Ad Campaigns
Roger Federer and Trevor Noah on a ‘The Ride of a Lifetime’ in Switzerland
Mumbai: Switzerland Tourism has unveiled its new film for its ongoing ‘I need Switzerland’ campaign to promote rail travel and the Grand Train Tour of Switzerland. After having collaborated on screen with Robert De Niro in 2021 and Anne Hathaway in 2022, tennis legend and the global brand ambassador of Switzerland Tourism- Roger Federer has now partnered with Trevor Noah, international comedian, best-selling author, producer, and philanthropist for the film.
Titled ‘The Ride of a Lifetime’, the film showcases the ease and efficiency of the Swiss Travel system and highlights the famous panoramic rail routes that combine to make the Grand Train Tour of Switzerland.
The film, directed by Oscar-winning director Tom Hooper, features the iconic duo getting ready to take a train as part of a shoot to promote the Grand Train Tour of Switzerland. They soon realise they’ve gotten onto the wrong train on a different route to Interlaken, leaving the crew behind. Left on their own, Federer and Noah travel through Switzerland’s striking landscapes and find they’re having a great time even befriending a kind local lady for company who pays for their tickets. Once they hop off, the crew finds them just in time to take them back on the train they’re meant to be on, but they’ve had such a blast, they give the team the slip and run to catch another panoramic train ride on the route!
The route they take in the film is a part of the Grand Train Tour of Switzerland, the 1,280 kilometres train tour that leads from the most charming Swiss cities like Lucerne to Alpine villages like Zermatt, and through UNESCO World Heritage sites, impressive natural wonders such as the Rhine Falls and majestic mountains such as the Jungfraujoch, Titlis or Matterhorn. It allows visitors to explore all this and more, all year round, in comfort and at their convenience.
One can experience the entire tour with only one single ticket – the Swiss Travel Pass. This pass is the key to the Swiss public transport network. Visitors can hop on to Swiss trains, buses, trams and boats with this pass that can be bought for three, four, six, eight or 15 days. To give travellers even more time to explore the Grand Train Tour of Switzerland, there is a global Swiss Travel Pass promotion. As part of the special offer, from 15 April 2023 to 14 May 2023, up to two additional travel days will be added free of charge when buying an eligible Swiss Travel Pass.
This is Roger Federer’s third outing showcasing some of the most stunning sights, experiences and culture of his home country, raising the bar each time and setting new standards of national tourism advertising with Switzerland Tourism. In 2021, Federer featured in a film titled ‘No Drama’ with Hollywood legend Robert De Niro showcasing the ‘too perfect Switzerland’ and in 2022, he started alongside the super-talented actress Anne Hathaway to promote road trips as part of the Grand Tour of Switzerland.
NATIONAL: Amazon Ads has laid out a sharply tech-led vision for the advertising industry in 2026, arguing that artificial intelligence, streaming TV and creator partnerships will combine to turn brand building into a more precise, performance-driven business.
At the heart of the shift, the company says, is the fusion of AI with Amazon’s vast trove of shopping, browsing and streaming signals, allowing advertisers to move beyond blunt reach metrics to campaigns designed around real customer behaviour.
“The future of advertising is not about reaching more people, but the right people with messages that resonate,” said Amazon Ads India head and vice president Girish Prabhu. “By combining AI with deep customer insights, we help brands move from broadcasting campaigns to having meaningful conversations wherever audiences spend their time.”
One of the biggest changes, according to Amazon Ads, will be the collapse of the wall between media planning and creative development. Retail media, powered by first-party data, is increasingly shaping everything from brand discovery to final purchase, pushing marketers to design campaigns around audience insight rather than internal instinct.
AI is also moving from a support tool to a creative engine. Agentic AI, which automates and accelerates production, is expected to make high-quality creative accessible even to small businesses, compressing weeks of work into hours and giving challengers the ability to compete with larger brands on speed and scale.
Behind the scenes, AI-driven analytics will take on a bigger role in campaign optimisation, identifying patterns, spotting opportunities and recommending actions that would previously have required teams of analysts.
Streaming TV is another big battleground. With India’s video streaming audience now above 600 million and connected TV users at 129.2 million in 2025, advertisers are set to treat streaming not just as a branding channel but as a performance engine, measured increasingly by sales, sign-ups and bookings rather than just reach.
Finally, Amazon Ads sees creators and contextual advertising reshaping how brands tell stories. Creators will act less like influencers and more like long-term partners, while scene-aware ads on streaming platforms will allow brands to insert hyper-relevant offers into the flow of what viewers are watching.
Taken together, Amazon Ads argues, these shifts mark a move towards advertising that is both more human and more measurable, where AI handles the complexity, and creativity does the persuading.
