Shock resistant Swiss
Notable: As a German visitor, one is struck by the tendency of Swiss advertising to be provocative. And one is annoyed by its crudeness, some of which is harmful to minors.
Column As a German guest, one wonders about the provocative nature of Swiss advertising. Recently, a mother and her six-year-old son sat opposite me on the train. He was playing with Via and came across the back of the SBB magazine, on which - alienated but still clearly recognizable - all kinds of positions during sexual intercourse were depicted. In the center of each of the pictogram-like drawings, or more precisely, where the man penetrates the woman, was a pink circle. Clearly, an advertisement for the "Stop Aids" campaign. Don't do it without a condom, was the message, and it was a little agonizing to see the woman trying to talk her boy out of asking the relevant questions. "What's with the circles, Mommy?" was the most harmless. My question is different: is it okay to place such drastic subjects in a mass-circulation newspaper that is also accessible to children?
We know what the agency responsible for this would say. Aids is so dangerous that the issue cannot be given enough prominence. And if you want to sensitize the secondos and secondas in the urban areas, as well as the more carefree Swiss apprentices, hairdressers and students, you have to provoke them. Such a heterogeneous and hardened audience can only be reached by means of shock communication. Unfortunately, no consideration can be given to mothers with their children.
However, despite the hole in the ozone layer, the sun is not a plague. Which is why the advertising for sunglasses should actually be a little more toned down or gentle. But what do you see in the middle of the Limmatquai and on other boulevards? A huge poster: "Get a new face - cerjo sunglasses". It advertises a destroyed head with only the remains of a nose hanging in the middle. Apparently one of those cases where surgeons had to transplant hairy skin from other parts of the body into the face in order for the patient to survive.
If you get close enough to the poster, it becomes clear that the agency responsible is just playing with gray. A closer look reveals a partially shaved back of the head, from which the nose stands out teasingly as an arranged bundle of hair. A tasteless feint? Oh no, a little joke is still allowed!
The Swiss are actually much more discreet and inhibited than their neighbors, for example the Germans. North of the Rhine, not a cock crows when a tabloid puts the real or alleged mistress of an ambassador on the cover and in the picture. Here, on the other hand, something like this immediately becomes a tangible state affair. When journalism can tolerate so little in comparison: Why then does advertising in this country, which is still largely Calvinist in character, act much more provocatively than in Germany, for example?
I have no satisfactory answer to this question. Is the habitual conservatism of the Swiss-German bourgeoisie driving the creative elite (to which advertisers naturally belong) towards calculated taboo-breaking? Is the outflow of advertising budgets and the battle for attention so radical that the only way to assert oneself is to use provocative words like breast and ass? Is the best, therefore, what attracts the most attention?
And what about the "Question of Morality" that our good old Vance Packard raised half a century ago? We should argue about that.
Advertising provocations as an end in themselves: more of a distraction than an eye-catcher.
We know what the agency responsible for this would say. Aids is so dangerous that the issue cannot be given enough prominence. And if you want to sensitize the secondos and secondas in the urban areas, as well as the more carefree Swiss apprentices, hairdressers and students, you have to provoke them. Such a heterogeneous and hardened audience can only be reached by means of shock communication. Unfortunately, no consideration can be given to mothers with their children.
However, despite the hole in the ozone layer, the sun is not a plague. Which is why the advertising for sunglasses should actually be a little more toned down or gentle. But what do you see in the middle of the Limmatquai and on other boulevards? A huge poster: "Get a new face - cerjo sunglasses". It advertises a destroyed head with only the remains of a nose hanging in the middle. Apparently one of those cases where surgeons had to transplant hairy skin from other parts of the body into the face in order for the patient to survive.
If you get close enough to the poster, it becomes clear that the agency responsible is just playing with gray. A closer look reveals a partially shaved back of the head, from which the nose stands out teasingly as an arranged bundle of hair. A tasteless feint? Oh no, a little joke is still allowed!
The Swiss are actually much more discreet and inhibited than their neighbors, for example the Germans. North of the Rhine, not a cock crows when a tabloid puts the real or alleged mistress of an ambassador on the cover and in the picture. Here, on the other hand, something like this immediately becomes a tangible state affair. When journalism can tolerate so little in comparison: Why then does advertising in this country, which is still largely Calvinist in character, act much more provocatively than in Germany, for example?
I have no satisfactory answer to this question. Is the habitual conservatism of the Swiss-German bourgeoisie driving the creative elite (to which advertisers naturally belong) towards calculated taboo-breaking? Is the outflow of advertising budgets and the battle for attention so radical that the only way to assert oneself is to use provocative words like breast and ass? Is the best, therefore, what attracts the most attention?
And what about the "Question of Morality" that our good old Vance Packard raised half a century ago? We should argue about that.
Advertising provocations as an end in themselves: more of a distraction than an eye-catcher.
> Peter Glotz is Professor of Media Management at the University of St. Gallen, SonntagsBlick columnist and father of a six-year-old boy.
