BSW criticism: SBB takes a stand

It was with "some irritation" that the "one-sided statement" from SBB's point of view from the Wednesday media spokesman Stephan Wehrle told Werbewoche. Due to the non-existent statement of the accused federal enterprise, important facts and clarifications would be missing in the communiqué. So here is the unabridged view of the SBB:

"Since February 11, 2015, SBB has been issuing a public invitation to tender for the further development of its umbrella communication. The tender ends on March 23, 2015. The best five offers will be invited to the presentation on April 16 and 17 and will receive compensation of CHF 10,000. Each agency can decide for itself whether to participate in the tender and to what extent to submit a bid. Only the rights of use for the final selected concept will be transferred to SBB. The rights of use for the concepts not selected will not be claimed by SBB. The selected agency receives an appropriately remunerated service contract. SBB's procedure is transparent and complies with public procurement requirements."

SBB thus rejects BSW's accusation that it expects all participating agencies to be willing to assign the right of use, including the right of modification, to it without compensation. The views of SBB and BSW differ as far as the first step of the pitch is concerned. According to the BSW recommendation ("industry standard"), the agencies should present themselves in this step without compensation and demonstrate their competencies, but not submit project-specific creative and conceptual work.

Wehrle emphasizes that they do not want to work against the BSW. However, from SBB's point of view, it is not a matter of just presenting the agency, but also of showing a concrete direction. How much effort is put into this is at the discretion of the pitchers. They knew the rules of the game from the beginning, everything was transparent, and there was no hidden agenda or other skeletons in the closet.

Consequently, SBB does not intend to comply with the demand to suspend the current evaluation process. "We see no need for action to put out to tender again," says Wehrle. "After all, you can't change the rules of the game during a match." (hae)