Scholz & Friends launches global USM campaign

The central goal of the "project50" campaign is to help USM achieve a new level of desirability - by positioning the brand even more strongly in the design world as a pioneer of modularity. To this end, USM is entering into a discourse with a new generation of designers and architects about the concept of modularity and its significance for the future as part of the campaign. The goal: to inspire the opinion leaders of the future for USM.

At the center of the dialogue is the cultural initiative "rethink the modular" developed together with the curators Tido von Oppeln and Burkhard Meltzer. Within the framework of this initiative, the internationally renowned personalities from design, architecture and art, Allan Wexler, Go Hasegawa, Thomas Lommée, Wolf Mangelsdorf, Lorenzo Bini, Bless and Dimitri Bähler, put together seven USM Masterclasses. The participants: the most talented students from the renowned universities ENSCI les Ateliers Paris, ECAL Lausanne, Politecnico di Milano, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Parsons The New School for Design in New York, HfG Karlsruhe and Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. Together with their mentors, the students designed their visions of modularity during a one-week workshop at the design workshop location Domaine de Boisbuchet. The resulting projects are currently being further developed and prepared for a comprehensive exhibition at the Salone dei Tessuti during Milano Design Week, in mid-April.

At the same time, a revealing experiment was carried out at the participating universities. The aim was to find out what relevance the design classic has among budding designers and architects. For this purpose, 50 pieces of USM Haller furniture were placed at exposed locations on campus and the students were asked to "steal" them. What happened afterwards was documented by a video team.

These two campaign modules will now serve as content suppliers for all activities of the international anniversary campaign "project50" during the course of the year. Whether classic measures such as print ads, showroom staging, dealer measures and a compendium on modularity, or digital activities such as banners, social media, etc., all measures will be fed from the two content vessels during the anniversary year.

At the heart of the campaign - in the sense of a content hub - is the digital platform also designed by Scholz & Friends Switzerland Project50.usm.com. It documents all the activities of the anniversary year and uses photos, texts and over 60 videos to provide a deep insight into the "rethink the modular" cultural initiative, the experiment and the many other measures of the anniversary year. The blog is fed by contributions from renowned authors such as the design and culture journalist Max Borka or Rick Poynor, the founder of the highly regarded blog "Design Observer", as well as from participating students and social media users. Thanks to the constant expansion of the platform, visitors will always find up-to-date, inspiring content and will thus be encouraged to return regularly and participate in the dialog about modularity.

Responsible at USM U. Schärer Söhne: Alexander Schärer (President), Stéphanie Borge (Group Marketing Director) Deepak Matthews (Digital Marketing Manager), Sandra Schär (PR). Responsible at Scholz & Friends Switzerland: Dan Nessler, Manuela Miksa, Gregor Fitz, Sabine Bremermann, Lukas Frei (creation); Michèle Gutmann, Tanita Bohny, Petra Moser, Tobias Baumann, Martin Samsel (consulting and strategy).