The Roger Federer and Robert De Niro movie “No Drama,” produced for Switzerland Tourism, was viewed all over the world. It presently ranks in the top 10 of the global “Cannes YouTube Ads Leaderboard,” which is issued each year at the beginning of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, and is the most successful European advertising film of the previous twelve months (2021, in this case).
Roger Federer, a tennis legend, and Oscar winner Robert De Niro: During a private video-call, Federer wants De Niro to play the lead in his Switzerland-themed advertisement and tries to convince him. De Niro declines because, despite Switzerland’s gorgeous, magnificent, and breathtaking beauty, there is neither danger or drama there. Those are the aspects that make De Niro’s work so distinctive.
However, drama is currently what we want the least in light of Covid, and as a result, a film that was never made turns out to be an endearing and self-deprecating commercial for Switzerland.
An international, digital media strategy was created that included planning, buying, controlling, and success monitoring in order to support the virality with the use of media budget and to efficiently carry the content into the relevant target markets, including the UK, USA, Germany, France, Italy, and Benelux.
The three main pillars of the media strategy were identifying opinion leaders, scaling and targeting with Google Custom Audiences, and an effective traffic bump to encourage the emotionally charged audience to interact with Switzerland Tourism’s content. As a result, there was an above-average click-through rate of up to 3.5% and an increase in ad recall of 15.1%.
Advertising Agency: Wirz BBDO, Switzerland