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The 8th Bern Marketing Day Sought to Provide «Clarity» in an Increasingly Confusing World
The 8th Bern Marketing Day sought "perspective" in an increasingly confused worldBy Anita Vaucher Especially in uncertain times, exchange among like-minded people is particularly in demand. The Bern Marketing Day takes this need for communication into account. This year's motto was "Durchblick" (perspective) and it offers marketing professionals a platform to find out about the latest trends and developments.
The Bern Marketing Day has long since ceased to be an insider tip for marketing enthusiasts from the Bern region. Initiated in 1986 by entrepreneur Heinz Trachsel, the conference now attracts guests from all over German-speaking Switzerland every two years.
This year, more than 500 participants came to the Kursaal Bern to be inspired by the conference theme "Durchblick". The aim of the marketing conference is to provide an overview of the most important trends and developments in marketing in a short period of time. This year, the conference theme was given an additional dimension by the events of the past few weeks.
In his presentation on marketing for an open society, Beat Kappeler said that the September 11 attacks and the American response to them were often interpreted as a "clash of civilizations. This is the essence of the matter, if one means the clash of an open, market-driven and democratically organized society against a society of rural clans with personal rather than factual dependencies without clearly defined basic rights.
An open society needs marketing
The open society must thus be defined as a society that establishes fundamental rights for individuals, not for groups, and makes them enforceable in courts against the state and third parties, he continued. The edifice of the open society sets the economic and political spheres against each other in competition and control. Therefore, there can also be a state failure and not only a market failure.
The state and the economy therefore represent the typical and necessary "checks and balances" for an open society. Kappeler went on to explain that the open society needs marketing in order to be able to explain it in its comprehensive mode of action to the outside world, to developing societies, and to the inside world, to critics.
Practical teaching of marketing - with chairs
Emanuel Berger, Director of the Grand Hotel Victoria-Jungfrau in Interlaken, and Hannes A. Pant-li, Marketing Director of the watch manufacturer IWC, drew close to market reality with their remarks. Both market products in the luxury goods sector. Pantli used advertising to show that special marketing laws apparently prevail there.
For a full twenty years, the same advertising motif was used for the prestige brand: a clock on a blank background. That's over now: the ads from Wirz Werbung have given the brand a creative boost. IWC's customer magazine is also the company's best marketing tool. With a circulation of 20,000 copies, it is the highest-circulation watch magazine.
In order for a hotel guest to come back, you have to generate expectations, said hotel director Berger. And he is obviously doing this successfully and not simply by sending out hotel brochures indiscriminately. The enterprising hotelier has conquered the American market by making low-calorie food palatable to Americans. To this end, the kitchen of the Four Seasons Hotel in New York was seized without further ado, and weighty journalists were cooked on the spot by the culinary brigade of the Hotel Victoria-Jungfrau. The posh hotel in Interlaken was voted Hotel of the Year by "Gault Millau".
Hotelier Berger demonstrated quite practically that this is only possible through hard work. He asked the conference participants to stand up to look under their chair. And there were indeed some lucky ones who found a voucher for an overnight stay or a meal at the posh hotel in the Bernese Oberland under their chair. Berger immediately delivered the corollary: "In marketing, you have to get off your butt to make a profit."
Information technology - no substitute for the brain
David Rosenthal, Internet expert and owner of the Basel IT Press Office, warned against placing too many expectations in information technology. It is true that IT remains a beacon of hope in marketing because it enables greater efficiency, offers new forms of market cultivation and collection, and the Internet is being used more and more intensively.
However, the development of technology is overestimated, for example with regard to the availability of broadband technology or the teething troubles of programs that are not fully developed. In addition, users' sensitivities are not sufficiently recognized, especially in the area of data protection. Anyone who wants to do marketing, Rosenthal concludes, has to deal intensively with IT. However, information technology is only a simple tool and in no way replaces reflection and creativity.
The mysteries of humanity are also a marketing engine
Marketing expert Torsten Tomczak from the University of St.Gallen demonstrated three very different success strategies using the examples of the Marketing Exchange Company, the Marketing Coalition Company and the Marketing Hybrid Company.
For the Marketing Exchange Company, the core challenge is the management of a complex vertical system that accepts conflicts and provides for interdependent task distributions. The Marketing Coalition Company, on the other hand, is challenged by the permanent development and expansion of significant product advantages in a dynamic environment.
Tomczak describes the Marketing Hybrid Company as a marketing virtuoso. This requires both product leadership and a strong lead channel (customer relationship). The core challenge for this model is reduced flexibility in a dynamic environment. And so that the audience was not left hanging in the void, puzzling over whether such companies actually exist, the university lecturer provided practical examples with Hilti Fastening Technology, Zurich Insurance and the car manufacturers VW and BMW.
Apparently Erich von Däniken is part of the speaker pool for marketing events. The specialist for extraterrestrials already had his big appearance at the marketing day in Fribourg last January. Now he was again excited in Berne about riddles around the Egyptian pyramids. But he was quite happy that these riddles would never be solved, otherwise the visitors of the Mistery-Park in Interlaken, which will open its gates in November 2002, would probably stay away, he said in conclusion.
The Bern Marketing Day has long since ceased to be an insider tip for marketing enthusiasts from the Bern region. Initiated in 1986 by entrepreneur Heinz Trachsel, the conference now attracts guests from all over German-speaking Switzerland every two years.
This year, more than 500 participants came to the Kursaal Bern to be inspired by the conference theme "Durchblick". The aim of the marketing conference is to provide an overview of the most important trends and developments in marketing in a short period of time. This year, the conference theme was given an additional dimension by the events of the past few weeks.
In his presentation on marketing for an open society, Beat Kappeler said that the September 11 attacks and the American response to them were often interpreted as a "clash of civilizations. This is the essence of the matter, if one means the clash of an open, market-driven and democratically organized society against a society of rural clans with personal rather than factual dependencies without clearly defined basic rights.
An open society needs marketing
The open society must thus be defined as a society that establishes fundamental rights for individuals, not for groups, and makes them enforceable in courts against the state and third parties, he continued. The edifice of the open society sets the economic and political spheres against each other in competition and control. Therefore, there can also be a state failure and not only a market failure.
The state and the economy therefore represent the typical and necessary "checks and balances" for an open society. Kappeler went on to explain that the open society needs marketing in order to be able to explain it in its comprehensive mode of action to the outside world, to developing societies, and to the inside world, to critics.
Practical teaching of marketing - with chairs
Emanuel Berger, Director of the Grand Hotel Victoria-Jungfrau in Interlaken, and Hannes A. Pant-li, Marketing Director of the watch manufacturer IWC, drew close to market reality with their remarks. Both market products in the luxury goods sector. Pantli used advertising to show that special marketing laws apparently prevail there.
For a full twenty years, the same advertising motif was used for the prestige brand: a clock on a blank background. That's over now: the ads from Wirz Werbung have given the brand a creative boost. IWC's customer magazine is also the company's best marketing tool. With a circulation of 20,000 copies, it is the highest-circulation watch magazine.
In order for a hotel guest to come back, you have to generate expectations, said hotel director Berger. And he is obviously doing this successfully and not simply by sending out hotel brochures indiscriminately. The enterprising hotelier has conquered the American market by making low-calorie food palatable to Americans. To this end, the kitchen of the Four Seasons Hotel in New York was seized without further ado, and weighty journalists were cooked on the spot by the culinary brigade of the Hotel Victoria-Jungfrau. The posh hotel in Interlaken was voted Hotel of the Year by "Gault Millau".
Hotelier Berger demonstrated quite practically that this is only possible through hard work. He asked the conference participants to stand up to look under their chair. And there were indeed some lucky ones who found a voucher for an overnight stay or a meal at the posh hotel in the Bernese Oberland under their chair. Berger immediately delivered the corollary: "In marketing, you have to get off your butt to make a profit."
Information technology - no substitute for the brain
David Rosenthal, Internet expert and owner of the Basel IT Press Office, warned against placing too many expectations in information technology. It is true that IT remains a beacon of hope in marketing because it enables greater efficiency, offers new forms of market cultivation and collection, and the Internet is being used more and more intensively.
However, the development of technology is overestimated, for example with regard to the availability of broadband technology or the teething troubles of programs that are not fully developed. In addition, users' sensitivities are not sufficiently recognized, especially in the area of data protection. Anyone who wants to do marketing, Rosenthal concludes, has to deal intensively with IT. However, information technology is only a simple tool and in no way replaces reflection and creativity.
The mysteries of humanity are also a marketing engine
Marketing expert Torsten Tomczak from the University of St.Gallen demonstrated three very different success strategies using the examples of the Marketing Exchange Company, the Marketing Coalition Company and the Marketing Hybrid Company.
For the Marketing Exchange Company, the core challenge is the management of a complex vertical system that accepts conflicts and provides for interdependent task distributions. The Marketing Coalition Company, on the other hand, is challenged by the permanent development and expansion of significant product advantages in a dynamic environment.
Tomczak describes the Marketing Hybrid Company as a marketing virtuoso. This requires both product leadership and a strong lead channel (customer relationship). The core challenge for this model is reduced flexibility in a dynamic environment. And so that the audience was not left hanging in the void, puzzling over whether such companies actually exist, the university lecturer provided practical examples with Hilti Fastening Technology, Zurich Insurance and the car manufacturers VW and BMW.
Apparently Erich von Däniken is part of the speaker pool for marketing events. The specialist for extraterrestrials already had his big appearance at the marketing day in Fribourg last January. Now he was again excited in Berne about riddles around the Egyptian pyramids. But he was quite happy that these riddles would never be solved, otherwise the visitors of the Mistery-Park in Interlaken, which will open its gates in November 2002, would probably stay away, he said in conclusion.
