Euro Shock" survey: Christian Baertschi

In the short term, the removal of the fixed exchange rate has two effects.

Firstly, due to the strength of the Swiss franc, strongly export-oriented customers who produce in Switzerland are not releasing the planned advertising budgets for the current financial year in full. There is an understandable reluctance due to the uncertain impact on the current result.

Secondly, the strength of the euro in turn led to a short-term demand shock for companies that import their products from neighboring countries, as purchasing in neighboring countries suddenly became much more attractive. This meant that companies had to and did react very quickly. Where price adjustments could be made due to the changed exchange rates, these were communicated quickly and consistently with appropriate measures. In the medium term, individual companies will also have to focus their communications on their service and support offerings in order to maintain their appeal. In contrast to the last currency crisis, this time there was not an adjustment over a period of time, but an immediate shock. In the short term, this leads to stronger negative expectations, which ultimately have a significant impact on economic growth. The magnitude of the reduction in advertising spending over the next few months is industry-specific. However, there are not only budget reductions due to the two effects mentioned above.

The situation will prompt many clients to question the efficiency and effectiveness of their marketing communications investments. In the process, one or the other client will recognize the attractiveness of a skillful interplay between traditional and new media genres. An acceleration of the digital transformation is thus quite conceivable.