The oven is hot
Harry Sulzer has got back on the saddle and now runs his own company, Creative Consulting.
Harry Sulzer has got back on the saddle and is now a sole proprietor of Creative Consulting, with an "extremely short commute". The former Bonaparte founder has set up the headquarters of his new Harry Sulzer Creative Consulting just seven meters from his bed. The Napoleon of Swiss advertising, who returned from exile after a motorcycle accident, loves to introduce his new company to colleagues as "HaSu Reklamebudeli". Gag or trend? "We are facing a revolution in the agency scene today. There is also a shift in large budgets from label agencies to low-profile performance brands. I count myself among them. "Harry Sulzer doesn't just waste time in traffic jams on his way to work. Valuable hours "and therefore a lot of money" would also be saved if there weren't too many people sitting around in the Reklamebudeli at a meeting. At Harry Sulzer Creative Consulting, the boss does the cooking himself - and he is the one who spoon up the soup in direct contact with the customer.
Sulzer believes it is important that his advice comes into play before the briefing. He is a staunch advocate of psychography as an extension of market research. This involves tailoring the content of advertising messages as precisely as possible to the communication behavior of a target group. Specifically: "The worm must taste good to the fish, not the fisherman. It is not the taste of the CD that is decisive, but the interest of a larger audience."
Sulzer cites the introduction of the Coop Supercard as a successful example of such work, which he carried out with Bonaparte from the initial concept, through naming and CI, to comprehensive communications support. The ongoing success has brought him further orders for Coop. Sulzer Consulting was able to introduce the "Prix Garantie" and is already working on the next job for Coop.
Otherwise, Sulzer "criminally neglected" his network of relationships during his involuntary sabbatical. He now only looks after three customers from Bonaparte's past. His goal for this year is therefore to acquire at least one new customer.
Sulzer also looks after an ex-GDR fag: a cigarette that is aimed specifically at smart shoppers and is free of Ostalgie. This is "a hybrid consumer who avoids the classic view by driving up to the discount store in a Porsche, for example."
Sulzer has a high profile as an advertiser. "But having a profile also means having a sum of good and bad qualities," he muses. His bad ones include a lack of diplomacy. "I'm very direct, and there are structures that can't stand that."
He has digested the end of Bonaparte. "We had five pitches and prospects. And then I crashed my motorcycle into this tractor." The pitches were lost. Everything fell apart. "I no longer had the strength to tighten the reins. The consequences of the accident had to be cured."
Anyone can fall over once. But you can't stay down. Despite such bad luck with his motorcycle, Harry Sulzer got back on his bike. The amateur pilot continues to fly acrobatics. "Flying acrobatics is a nice metaphor for our business. You have to risk something and yet not. You have to test the material enormously, whether it's an airplane or market research. You have to be on safe ground to be able to take off."
Sulzer's penchant for engines is legendary, although he "would never race". He doesn't drink alcohol either. But the bon vivant likes to say that he became an advertiser because he was impressed by how quickly you can become an AD in advertising in Doris Dörrie's film "Männer".
can buy a sleek Maserati. At the time, Sulzer was studying at the ETH in order to be able to develop computer games professionally. To do the same as the movie hero, he dropped out of his computer science studies. As he studied marketing as a minor subject and was good at writing, he managed to get into advertising after his third application to Publicis.
In his very first year he won ADC cubes, after two years he was a young 25 CD at Dubach, then a freelancer and finally
Co-owner of GGK Zurich for 14 days. Because he saw that this management buyout would cause problems, he moved to Lintas in 1997 as CD and shortly afterwards as CEO, which eventually became Bonaparte together with Rolf Sperisen. "The name was the program."
Little has changed in this history to this day. Napoleon was small and was always able to assert himself against much more powerful people. And he has returned once again.
Whether flying or business: "You should take a risk, but you shouldn't," says Harry Sulzer.
Andreas Panzeri
Sulzer believes it is important that his advice comes into play before the briefing. He is a staunch advocate of psychography as an extension of market research. This involves tailoring the content of advertising messages as precisely as possible to the communication behavior of a target group. Specifically: "The worm must taste good to the fish, not the fisherman. It is not the taste of the CD that is decisive, but the interest of a larger audience."
Sulzer cites the introduction of the Coop Supercard as a successful example of such work, which he carried out with Bonaparte from the initial concept, through naming and CI, to comprehensive communications support. The ongoing success has brought him further orders for Coop. Sulzer Consulting was able to introduce the "Prix Garantie" and is already working on the next job for Coop.
Otherwise, Sulzer "criminally neglected" his network of relationships during his involuntary sabbatical. He now only looks after three customers from Bonaparte's past. His goal for this year is therefore to acquire at least one new customer.
Sulzer also looks after an ex-GDR fag: a cigarette that is aimed specifically at smart shoppers and is free of Ostalgie. This is "a hybrid consumer who avoids the classic view by driving up to the discount store in a Porsche, for example."
Sulzer has a high profile as an advertiser. "But having a profile also means having a sum of good and bad qualities," he muses. His bad ones include a lack of diplomacy. "I'm very direct, and there are structures that can't stand that."
He has digested the end of Bonaparte. "We had five pitches and prospects. And then I crashed my motorcycle into this tractor." The pitches were lost. Everything fell apart. "I no longer had the strength to tighten the reins. The consequences of the accident had to be cured."
Anyone can fall over once. But you can't stay down. Despite such bad luck with his motorcycle, Harry Sulzer got back on his bike. The amateur pilot continues to fly acrobatics. "Flying acrobatics is a nice metaphor for our business. You have to risk something and yet not. You have to test the material enormously, whether it's an airplane or market research. You have to be on safe ground to be able to take off."
Sulzer's penchant for engines is legendary, although he "would never race". He doesn't drink alcohol either. But the bon vivant likes to say that he became an advertiser because he was impressed by how quickly you can become an AD in advertising in Doris Dörrie's film "Männer".
can buy a sleek Maserati. At the time, Sulzer was studying at the ETH in order to be able to develop computer games professionally. To do the same as the movie hero, he dropped out of his computer science studies. As he studied marketing as a minor subject and was good at writing, he managed to get into advertising after his third application to Publicis.
In his very first year he won ADC cubes, after two years he was a young 25 CD at Dubach, then a freelancer and finally
Co-owner of GGK Zurich for 14 days. Because he saw that this management buyout would cause problems, he moved to Lintas in 1997 as CD and shortly afterwards as CEO, which eventually became Bonaparte together with Rolf Sperisen. "The name was the program."
Little has changed in this history to this day. Napoleon was small and was always able to assert himself against much more powerful people. And he has returned once again.
Whether flying or business: "You should take a risk, but you shouldn't," says Harry Sulzer.
Andreas Panzeri
