"We want to be a brand, not a URL"

m&k: Roman Reichelt, you are CMCO of Brack.Alltron since last October. During this time, the Renaming of the company - formerly Competec - as well as the coup, the Name sponsorship of the UBS Football Super League to take off. Now a Complete rebranding including new campaign realized. Pretty sporty for half a year, isn't it?

Roman Reichelt: I used to have more time for my children, yes (laughs). But I also have one of the most exciting professional challenges of my career right now. And I have some of the most motivated people around me who are eager to learn. It's all coming together right now and that makes me extra-productive.

What comes together?

Firstly, a clear and ambitious corporate vision from our CEO. Secondly, the absolute trust of my management colleagues and our Board of Directors to build a team and a strategy for marketing and brand without compromise. And - last but not least - the good starting position as Switzerland's number 2 in the market with a brand that many people already know but are not yet top of mind or top of heart.

First, explain the idea behind your new branding. Under the Competec umbrella, there were various brands, but end customers were mainly familiar with Brack.ch. Now everything looks clearer and more organized. Why was that important to you? 

At the beginning, we cut and analyzed some data and figures a little differently than the company was used to. We quickly realized that we are non-existent in various geographical and socio-demographic segments, while we are almost the market leader in others. An expression of a historically grown, pragmatic brand approach. We realized that the brands and their appearance are good and have brought us here. But they need to move with the times and be clearer and more coordinated if we want to grow our sales with them as planned.

What did you decide then?

First, we played "the weakest flies" and replaced the group name Competec, which still requires explanation even after 20 years, with the linguistic and visual combination of our strongest B2C and B2B brands - Brack.Alltron. Brack's previous branding was the visual guide. We tried to modernize it with colors, fonts and line thicknesses. Cautiously and yet noticeably. Without creating a "Jaguar gate" for our loyal customers. Alltron, on the other hand, will be given a major overhaul in the coming months.

What exactly does that mean for your best-known brand "Brack.ch"?

First of all, that it will simply be called Brack in future - period. We want to be a brand, not a URL. And in future, this brand will stand for more than just "delivering". The new positioning of our Group-wide brand house is "Unboxing Potential", a play on words with the moment of truth in e-commerce. A credo that tells customers and employees that something always begins when they open our package. We know that you don't just buy products. The microphone might be for your first podcast. The laptop for your new high score. The spirit level for the leaning garden shed in the chindsgi that you want to repair on a voluntary basis. For the Brack brand, this leads to the claim "Unpack what's inside you".

The campaign was launched at the beginning of May in collaboration with BrinkertLück. Here, too, everything looks new, both visually and in terms of content. Everything must have been created at the same time as the rebranding by Hotz Brand Consultants. What was the hen and what was the egg?

We selected BrinkertLück in a co-creation pitch with three agencies. As we only had a total of six months, the advertising concept and brand positioning ran in parallel and even cross-fertilized each other. Dennis Lück and his team did the best job of echoing our briefing and preventing the advertising presence from becoming too pretentious, pretentious or kitschy. That's why all the motifs break a little with the empowerment of the claim. When we say "Unpack the superstar that's inside you", we're not showing the perfect TikTok singer with two million followers - but the girl whose brother isn't so convinced of her talent. Lots of wordplay, tongue-in-cheek, close to the ground. And yet at the end you know: whatever you're planning, we have it in our range.

The website has also been given a makeover?

The webshop is of course another Moment of Truth. We have made it more aesthetic, fresher and clearer. We have revised hundreds of details such as discount labels, fonts, imagery, icon library, integration of editorial content and logic for marketing focuses. This already looks much better, but anyone familiar with the matter knows that this is just the tip of the iceberg and that we still have a lot of work ahead of us. Under the leadership of our new CIO Tobias Quelle, the next releases are already in preparation.

Finally, the change of your word mark. Brack without .ch - a departure from Swissness? Is the focus no longer on the domestic market?

We are a strong number 2 in e-commerce in this country - in fact, we are the largest independent player. If anything, the opposite is true. With our new direction, we want to win over even more hearts in even more regions of Switzerland. The .ch will remain, just not in the logo. We are making our pure Swiss identity more relevant in other places, for example by making the people who pack the millions of parcels every day from our warehouse in Willisau, Lucerne, more visible so that our customers can unpack what's inside them.