For the second time, tennis darling Roger Federer was brand ambassador for Switzerland as a holiday destination. Switzerland Tourism ST sent the winner of 20 Grand Slam singles titles on the Grand Tour of Switzerland (GToS) to show the beauty of touring. Despite its small size, guests here experience an enormous variety of cultural experiences and scenic highlights. Fortunately, this segment is becoming increasingly popular, explains André Hefti, Chief Marketing Officer of ST: “It’s long overdue that this road trip be added to the bucket list of our international guests.”

The centrepiece of the international advertising campaign was a short film featuring actress Anne Hathaway, who travelled the country on the GToS together with Roger Federer: The two practise synchronised swimming in a mountain lake, climb across a glacier, and pose in front of imposing castles and other landmarks. But the focus is always on the landscape; the two stars are hardly to be found in the epic shots.

The message is clear: Against the beauty of nature, even Roger Federer and Anne Hathaway lose – which they seem to acknowledge begrudgingly. The short film was first shown on 12 April 2022 at the Vacation Day in Arosa. Since then, it has reached over 103 million views on YouTube (as at December 2022), generated over 600 comments and around 19,000 likes. This even beats the record success from the previous year: The short film “No Drama” starring Robert De Niro and Roger Federer has garnered a total of almost 53 million views to date. In addition to the clip, the worldwide campaign also included various advertising materials, which were branded with the slogan “I need the road trip of a lifetime. I need Switzerland”.

Anne Hathaway loves Switzerland and admires Federer

Following on from Hollywood legend Robert De Niro, ST deliberately chose Anne Hathaway, an Oscar winner who had already visited Switzerland several times. The 40-year-old American actress was spotted skiing with her children at the Stoos ski resort (canton of Schwyz) and visiting Zurich zoo, for example. She is also very active on social media: She has over 24 million followers on Instagram and 10 million on Facebook. Her posts featuring Roger Federer – whom she admires greatly, by the way – have also reached a wide audience on her channels, with 1.9 million views and 80,000 hits.

ST brought Bryan Buckley, one of the world’s most successful directors, on board for the project. No one else has enjoyed as much success with short commercials during Super Bowl breaks as the Californian – so it’s no wonder his nickname is “Mr Super Bowl.” The shoot for the short film took place in Zurich.

Great recognition around the world

As a popular figure and sports icon, Roger Federer has been carrying the Swiss cross around the world for decades. A collaboration with ST is therefore an obvious choice – and one that has been well received. The 2022 campaign generated 295 million media contacts (compared to 1.055 billion in the previous year, including coverage of the partnership launch), and in addition to many Swiss magazines and newspapers, media outlets such as Die Zeit, Femina India, The News International, Radio Monte Carlo, Amar Ujala and Pravda also reported on this. MySwitzerland.com/roger also recorded 0.33 million page views, and the marketing measures produced a total of 795 million top media and marketing contacts.

Putting GToS in the spotlight this time was a perfect fit for the brand ambassador: “I’m already familiar with some sections of the Grand Tour of Switzerland, but there is still a lot for me to discover. I would especially love to spend a few days in Western Switzerland or Ticino and travel from place to place,” says Roger Federer. Thanks to charging stations, the 1,600-kilometre tour can also be completed sustainably by electric car. Or even more conveniently, by travelling from one highlight to the next in panorama trains on the Grand Train Tour of Switzerland.