5 October 2026

Wanderful Vienna Takes Its Message Abroad

Wanderful Vienna campaign billboard at New York's Port Authority

Image: Wanderful Vienna campaign on a large billboard at the Port Authority Midtown Bus Terminal in Manhattan, New York, presenting Vienna through choreographed figures and images of the city's architecture and green spaces. © WienTourismus/Sara Stadtmiller

Quick Read

• International campaign: The Vienna Tourist Board is promoting Vienna as a city to experience between the major sights, rather than as a checklist of landmarks.
• Target markets: The campaign focuses on the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom and South Korea.
• Visible placements: Large-format advertising is running in New York, Toronto and London, including Manhattan's Port Authority Bus Terminal, Toronto's Eaton Centre and London Underground stations.
• Creative team: Jung von Matt DONAU is the agency; Shotview handled production, PPMNext service production and Yis Kid photography.
• Digital extension: The campaign website adds a four-question, two-choice quiz that suggests a type of walking route in Vienna based on personal preferences.

A campaign aimed well beyond Vienna

Vienna's latest tourism campaign is unlikely to be something most Viennese will encounter on their daily commute. "Wanderful Vienna" is primarily an international advertising campaign, running until 3 November in selected markets abroad. Its declared targets are the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom and South Korea. The physical campaign, however, is concentrated in three cities: New York, Toronto and London. The choice of locations is deliberately urban and highly visible. Large Out-of-Home and Digital-Out-of-Home formats appear at New York's Port Authority Midtown Bus Terminal in Manhattan and at Toronto's Eaton Centre. In London, the campaign uses selected billboard sites and Underground stations. Static images are supplemented by animated versions. The media campaign extends beyond the street. Selected premium and lifestyle publications include Condé Nast Traveler, Vogue, The New Yorker, Financial Times and The Globe and Mail, alongside other international media in the four target markets.

Vienna as a place between the sights

The central idea is a familiar tourism argument given a different visual treatment: Vienna should not only be consumed through its best-known attractions. The campaign instead concentrates on what happens between them – walking through a park, taking a slower route or pausing after a cultural experience. The Vienna Tourist Board describes this as a combination of culture and quality of life, with the campaign turning the act of strolling into a visual performance. The photographs use carefully staged movement to make that idea visible. The campaign imagery includes people apparently floating, stretching or moving in unusually calm, choreographed poses against recognisable Viennese settings. Among the locations used in the campaign are the Naturhistorisches Museum, Schönbrunn Palace Park and the Burggarten.
The three supplied international advertising images show how the idea is transported into the cities where the campaign is running. The New York image places the Vienna message on a large façade at the Port Authority Midtown Bus Terminal, surrounded by Manhattan traffic and high-rise buildings. The London image uses an Underground setting, while the Toronto version appears at the Eaton Centre. Their function is less to reproduce Vienna literally than to interrupt the visual environment of another metropolis with scenes of slower movement and Viennese space.

Who made the campaign?

The credits identify Jung von Matt DONAU as the agency and the Vienna Tourist Board as client. Shotview handled production, PPMNext service production and Yis Kid photography. The campaign's visual language depends heavily on photography and staging rather than on a conventional catalogue of attractions. The result is a series of recognisable Vienna references, but with people and movement taking almost as much visual space as the architecture.

Four questions instead of another city checklist

The campaign continues online at the accompanying Wanderful Vienna website. Alongside a playful guide to the art of wandering, it offers a small interactive tool called "Walkable City". The quiz asks four questions, each with two possible directions, covering preferences such as the kind of environment someone wants to walk through, what they want to experience, whether they favour a major attraction or something less obvious, and which side of Vienna appeals to them most. The answers are then combined to produce a suggested walking area. The resulting suggestions range considerably. The system includes central architectural and cultural areas, neighbourhoods, markets, green spaces, recreational routes and places around the Danube. Some are obvious choices for visitors; others are the sort of areas that even long-term residents might not immediately put on a sightseeing list. That may be the more interesting part of the campaign for people who already live in Vienna. While the international advertising is designed to make potential visitors rethink how they experience the city, the online tool can also function as a small prompt for locals: even a city that feels thoroughly familiar still contains routes, neighbourhoods and combinations of places that can be approached differently.