The Vienna Tourist Board received a total of 20 awards and distinctions in 2023, including twelve prizes– among them Customer of the Year and a Venus Special Award for gender equality – at the Creativ Club Austria (CCA) awards alone for its “United Cities of Tourism”, “Get me out, Freud!”, “Sisi's New Portrait!” and “Vienna strips on OnlyFans” campaigns.

Sisi’s New Portrait

For over 125 years, the world cultivated a glorified image of Empress Elisabeth (aka Sisi), which continues to be colored by pomp, beauty and drama to this day. In “Sisi's New Portrait”, the Vienna Tourist Board – working in partnership with the Sisi Museum, the Vienna Furniture Museum and the Hotel Imperial – broke down the myths in March as part of its Women ’s History Month activities and took a closer look at the real Sisi for the first time. Various other female personalities were also put in the spotlight – but rather than appearance, the focus was strictly on what they stood up for. The campaign won the Venus Special Award at the CCA Awards.

Credits:
Vienna Tourist Board: Claudia Wieland, Lukas Merl, Patrick Hilz, Sandra Tiller, Isabella Graf
Portrait Design: Vivian Dehning
Jung von Matt DONAU: Michael Maria Morgenbesser, Franziska Maria Lequen, Alicia Rocki, Simon Herret

UnArtificial Art

In its 2023 “UnArtificial Art” campaign, the Vienna Tourist Board took the digital hype surrounding artificial intelligence as its cue to draw attention to works of art by Klimt and Schiele – the two most famous painters of Viennese Modernism. The core campaign images – both created using AI – delivered a self-deprecating new take on The Kiss (Klimt) and Self-Portrait with Physalis (Schiele) that referenced the omnipresent internet culture of cat-related content. Vienna’s clear message, “See the art behind AI art in Vienna”, highlighted the fact that art created by artificial intelligence always draws on existing art. UnArtificial Art was designed to inspired people to pay a visit to the real Vienna, where the original works of the two artists are on display.
The campaign picked up three prizes at the iab WebAD Awards: Gold in the Best Innovation category and one silver each for Best International Campaign and Best Digital Campaign.

Credits:
Strategy/Message: Jung von Matt DONAU
Creative realization: Vienna Tourist Board
Creative concept: Jung von Matt DONAU & Vienna Tourist Board
Video production: dockyard

United Cities of Tourism

Run in cooperation with Austrian Airlines and Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB), the Vienna Tourist Board’s 2022 “United Cities of Tourism” campaign, sent one Viennese resident on vacation for every 100th visitor to the city, turning the international spotlight on the importance of city tourism. In a high-profile media stunt, Vienna, London, Berlin, Milan and Barcelona took over each others’ Instagram accounts for a short time during the campaign, which was deployed in six of the Austrian capital’s key incoming markets. The fruits of the collaboration with Jung von Matt/DONAU: the campaign and the Grumpy Karl campaign video picked up a total of eight awards in 2023, including two bronze medals at the CCA Awards and a silver Effie Award. A promotional video provided the narrative to go with the United Cities of Tourism campaign. It showed the protagonist by the name of Karl – a clichéd and typically grumpy Viennese man – in his favorite coffeehouse. The Grumpy Karl campaign video took three CCA awards in all – one silver and two bronze – and a bronze at the ADC*E Awards.

Credits:
Vienna Tourist Board: Claudia Wieland, Lukas Merl, Isabella Graf, Janine Hartl, Sandra Tiller, Elisabeth Breuer
Jung von Matt DONAU: Michael Maria Morgenbesser, Franziska Lequen
Kaiserschnitt-Film: Noel Loozen, Matthias Papst, Yannick Stross, Markus Schleinzer
Sound studio: Blautöne
Havas Media Austria (mediaagency offline): Nina Blazejovsky
dentsu (mediaagency online): Jennifer Moth
Cooperation partners: Austrian Airlines and Österreichische Bundesbahnen

Get Me Out, Freud!

In its 2022 “Get me out, Freud!” campaign, the Vienna Tourist Board set its sights on digitally augmented reality, a phenomenon that has gathered even more speed and traction as a direct result of the Covid-19 pandemic. In partnership with the Sigmund Freud Museum, the organization sent an avatar of the father of psychoanalysis into the metaverse where he sought out other users’ avatars and suggested they take a break from the online world – and come to real-world Vienna instead. Get me Out, Freud! won a total of four CCA awards in 2023 – two silver and two bronze. 

Credits:
Vienna Tourist Board: Claudia Wieland, Janine Hartl, Isabella Graf, Lukas Merl
Jung von Matt DONAU: Michael Maria Morgenbesser, Franziska Maria Lequen , Alicia Rocki , Franziska Brunner, Johanna Philipp, Sascha Jörres, Metaverseworldbuilders (Avatar & Wearables), Christoph Martinek (Production/Motiondesign)
Cooperation partners: Sigmund Freud Museum

Vienna Strips on OnlyFans

The Vienna Tourist Board attracted worldwide attention in the fall of 2021 with its “Vienna strips on OnlyFans” campaign, which showed seminal nude artworks from Rubens to Schiele on the OnlyFans social network, in response to repeated censorship of such images on other social media channels. From CNN to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and the Late Night Show with Stephen Colbert to France's Le Figaro broadsheet, media around the globe reported on the campaign and Vienna as a destination. In total, just under 3,000 media reports (earned media) were registered. In recognition of its work, the Vienna Tourist Board won a large number of nationally and internationally renowned creative awards for its campaign – and continued to do so, two years down the line. Accolades included a Special Award in the Creative Effectiveness category at the CCA Awards, as well as first place in AdForum and Kantar Media’s Transport & Tourism category which recognizes the campaigns that pick up the most international awards.

Credits:
Vienna Tourist Board: Claudia Wieland, Isabella Graf
Jung von Matt DONAU: Michael Morgenbesser, Denise Danninger, Julian Frener, David Payr
Cooperation partners: Albertina Museum, Leopold Museum, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Naturhistorisches Museum

2023 Awards at a Glance