Happy Easter
Simone Keller on the power of negative forecasts and positive thinking.
Simone Keller on the power of negative forecasts and positive thinking. "Have things actually improved since you started moaning?" asked the agency Hochspannung in its recent self-promotion. In fact, there is a lot to complain about. For example, the fact that frozen budgets took their toll on both agencies and the media as the year drew to a close. Of course, a number of bright spots brightened up the gloom on the Swiss economic horizon in 2004. But it seems that negative events stick better in the collective memory.
In its last issue of the year, Werbewoche traditionally devotes several pages to the industry highlights and low points of the previous months. Not this time. True to the well-worn motto "recovery begins in the mind", we too prefer to look to the future on the threshold of 2005.
After all, the industry newspaper itself has been suffering for some time from the insidious consumption that is currently rampant in the Swiss press. Not even the doctors know whether the cupping cures prescribed in many places will contribute to long-term recovery. Ultimately, recovery depends on the will of the patient. In view of the bitter pills prescribed by so many specialists, the question arises: Do we perhaps not want to get well?
Only a month ago, the major bank UBS revised its economic forecast for 2005 downwards. This is anything but optimistic. It may sound presumptuous: But what potential could the UBS experts have unleashed if they had embellished their forecasts in favor of the long-awaited economic upturn? This instrument is used from time to time in balance sheets. And there is plenty of evidence in the annals that untruths often have a greater effect than the truth itself.
In the case of the economic forecasts, the effects could be very positive: Investing instead of saving. Look ahead instead of looking back.
With this in mind, the Werbewoche team would like to wish everyone a happy Easter and take a well-deserved summer break.
> Simone Keller, Editor
In its last issue of the year, Werbewoche traditionally devotes several pages to the industry highlights and low points of the previous months. Not this time. True to the well-worn motto "recovery begins in the mind", we too prefer to look to the future on the threshold of 2005.
After all, the industry newspaper itself has been suffering for some time from the insidious consumption that is currently rampant in the Swiss press. Not even the doctors know whether the cupping cures prescribed in many places will contribute to long-term recovery. Ultimately, recovery depends on the will of the patient. In view of the bitter pills prescribed by so many specialists, the question arises: Do we perhaps not want to get well?
Only a month ago, the major bank UBS revised its economic forecast for 2005 downwards. This is anything but optimistic. It may sound presumptuous: But what potential could the UBS experts have unleashed if they had embellished their forecasts in favor of the long-awaited economic upturn? This instrument is used from time to time in balance sheets. And there is plenty of evidence in the annals that untruths often have a greater effect than the truth itself.
In the case of the economic forecasts, the effects could be very positive: Investing instead of saving. Look ahead instead of looking back.
With this in mind, the Werbewoche team would like to wish everyone a happy Easter and take a well-deserved summer break.
> Simone Keller, Editor
