and everything was designed to be as soothing and relaxing as possible. The VR-app is available for download in Oculus Store for free and available to try in selected Apotek Hjärtat pharmacies.

The VR app Happy Place was released on Oculus Store, free of charge. A broad media pitch was conducted to reach the target audience and to raise awareness around the question, and to get people to try the experience themselves, instead of taking painkillers. Simultaneously, a case video explaining the idea was released on YouTube and communicated in social media towards the target audience, to raise awareness. The VR app was implemented in selected pharmacy stores, for people to try themselves, even if they didn’t own a VR headset, which drove a lot of people to the stores. Tailored media pitches targeted niche medias, which created a buzz in medical- and pharmaceutical medias. This generated massive buzz in medical field and Happy Place was recommended from a lot of people within this field. All this created massive attention for Happy Place that became news all over the world.

Happy Place became a huge success both in Sweden and internationally. Happy Place created a major buzz internationally when major news sites and magazines around the world covered the story - resulting in a reach of 100 million impressions globally. On the target market, Sweden, over 3 million Swedes were reached through a wide spread of articles in Sweden’s largest newspapers, tech magazines and health media. During the campaign period Apotek Hjärtat increased sales in the pain segment - growing 6,2 %. Happy Place has been downloaded from Oculus Store over 16 000 times, with a growing rate of 2 400 downloads a month. The average time spent in the app is 9 minutes, with a total of 2 100 hours spent in Happy Place. This really highlights the power of Virtual Reality and how technology is able to fundamentally enhance people’s lives.