Powerful, clear, unusual

At first glance, their appearance creates "a provocation - it attracts attention. At second glance, pink visualizes the philosophy with which René Karrer and Andreas Steiner design their advertising: Red stands for powerful and emotional communication, white stands for simplicity and clarity. "Together, it adds up to pink."

Many agencies work with initials or use common marketing terms. But: A letterhead with "RK Kommunikation " would have had no character, no message with the Rosaroten as a brand. "We can't just talk about advertising, we have to live the advertising. We wanted to build a world with our agency," Karrer philosophizes. The choice has proven the advertiser right to this day: "We've never had anyone ask us for our name a second time. Once heard, it's remembered. Advertising it is." Even though the name is part of the success today, it still carried a certain risk at the very beginning. "We were invited by Credit Suisse for a presentation of the Bonviva campaign and wrote an offer on pink paper for it. We got the job anyway." Even today, the appearances can be polarizing when Karrer and Steiner consistently confront a management team in pink shirts. "Most of the time, we walk into the room during a presentation and the ice is broken immediately. Today, we're playing with the preconceptions around this provocation." The two business partners have soundly acquired the craft for their shenanigans, both theoretically and practically.

René Karrer chose the path via the University of Applied Sciences with a focus on marketing and communication, which was followed by various engagements on the agency and client side. After graduating, he first worked at Credit Suisse in the Product Management department. Karrer then moved to the communications department, where he was in charge of various central marketing campaigns. Managing the budgets led to lively contact with agencies. And because he was given more freedom to develop his own ideas there, Karrer finally switched to the agency side as a consultant.

He then helped to set up a merchandising agency in Bern. This is how the later initiator of the label AD.M first came into contact with the textile sector. "We designed collections for Audi. For this, I had to visit factories in Portugal, Turkey and China for the production."

All these experiences led to the decision in 2007 to set up my own agency. It was a "gut decision. When René Karrer became a father for the first time, he said to his wife one day later: "This is the right moment for me to start my own business." As the daughter of someone who is also self-employed, his wife understood the motivation. "Setting up something of your own because you think you can do things differently and, of course, better. In our case, with passion, contagious enthusiasm and a clear customer focus."

René Karrer managed the first orders all by himself and with freelancers. Soon, however, it needed a first employee. The second employee was Andreas Steiner, an "all in one" package, who later also became a partner. Andreas Steiner graduated in journalism from the University of Zurich. His professional path led from positions in PR and advertising agencies to the marketing department in an international tourism company and back to the agency world. In 2007, Steiner joined rosarot. "Working in an agency is extremely varied, and helping to build one up naturally makes the work doubly exciting." So Steiner didn't have to think twice when he received the offer to join rosarot as a partner at the end of 2008.

In five years to the desired size

Since then, the agency has grown continuously with its clients. Initially small projects have become larger and larger over time. Examples of this are AMAG or Neue Aargauer Bank (NAB), which rosarot has been working with almost since its founding - in the case of AMAG, now with nationwide campaigns. Or Credit Suisse, for which Karrer and Steiner worked a great deal, especially in its early stages. "For the company's development, such clients are of course formative. But more formative than individual clients is actually the diversity of our engagements. Fortunately, we still get to serve clients from fundamentally different fields with equally different needs and goals, so we've been able to steadily develop our thinking and approach both in depth and breadth to this day." The projects range from the creation of an iced tea relaunch to mailing ideas for Swisscom and international event communications for BARRY CALLEBAUT to trade fair concepts for Zurich Insurance. And the core competence? "When we look back on our projects, we've been allowed to do just about everything: classic advertising, branding, dialog and direct marketing, corporate communications, packaging, online advertising and event communications. We love diversity, variety and challenges. That's why we like to call ourselves a boutique agency. In other words, the smaller but finer advertising agency, with attention to detail, stylish and always with a gripping idea, clear concept as well as emotional design." Winning creative competitions is not a goal. At the client's request, however, rosarot has already submitted to the DM Award and won outright.

With Credit Suisse and NAB at the very beginning, rosarot had the credibility to handle large budgets as a small agency. Growth occurred primarily because the creatives were highly recommended by their clients. "Have you guys ever built a trade show booth?" No, was pink's short answer. Yes, those of the client. "That strengthened us, motivated us and drove us to top performance. To this day, we are grateful to all our clients for trusting us - our communication flair, our strengths regarding idea, concept and design." In order to properly reflect this diversity, the company in its entirety is also called rosarot Ideennetz. There are 11 permanent employees. "A size of which we are proud and in which we would like to continue to work in the future. Proximity to our customers is elementary for us. That is why we would like to remain operationally active ourselves," is very important to Karrer and Steiner. As far as the division of labor is concerned, it has become clear over the years that Steiner is primarily responsible for concept and text. Karrer is primarily responsible for creative direction and consulting. Ideas, however, are still found and developed together.

The own fashion label

The idea for her own fashion label AD.M has particularly gripped rosarot. It popped into René Karrer's head while he was on vacation in Sardinia and slowly flourished in everyday life: "the fashion answer to the versatile demands and roles of today's man: the perfect polo shirt." With the work in the advertising agency one is of course permanently occupied with the question of "appearance". So Karrer and Steiner have quite an affinity for the "look" of something or someone. What's more, you don't necessarily have to wear a suit and tie in the creative industry. The pink solution: A polo shirt would give the man more freedom - as long as it would fit - it is comfortable in casual situations like at the desk or at home. Throw a jacket over it, and the polo would be dressy and appropriate for most business appointments. "So we started evolving the polo shirt. Until it had a perfectly fitting collar so it would sit under a jacket, until the shoulder area stayed tight, and until the entire material was higher quality than traditional polos. We called it the Work.Life.Polo because it fits just as well in the business world as in private life," says Karrer proudly of the in-house creation. The name AD.M (pronounced ædm) is an association with the archetype Adam, who embodies "absolute masculinity. The pronunciation is modern and contemporary. The label is therefore also intended to support the modern man in his new, diverse world of life.

The shirts were launched in 2010 in a pop-up store as a test for three months. The product was very well received, thanks in part to the in-house advertising campaign, which included TV commercials, a website, POS design, events and promotions. The biggest challenge of all: "With AD.M, we were suddenly our own customers at rosarot." In the beginning, building up their own fashion label was "a job for which you also sacrifice a lot of free time." But with increasing success, it became significantly more demanding. "AD.M has now grown to a size where we can no longer run the company alongside the agency business. That's why we hired a managing director as of July 1, 2013, so that we can continue to focus fully on communication - in other words, on agency work." In terms of appearance and overall communication, rosarot wants to market AD.M even more independently. "We want to sharpen the brand, stand out from the competition and communicate our brand values emotionally and clearly."

Since April 2012, AD.M polo shirts have been sold not only in the online store and various boutiques throughout Switzerland, but also in the company's own flagship store on Predigerplatz in Zurich. In addition, new distribution partners are constantly being added. "We are also thinking about the German market." The pink provocateurs don't want to leave it at just the Polo, however. The AD.M brand is to be supplemented with other products with care and, without distorting the core of the brand. For the launch of the current collection, for example, the "advertisers as entrepreneurs" have created a perfume. Karrer and Steiner had a "real sniffer" develop an AD.M fragrance. At the moment, the water is still offered in an attractively printed standard glass. Ideas for the creation of an own bottle form are however naturally already present. Whether the glass will then be pink is still open.

Andreas Panzeri