Lavazza Bets on Jannik Sinner to Prove Excellence Is a Choice
Lavazza's 'Excellence is a Choice' campaign is a 2024 out-of-home, print, and television campaign created by VML Italy, running across Italy and the United Kingdom, that positions the brand's obsessive pursuit of quality alongside the competitive discipline of ATP world number one tennis player Jannik Sinner.
Launched in May 2024, the campaign draws a direct parallel between Lavazza's approach to coffee craft and Sinner's relentless drive toward perfection. The creative premise is deliberately iterative: a commercial is shot with Sinner, then shot again, and again, until the result meets the exacting standard both the athlete and the brand demand. That structural metaphor — repetition as refinement — carries the campaign's core argument that excellence is not an accident but an active, ongoing decision. The campaign is built around the Lavazza A Modo Mio system, anchoring the premium positioning of the product to a figure whose public identity is defined by precision and discipline.
In Italy and the United Kingdom, the campaign appears across out-of-home placements and print media, with the television component amplifying the narrative beyond static formats. The choice of Sinner as testimonial is strategically acute: he held the ATP world number one ranking at the time of the campaign's launch, giving Lavazza access to a cultural moment rather than simply a celebrity endorsement. The campaign earns a Clapboard Score of 60 out of 100, reflecting solid craft and a coherent strategic framework while leaving room for deeper creative ambition. VML Italy, formerly operating under the Wunderman Thompson name, led creative development, with the campaign submitted by Executive Creative Director Alessandro Polia of the Milan office.
Lavazza has sustained a long-running association with tennis as a platform for communicating Italian excellence and elite performance. The 2024 'Excellence is a Choice' campaign does not begin this conversation — it deepens it. Lavazza has maintained partnerships with Wimbledon, Roland-Garros, and the Nitto ATP Finals, according to lavazza.com, making the United Kingdom and continental Europe natural geographic anchors for a campaign built around the sport's highest-profile athlete.
The strategic rationale for selecting Jannik Sinner is rooted in timing and authenticity. Sinner held the ATP world number one ranking at the campaign's launch in May 2024, making him the most visible Italian athlete in global sport at that moment. In Italy, where national sporting identity carries significant cultural weight, the alignment between an Italian coffee institution and Italy's leading tennis champion creates a resonance that transcends standard celebrity endorsement. In the United Kingdom, where Lavazza competes against dominant players including Nestlé — which holds an estimated twelve to sixteen percent of global retail coffee revenue, according to Market Research Future — and Jacobs Douwe Egberts, the premium positioning offered by a world-class athlete testimonial provides meaningful differentiation.
The global coffee market is substantial and growing. Published forecasts cluster around four to five percent annual growth, according to SkyQuestT and Grand View Research, with the roasted and decaffeinated segment estimated at approximately one hundred thirty-one billion dollars in 2024, according to IndexBox. Lavazza holds an estimated four to six percent global market share, according to Market Research Future. In this context, the Food and Drink category campaign targets consumers in Italy and the United Kingdom who already associate premium coffee with craftsmanship, and who respond to aspirational narratives grounded in verifiable achievement rather than abstract brand claims.
Director Miguel Campana leads the film production for 'Excellence is a Choice', working with production company Blackball to construct a campaign whose creative logic mirrors its subject matter. The production methodology is embedded in the concept itself: the act of reshooting until the result is perfect is not merely a narrative device but an operational truth that informed how the campaign was made and how it presents itself to audiences.
The campaign's group chief creative officer is Michele Picci, with executive creative direction shared between Alessandro Polia and Marco Rocca, and creative supervision provided by Alessandro Dore and Andrea Galanti. Chief Strategy Officer Francesco Lucchetta and Head of Strategy Ricardo Coen shaped the strategic architecture, while Group Client Services Director Federica Papetti and Account Executive Costanza Angeletti managed the client relationship. This depth of credited talent reflects a production undertaken with the seriousness the campaign's premise demands.
Across its outdoor and print executions in Italy and the United Kingdom, the campaign favours a visual language of precision and restraint. The narrative genre — a deliberately chosen frame — situates Lavazza within a tradition of brand storytelling that uses a protagonist's personal philosophy to articulate a product truth. Sinner's on-screen presence is not decorative; his identity as someone who returns to the baseline again and again to correct and improve is the campaign's argument made visible. The print and OOH components distil this into a single, declarative proposition: excellence is a choice. The simplicity of the line in a print and outdoor context is its strength, demanding nothing of the viewer but recognition of a shared value.
No campaign-specific sales lift, brand-awareness lift, market-share change, or ROAS data for 'Excellence is a Choice' is publicly available. Lavazza has not attributed discrete performance outcomes to this campaign in any public-facing communication reviewed for this analysis.
What is documented at the company level is directionally relevant. Lavazza Group's promotional, advertising, and marketing costs increased by twenty-eight million euros in 2024, according to lavazzagroup.com, though the annual report does not attribute this increase to any single campaign. The scale of that investment signals a year of elevated brand ambition across markets including Italy and the United Kingdom, and 'Excellence is a Choice' — running across television, out-of-home, and print — represents one of the more prominent expressions of that commitment.
Structurally, the campaign's effectiveness rests on the credibility of its central mechanism. Jannik Sinner's status as ATP world number one at the time of the May 2024 launch is not a borrowed credential but a live, verifiable fact, which immunises the campaign against the credibility gap that undermines many celebrity-led food and drink campaigns. The outdoor and print formats reward this clarity: a single declarative statement paired with a world-class athlete requires no further argument in a high-footfall environment. No verified award wins are recorded at Cannes Lions, the Effies, D&AD, The One Show, the Clios, the Webby Awards, or WARC Awards for this campaign. The Clapboard Score of 60 out of 100 reflects a campaign that executes its brief with competence and strategic coherence, though its creative ambition remains within established category conventions rather than beyond them.
Lavazza's 'Excellence is a Choice' is a 2024 out-of-home, print, and television campaign created by VML Italy. It ran in Italy and the United Kingdom from May 2024, starring ATP world number one Jannik Sinner and promoting the Lavazza A Modo Mio system through a creative argument that perfection is a deliberate, repeated act of will.
VML Italy created the campaign for Lavazza. Group Chief Creative Officer Michele Picci led the creative team, with Executive Creative Directors Alessandro Polia and Marco Rocca, and direction by Miguel Campana through production company Blackball. The campaign was submitted through the VML Milan office and launched in May 2024 across Italy and the United Kingdom.
Jannik Sinner held the ATP world number one ranking when the campaign launched in May 2024. As Italy's leading tennis champion, Sinner offered Lavazza authentic alignment between an Italian heritage brand and the country's most prominent athlete, reinforcing a shared narrative of obsessive refinement across markets in Italy and the United Kingdom.
The campaign ran in Italy and the United Kingdom in May 2024 across out-of-home, print, and television channels. Lavazza's established tennis partnerships — including Wimbledon, Roland-Garros, and the Nitto ATP Finals, according to lavazza.com — made both markets natural geographic anchors for a campaign built around the sport's highest-ranked player.
No verified award wins for 'Excellence is a Choice' are recorded at Cannes Lions, D&AD, the Effies, The One Show, the Clios, the Webby Awards, or WARC Awards. The campaign holds a Clapboard Score of 60 out of 100, an editorial benchmark reflecting solid strategic coherence and competent craft within established food and drink category conventions.
The campaign promotes the Lavazza A Modo Mio system, a home espresso platform positioned at the premium end of the food and drink category. By pairing the product with Jannik Sinner's pursuit of perfection, VML Italy frames A Modo Mio as the coffee choice of those who refuse to compromise on quality in Italy and the United Kingdom.
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