Minds of the week: En garde! Shaping the future
In legend, musketeers are "heroes who fight for the good. And in today's business reality, Irene M. Wrabel and Michael Egloff of Musqueteers, Kompanie für Kommunikation in Zurich, also want to propagate sustainable values and new independent ways of looking at things instead of just promoting consumption and growth.
No one knows what will happen in the coming years. Almost all plans for the future are extrapolations of the past. That means economically: not financeable, and ecologically: not sustainable. But we see communication as a fun contribution to shaping the future. The task of communication will lie much more in awakening energies and providing inspiration - and that's exactly what we want." This is the credo to which the modern Musqueteers have committed themselves for their current campaign.
Showing the world of their customers in an understandable and attractive way, making new findings and connections visible and plausible in language and design - this is not only the goal of information design as it is created by the Musqueteers, it is also the task of branding or corporate identity, the basic competence of the Musqueteers. In addition to the design-based disciplines, the list of services includes verbal communication with strategy and concept development and implementation, as well as classic PR tasks such as media relations, crisis communication and copywriting. "We shape relationships," is their slogan. Its most important clients currently include British Airways and Hitachi Data Systems, as well as an architectural firm, a second-hand dealer and a continuing education project for the canton of Zurich. In order to solve such a wide range of communication tasks, the Musqueteers can also build on a correspondingly versatile past.
Michael Egloff studied sinology, philosophy and ethnology in Zurich. It almost turned out differently. "When I was 16, I wanted to do an exchange year in the U.S., but that didn't work out." So instead of a journey into the wide world, an inner journey into the world of literature followed. Egloff discovered a fascination with East Asian cultures, began reading Zen, and eventually felt quite at home in 300 B.C. China. The everyday reality in modern China, however, was then sobering. And because he didn't want to get involved in the fast-moving business surrounding the booming economic power of China, Egloff returned to Zurich to the university, where he worked for five years as an assistant at the Institute of Sinology.
But because he was "not enough of a researcher type," Egloff sought a job outside of academia. "I'm always most productive when someone comes and says, 'I have a problem.'" And then one day, when someone from the CI industry came in and wanted to know how to write BMW in Chinese, he found his true calling. He applied at Zintzmeyer & Lux, and was found "interesting" there because of his Far Eastern aura. Egloff learned a great deal about the practice of corporate identity in a short time "in the flow heater of the top agency". He worked on the creation of Deutsche Telekom, wrote design manuals for BMW, assisted in corporate culture workshops and was increasingly gripped by the task: How can values and attitudes be made visible and tangible?
This led to the founding of Egloff Identity in 1994 with freelance mandates and freelance employees. The mandate for the then import organization for fair trade OS3, now Claro, became an important independent assignment. In 2000, Egloff met the lecturer Stefan Vogler at a course for young entrepreneurs at the ETH. In 2001, the two founded a real agency under the umbrella of Grey, of which Vogler was head until 2005, with the promising name Musqueteers AG. According to the legend of the three musketeers, these heroes "fight lustily for a good cause." That was the common value base. After Grey was bought by WPP and the corset in the network became tighter and tighter, Egloff broke away from the mothership in 2006 and founded the new Musqueteers as a GmbH (limited liability company) with two comrades-in-arms in a wonderful headquarters in Binz.
Partner and Head of PR in this new form was Irene M. Wrabel from the beginning. The Munich native studied political science, economics and communications. Wrabel financed her training as a journalist and copywriter herself. While still a student, she wrote about technology for one of the first computer magazines and about culture for local daily newspapers. She also took an additional course in management and finally landed in television via an internship at a casting company. The versatile editor gained experience in political talk shows and entertainment programs such as "Herzblatt", until she finally landed in the field of infotainment, where she realized and produced reports and documentaries for Pro7. She also worked for Bayerischer Rundfunk, Südwestfunk and Sat.1, but when the tabloids became increasingly broad here as well, Wrabel retired to marketing and media consulting.
One of these jobs brought her to Switzerland. She quickly felt at home in Zurich, and in 2001 she was hired by a headhunter. Not for a job in the media, however, but straight in-house for three years as a research associate in this executive search company. "That gave me a good insight into Swiss business life," says Wrabel, analyzing this detour before she found her way back into communications at Musqueteers.
Today, the two share management and supervisory responsibilities: Egloff is Creative Director and responsible for all CI, branding and design projects. Wrabel heads the communications department and is responsible for linguistic communication. And what does the future hold? "We ask ourselves the question: what role does communication play in an inevitably post-material society? On the surface, much will remain the same, but attitudes and intentions will change radically. In two years, we want to be the company for sustainable communication, without using that term. And that's why we're continuing, step by step, in that direction." If you want to keep up with the development of the Musqueteers, consult the blog www.zukunftgestalten.ch.
Andreas Panzeri
Showing the world of their customers in an understandable and attractive way, making new findings and connections visible and plausible in language and design - this is not only the goal of information design as it is created by the Musqueteers, it is also the task of branding or corporate identity, the basic competence of the Musqueteers. In addition to the design-based disciplines, the list of services includes verbal communication with strategy and concept development and implementation, as well as classic PR tasks such as media relations, crisis communication and copywriting. "We shape relationships," is their slogan. Its most important clients currently include British Airways and Hitachi Data Systems, as well as an architectural firm, a second-hand dealer and a continuing education project for the canton of Zurich. In order to solve such a wide range of communication tasks, the Musqueteers can also build on a correspondingly versatile past.
Michael Egloff studied sinology, philosophy and ethnology in Zurich. It almost turned out differently. "When I was 16, I wanted to do an exchange year in the U.S., but that didn't work out." So instead of a journey into the wide world, an inner journey into the world of literature followed. Egloff discovered a fascination with East Asian cultures, began reading Zen, and eventually felt quite at home in 300 B.C. China. The everyday reality in modern China, however, was then sobering. And because he didn't want to get involved in the fast-moving business surrounding the booming economic power of China, Egloff returned to Zurich to the university, where he worked for five years as an assistant at the Institute of Sinology.
But because he was "not enough of a researcher type," Egloff sought a job outside of academia. "I'm always most productive when someone comes and says, 'I have a problem.'" And then one day, when someone from the CI industry came in and wanted to know how to write BMW in Chinese, he found his true calling. He applied at Zintzmeyer & Lux, and was found "interesting" there because of his Far Eastern aura. Egloff learned a great deal about the practice of corporate identity in a short time "in the flow heater of the top agency". He worked on the creation of Deutsche Telekom, wrote design manuals for BMW, assisted in corporate culture workshops and was increasingly gripped by the task: How can values and attitudes be made visible and tangible?
This led to the founding of Egloff Identity in 1994 with freelance mandates and freelance employees. The mandate for the then import organization for fair trade OS3, now Claro, became an important independent assignment. In 2000, Egloff met the lecturer Stefan Vogler at a course for young entrepreneurs at the ETH. In 2001, the two founded a real agency under the umbrella of Grey, of which Vogler was head until 2005, with the promising name Musqueteers AG. According to the legend of the three musketeers, these heroes "fight lustily for a good cause." That was the common value base. After Grey was bought by WPP and the corset in the network became tighter and tighter, Egloff broke away from the mothership in 2006 and founded the new Musqueteers as a GmbH (limited liability company) with two comrades-in-arms in a wonderful headquarters in Binz.
Partner and Head of PR in this new form was Irene M. Wrabel from the beginning. The Munich native studied political science, economics and communications. Wrabel financed her training as a journalist and copywriter herself. While still a student, she wrote about technology for one of the first computer magazines and about culture for local daily newspapers. She also took an additional course in management and finally landed in television via an internship at a casting company. The versatile editor gained experience in political talk shows and entertainment programs such as "Herzblatt", until she finally landed in the field of infotainment, where she realized and produced reports and documentaries for Pro7. She also worked for Bayerischer Rundfunk, Südwestfunk and Sat.1, but when the tabloids became increasingly broad here as well, Wrabel retired to marketing and media consulting.
One of these jobs brought her to Switzerland. She quickly felt at home in Zurich, and in 2001 she was hired by a headhunter. Not for a job in the media, however, but straight in-house for three years as a research associate in this executive search company. "That gave me a good insight into Swiss business life," says Wrabel, analyzing this detour before she found her way back into communications at Musqueteers.
Today, the two share management and supervisory responsibilities: Egloff is Creative Director and responsible for all CI, branding and design projects. Wrabel heads the communications department and is responsible for linguistic communication. And what does the future hold? "We ask ourselves the question: what role does communication play in an inevitably post-material society? On the surface, much will remain the same, but attitudes and intentions will change radically. In two years, we want to be the company for sustainable communication, without using that term. And that's why we're continuing, step by step, in that direction." If you want to keep up with the development of the Musqueteers, consult the blog www.zukunftgestalten.ch.
Andreas Panzeri
