Global Visibility for Vienna
International Marketing Highlights
In 2024, the Vienna Tourist Board actively serviced 12 incoming markets with a marketing budget of EUR 15.3m. In addition to Germany, Switzerland, the UK, Spain, France and Italy, activities in 2024 centered on Canada, the Arab countries, China, Japan and South Korea as well as the USA. In the long-haul segment, the focus of the department’s development work was on the USA, which is Vienna's highest-volume and highest-revenue overseas market.
Pills With a Taste of Vienna
“Microdosing” – something of a trending topic in the Anglo-American world in particular – is the term that describes the use of pharmacological substances in minimal quantities to enhance creativity, focus, and feelings of happiness. As a legal alternative to consuming actual drugs, the Vienna Tourist Board – in a collaboration with Vienna’s Saint Charles Pharmacy – developed half a dozen different tablets that captured the essence of six hand-picked Vienna moments. Key ingredients included the sweat of a Lipizzaner stallion from the Spanish Riding School, sound waves from a Vienna Symphony Orchestra concert, dust particles from Gustav Klimt’s portrait of Emilie Flöge, tartaric acid from the Mayer am Pfarrplatz wine tavern’s Gemischter Satz, steel particles from the Giant Ferris Wheel, and the spirit from Sigmund Freud’s recently discovered private safe. The “microdose vienna” campaign urged audiences to “Take a Trip to Vienna” – after all, even the merest hint of the city can be incredibly compelling. The Vienna Tourist Board sent its exclusive collection of tablets – packaged like a genuine pharmaceutical product – to selected media representatives and content creators in the USA and the UK, and presented “microdose vienna” at a press event in New York. Although the pill sets were not available for purchase, audiences in the USA and UK could win ten sets each in a competition on the campaign website. “microdose vienna” reached approximately 22 million contacts.
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We selected six extraordinary Viennese moments, and compressed, distilled, and condensed them, encapsulating everything into tiny microdoses for your enjoyment. Dive into these selected moments, and let Vienna’s beauty, excitement, and charm wash over you.
Travel Warning About the Post-Vienna Blues
The post-vacation blues describes the emotional low that follows a long trip, typically a holiday. In its campaign, the Vienna Tourist Board thrust the Austrian capital into the international spotlight by highlighting the melancholy that sets in after a visit to Vienna, giving it a name: “Post-Vienna Blues,” or PVB. The core message was as follows: “Exposure to Vienna’s opulence may lead to Post-Vienna Blues.” With a knowing wink, the Vienna Tourist Board warned city visitors of the longing for Vienna that could take hold after their trip. The Post-Vienna Blues campaign visuals were prominently displayed on Times Square in New York as well as on 70 digital bus stop displays and news stands across Manhattan. Online promotion of the campaign in the USA extended beyond New York to Washington D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and – thanks to a new direct flight introduced by Austrian Airlines in July 2024 – Boston. The Vienna Tourist Board also bid a fond farewell to visitors in partnership with Vienna International Airport and Austrian Airlines in lounges and various areas throughout the airport with the message “Sorry, I gave you Post-Vienna Blues.” In an additional measure, the Vienna Tourist Board also offered a PVB symptom check on the campaign website. “Post-Vienna Blues” generated approximately 210 million contacts.
Smiling That "Viennese Grumpiness” Away
The “Friendly Idols” campaign put the spotlight on Vienna’s contradictory image: celebrated as the world’s most livable city on the one hand, it is also famous as the home of “Wiener Grant” or Viennese Grumpiness – a unique blend of melancholy and brusque charm that is deeply rooted in the city’s culture. Fittingly for World Smile Day on 4 October, the Vienna Tourist Board took some of the hard edges off, with a surprising digital-art-based take on Viennese Grumpiness in collaboration with the Albertina, Belvedere, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Leopold Museum and Wien Museum. Using the Artivive app, museum visitors were able to experience a surprising, smiling version of various works including Egon Schiele’s Self-Portrait with Physalis and Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss. In total, 14 artworks were digitally altered, and the campaign was rolled out in Germany, the market that generates Vienna’s largest share of overnight stays. “Friendly Idols” achieved approximately 6.2 million contacts.
One Day in Vienna with a Mayfly
To mark Halloween and the 150th anniversary of Vienna’s Central Cemetery on November 1, the Vienna Tourist Board released “Vienna: the last place you want to be”, a campaign video portraying the Austrian capital both as the world’s most livable and “die-able” city. With a mayfly spending its only day on Earth in Vienna cast in the leading role, the minute-long film, which was produced in partnership with Jung von Matt DONAU and director Sam Gainsborough from London-based production company BlinkInk, featured a score brought to life by Austrian composer and producer Walter Werzowa with a 40-piece orchestra comprising students from Vienna’s University of Music and Performing Arts. It was promoted in Germany, the UK, Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland, the USA, and Canada. In the USA, “Vienna: the last place you want to be” was also advertised on the streaming platform Disney+, and on Netflix in Canada.
The campaign video was viewed over 10.6 million times, and the experts at leading global media and advertising outfit The Drum named it their Ad of the Day a short time after its launch. Additionally, it triggered well over 100 media reports about Vienna’s morbid side, with prestigious outlets such as the UK’s Financial Times, Italy’s La Stampa, and Spain’s 20 minutos covering Vienna’s unique approach to the theme of death. Even in Asian markets, where the subject of death can be something of a cultural taboo, the campaign was well-received, appearing, for example, in South Korea’s Esquire Korea.
Belvedere and Schönbrunn Palace for Sale
The endless quest to find the perfect home is as relentless as it ever was in the USA. The Vienna Tourist Board tapped into this trend with its “UnReal Estates” campaign, presenting true real estate dreams on Realtor.com – one of America’s most prominent online real estate marketplaces. The platform offered its approximately 100 million monthly active users the chance to snap up the magnificent Baroque palaces of Belvedere and Schönbrunn, Sisi’s imperial retreat, and the former home and office of the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. A click on the listing redirected house hunters to the campaign site, where they were brought back down to Earth. But to make up for the disappointment, users were given the chance to win a trip to Vienna. “UnReal Estates” was rolled out in New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Boston, and Chicago, aiming to inspire potential visitors to take a trip to opulent Vienna. The “UnReal Estates” campaign reached approximately 6.5 million contacts.
Mini-Doc Sets the Countdown to the Strauss Year Rolling
In the Space Anthem mini-documentary created in collaboration with the European Space Agency, prominent international voices from the worlds of music, film, and space exploration explained the special connection between Strauss’s Blue Danube Waltz and outer space. The short documentary illustrated the Vienna Tourist Board’s progressive approach to engaging with Johann Strauss II on the occasion of his 200th birthday – marking a prelude to the 2025 theme “King of Waltz. Queen of Music”. “Space Anthem” was viewed over 130,000 times.
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Space Anthem: How a waltz by Johann Strauss II became the soundtrack of space, Full Documentary