Inhalt und Form establishes subsidiary for marketing automation

Dominik Stibal, Karin Estermann and Urs Blickenstorfer (from left) are behind iundf Marketing Technology.

Content and Form is growing. Since March 2019, the Zurich-based agency has not only limited itself to marketing strategy and creation, but also offers solutions to play out all content across the customer journey in a targeted and personalized manner through various technology solutions.

"I've always found it exciting how you can combine the two worlds - creation and technology," co-founder Dominik Stibal tells Werbewoche.ch. "We believe that the future lies in a coexistence of classic and highly personalized advertising." Equipping oneself for this future as a creative agency can only be achieved by making "a huge leap" technologically, he adds.

To this end, Inhalt und Form has brought Urs Blickenstorfer, an expert in marketing technology, on board and founded the company iundf Marketing Technology with him. Blickenstorfer draws on over twenty years of experience in marketing, including as CMO of PwC Switzerland and Regional Director of Bluprint Global. Blickenstorfer and Inhalt und Form each hold 50 percent of the shares in iundf Marketing Technology.

One focus of the new subsidiary is marketing automation. "Many companies," says Blickenstorfer, "have the software for marketing automation, but they don't know how to use it effectively. That's where iundf Marketing Technology comes in. We have the technological know-how to get the most out of the technology and combine this with the ideas of our creative department. This combination is unbeatable - and not just unique in Switzerland."

For Blickenstorfer, it's clear that technological know-how is not enough: "It does take a lot of technical understanding to be able to build the infrastructure. But then you have to get the creativity into the system - you still need good ideas, exciting or surprising communication." This, he says, is also why he teamed up with Inhalt und Form: "A lot of performance agencies are very technology-driven, but lack something creative."

The goal is to successfully deliver a congruent brand experience - thanks to a better understanding of customers' preferences and interests. This should lead to more relevant messages and higher engagement, and ultimately to more leads and sales.

"What's exciting for us as an agency is that the playing field of communication possibilities has increased massively in one fell swoop and we can play out completely new touchpoints in a personalized way," says Stibal. Thanks to marketing automation, communication is becoming very behavior-oriented. Depending on how a recipient reacts to a message, he or she is subsequently addressed in a personalized way. "This requires a different understanding of campaigns, because there is no longer just one customer journey, but countless - depending on the reaction - different branches," explains Karin Estermann, Executive Creative Director of Inhalt und Form.

Iundf Marketing Technology offers not only the development of a data-driven marketing strategy, the implementation and integration of new technologies, the training of marketing and sales staff, but also the creation and implementation of a central idea, as well as the measurement of the impact. The first creative implementations will be made public in the summer.

With marketing automation, message recipients receive a score that represents their relevance to the company and defines the further contact steps.

If... then: Marketing automation makes the customer journey much more variable and diverse.