A good place brand or marketing campaign will catch the attention of your audience, change their perceptions of your place, and drive action – whether that’s visiting, investing, or relocating.

A great campaign, though, is the one that you’re still talking about years later.

We wanted to know: which are the campaigns that were so good that even fellow place practitioners are envious? Here are eight campaigns from around the world that the City Nation Place Awards jury quietly wish were part of their own portfolio…

Welcome Copenhagen | CopenPay

One place marketing campaign I wish I’d thought of first is Copenhagen’s CopenPay initiative. Rather than simply telling visitors to be more sustainable, it turned sustainable behaviors into a currency – rewarding travelers with experiences, attractions, and perks for actions such as biking, using public transit, or participating in community cleanups.

The campaign worked because it was simple, highly shareable, and gave people a tangible way to contribute to the destination while having a better travel experience. It generated significant global media coverage and conversation because it aligned a destination’s brand promise with a real, measurable action.

What can you learn?

The biggest lesson for place leaders is that marketing is most powerful when it moves beyond storytelling and actually shapes behaviour. CopenPay shows that destinations can stand out by creating campaigns that deliver on their values, engage local partners, and give visitors a role in the destination’s success. Rather than promoting a place solely through advertising, the campaign created a movement people wanted to participate in – and talk about afterward.

Marie Scalia, CMO, Destination Cleveland

Newfoundland & Labrador Tourism | The Weather

Destination marketing too often falls into a "sea of sameness." How many tourism advertisements rely on sweeping scenery paired with orchestral music? Take away the logo and that beautiful lake or mountain could be in Switzerland, New Zealand, or Canada. The campaigns I admire most use scenery as the backdrop, but put the people, personality, and qualities that make a place genuinely distinctive in the spotlight.

The Newfoundland campaign begins with a wonderfully honest insight: nobody visits Newfoundland and Labrador for the weather. Rather than avoiding the stereotype, it reframes it. The spring weather is precisely what brings forth the icebergs, puffins and whales that visitors want to experience. Just as importantly, the campaign feels unmistakably like Newfoundland and Labrador.

Newfoundland & Labrador used honesty, wit, and a perceived disadvantage to create a story that only it could tell, because it understands that beautiful scenery is not, on its own, a differentiator.

What can you learn?

The first lesson is to resist the temptation to smooth off the interesting edges of a place. What appears to be a weakness, eccentricity, or contradiction may actually be the source of its strongest and most distinctive story. The second is that destinations should market their character, not just their assets. Mountains, coastlines, and lakes may attract attention, but humour, local perspective, and human personality make a place recognisable.

Sarah Volberg, Executive Director, Global Growth Marketing & Brand Intelligence, Destination Canada

Visit Oslo | Is it even a city?

I personally love the quick, quirky, and humorous campaigns that make you smile. If I had to pick one from recent years, it would probably be Visit Oslo’s "Is it Even a City?" campaign. It took such a refreshingly honest approach, celebrating the city’s understated character.

Going back a little further, Inspired by Iceland’s “Icelandverse” is another campaign that I still admire. It brilliantly tapped into the Metaverse hype with impeccable timing and reminded us that the real world remains the most extraordinary and immersive experience of all.

The Oslo campaign trusted the audience to appreciate honesty and self-irony. It felt confident, authentic and genuinely funny.

What can you learn?

Dare to be distinctive and authentic. The strongest destination campaigns don’t try to appeal to everyone; they embrace what makes a place unique. Humour isn’t the right approach for every destination, but when it genuinely reflects a place’s personality, it creates an emotional connection that more traditional destination marketing often struggles to achieve.

Kaari Artemjeff, Senior Manager, Brand Marketing, Helsinki Partners

ChristchurchNZ | A city in pursuit of balance

This is very “on brand” for New Zealand Story! But an absolute stand out for me is the Ōtautahi Christchurch brand refresh. As someone born in Canterbury who has spent some time in Christchurch, I knew the city well growing up. However, after spending almost a decade living in London, Christchurch wasn't high on my list to return to. This campaign completely changed my perception.

What makes the campaign so impactful is that it reflects a genuine transformation. The ChristchurchNZ team used research and insights to challenge outdated perceptions of Christchurch (which I myself held) and presented the city as vibrant, creative, and full of opportunity. What makes this positioning so powerful to me, is that it has been reflected in everything I've seen and experienced of Christchurch over recent years. The modernisation of the brand has flowed through into the city's economic development, storytelling, events, and marketing communications. The result is a city that feels future-focused and is experiencing a genuine resurgence. Most of my friends are now moving back!

What can you learn?

Great place branding takes time. The team didn’t just design a new logo and move on to the next campaign. They started with insights first, understanding the job to do, and developed a beautiful story around their new brand. We had a similar experience when developing Aotearoa New Zealand’s values, ngā mātāpono. These projects take years, not months, and when aligned around excellent stakeholder engagement, marketing, and communications they can have genuine impact.

Lydia Roseby, Communications Lead, New Zealand Story

Brand Scotland

In place branding, a big challenge is to show your place can compete on what everyone wants and, at the same time, celebrate the ways it’s distinctive. Brand Scotland is an expert at striking that balance on social media. They encourage people to move, live, work, visit, study, invest, and trade - every aspect of life in Scotland. Their approach to social covers all of them, but with a compelling, consistent tone of voice and visual style.

By following Brand Scotland over time, you can imagine what it would feel like to live there. They celebrate day-to-day life and promote Scottish content creators, like Black Scottish Adventures, that give beautiful insights into place and culture. You can learn about Scottish islands, festivals, and tartans through to Scottish businesses exporting globally, from strawberries to advanced prosthetics. Their approach shows how they compete in (for example) tech and access to nature, but that Scottish inventiveness and Scottish nature are particular to that place.

What can you learn?

Brand Scotland’s approach to social is so wonderfully holistic. Choosing a place involves aligning every part of yourself: the personal and professional, all the way through to the larger economy and culture you’ll be joining. Brand Scotland expresses a strong core identity but shows it from many perspectives. If that core identity speaks to you, you can find your social, cultural, economic, or environmental place in Scotland through their storytelling.

Marisa McArthur, Brand Project Manager, Brand Tasmania

Explore Seattle Southside | Welcome back, aliens

I loved Explore Seattle Southside’s Welcome Back Aliens campaign. It is such a creative swing, leaning into the region’s real history of UFO sightings and turning it into something completely unexpected. They took that unconventional truth and pushed it all the way. Those are the ideas that stick, the ones that might feel risky in the room but end up being the most memorable.

What made it impactful is that it did not feel like traditional tourism marketing. It took something culturally interesting but outside the traditional playbook and built a full creative platform around it. The stunt-led approach gave it reach and personality, and it created a clear, memorable association with the destination even if you knew nothing else about it. The campaign also invited the community into the story, which helped it feel participatory rather than just promotional.

What can you learn?

There is a real lesson in looking beyond traditional tourism assets and instead identifying unique, ownable truths about a place. When you anchor a campaign in something unexpected but authentic, you create memorability and affinity. This approach shows that bold, culturally resonant storytelling, supported by smart PR execution, can define a destination far more effectively than listing attractions ever could.

Megan Peckford, Director – Marketing, Ottawa Tourism

Swedish Tourist Association | The Swedish Number

The Swedish Number was a couple of years ago but still I remember it as an example to follow. It was beautifully simple: Sweden created a national phone number that anyone in the world could call to be connected with a random Swedish citizen. It turned the whole country into the medium — not through a polished advertising message, but through real people and real conversations.

It worked because it was brave, human, and completely aligned with Sweden’s national identity. The campaign was linked to the country’s tradition of freedom of speech, so the creative idea was not just a gimmick – it expressed something authentic about Sweden. It also created a sense of curiosity. You were not being told what Sweden was like; you could simply call and ask a Swede. That gave the campaign credibility, unpredictability, and huge earned media potential.

What can you learn?

The strongest place campaigns often come from trusting your people and your values. You do not always need to control every word of the story; sometimes the most powerful thing is to create a platform where the place can speak for itself. The Swedish Number showed that authenticity, openness and participation can become strategic assets — especially when the idea is simple enough for the world to understand instantly.

Marius Gurskas, Director of Communication, Lithuanian Government Office

The City Nation Place Awards celebrate great place brand and marketing strategies from around the world. Enter before September 10^th for your chance to impress our jurors and to take home the real prize – knowing that your peers are envious of your work.