Start up or down
Even lesser-known marketing and advertising campaigns can be instructive—especially those that fell into the hands of the wrong consultants and had to be shut down early due to a lack of attention and, consequently, a lack of success. By Theophil Butz, graphic designer, advertising agency owner, source of inspiration, and—for over a year and a half now—also a complainer for *Werbewoche* readers. Please send relevant comments to [email protected]
The most unsuccessful company foundation was called "Gibepoh". What was meant, of course, was the expression "Big Hope" read the other way around. The founder thought that was enough. So no company idea, no marketing, no communication, no success.
Another tried to bring his inventions, which unfortunately always got stuck in the Lego and Playmobil stages, to success with the wrong partners, on a friendly basis, with advertising colleagues and with crumpled, typewritten contracts - an endless story that doesn't seem to have quite reached its end yet. Millions have been lost in the process.
A renowned plastic surgeon had the idea of launching his own creation in the field of all-round skin care cream for men and women. The greater difficulty than creating and producing the formula for such products proved to be evaluating the right communication partners for the positioning, for the product name, the packaging design, the creative implementation for brochures, displays, Internet. And of course the distribution. In the (un)case I know, the copywriter and the photographer were wrongly chosen, the product name, the packaging design and the website were made by wrong or simply no professionals. A classic start-up down. The generously unprofessional money spent is gone. In addition, past failures always resonate with a relaunch.
But failures also happen when too many cooks get involved. The Cailler story, Navyboot with Fogal and Jet Set, together with a watch brand that I still can't remember. The pink Helvetic Airways. For more examples: u.A.w.g. Is there a recipe against such failures? My theory: Recently I had to deal with a larger private bank. I had been asked to evaluate their advertising. The bank has equity capital that is twice as high as prescribed, and it is more than half family-owned. But the advertising campaign it runs for its clients and any potential clients mentions nothing about this USP.
Before embarking on a start-up, re-start or image correction, one should peel out what, how and how much one wants to achieve in five to ten years. To do this, you should find out who you are and who you can also portray as desirable to the outside world. A duck cannot become a peacock, but perhaps a super duck. Peacocks overdo it anyway.
An example from my experience: Andy Jllien, the Zurich shoe king, entrusted me with the task of creating a TV commercial for Tele Züri for 30,000 Stutz. After an entertaining conversation, we agreed on the idea of creating an eau de parfum. The name was "Heels," and the bottle was in the shape of a woman's heel. It ended up first in the duty-free catalog at Crossair and cost 85 francs at the time. Andy's female customers were happy with the Heels instead of the discount. Out of the 30,000, we jointly made 90,000 as walking coins. Nota bene: the creative solution doesn't always have to meet the brief. My opener of the week: never before has "Buona sera" and "Buona notte" caused such hysteria in a larger crowd.
