ARCHIVE3 word addresses
Launched in July 2015 in the United Kingdom, the digital campaign "3 word addresses" was developed...
Swisscom Snow Drawings Turned Fan Messages Into Alpine Art
Swisscom's Snow Drawings campaign is a digital activation created by Heimat in which autonomous robots carved fan-submitted messages into Alpine snow during the 2017 Ski World Championships in St. Moritz, Switzerland, transforming a telecommunications sponsorship into a participatory public art event visible from the mountain slopes above.
The campaign launched on February 10, 2017, according to the production company's project record, with broader publication documented in March 2017. Swisscom, Switzerland's leading telecommunications provider, commissioned Heimat — operating across both Heimat Berlin and Heimat Zürich — to create an activation that would make its role as a connectivity brand feel tangible and human during one of the country's most watched sporting occasions. The tagline, "Gemeinsam schreiben wir Geschichte. Im Schnee von St. Moritz" — translating as "Together we write history — in the snow of St. Moritz" — framed the campaign's central proposition: that a network's purpose is to bring people together, even across distance.
The mechanics were as direct as the slogan. Fans anywhere with an internet connection could submit a personal message through a digital interface. That message was then relayed to a fleet of autonomous robots operating on the snow fields surrounding the championship venue in St. Moritz, in the canton of Graubünden. The robots physically drew the text into the snow surface, producing artwork that covered approximately 16 soccer fields in total area, according to the production company's project record as archived at Archive Unit9. The route travelled by the robotic units extended to approximately 19.5 kilometres, per the same source. The result was an installation that existed simultaneously as a digital participation platform, a feat of robotic engineering, and a monumental piece of landscape typography — all staged in one of Switzerland's most iconic Alpine settings during the 2017 Alpine Ski World Championships. Clapboard scores this campaign 76 out of 100.
Swisscom operates in a Swiss telecommunications market defined by high connectivity penetration and intensifying price competition. The global telecommunications sector generated approximately $1.225 trillion in revenue in 2017, with global revenue declining at a compound annual rate of roughly 0.6 percent from 2013 to 2017 despite rising subscription volumes, according to BearingPoint. That structural tension — more users, lower revenue per user — applied acutely in Switzerland, where premium positioning was under sustained pressure from competitors including Salt, which per Salt Ch has consistently positioned itself on value pricing, and Sunrise, which according to prnewswire.com has targeted Swisscom's market share with aggressive network investment claims.
Against this backdrop, Swisscom's strategic intent with Snow Drawings was not to compete on price or coverage statistics. The campaign pursued emotional differentiation — the argument that a network's value is measured in the moments of human connection it enables, not in the tariff it charges. By anchoring the activation to the 2017 Alpine Ski World Championships in St. Moritz, Swisscom placed its brand inside a moment of genuine Swiss national pride, with the mountains themselves serving as proof of network reach and capability.
The digital participation layer was equally deliberate. Enabling fans to submit messages remotely and see them rendered physically in the Swiss Alps underscored Swisscom's core product promise: that its network collapses the distance between people. The campaign by Heimat — with creative direction spanning both Heimat Berlin and Heimat Zürich — translated a functional infrastructure benefit into a sensory and emotional experience, addressing the commoditisation pressure that BearingPoint identified as the defining challenge across global telecoms markets in this period.
Snow Drawings was produced in collaboration with UNIT9, the production company whose project archive at archive.unit9.com documents the technical specification of the campaign. The execution required custom-built autonomous robots capable of navigating uneven Alpine snow terrain with sufficient precision to render legible text and graphic forms at monumental scale across a surface equivalent to approximately 16 soccer fields in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
The creative direction from Heimat — operating as both Heimat Berlin and Heimat Zürich — required that the robotic output feel authored rather than mechanical. The challenge was not merely engineering but typography and composition: messages submitted by fans via digital platforms needed to be translated into snow drawings that read as deliberate marks on a landscape rather than machine outputs. The robotic units achieved this across a continuous route of approximately 19.5 kilometres, per the production record at archive.unit9.com, working the snow fields of St. Moritz during the live period of the 2017 Alpine Ski World Championships.
Director Roman Jud is credited on the production, bringing a sensibility attuned to the intersection of physical spectacle and digital interaction that the campaign demanded. The involvement of Who's McQueen as a production entity further reflects the campaign's ambition to operate at the boundary of technology, sport, and public art. The final visual output — snow drawings of genuine scale carved into one of Switzerland's most recognisable Alpine landscapes — was designed to function both as an on-site installation witnessed by championship spectators and as shareable digital content, extending the campaign's reach well beyond the St. Moritz venue. Production credits for the full crew of Snow Drawings are not comprehensively documented in publicly available sources beyond those named above.
No verified performance data for Snow Drawings is publicly available in terms of reach figures, engagement rates, or earned media value. The campaign was not accompanied by published metrics in sources accessible to Clapboard's editorial team at the time of this analysis.
Structural analysis, however, points to a campaign built for measurable amplification across multiple channels simultaneously. The physical installation in St. Moritz during the 2017 Alpine Ski World Championships provided a live spectacle capable of generating on-site photography, broadcast incidental coverage, and social sharing by championship attendees. The digital submission mechanic gave every participating fan a personal stake in the outcome and a reason to share the result — their own message, rendered in snow, in a setting of exceptional visual drama.
The scale parameters documented by archive.unit9.com — 16 soccer fields of coverage, 19.5 kilometres of robotic route — were clearly designed to be communicated as proof points, lending the campaign a factual grandeur that press and social audiences could relay without distortion. In the Swiss telecommunications market, where Swisscom faces structural price pressure from competitors such as Salt and Sunrise, the campaign's approach to brand differentiation through experiential creativity represents a strategic response that advertising effectiveness research consistently associates with long-term brand equity growth, as noted in literature surveyed by Landing Adobe in its analysis of digital experience impact. The Clapboard Score of 76 out of 100 reflects the campaign's strong conceptual coherence and technical ambition, offset by the absence of publicly documented outcome data.
Snow Drawings was a digital campaign created by Heimat for Swisscom during the 2017 Alpine Ski World Championships in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Autonomous robots carved fan-submitted internet messages into Alpine snow across an area equivalent to approximately 16 soccer fields, as documented by archive.unit9.com, making connectivity the campaign's visible theme.
Heimat created Snow Drawings for Swisscom, with the agency operating across both Heimat Berlin and Heimat Zürich on the project. The campaign was produced in collaboration with UNIT9, with director Roman Jud and production entity Who's McQueen contributing to the execution staged in St. Moritz, Switzerland in February and March 2017.
Fans submitted personal messages via a digital platform online. Those messages were transmitted to autonomous robots operating on snow fields in St. Moritz, Switzerland, which physically drew the text into the snow surface. The robots travelled approximately 19.5 kilometres in total, per archive.unit9.com, during the 2017 Alpine Ski World Championships.
Swisscom's Snow Drawings carried the tagline "Gemeinsam schreiben wir Geschichte. Im Schnee von St. Moritz," translating as "Together we write history — in the snow of St. Moritz." The line directly connected Swisscom's network identity to collective participation, framing the Swiss Alps as a shared canvas for fan expression during the championship event.
Clapboard assigns Snow Drawings a score of 76 out of 100. The score reflects strong conceptual coherence and notable technical execution, with autonomous robots covering ground equivalent to 16 soccer fields in St. Moritz. The score is offset by the absence of publicly verified audience or performance metrics for the 2017 Switzerland campaign.
UNIT9 served as production company on Snow Drawings, with its project archive documenting the technical scope of the robotic execution in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Director Roman Jud and production entity Who's McQueen are credited on the project. The campaign was classified as a digital medium execution within the electronics and technology industry category.
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