The seeker of meaning
Dialog and online are Peter A. van der Touw’s pet projects. He spearheaded them as managing director of McCann Relationship Marketing and as a member of the executive board at Euro-RSCG Dialog and Maxomedia. Now, van der Touw has founded Notch Interactive to finally make his mark on the Internet.
On the Word Wide Web, the only constant is change. Nevertheless, Peter van der Touw (44) sees an opportunity to leave a lasting mark between zeros and ones. On Notch Interactive's banners are online branding, promotion and transaction. "We bring our client's brand into the online world and work out a concept of how they can act in this world, establish a dialogue with their customers and trigger transactions of money or data," van der Touw explains his services. Notch does not simply program a website and then leave its customers to their fate. The agency aims to capture the core of a brand and deploy precisely those online measures that position the brand one hundred percent. Van der Touw: "We know the online tools so well that we can help the client decide whether a measure makes sense or not. It's no good doing something just so you have it done, having a website or an app because everyone has one, being on Twitter or Facebook because everyone is on it. Every step has to make a discernible sense for the company and its target audience."
Van der Touw is not alone in his claim: Technical Director Tobias Fuhlroth, AD Marco Klein and COO Martin Pfeiffer are also part of the team. The four founding members know each other from their time at Maxomedia. Since the beginning of April, the quartet has already won a number of contracts, for example from the Auto Zürich new car show, from two companies in the Swiss Top 500, and from six SMEs. "The orders have come in much faster than we expected," says the company founder. "We were able to prevail in pitches against several established agencies." In short, the store is up and running. Van der Touw already employs the first new member of staff, and four more positions have been advertised. The online professional is also making concrete plans to expand to London in the next few years. because he wants to get closer to the European epicenter of the online market.
Where ideas are, notches remain
Peter A. van der Touw was born in Zurich in 1966 and grew up in Wädenswil on Lake Zurich. After a commercial apprenticeship, he worked for seven years in revenue management at Swissair. This job near the tarmac brings him very close to his childhood dream of becoming a flight usher. "The atmosphere at Swissair was unique," van der Touw enthuses. "All the employees were insanely proud to work at Swissair; we were like a family." In the mid-1990s, van der Touw's interest in the Internet awakened, and he trained to become a Web publisher. "I never intended to do any programming myself," he says. "But I wanted to understand the programmers and the Web publishers." Van der Touw then rounds out his profile with a postgraduate degree in e-business.
Van der Touw took his first steps in advertising in 2,000 at Targetgroup, a small dialog agency in Zurich. He is responsible in particular for dialog projects that run offline and online - the topic has been with him ever since. "Back then, online was still treated very stepmotherly in Switzerland," van der Touw recounts. "I often had to explain to my clients that the Internet basically had nothing to do with the dotcom bubble."
Van der Touw came into contact with classic advertising when Targetgroup was bought by McCann Erickson. He quickly succeeded and was appointed to the management of the agency, which was later renamed McCann Relationship Marketing Partners. At the time, McCann was working for major international clients such as Microsoft, Nestlé, General Motors and UPS. In many projects, McCann is responsible for the classic part, while van der Touw and his 15 employees from the former Targetgroup are responsible for online and dialog marketing.
"Working with such big clients was a great experience," says van der Touw. "But after five years, I felt I needed to do something different." He joins Euro RSCG, following in the footsteps of his work colleague Frank Bodin, then CD of McCann Geneva, who joins Euro RSCG as CEO and chairman of the board. Van der Touw takes over as head of the dialog unit at Euro RSCG and is responsible for SBB's regular customer marketing. "It was a super project," he recalls. "We had almost three million addressees - just under half the Swiss population - and quite a few different offers in four languages. And the whole thing in a highly political environment. SBB's regular customer marketing is so complex that I maintain that anyone who wants to understand dialog marketing must have done this job once." Van der Touw is working closely with Maxomedia on the project, which is handling the online portion. "Maxomedia at the time had positioned itself as a cross-media agency and was a leader in the online space. And they were in the process of setting up a branch in Zurich in addition to the one in Bern. I wanted to be part of that." No sooner said than done. After a flying visit to the Zurich sports publishing house, van der Touw joined Maxomedia in 2008 as Head of Consulting and Member of the Executive Board.
Power for new
Before that, however, he gathers new strength on a nine-month trip around the world through northern Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Tahiti, Bora Bora, Hawaii and Canada. With Bali, he also visits part of the country where his parents grew up: Van der Touw is of Dutch-Indonesian descent. "I could have traveled longer," he recalls. "On the other hand, I was starting to get antsy and had a lot of new ideas."
In April 2008, van der Touw starts at Maxomedia. There, he worked on various large projects, for example for Belimo, Gravhaven and Interhome. But after two years, the commute to Bern became too much for him. As luck would have it, some of his colleagues also left the agency, including the three he now works with. Before the final decision to found Notch was made at the beginning of the year, the four men questioned their motivation. Van der Touw: "We were 70 people at the time. I had very little to do with operations, and it was always important to me to be close to the project and to serve customers myself. I missed that. In order to meet our quality standards, Notch should not grow larger than a maximum of 20 people per location."
Van der Touw only wants the best for Notch: AD Marco Klein has won numerous design and advertising industry awards and has been a member of the Best of Swiss Web jury since 2008. COO Martin Pfeiffer has won various prizes in the Best of Swiss Web as well as the Grand Prix Romande de la Création, and Technical Director Tobias Fuhlroth has also been involved in work that has won awards in the Best of Swiss Web. They can hold a candle to van der Touw, who himself has won several prizes in industry competitions such as Best of Swiss Web, ADC Switzerland, DM-Preis and Swiss-Effie. That's close to van der Touw's heart. "It was a huge advantage to start with people I know how they work, what their strengths and weaknesses are and how they work together," he says. "Especially in the online business, it's extremely difficult to figure out what someone can really do. For the online and mobile world, there are no degrees to go by yet. We're looking for communications professionals with a lot of experience and a high standard of quality." To make that clear from the very first meters, the agency is called Notch. "Notch" means "notch" in English - so this agency is obviously working with a lot of persistence on the lasting impression. The fact that "notch up" can also be translated as "record success" should be a good omen.
Quality is the best recipe
The four at Notch are very different, but their common denominator is quality. "We look for ideas that make sense and are convincing," says van der Touw. "Besides, we don't consider an online project done when we've delivered something. Online projects are never finished. That requires a different strategy and more sustainability than classic advertising. For example, we measure whether everything really works and constantly look at what we could still improve. That's where further projects come from."
Van der Touw believes in the online medium. Nevertheless, in his opinion, not everyone needs to be involved in the Internet. "For some small businesses, a site with an address and opening hours is worthwhile at most. In many other cases, however, a website is inevitable or synonymous with an offline presence." For example, a perfumery chain in Switzerland has around 100 stores. In parallel, the company operates an online store. Sales from off- and online sales are almost balanced. In the store, people test products and get advice; that's where they have the brand experience. Afterwards, they order the goods on the Internet. "You have to decide on a case-by-case basis whether an online presence is relevant," says van der Touw. "Sometimes less is more, especially with small companies that don't have anyone who can take care of updates and maintaining data. People often forget that the story goes on. Care also needs to be taken with social media: Those who get involved need to know that social networks are 'out of control'. The community determines how a brand comes across. 53 percent of the content and information about a brand does not come from the company itself. Notch explains to its customers what it means to enter this world."
Hurry up
For the agency owner and his comrades-in-arms, passion for their work means, among other things, fighting for something when they are convinced it is right. "If a client doesn't want to be advised, we'd rather give the job away," says van der Touw. At the same time, the expert knows very well that there are many roads to Rome and that there are always several solutions to an issue. "We try to find out from discussions with the customer what his communication concerns are. And then we transfer that to the online world."
A convincing solution, however, takes time: "Good ideas are the result of a process. If you want to achieve quality, you have to go through the entire process. Unfortunately, it's part of the zeitgeist that everything always has to happen immediately, preferably the day before yesterday." Nevertheless, Notch takes a lot of time for the concept of a project. After all, there's a lot to sort out: "Quickly programming an iPhone app for a company's ongoing billboard campaign can make sense. But an app can also have a completely different meaning than the classic campaign," stresses van der Touw. "It depends on what the company wants to achieve. It is important to look together at what really benefits the customer and the users - preferably with the decision-makers. A look at what the competition is doing is also central, because the best idea is no use if it's already there. Finally, a decision should be made before the project starts as to whether the focus of the measures will be offline or online. After that, a company should determine which agency will take the lead for the project." For effective dialog marketing and accurate online applications, specialists are needed, van der Touw is convinced of that. "People who understand classic advertising don't necessarily yet grasp what's going on in online channels. How do people who don't even have a profile on Twitter or Facebook themselves want to see through how a medium works that is highly complex and constantly changing? That's like a vegetarian trying to judge which bratwurst is the best. I'm surprised that Auftrag-
donors don't stumble over this contradiction."
When it comes to taking a stand, van der Touw has little of a Swiss. Rather, his two Dutch grandfathers come through. "I was raised Dutch," says the Wädenswil native. "My parents taught me to stand up for my opinions." He also apparently learned to give sound reasons for his statements. Van der Touw's non-conformism is matched by his musical tastes: as a teenager, he played drums in a punk band that made it as far as being the opening act for "Die Ärzte" at a concert in the Rote Fabrik in the 1980s.
Van der Touw is someone who likes to take life into his own hands. Especially the future. He has already achieved a lot. But Van der Touw is still a long way from reaching his goal. "I want to open a cultural center for young people one day," he reveals one of his dreams. "There I would like to provide rooms, musical instruments and artistic materials so that young people can live out their ideas and talents. Everything would be available free of charge, but the young people would not be left to their own devices, but would be supervised and specifically encouraged. Everyone has talent, but too little attention is paid to it. Instead, we look at grades and IQ already in school, and later at titles and degrees like MBA. This is completely one-sided and does not help people to find themselves. But you can only reach your goal if you know what you can do and what you want." And only those who like what they do are good.
Anne-Friederike Wilhelm
Van der Touw is not alone in his claim: Technical Director Tobias Fuhlroth, AD Marco Klein and COO Martin Pfeiffer are also part of the team. The four founding members know each other from their time at Maxomedia. Since the beginning of April, the quartet has already won a number of contracts, for example from the Auto Zürich new car show, from two companies in the Swiss Top 500, and from six SMEs. "The orders have come in much faster than we expected," says the company founder. "We were able to prevail in pitches against several established agencies." In short, the store is up and running. Van der Touw already employs the first new member of staff, and four more positions have been advertised. The online professional is also making concrete plans to expand to London in the next few years. because he wants to get closer to the European epicenter of the online market.
Where ideas are, notches remain
Peter A. van der Touw was born in Zurich in 1966 and grew up in Wädenswil on Lake Zurich. After a commercial apprenticeship, he worked for seven years in revenue management at Swissair. This job near the tarmac brings him very close to his childhood dream of becoming a flight usher. "The atmosphere at Swissair was unique," van der Touw enthuses. "All the employees were insanely proud to work at Swissair; we were like a family." In the mid-1990s, van der Touw's interest in the Internet awakened, and he trained to become a Web publisher. "I never intended to do any programming myself," he says. "But I wanted to understand the programmers and the Web publishers." Van der Touw then rounds out his profile with a postgraduate degree in e-business.
Van der Touw took his first steps in advertising in 2,000 at Targetgroup, a small dialog agency in Zurich. He is responsible in particular for dialog projects that run offline and online - the topic has been with him ever since. "Back then, online was still treated very stepmotherly in Switzerland," van der Touw recounts. "I often had to explain to my clients that the Internet basically had nothing to do with the dotcom bubble."
Van der Touw came into contact with classic advertising when Targetgroup was bought by McCann Erickson. He quickly succeeded and was appointed to the management of the agency, which was later renamed McCann Relationship Marketing Partners. At the time, McCann was working for major international clients such as Microsoft, Nestlé, General Motors and UPS. In many projects, McCann is responsible for the classic part, while van der Touw and his 15 employees from the former Targetgroup are responsible for online and dialog marketing.
"Working with such big clients was a great experience," says van der Touw. "But after five years, I felt I needed to do something different." He joins Euro RSCG, following in the footsteps of his work colleague Frank Bodin, then CD of McCann Geneva, who joins Euro RSCG as CEO and chairman of the board. Van der Touw takes over as head of the dialog unit at Euro RSCG and is responsible for SBB's regular customer marketing. "It was a super project," he recalls. "We had almost three million addressees - just under half the Swiss population - and quite a few different offers in four languages. And the whole thing in a highly political environment. SBB's regular customer marketing is so complex that I maintain that anyone who wants to understand dialog marketing must have done this job once." Van der Touw is working closely with Maxomedia on the project, which is handling the online portion. "Maxomedia at the time had positioned itself as a cross-media agency and was a leader in the online space. And they were in the process of setting up a branch in Zurich in addition to the one in Bern. I wanted to be part of that." No sooner said than done. After a flying visit to the Zurich sports publishing house, van der Touw joined Maxomedia in 2008 as Head of Consulting and Member of the Executive Board.
Power for new
Before that, however, he gathers new strength on a nine-month trip around the world through northern Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Tahiti, Bora Bora, Hawaii and Canada. With Bali, he also visits part of the country where his parents grew up: Van der Touw is of Dutch-Indonesian descent. "I could have traveled longer," he recalls. "On the other hand, I was starting to get antsy and had a lot of new ideas."
In April 2008, van der Touw starts at Maxomedia. There, he worked on various large projects, for example for Belimo, Gravhaven and Interhome. But after two years, the commute to Bern became too much for him. As luck would have it, some of his colleagues also left the agency, including the three he now works with. Before the final decision to found Notch was made at the beginning of the year, the four men questioned their motivation. Van der Touw: "We were 70 people at the time. I had very little to do with operations, and it was always important to me to be close to the project and to serve customers myself. I missed that. In order to meet our quality standards, Notch should not grow larger than a maximum of 20 people per location."
Van der Touw only wants the best for Notch: AD Marco Klein has won numerous design and advertising industry awards and has been a member of the Best of Swiss Web jury since 2008. COO Martin Pfeiffer has won various prizes in the Best of Swiss Web as well as the Grand Prix Romande de la Création, and Technical Director Tobias Fuhlroth has also been involved in work that has won awards in the Best of Swiss Web. They can hold a candle to van der Touw, who himself has won several prizes in industry competitions such as Best of Swiss Web, ADC Switzerland, DM-Preis and Swiss-Effie. That's close to van der Touw's heart. "It was a huge advantage to start with people I know how they work, what their strengths and weaknesses are and how they work together," he says. "Especially in the online business, it's extremely difficult to figure out what someone can really do. For the online and mobile world, there are no degrees to go by yet. We're looking for communications professionals with a lot of experience and a high standard of quality." To make that clear from the very first meters, the agency is called Notch. "Notch" means "notch" in English - so this agency is obviously working with a lot of persistence on the lasting impression. The fact that "notch up" can also be translated as "record success" should be a good omen.
Quality is the best recipe
The four at Notch are very different, but their common denominator is quality. "We look for ideas that make sense and are convincing," says van der Touw. "Besides, we don't consider an online project done when we've delivered something. Online projects are never finished. That requires a different strategy and more sustainability than classic advertising. For example, we measure whether everything really works and constantly look at what we could still improve. That's where further projects come from."
Van der Touw believes in the online medium. Nevertheless, in his opinion, not everyone needs to be involved in the Internet. "For some small businesses, a site with an address and opening hours is worthwhile at most. In many other cases, however, a website is inevitable or synonymous with an offline presence." For example, a perfumery chain in Switzerland has around 100 stores. In parallel, the company operates an online store. Sales from off- and online sales are almost balanced. In the store, people test products and get advice; that's where they have the brand experience. Afterwards, they order the goods on the Internet. "You have to decide on a case-by-case basis whether an online presence is relevant," says van der Touw. "Sometimes less is more, especially with small companies that don't have anyone who can take care of updates and maintaining data. People often forget that the story goes on. Care also needs to be taken with social media: Those who get involved need to know that social networks are 'out of control'. The community determines how a brand comes across. 53 percent of the content and information about a brand does not come from the company itself. Notch explains to its customers what it means to enter this world."
Hurry up
For the agency owner and his comrades-in-arms, passion for their work means, among other things, fighting for something when they are convinced it is right. "If a client doesn't want to be advised, we'd rather give the job away," says van der Touw. At the same time, the expert knows very well that there are many roads to Rome and that there are always several solutions to an issue. "We try to find out from discussions with the customer what his communication concerns are. And then we transfer that to the online world."
A convincing solution, however, takes time: "Good ideas are the result of a process. If you want to achieve quality, you have to go through the entire process. Unfortunately, it's part of the zeitgeist that everything always has to happen immediately, preferably the day before yesterday." Nevertheless, Notch takes a lot of time for the concept of a project. After all, there's a lot to sort out: "Quickly programming an iPhone app for a company's ongoing billboard campaign can make sense. But an app can also have a completely different meaning than the classic campaign," stresses van der Touw. "It depends on what the company wants to achieve. It is important to look together at what really benefits the customer and the users - preferably with the decision-makers. A look at what the competition is doing is also central, because the best idea is no use if it's already there. Finally, a decision should be made before the project starts as to whether the focus of the measures will be offline or online. After that, a company should determine which agency will take the lead for the project." For effective dialog marketing and accurate online applications, specialists are needed, van der Touw is convinced of that. "People who understand classic advertising don't necessarily yet grasp what's going on in online channels. How do people who don't even have a profile on Twitter or Facebook themselves want to see through how a medium works that is highly complex and constantly changing? That's like a vegetarian trying to judge which bratwurst is the best. I'm surprised that Auftrag-
donors don't stumble over this contradiction."
When it comes to taking a stand, van der Touw has little of a Swiss. Rather, his two Dutch grandfathers come through. "I was raised Dutch," says the Wädenswil native. "My parents taught me to stand up for my opinions." He also apparently learned to give sound reasons for his statements. Van der Touw's non-conformism is matched by his musical tastes: as a teenager, he played drums in a punk band that made it as far as being the opening act for "Die Ärzte" at a concert in the Rote Fabrik in the 1980s.
Van der Touw is someone who likes to take life into his own hands. Especially the future. He has already achieved a lot. But Van der Touw is still a long way from reaching his goal. "I want to open a cultural center for young people one day," he reveals one of his dreams. "There I would like to provide rooms, musical instruments and artistic materials so that young people can live out their ideas and talents. Everything would be available free of charge, but the young people would not be left to their own devices, but would be supervised and specifically encouraged. Everyone has talent, but too little attention is paid to it. Instead, we look at grades and IQ already in school, and later at titles and degrees like MBA. This is completely one-sided and does not help people to find themselves. But you can only reach your goal if you know what you can do and what you want." And only those who like what they do are good.
Anne-Friederike Wilhelm
