SWA Annual Meeting: "Place to be" for advertisers
SWA President Announces Change in Board of Directors
First, however, came the intro from SWA President Roger Harlacher, who says he is a "modest producer of potato chips" in his main profession (an undoubtedly charming understatement coming from the Zweifel CEO!).Harlacher reported on the past year of the association and on changes within the SWA board leadership: Marc Werner from Swisscom is stepping down, as is Andreas Schönenberger from Sigvaris. Rebekka Iten from Bayer, Jan de Schepper from Swissquote, and Achill Prakash from Swisscom are taking their places.
Microinfluencers and local campaigns
The first speaker of the day, L'Oréal Country Manager Switzerland Marc-André Heller, spoke about the growing importance of locally based marketing: Particularly in a country like Switzerland, it is important to respond to regional conditions when promoting one's products.Data-driven marketing helps to address people exactly where they are at the moment - and to give them what they need at the moment. Collaboration with micro-influencers is also important: If a customer has the feeling that someone in his or her "environment" is enthusiastic about a product, then the desire to own it increases.
AI can not creativity
Publicis CEO Thomas Wildberger took up the cudgels for the creative people in the advertising industry: No matter how good data-driven analyses are or will become, they cannot replace human creativity. That's why there's no need to worry too much about agency staff - he, for one, is not afraid for his job, Wildberger said with a twinkle in his eye.At the same time, he invoked the magic of the beginning: Companies should not order individual, media-specific campaigns that don't fit together afterwards. An advertising idea must apriori function "holistically," be "too big to fail" across all networks, and best of all emerge from close collaboration between agency and client. That's something you have to think about before you even start working it out, he says. Wildberger's example: the Publicis campaign for the rebranding of Orange to Salt, which had an impact right into the company's DNA.
Using the digital plus
Finally, motivational speaker, globetrotter and futurologist Dietmar Dahmen spoke of marketing as a boxing match: The opponent (aka the competitor on the market) is constantly in attack mode, and those who do not defend themselves will go down. Artificial intelligence, which the previous speaker had partially criticized, was seen by Dahmen primarily as a valuable support on the way to victory, although he also called for clarification: Computers could not replace people, but they could represent an important "plus" if they knew how to operate them. He sees diligence and data work in the marketing of the future as fully automated - even jobs that are still done by people today could disappear. However, they will then have more time for challenges that require inventiveness or empathy.
Panel discussion at the end
The final panel discussion brought all the speakers on stage again and, as a sort of bonus, Credit Suisse's head of marketing Tarkan Özküp. The very pleasant and informed Miriam Rickli, who had already eloquently guided through the rest of the program, elicited further statements from the speakers - and Dietmar Dahmen a nice closing word: "My tips for marketing are simple," said Dahmen, "look at the opponent, be courageous - and do, do, do."
