In the absence of a great symbol that universally identifies it, such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris or Big Ben in London, Madrid has an invisible, indescribable energy that makes it unique. It comes, as its new international tourism promotion campaign reflects, from a heart that beats beneath its streets, its towns, its emblematic places and its culture.

“Madrid Beats” makes this vitalist pulse the center of a storytelling that seeks to reinforce the positioning of the capital and the region as global destinations and attract high-value tourism in long-range source markets. The campaign is promoted by Madrid Turismo by IFEMA Madrid, a joint project of the Community, the City Council and IFEMA for the tourism promotion of the city; and we have worked in collaboration with the Havas Creative Spain agency.

It has been presented through a main audiovisual piece that is reminiscent on an aesthetic and narrative level of the award-winning “Andalusian Crush”, the tourism campaign of the Junta de Andalucía devised by Ogilvy in 2023. In a similar vein, the advertisement takes a tour full of mystique and symbolism through emblematic places, such as El Retiro or the Prado Museum, or through the city’s leisure, culture, sport and commerce proposal. As the Andalusian campaign did, the Madrid one seeks to break with the traditional codes of the category with a groundbreaking visual proposal and appealing to emotion.

The piece tries to reflect the experience of “living Madrid” and to do so it uses international figures, such as the actress Ava Gardner, the writer Ernest Hemingway, or the painters Francisco de Goya and Diego Velázquez, who lived temporarily in the city and were marked by that almost magical heartbeat that underlies Madrid.
Actor Walton Goggins (“The White Lotus”, “Justified”) has provided his voice for the narration.

The direction was by Nono Ayuso and Roma (who also worked on “Andalusian Crush”) and Contrario participated in the production. Filming took place in the Royal Site of Aranjuez, San Lorenzo de El Escorial, the Royal Palace and the Gallery of the Royal Collections. The Colmenar de Oreja City Council has also collaborated, whose Plaza Mayor is one of the main places in the spot; or the Botín Restaurant, in the center of Madrid and known for being one of the oldest in the world.

In addition to the full-length version, 60, 30, 20 and 15 second iterations have been created to adapt to different formats and the ad is available in seven languages: Spanish, English, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean. It is complemented by an integrated strategy that includes branded content, print media, outdoor advertising, influencers, social networks, connected television, online video, cinema and a multilingual site.

The campaign has 16 graphic pieces and a repository of more than 180 audiovisual pieces that portray the heartbeat of Madrid in different locations, such as the Royal Palace or the Prado Museum, as well as in representative situations of the city.

The strategy will be deployed in 13 countries and more than 30 cities in 4 key strategic regions, such as the United States and Canada, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. In this sense, “Madrid Beats” will be seen on Fifth Avenue and Madison Square Garden in New York, at the Miami or Los Angeles airports, or at the Ten Square tower in Singapore; and in publications like The New York Times, Fortune, Vogue, Condé Nast Traveler either The Wall Street Journal.

The objective, as explained by Madrid Turismo by IFEMA, is to generate more than 287 million estimated impacts until December 2027. “Each medium and each format responds to the conviction that the heartbeat of Madrid, which is born in its bars, its neighborhoods and its dances, will travel the world to attract thousands of people to experience it firsthand. Because when they arrive, they will be the ones who will give it even more life“, they explain on the initiative’s website.

More info.: Madrid Beats