"Advertising 2020: The Next Level": The 69th SWA Annual Meeting
On the occasion of the SWA’s 69th General Assembly, the advertising industry gathered once again for its major annual meeting. More than 300 guests—mostly advertisers, as well as agency and media representatives—gathered at StageOne.
The top-class speakers presented their ideas and food for thought on the topic of "Advertising 2020: The Next Level. Leading brands into the future with successful communication. The event was moderated for the first time by Miriam Rickli.
SWA President Roger Harlacher opened the talk series as host and provided information about the work of the association. Despite many challenges on numerous fronts, the association was again able to record important successes last year. For example, the SWA launched a new "Media Price/Performance Index" together with Leading Swiss Agencies and negotiated a compromise with SUISA regarding licensing prices for making music accessible in online campaigns.
Digitization and changes in media use continue to place great demands on the association and its members. It remains important to ensure competitive conditions in favor of advertisers and, for example, to fight against any advertising bans. The good work of the association was again rewarded with an increase in membership. To set the mood for the topic, Roger Harlacher concluded by emphasizing that despite digitalization and constant change, some things are timeless in communications as well. "Everything is changing, but many things remain the same: people want relevance, people want to communicate, people want to be entertained."
After his introduction, Miriam Rickli congratulated the president on his re-election for the next three years before she asked the other speakers to take the stage.
Marc-André Heller, Country Manager of L'Oréal Suisse, showed how the popular beauty brand is addressing the four global changes - customer change, digital change, employee change and change in distribution channels. In addition to data mastering, a good balance of off- and online communication, and absolute precision marketing, L'Oréal Suisse is also breaking new ground. For example, in a campaign with 14 local influencers or at the pop-up store "YSL Beauty Club" at Manor Lausanne. In this context, Heller emphasized the need for partnerships: "Switzerland is too small to manage big projects alone!" Finally, Heller revealed his personal insider tip for successful communication: "Focus on better, not perfect. Optimize 70 percent of what you've already mastered, adapt 20 percent of what has worked elsewhere, try 10 percent of what has never been done before."
Thomas Wildberger, CEO of Publicis Communications Switzerland, then presented the topic from an agency perspective and made one thing clear right away: "Some things never change!" For Wildberger, this also includes how to do good communication - namely with creativity: "Creative campaigns are 11 times more successful". Attention - the familiar A from AIDA is still relevant despite digitalization. "If it's not a wow, I won't look at it." That's true for any medium. Wildberger also stressed the importance of the "overall experience - one basic idea, implemented with channel fidelity." To create this overall experience based on a Big Idea, strategy, creation, consulting, media, technology and the customer must work together from the beginning. As examples, Wildberger showed successful campaigns from Salt, Sunrise and Migros. At the end of his presentation, the audience enjoyed a premiere: the new Migros commercial was premiered.
Dietmar Dahmen, Speaker & Creative Consultant, started his speech provocatively: "Business is like a fight club - someone always gets punched in the face." His proposed solution: find out who is attacking you and hit back! Using exciting examples, he showed how new technologies such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality, blockchain or robots are already changing our world today. At the same time, Dahmen reassured - new technologies destroy jobs, but create significantly more new jobs that don't even exist today. "We need to integrate new technologies into our lives completely." As a guideline for successful communication, Dahmen presented the Marketing Compass, with the four relevant directions to follow: "simpler," "faster," "more awesome," and "more connected."
Afterwards, the guests were treated to an extensive standing dinner and the lively discussions among the numerous industry colleagues continued until late in the evening. The photos of the event can be found in the Advertising Week 7/2018 of April 13, 2018.
The most important facts about the 69th General Assembly of the SWA:
The 69th General Meeting of the SWA took place immediately before the Annual Meeting. Bernhard Christen of SWISS International Air Lines, Oliver Quillet of Nestlé Suisse and Roger Harlacher of Zweifel Pomy-Chips were unanimously confirmed as board members. Newly elected to the board were Rebekka Iten of Bayer, Jan De Schepper of Swissquote and Achill Prakash of Swisscom. Marc Werner of Swisscom and Andreas Schönenberger of SIGVARIS left the Board at their own request.
The SWA represents the interests of advertising clients in a targeted and sustainable manner. Thanks to continuity and a broad base, the association has now been able to expand its membership to over 180 companies. Since the last AGM, ten new members have joined the association: Bächli Bergsport AG, Bank Cler, BWT Aqua, Concordia, Ford Motor Company (Switzerland), Quickline, Red Bull, Skechers Sarl, Société Bic (Suisse) and Walbusch Walter Busch.
The SWA's detailed annual report is available at Swa-asa.ch available under "Publications".
