Leo Burnett convinced with a "deep understanding of the Walder brand as well as a fresh, creative implementation," says Daniel Walder, Managing Director and Head of Marketing & Sales. With a down-to-earth but modern positioning, the Walder shoes brand is now to be continued in what is already the 6th generation. Appearance and communication have become a little more modern and are thus better suited to the fashionable product range. However, the family business continues to focus on the traditional value of quality. Rolf Zimmermann, Managing Director of Leo Burnett, describes the direction of the brand positioning: "In contrast to the trend towards "faster, cheaper, discounts", Walder wants to continue on the path of tradition with good customer service, pleasure in the product and high-quality materials. Together, Daniel Walder and Rolf Zimmermann visited individual stores so that the Leo Burnett managers could gain a better understanding of the Walder brand. Now the new brand positioning is under the claim "Walder shoes. Joy that lasts." It is intended to embody values for which Walder Schuhe has stood for over 140 years: first-class quality and fashion, personal advice and professional service. And Walder intends to continue pursuing this strategy together with Leo Burnett for the years to come. For Axel Eckstein, ECD at Leo Burnett, "Joy that lasts" is a very viable idea in this regard. For stories that combine short fleeting moments of joy with those that last longer. Or as a way to talk about excellent customer service that goes beyond just buying shoes.

Joy in the implementation

As part of the brand positioning, both customer magazines for adults and children have also been completely redesigned. In addition to illustrations of the latest models from Walder, the magazine for adults impresses above all with lots of useful information about shoes. The current magazine, for example, distinguishes between six taste types, according to their shoe and glacé tastes. Employees and customers also have their say, and in addition to the first summer shoes, one article propagates barefoot walking with its statement: "Freedom for the feet! However, Walder's new brand identity is also particularly visible on site: the total of 29 Walder Schuhe or Walder Junior stores are given a completely new, fresh and modern look. And it's not just a few spring flowers on the sales counter that will ensure this. The rooms in all branches will be brighter - white instead of colored. This is intended to put the focus back on the shoes themselves. The new claim appears discreetly on a white background in every branch: "Walder Schuhe. Joy that lasts. The implementation of the new brand positioning at the POS was done in close cooperation with the production team and the technological capabilities of the Leo Burnett Factory. The newly found solution will now be implemented in the Walder stores on an ongoing basis.

From the new customer magazine for adults: article "Freedom for the feet" (left), six taste types according to their shoe and glacé taste (right).

Joy that lasts" is also practiced within the company. Daniel Walder has held various workshops with his employees. For him, the most important thing about the brand positioning is that all employees live the new positioning and express it in their daily contact with customers. All employees, right up to the Board of Directors, were informed in advance with an information package. In the coming months, the website developed by Leo Burnett and implemented together with the Update agency will also be online.

Ursina mason

Walder - The New Generation
 
Walder Schuhe wants to set an example for the future and has designed a new brand identity together with Leo Burnett. In an interview with Werbewoche, Daniel Walder explains how the process went, which business sectors Daniel Walder and his siblings now want to reposition, and where Walder Schuhe wants to go in concrete terms.

 
WW: A new generation took the reins in August. What does that mean for Walder Shoes?
In general, it is very important for Walder Schuhe that we focus on quality on the one hand, but also become more modern. On the one hand, we don't want to stand still, which you don't do with our shoes anyway, and do things differently than our predecessor generations. On the other hand, I don't want to say, "What our ancestors did, I and my sisters can do better." I think a mix of both is important. If you imagine a tree that is 140 years old - that's how old our family business currently is, and symbolically as a tree I see the history and development of Walder Schuhe: we don't want to chop off the roots, of course. They form the sustainable and strong sole of Walder, to put it in shoe world language. However, such a long-lived tree also has a large crown on which a great deal of care and design can be done. You should also see that a generation change is taking place at Walder, that we are tackling change.
 
At the end of the day, we're talking about a product that you wear on your feet and thus also expresses a degree of fashion expertise. What will change here in concrete terms?
With the new brand positioning, we aim to underline the value of the Walder Schuhe brand. That is the most important thing. We want to charge the brand more with value and quality, and at the same time become a little more modern. That should be the focus for our customers - and not primarily the price. We are in the mid-price segment, and this is where we want to stay: Not focused on discounts, but high quality; especially in customer service. For example, we offer every customer the opportunity to have the shoes he or she has bought impregnated for the first time. Discounts and price reductions, gifts and promotions are absolutely an argument at the moment, but this strategy is not necessarily sustainable. We continue to try to stand by and show what we can do. And that is to offer quality - the quality of our shoes and products and also the quality of the way we serve our customers.
 
Accordingly, Walder Schuhe commissioned Leo Burnett to design a completely new brand presence. How and with what did this agency convince you?
Leo Burnett has shown a deep understanding of the Walder brand with its brand positioning concept. For example, the agency supports our strategy that we will not do any online shipping in the medium term. It simply wouldn't fit with our concept of quality and high-level sales service if we suddenly shipped shoes online without the customer - especially the numerous children - being able to try them on first. At the same time, however, it is clear that consumers today do want to find out about the relevant offers online in advance. Our new website therefore offers the opportunity to find out about the latest models and to look up the store where the desired item can be picked up.
 
Brand positioning involves a lot of changes. Do you already know what the next steps will be?
We are still at the beginning, and it will probably be some time before the slogan "Joy that lasts" really takes hold. A lot of things are still in the making. Perhaps there will be a commercial alongside the poster campaign at some point. In any case, the work behind the brand positioning has been a lot of fun so far. I'm thrilled and so are my employees. You can tell that something is being created. Apart from that, however, there are also other marketing aspects. In Oerlikon, for example, we have had a completely different store design since last fall. Walder Schuhe's store design used to be very colorful, but now we're focusing more on the shoes again. And this is going down well, as the initial experience with the new design shows. That's why we will also be redesigning the other Walder stores accordingly over the next few years. In addition, we also want to fill the new claim "Joy that lasts" with new content for the fall. In keeping with the current spring season, we have chosen glacé as a symbol of "joy for the moment" and will also be offering this to our customers when they visit selected branches. In autumn, in keeping with the season and the footwear, another ephemeral joy will of course be staged.
 
Interview: Ursina Maurer

Cosima Giannachi: "It was a great and intense time at Mindshare, with exciting projects and inspiring customer contacts. And now is the moment to tackle something new once again." With Xavier Reynaud, Christof Baron, Joint-CEO Mindshare EMEA, was able to gain an internationally experienced agency manager for the Swiss subsidiary, who is very familiar with the DACH region. The French native comes from IPG Mediabrands Vienna, which he led as CEO since July 2014. Prior to that, he was Managing Director of the Austrian agency for four years. Reynaud has held various positions at IPG Holding since 2000, moving between agency locations in Vienna as well as Zurich and Geneva.

 

The invited experts have long since decided that we will have an all-encompassing network that will penetrate ever deeper into society - the only question left for them is how they want to and can shape this network of tomorrow. After years of technology euphoria, the 11th European Trend Day was characterized by a more critical undertone, said moderator Mauro Guarise, summarizing the program. The phase of the pioneers is over, affirms GDI CEO David Bosshard. But he also points out the dangers that lie in the phase of politicization that is now likely to follow.

Ted Chu, tech visionary and banker

Clear posthumanist stance

We lack ideological clarity about where we want to go as a society: this insight underlies Ted Chu's sideline (the World Band Group's successful Chief Economist IFC calls it his "second career") in posthumanist research. In his comprehensive view of the "long-term vision," he grandiloquently sweeps away "shortterm worries" such as market stagnation or growing global income disparities. Instead, he is the only one to give a clear-cut answer as to where he thinks society should be heading: it should use technology to improve people themselves. Soon we would have a whole range of technical possibilities at our disposal to enhance our natural abilities. But not all of them make sense - human-machine hybrids, for example, don't, but designer babies do, Chu concluded.

The role of the scientist

ETH professor Raffaello d'Andrea takes the stage accompanied by a "simple little machine". Using this cube, he demonstrates what can be achieved with feedback. The machine is instructed to balance on a corner - trying out possibilities at random, learning from its experiences and developing successful strategies in this way. "We are currently creating huge networked systems with thousands of such feedback possibilities," the roboticist said. There are countless applications for these technologies, from healthcare to logistics to customer products. As a scientist, he said, he has no influence Ted Chu, tech visionary and banker on how his research findings are used. Yet scientists themselves would be in the best position to assess the negative consequences of technological developments, d'Andrea believes. "But without global governance, it won't be possible to regulate this - what creates jobs is currently being done."

Raffaello d'Andrea, Professor of Dynamic Systems and Control

Sarah Harrison, Wikileaks journalist

"Everyone has something to hide"

The most prominent guest at the GDI Trend Forum is Wikileaks journalist Sarah Harrison. She gained worldwide fame in 2013 when she accompanied whistleblower Edward Snowden's escape from Hong Kong. "Everyone has something to hide," is the most important message of the Wikileaks journalist. Because in general, everything can be used against you at some point. That's why a natural human defensiveness protects us from revealing anything private. Everyone would lower their voice if they were having intimate conversations and realized that others were listening. The crucial question, he said, is not whether you currently have something unpleasant to hide, but whether you generally want to have a private life. People would switch to a secure mail provider if it were reasonably user-friendly, Harrison is convinced. This insight (she's optimistic about this, too) is starting to sink in among tech startups, she says. For Harrison, on the other hand, governments are not the right authority to solve the surveillance problem. At least they are currently doing the opposite. And the NSA's surveillance is not even effective: "They're not looking for a needle in a haystack, they're enlarging the haystack."

Industry becomes a network society

Whether online or not, we no longer have any privacy, according to Peter Wippermann, founder of the Trendbüro in Hamburg. In the transition from an industrial to a network society, he says, policymakers must strive for global laws in cyberspace. And not only politics, but also 85 percent of companies in the DACH region are currently not prepared for their digital future.

Peter Wippermann, Trendbüro founder

Digital activism at risk

The young Canadian Molly Sauter is the author of "The Coming Swarm," a book about the development of civil disobedience on the Net. As part of her dissertation, the media scientist is studying hacker culture and digital activism. According to her thesis, the latter increasingly encounters surveillance, censorship and harassment in social networks. Those who sympathize with activist groups are at greater risk of being monitored. They would be exposed to censorship by states, but also by the social networks themselves. And on the Net, their participation in political discourse would be hindered by opposing groups that adopt the activists' techniques. Of course, there are alternative platforms, but they do not reach a broad audience. Sauter believes that technology companies should not decide what is politically valuable or belongs in the (increasingly digitalized) public sphere.

Molly Sauter, net activism researcher

An unpleasant follower

Artist Eric Drass nevertheless knows how to use the dynamics of social media in an activist way. For example, with the help of Alex (alex@bffbot1), the best follower you can find on Twitter. Based on an algorithm, she follows you back immediately, finds you on the street, favors every post, and provides it with glib positive comments. Machines are now involved in the creation of culture, controlling and changing it and deciding what we perceive, Drass says. He coins the term "algoculture " for this phenomenon. What makes an artificial bot like Alex so popular, he says, is that she gives you everything you need. When interacting with Alex, however, you eventually feel uncomfortable, not only because of what she reveals about you, but also because she makes you realize what you're actually looking for in social media. With his algorithms, Drass stimulates users to think on the one hand, and confuses data collectors on the other. Because even algorithms don't know whether they're following real people or bots like Alex.

Eric Drass, Artist and Digital Prankster

MaidSafe - the new, better network?

The Internet is broken - that's why we shouldn't improve it at all, but create a new network right away, that's what Nick Lambert thinks. "Surveillance is the business model of the Internet," the entrepreneur criticizes. Internet companies generate most of their revenue through personalized advertising and spy on all our digital activities for this purpose. But that's not what the Internet was invented for. The increasing centralization of the Internet architecture is problematic, says Lambert. He therefore wants to go back to the roots - with a new network without central control that guarantees privacy and security while still being user-friendly. The new, better Internet is called MaidSafe. Its data is not stored in central data repositories, but is distributed across the entire network, i.e., on the users' computers. So its performance gets better the more people use it. And it gives them back the power over their data. The people behind MaidSafe now hope to clear the decisive hurdle in terms of user numbers when they go live at the end of the year. They expect that most service providers will then also join MaidSafe. At least those who have not made surveillance their business model. But are there many?

Nick Lambert, MaidSafe COO

Programmers versus programmed

Norbert Bolz probably doesn't believe in fundamental changes when he recommends that the next generation should definitely become programmers so that they "won't be slaves to the belief in data. In a sense, users are the proletariat of tomorrow. Just as the citizens of a complex society were once thought to be in need of propaganda, they are now being pushed in the direction of users in need of care, which is supposed to make them feel good. Big Data is nothing more than the offer of an infinite wealth of information, with the promise of solving all our problems, and modern propaganda is accordingly not lies, but information. The fact that data replaces thinking is also in line with the self-image of the Big Data specialists who, together with Chris Anderson, have committed themselves to the motto "correlation is enough. The danger of the fallacy of correlation to causality is null and void for them, since they completely renounce understanding and explaining. According to Bolz, however, "behind modern propaganda there are no bad guys, but algorithms of the mainstream".

Simone Isliker

Norbert Bolz, professor and philosopher of zeitgeist
 

In a nutshell
David Affentranger (41) is married, father of Lia (1 year old) and Lana (soon to be 4 years old), and will soon be living with his family in Malmö. Affentranger trained as a federally certified PR consultant and learned the PR trade at the two communications agencies Trimedia Communications Zurich and L&W Marcom. Affentranger worked as a communications consultant and media spokesman for the construction department of the Canton of Zurich, as press officer for Swiss television SF and as head of PR and communications at Ikea Switzerland in Spreitenbach. At Ikea Switzerland, he was responsible for all internal communications, media relations, social media and all sustainability activities of the company. On April 1, Affentranger will take up his post as the person responsible for global PR at Ikea in Sweden.

Werbewoche: You're moving to Sweden on April 1 - will we find you at the Swedish Ikea headquarters near Helsingborg?
David Affentranger: Yes, I will initially still be working in Helsingborg. But the Group headquarters will then move to Malmö in the fall, where we will look for our new apartment. Malmö is a great city, not too big and very international. It's right by the sea in the middle of beautiful nature and offers a great quality of life.

And you have your family in tow?
Yes, in mid-May my family will join us. We just didn't manage to organize everything so quickly. The request for me to come to Sweden didn't come until the end of December. This kind of spontaneity is typical for Ikea.

A big step, also for your family ...
That's right. My wife currently works 60 percent as CFO of a Swiss SME and also wants to return to work in Sweden. It's probably even easier for her to combine work and family in Sweden than in Switzerland. And although our children leave their grandparents and friends behind, they can go to an international school and learn English at an early age. We think that's a big advantage in a world that is becoming more and more international.

You don't take a break, but work at Ikea Switzerland until the end. Where are you at the moment?
Ikea Switzerland has another tour to Thailand on the agenda. We support social projects in Thailand, and I'm down with my country manager and a journalist to present these projects. This press trip is my last act for Switzerland.

What will you start with in Sweden?
Ikea's global communications will be led by a team of three, reporting directly to Helen Duphorn, member of the senior management team. It is Public Affairs, Internal Communications and PR that I will be heading up from April 1. I will then have the pleasure and challenge of heading the international media office; everything related to Ikea PR and corporate communications worldwide will cross my desk. Part of my job will also be to help countries that are not yet as far along as Switzerland in terms of corporate structure in the area of communications to develop. At Ikea Switzerland, the marketing and PR departments have supported each other very well. That is not yet the case everywhere. From small Switzerland to the world stage, and with only four years of Ikea experience - that will be very, very exciting and it's a great compliment for me.

Why are they bringing you to Sweden now? What can you do that they can't do there?
I have a management style that motivates people, gives them a lot of freedom and encourages creativity, but at the same time is very demanding. I want to get the best out of my people. I manage to do that because I involve my employees, encourage them to think creatively and out-of-the-box. I was already allowed to work very creatively at SF, and I also have a lot of freedom at Ikea, which I try to use. That's probably one of the reasons why I'm now getting the opportunity to do this on a global level: to swim against the tide and achieve something together with my people.

Which Swiss Ikea campaigns are you responsible for?
For example, I have changed the approach to media orientations: Instead of four events, we do one big one, but one special one. On the topic of "Living with textiles," for example, we rented the Hürlimann site, covered it completely with textiles and invited the journalists in bikinis and swim trunks. I was totally surprised that really everyone came in swimwear or at least in a bathrobe. A year later, for the 40th anniversary, the journalists were allowed to bring their children, and we offered a crèche and various attractions. We deliberately want to do things differently, and that fits in well with Ikea. Another campaign was "No empty chairs at Christmas". The idea behind this was that many people are alone at Christmas. Together with the marketing team, we created a platform that brought people together: those who could offer a seat at their table and those who would otherwise be alone. This project caused a sensation internationally. And last spring, in the "Easter Hunt," we hid pieces of furniture in public places, which those who found them got to keep. A funny guerrilla campaign. Such special, creative ideas were the highlights for me during my last four years working for Ikea Switzerland. I had the freedom to try things out, because Ikea Switzerland develops all its campaigns itself. In many international companies, the boundaries are much tighter.

But if you now move to headquarters, you will certainly have to follow more guidelines and also be less involved in the direct implementation of campaigns.
Certainly, I will work more strategically and initiate fewer campaigns myself, because in the future I will help define the framework, the guidelines, within which work must be done. But when we talk about the international media office, we are again very close to the country, for example, when there is a crisis somewhere. Nevertheless, I will miss the direct planning and implementation of a campaign.

US Americans often confuse Switzerland with Sweden. Are Switzerland and Sweden confusingly similar when it comes to communication?
The Swedes are more open than we Swiss. They are very tolerant and easy-going; if you sit in a restaurant, you are immediately approached. But Swedes and Swiss are also very similar. Our company language is English. But when I talk to a Swedish colleague and we don't know a word in English, he either says it in Swedish or I say it in Swiss German - and we understand each other. It's not just the languages that are similar, but also the cultures, the way people interact with each other, the way they think, the way they live. The Swedes just focus more on work-life balance than we do and are a bit more relaxed. On the other hand, we Swiss think in a very structured way, work in the same way and are very creative. A good combination.

Do you speak Swedish? After all, Ikea duzes its customers and then you should speak their language ...
True, I have the goal of learning Swedish. But at Ikea there is a colorful mix of languages, even in the management. Everyone accepts each other's language, and they help each other communicate. And if you don't know something, you learn it.

Every child knows Billy. Does Ikea even need a PR department?
No, certainly not in the sense of brand awareness. Billy is actually present in almost every household. But there are many things that people don't yet know about Ikea, for example that the company is very committed to sustainability. It simply hasn't been talked about, in my eyes a mistake and false modesty. It has been my job in the past to show what Ikea does well. And there are many stories that should still be told.

How many billy shelves do you have at home?
None. I have Expedit.

Please complete: PR is ...
... a channel on which to seek dialogue with all its stakeholders. PR is a communication tool that should promote dialogue in order to build trust with a company.

Communication is ...
... essential. Especially in this day and age, when the flow of communication is so high, it is extremely important to communicate openly, transparently and professionally.

Social media are ... ... the best way to put the word "dialog" into practice is to discuss things with each other. That's something we take very seriously at Ikea. At Ikea Switzerland, I have two people on the team who deal exclusively with social media. That's not a luxury, but an investment in the future. When I took over the social media department two years ago, we had 12,000 Facebook fans. Now we have almost 120,000, which shows how much you can grow if you approach it professionally. Dialog, the community, is a great need for everyone outside the company. But I don't want to sell Billy via social media. Instead, our goal is to build relationships with our customers and stakeholders. And of course, we can also disseminate information via this channel. These possibilities greatly enrich communication, because dialog has been far too neglected in the past. Good communication, good PR is not one-sided, it is an exchange.

What does this mean for the future?
I think the young generation, Generation Y, which is now coming along, no longer reacts to hardcore advertising. They don't let themselves be pressured into buying, but decide for themselves what they want. And they want to talk about it with others. There will be a revolution when this generation enters the working world around 2020. And that will be a challenge for all advertising, PR and marketing managers: How do you communicate with this target group?

You don't want to sell a billy shelf via social media - but the bottom line is that it's always about selling.
Yes, logically, that's the point. And Ikea has products to sell, of course. Our blog "Life at Home" is a good example of what I mean: On this platform, we cover our core topics: Design, Food, Sustainability and Life with Children. Our employees or the WWF write there when it comes to sustainability, or even child psychologists. In the past, the focus was always on a product. Today, we tell a story about it or we debate a need, and only at the end is there a product - when it comes to organized living at home, for example Billy. In my view, good communication no longer means saying, "You have to buy a Billy now," but we have to look at what people's needs are. And the product is then ultimately the solution. There is no doubt that we still need both: brand communication and clear product communication. But the question is what the distribution will look like in the future. Today we often still have an offer-mania, now with the new exchange rate we are literally bombarded with price reductions. But is this the right strategy? People wonder why something can suddenly be 50 percent cheaper. Ikea also gives discounts, but the price doesn't go up afterwards. When it comes to the questions "How do you sell products?" and "How do you communicate with your customers?" the new generation will once again bring change.

What must PR achieve? What can it not do?
PR must ensure dialog, position the brand, PR must be creative and come along out-of-the-box. PR is not limited to holding a media conference, sending out press releases and calling a few journalists. Social media makes it easier and easier to engage with stakeholders in different ways. If I compare Switzerland with the U.S. or England, we are still in our infancy when it comes to the targeted use of social media. PR can't massively increase sales of a certain product overnight. For me, PR is an investment in the brand, which of course also has a positive effect on sales.

Ikea is on course for growth and expansion, especially in Germany. What does that mean for your work?
We are reaching more and more people, are in contact with more and more people, and of course we have to maintain that. When you expand, you make a promise that you have to keep: If you open up new markets locally, you also have to deliver what the people there expect. We serve so many different demands in diverse cultures - Germany, India, China - with the same 9500 Ikea products. It's a big challenge to reconcile all that, to develop a strategy so that everyone doesn't jump in a different direction. Of course, that's a task for the three of us who work in Corporate Communication.

And how is that supposed to work?
We work closely with the respective countries. That way, we can jointly develop campaigns that really suit the country. You have to deliver good ideas and a certain breadth of approach, a good overall package that everyone can draw from - because simply translating a campaign quickly into different languages doesn't work. Even I didn't simply take over global communication campaigns for Ikea Switzerland. I always took the part that fits and is important for Switzerland and developed my ideas around it. In addition, every new campaign is first tested in a few pilot countries. And only when it works there does the campaign go global. For example, we are now going to set up the public affairs department professionally and have already selected eight countries in which we will work with governments and non-profit organizations. We have hired extra people for this. After a year, we'll see where we stand, and this input will then flow into the overall concept before there's a roll-out. Ikea always looks for test markets first to see if something works. Switzerland was also a test market in 1973, with different national languages and demanding consumers. One of Ikea's values is to be able to make mistakes and learn from them. Courage to fiasco. That's an important aspect of our corporate culture.

The pressure is growing. Competition is increasing. Response times are getting shorter and shorter. Why is PR still fun today?
Because there are very many ways of communicating with each other that we've hardly used so far. For example, social media: They give me the opportunity to get in touch with very many people extremely quickly, to test things out and get feedback quickly. That wasn't always the case with traditional PR in the past. With social media, I have an immediate reaction. I enjoy the playfulness and the opportunity to try out a lot of things. Not everything has to conform, I'm allowed to provoke, try things out, trigger a discussion. And if I hit my head sometimes, it doesn't matter at all. There is so much bad communication and so much that can be done differently and better. That's casual. I'm also allowed to break rules at Ikea and, for example, I don't wear a tie as a matter of principle.

But of course, not wearing a tie is not enough ...
Exactly. We have a relaxed, creative atmosphere, and my people have a lot of freedom. But when I press the button, I have to be one hundred percent sure that something good will come out of the back. That means my people also have to be able to handle their freedom, because they have a lot of responsibility and work hard. The mixture of both is extremely important.

Ikea catalog production Icom operates the largest photo studio in Europe, and Ikea is one of the best-known brands in the world. Do these superlatives and the responsibility they entail scare you?
Some days I wake up at 5 o'clock in the morning and think: "Hey, what's coming up now?!". I have great respect for no longer dancing in small Switzerland, but on the world stage. On the other hand, it is very fascinating what awaits me and I approach the new challenge very positively and with a lot of passion. Sure, I will be wide-eyed at first about some things, but I will muddle through. I have a great desire to discover and help shape all of this. Life is too short to miss out on opportunities like this.

Ingvar Kamprad emigrated from Sweden to Switzerland in 1970 because he found the taxes in his home country excessive. He returned to Sweden in 2013. Have you set yourself a deadline for when you want to return to Switzerland?
No, for now we start this adventurer, and nobody knows where our way will lead us. Maybe we will come back to Switzerland after a few years. We are completely open and curious to see how things develop.

Ikea is repeatedly criticized for poor production conditions, racism and environmental protection. How do you deal with this?
Ikea has been around for 70 years, and logically not everything that was done was perfect. But we learn from these things and now care a lot about sustainability, for example, and invest massively to improve working conditions and production. Ingvar understood very early on that it's not enough to make a bit of pretty advertising. Of course, criticism sometimes hurts. But it is justified, and if a company is not criticized, it cannot improve. If we succeed in taking up criticism and changing what is criticized, this has a great effect. That will also prove itself on a global level - crisis communication will be part of my job in Sweden.

Interview: Anne-Friederike Heinrich
"

 

After all, I wanted to be kissed and then not taste like an ashtray. So I smoked exactly one cigarette in my life - and that was it. I find smoking creepy. Nevertheless, in view of the debate about the new tobacco product law, I think: "Leave smokers alone for once!"

Other people have never drunk a single beer in their lives or never touched wine. Or they do without chocolate altogether. For me, that would be completely unthinkable. If health, prevention and youth organizations now demand a total ban on advertising tobacco products in the new Tobacco Products Act, then Frey and Läderach should no longer be allowed to advertise their Easter bunnies, and breweries or wine merchants should no longer be allowed to advertise their fine wines. Because chocolate and alcohol, like smoke, are unhealthy.

Of course, the person who drinks alcohol and eats chocolate multiplies his own private belly and his own health risks, while the smoker sometimes blows his exhaust into the faces of others. But we should also get a grip on this with more generosity for one another. If smokers are not systematically turned away and branded, they might also be more likely to accept that their smoke is not so appreciated themselves. It would be worth a try.

The popular initiative of the Blue Cross of the Canton of Zurich goes in the same direction as the new Tobacco Products Act. It wants to ban alcohol advertising on sports fields and at sporting events in the canton of Zurich in general, thus further tightening the nationwide advertising ban on high-proof alcohol at sporting events that is already in place.

All these advertising bans wear the halo of prevention. But is it the job of advertisers and advertising companies to prevent health problems by refraining from advertising? And should legislators order them to do so? In my opinion: No! Advertising draws attention to new products, it makes our lives more colorful and can have the power to bind people to a brand. But do you think a young person today still reaches for a cig because they've seen advertising for it? Those days have long since ridden off into the sunset with the Malboro Man.

Of course it would be better if fewer young people smoked. And of course alcohol and sports don't belong together. But it is the responsibility of parents and guardians to make children and young people aware of the dangers of such pleasures. What impresses young people least is the raised forefinger. And what irritates them most are prohibitions. It would be better to show young people how to deal wisely with stimulants. Perhaps we would be amazed at how many decide against intemperate smoking and drinking because they want to do so themselves.

More and more laws and bans eventually lead to a fun-free society. And to the loss of one's own ability to judge.

Anne-Friederike Heinrich, Editor in Chief
[email protected]
 

The Scientific Advisory Board of the German Federal Ministry of Finance is an independent body consisting of 30 professors and chooses its own topics. According to Kai Konrad, Chairman of the Advisory Board, the topic of public service broadcasting was taken up because of its "outstanding regulatory and economic policy significance". The document (which is well worth reading) caused quite a stir in our northern neighboring country at the turn of the year. It came as a surprise and the analyses and conclusions that the financial and economic experts drew from their analyses thanks to an unconcerned outside view were not well received everywhere. The value of the German report does not lie in the new facts that were brought to light - much of it was already set out years and decades ago by journalism research, for example. What is remarkable is the fact that the panel of professors has formulated and substantiated concrete proposals for action for the attention of politicians.

The sentence "the technical reasons that were once used to justify the system of public service broadcasting have now largely faded" applies equally to Switzerland. The transmission towers of the Beromünster and Sottens national transmitters have not only faded, but have been blown up. As a national prestige project at the end of the 1920s, they were the result of an international arms race on the airwaves - and the reason for the founding of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, SRG. The model was the British BBC and the actual trigger was the previously established regional radio companies (in Geneva, Lausanne, Bern, Basel, Zurich St. Gallen and Bellinzona), whose transmitters were too weak to trigger radio fever on a broad front. It is clear that creating a sophisticated and functioning radio and later television program was a technical challenge. The report also acknowledges this, but concludes: "The discussion about public service broadcasting and the legal framework for television took place in its beginnings within an institutional framework that has little in common with the situation today."

The German panel of professors then formulates what has long been clear to every media consumer but has not yet influenced state regulation: Thanks to the Internet and the digitization of terrestrial broadcasting, technical restrictions have been removed and information media have emerged that were previously unthinkable. The entry costs for new program providers have "fallen rapidly". The number of possible broadcasters is technically "unlimited" for all practical purposes and the conditions for broadcasting as an information medium have thus been "permanently changed". There is now "a suitable Internet radio station for practically every music preference". At least as far as the provision of music via radio is concerned, "state intervention to ensure program diversity appears to have become superfluous". In addition, the increased use of the internet as an information medium is leading to overlaps between the print and broadcasting markets. Therefore, "there are hardly any reasons why the broadcasting market should be organized significantly differently from the newspaper market", which is characterized by a broad private offering and subscription models. It is also noted that the overlapping of media, e.g. in the case of internet sites, means that "broadcasting is encroaching inefficiently on the existing market territory of the print media".

Subsidiarity principle

In Germany, the federal states and not the federal government are responsible for broadcasting issues. (Thought experiment: Imagine the Swiss cantonal system). In addition, a large number of so-called broadcasting decisions by the Federal Constitutional Court strengthen the position of public broadcasters to ensure free and comprehensive reporting and as a counterweight to private broadcasters. German case law thus stands in contrast to European case law, which regards broadcasting as a service to which the competition rules for companies generally apply. In order to circumvent this contradiction and resolve a dispute with the EU, Germany had to enforce special regulations. The Council criticizes the German case law for being "based exclusively on its own citations" and for not taking into account "economic, social science or other specialist literature". This is because the economic and financial experts attach greater importance to the principle of subsidiarity and would like a sustainable system of public broadcasting to give it more weight. It is a matter of "fundamental economic considerations": The provision of services by the public sector is only legitimate if a corresponding range of services cannot be organized in a private sector-competitive manner, and at the same time the quality of a public service provides sufficient added value in relation to the costs. And so the actually explosive sentence of the report reads accordingly: "Public service providers should only appear where the private sector offer has clear deficits."

However, the experts are not simply pursuing a consistent neoliberal economic course, but see room for state intervention in the market, provided there is "a convincing justification". For example, if access to culturally and politically relevant information were to be restricted due to the exclusive broadcasting rights of pay TV, or if inefficiencies were to be feared due to excessive advertising blocks. The legislator could guarantee free access to particularly relevant information content even without a public service offering by regulating the private offering appropriately.

Tax money instead of advertising

If the subsidiarity principle is to be applied consistently, the professors believe that income from advertising and sponsorship should be "completely dispensed with".

Otherwise, "through the back door", as it were, there would be "false incentives" in program design, which are to be eliminated with public service broadcasting operating on a subsidiary basis. Once the state broadcasters have been transformed from a leading medium into a stopgap, funding should be adjusted accordingly. If public service broadcasting is seen as a good that should be made available to all citizens equally, financing via taxes is "appropriate". This is because, in contrast to the current compulsory contributions (a household levy, similar to the bill that will be voted on on June 14), this would ensure a charge based on ability to pay. Conversely, if the changed technological framework conditions were taken into account, a modern, intelligently designed user fee could be used, which would, for example, follow the subscription model in the newspaper market. Nowadays, subscriptions to individual channels or a pay-per-view system are also technically possible.

Transparency thanks to key figures

In order to promote cost efficiency in public service broadcasting, the Advisory Board believes that greater transparency is "urgently needed" through mandatory publication of standardized indicators. In order to improve the pressure for greater cost efficiency, strong supervision with adequate benchmarks, a move away from pure needs-based funding and greater public transparency are needed. The allocation of funds via competitions increases the chances of innovative broadcasting formats and subscription models for specialized special-interest channels give consumers an exit option and thus send important signals about consumer preferences to broadcasters.

In Switzerland, the demand for more transparency at SRG has also been raised in various motions in the Swiss parliament. However, this request was rejected by the Federal Council on each occasion on the grounds that SRG already provides the responsible department, as the supervisory authority, with sufficient insight into its activities and already goes much further than fully private companies. In addition, the publication of such information could put SRG at a competitive disadvantage. However, the demand for the publication of broadcasting-related standardized indicators has never been put forward.

Christoph J. Walther

About the article series "Medienwende": Media policy is increasingly becoming the focus of political attention, particularly in view of the foreseeable public service debate in the Swiss parliament. This debate must also be initiated and supported by the media industry in the broadest sense. With this series of articles, Werbewoche is contributing to a well-founded discussion.

The following articles have appeared in this series so far: "No help without a foundation", Werbewoche 05/13.03.2015, page 24 f.

Website for the article series: www.medienwende.ch
 

The genre initiative "Wirkstoff TV" of the German TV marketers for television and moving images organizes the TVWirkungstag every year with top-class speakers such as Byron Sharp and Ulrich Tilgner. This year, the Impact Day is also being held in Switzerland for the first time. The event is supported by Goldbach Media (Switzerland) and Werbewoche as media partner. Werbewoche spoke to Martin Krapf, Managing Director of Wirkstoff TV in Germany, and Guido Trevisan, Marketing Director Goldbach Media, about the aims of the initiative.

WW: How did the active ingredient TV genre initiative come about in Germany?
Krapf: Wirkstoff TV was launched five years ago. Our motivation for founding the company was simple: in Germany, we did not have 100% satisfactory conditions for the capitalization of television and moving images. Many topics that we considered important and convincing were not getting through to the individual marketers as we would have liked. We came to the conclusion that there were some relevant basic topics that we needed to address credibly - and the best way to do this was for all TV marketers to work together. That's how the lecture series came about, and it's working so well that we're now also coming to Switzerland and Austria with the TV Impact Day.

Why is Wirkstoff TV coming to Switzerland?
Trevisan: We have been a guest at the German Wirkungstag for years and found that the successful format fits perfectly into our concept. Switzerland still lacks an industry organization that covers trend and marketing topics. The relevance of TV as a medium is still not sufficiently present in the Swiss market.

How often will the impact day take place, Mr. Trevisan?
Trevisan: This year, we'll see how the event works for us. However, we are already planning to hold the Impact Day annually in future. Wirkstoff TV also has other platforms, such as an expert forum that is held twice a year in Germany. We could imagine something similar for Switzerland. There are also various research series in Germany. We are already focusing on the topic of research in Switzerland this year, starting with the Impact Day on April 17.

Mr. Trevisan, Goldbach is only briefly mentioned as a "partner" in the media release for the first event. Why are you staying in the background like this?
Trevisan: In Germany, we are just one of 13 cooperation partners of Wirkstoff TV. In Switzerland, we have a coordinating role, someone has to push the event. However, it is very important to us that the focus is on the cause. It's about TV, about the advantages that TV has - not about Goldbach. Krapf: We've also had this experience in Germany: the initiative works extremely well because competitors work together on one thing.

Are you both more interested in highlighting trends - or do you want to present marketing opportunities on TV?
Trevisan: Both. Switzerland does not yet have an event like the Wirkungstag and there is a lack of external knowledge. We are now able to link up well with the concept from Germany and thus also gain access to speakers who would not travel to Europe for Switzerland alone. This enables us to bring relevant expert knowledge to Switzerland, which ultimately benefits everyone who has anything to do with the media.
Krapf: ... and Switzerland's commitment helps us enormously. We get a lot of input back. And the more know-how comes together, the more different approaches pursue the same goal, the better the quality of our work becomes. Things that we take for granted in Germany are questioned by someone in Switzerland and vice versa. This leads to better discussions, better studies and better results.

The program of the Swiss "Wirkungstag" is almost the same as in Germany. Are there no differences between TV in Switzerland and TV in Germany?
Krapf: In Germany, Austria and Switzerland, the conditions and basic themes are very similar: television and moving images are undercapitalized and, compared to other media, there is still a lot of potential that can be tapped into. The basic mode of action of moving images is not only the same in German-speaking countries, but worldwide. There are also inspiring TV initiatives in England, Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands and France - similar issues are being addressed in all countries. The advantage we have in the DACH region is that we have similar traditions in television and moving images and a comparable language area.

If such initiatives already exist in many countries, Mr. Trevisan, is Switzerland late with its commitment to moving images?
Trevisan: So far, we have also seen efforts by individual marketers to address the issues raised, such as the Swiss TV day Screen up. But the individual measures of individual marketers simply have less power than a joint measure on the topic. By Swiss standards, 100 people is a lot - we want to start with 300 people. Of course, this is still small compared to the German Impact Day, which attracts around 1600 people. However, I am convinced that it makes sense to support an issue that affects everyone together. I am proud that we have been able to get all the major marketers to participate in the initiative.

Thanks to digitalization, viewers can now watch what they want, when they want and where they want. What does this mean for television producers?
Krapf: That's terrific. For one simple reason: in the past, when there was only linear television, television was primarily a mass medium. Today, TV and moving images can do much more thanks to digitalization: target groups can be addressed specifically, new local and regional targeting is possible, you can interact with target groups and complete campaigns with moving images. These many new possibilities open up great potential for the use of moving images.

What does this mean for advertising clients?
Krapf: Moving images are now becoming particularly interesting for them. Take a campaign with viral elements: In Germany, for example, the testimonial of an Edeka campaign became a celebrity because the commercial generated many reactions in the social networks and was hotly discussed and shared. A huge success for Edeka. That would have been unthinkable in the past. Or you can create campaigns for car manufacturers, at the end of which a test drive can be arranged. We have thousands of opportunities that we didn't have before. For local or regional advertising, you used to place an ad in the newspaper or a spot on the radio. You can still do that today, but you don't have to. With moving images, campaigns can be targeted regionally or delivered via ad servers, the target group can be precisely defined, etc.

High reach, high impact - but that can quickly backfire. And then properly.
Krapf: Of course you are right: if you want to reach a lot of people, you have to implement an idea correctly; if you make a mistake, the negative consequences are hardly foreseeable. But first and foremost, new opportunities arise. You just have to think carefully about how to proceed. We certainly still have a lot to learn in this respect in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, but also internationally. Very often, we still base our campaigns on television commercials and then simply make them a little shorter for online. But that can't be the solution, we have to think much further ahead. We need to tap into this development potential together.

How will the medium of TV develop over the next few years, will images become ever more powerful?
Krapf: I think so. Communication will become increasingly audiovisual in many respects. In Germany, audiovisual media are used on average eleven hours a day, and it will be similar in Switzerland. You can only manage that if you use several media at the same time - which shows how important audiovisual media already are. And the forecasts for audiovisual communication of content and advertising are very positive. The power of images is therefore growing. But this also increases the need to understand things better.
Trevisan: In the past, we had one transmitter and many receivers. Now we are no longer talking about TV, but about moving images. And in this medium, we communicate from many to many. That's a challenge, but it's also nice to see what content is being produced on different advertising media.

Interview: Anne-Friederike Heinrich
 

Somedia newspapers can now be read even more conveniently and easily on tablets and smartphones. With the new apps, the daily newspapers Südostschweiz, Bündner Tagblatt, all local and free newspapers and individual magazines are prepared for smartphones and tablets. Thanks to a clear and spacious homepage, users can find the content they want quickly and easily. They can consume their newspaper online anytime and anywhere. Apps have also been developed and launched for the "Bündner Tagblatt" for the first time. This means that Graubünden's oldest daily newspaper now has another modern distribution tool at its disposal.

The new apps are available for free download from Apple's iTunes Store. The corresponding Android versions will follow in the next few days. The BT app is available for tablets and smartphones. The existing SO app for smartphones remains unchanged. It will be replaced by a new version in the fall, as detailed in a press release.

 

Pascal Ihle spent ten years as editor of the Zurich section of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. In 2004, he moved to Handelszeitung, where he launched various successful publishing projects in addition to his editorial work and will continue to serve as Deputy Editor-in-Chief until the end of August. Pascal Ihle studied history, journalism and art history and graduated with a doctorate on journalistic national defense during World War II. He is a dual French-Swiss citizen and lives with his family in the city of Zurich. He joins the communications agency furrerhugi. on September 1, 2015 as a senior consultant and designated partner, where he will work as a media professional with a large network of contacts in Furrerhugi's strategic communications consulting.

Description

In a panic-progressive disorder, there are extreme fluctuations in the assessment of opportunities and risks in connection with advertising campaigns. Typically, the change between the two opposing affective states occurs in situations in which a concept is not available in its final form. In other words, as long as you are working on it.

Trigger

Mood swings are usually triggered by irrelevant aspects of a presentation. A TV commercial title such as "Das Malheur" can trigger a panic episode. Conversely, the title "The bright spot" for the same movie can mark the beginning of a progressive phase.

Phases

During a panic phase, those affected lose all hope (of good test results). This can even go so far that death by ideation is seen as the better alternative. In a progressive phase, on the other hand, praise is effusive (because CI instructions were followed exactly).

Causes

Three factors ensure a high probability (predisposition) of a panic-progressive disorder. 1. the lack of imagination is just as great as the lack of decision-making authority. 2. a traumatic experience caused by a critical comment on the company's Facebook page. 3. contact with marketing textbooks that contain chapters on ad design.

Published so far:

Margin inflammation (gastritis profit)
Success strabismus (strabismus successus)
Gold fever (febre auri)
Platitourette (repetitio nausea)
Visual fetishism (stimulus best practice)

Marketagent.com has been testing selected posters and advertisements once a month for Werbewoche for some time now. Since the beginning of 2015, the opinion researchers have also been examining TV commercials on an alternating basis. The editorial team selected five films that were frequently seen on screen in recent weeks. The commercials were shown to 453 web-active people from German-speaking Switzerland aged between 14 and 65.

The survey tested how well the TV commercials were remembered by the population (awareness) and how they scored on a six-point scale in terms of the key characteristics "Likeability", "Stands out from other TV commercials" (uniqueness) and "Fits my image of this sender" (brand fit).

In this article, Werbewoche presents the overall awareness scores and the top box ratings of the key features.

Roger Federer continues to do well for Sunrise

In the Sunrise commercial, Roger Federer talks to a parrot. This achieves a very high unaided advertising recall for Sunrise of 80.8 percent, while the FOPH's SmokeFree campaign had to remain at 30.5 percent. However, 19 percent of respondents thought that the FOPH's non-smoking film was a very good match for the sender. In addition, 14.6 percent of respondents liked the commercial very much, putting it on a par with the Zurich Insurance commercial. The latter stands out due to its uniqueness (15.7%). Although the commercial with wiggling "bums" (EasyJet) achieved a high recall rate of 68.7 percent, respondents liked it slightly less with 11.9 percent. Only the Qualicat commercial performed worse in this respect (9.5%). This achieved an overall awareness of 61.6 percent, with 53.2 percent mentioning Qualipet and only 8.4 percent Qualicat.

The members of the Marketa-gent.com online access panel, which comprises around 42,800 active Swiss participants (as at March 2015), were interviewed using computer-assisted web interviews (CAWI). The online survey method guarantees anonymity and objectivity. uma

The Werbewoche impact check (PDF)
The detailed results (PDF)

The spots queried:
 

This year, the organizing team led by Peter Metzinger announced a "new concept based on feedback from participants". After last year's summit, they wanted one thing above all: more networking opportunities and - even more than that - the chance to learn from each other through direct exchange. The organizers took this to heart and presented a highly interactive program. On the evening before the summit, various workshops on specific topics such as crowd funding and political campaigning were held in smaller groups and at different locations. The actual summit at the Swissôtel Zurich continued along the same lines. In addition to the classic presentations, the program included so-called bar camps. These are open workshops that are organized by the participants themselves in order to promote professional exchange. The barcamp topics could be submitted by the participants until the evening before.

Benefiting from lateral thinking

Alexandra Molinaro from Easyvote initiated such a barcamp together with Silvan Zemp. She hoped that her participation would provide "new input on how to encourage young people to vote and feedback on her own ideas". She is satisfied with the result. The main benefit was the creative lateral thinking of the participants: "For example, someone suggested combining the invitation to vote with communal cooking activities. I hadn't thought of that before and I think it's an exciting approach." The atmosphere at the summit was inspiring. "You rarely find new ideas at the office table. It definitely works better here."

The two founders of Sugar Sugar Sugar used their own Barcamp to discuss their (at that time still somewhat improvised) campaign strategy with experts. The man with the stage name Ozanii Bananii and his business partner Matthias Kappeler produce soft ice cream under the Sugar Sugar Sugar brand with exotic flavors such as "saffron champagne" or "cucumber on yoghurt with pumpkin seed oil". The company now also has its own fashion label in the starting blocks. Can soft ice cream be used as advertising for a fashion label? And how is the story then told? They played through these questions with the audience. "It turned out that these different activities can definitely be managed under the same brand," Kappeler concluded after the barcamp.

Between and during the barcamps, five international speakers presented effective techniques on how to move people. Daniel Graf pointed out what characterizes a good online campaign: serially produced but individually variable content and authenticity: it has to look self-made so that people participate. It is also better to create campaigns for a few than for many. US speaker Sid Balman explained how to make your voice heard in Washington D.C. Ralf Stüber from Post Finance and Sunnie J. Groeneveld, CEO of Inspire 925, then focused on corporate development and internal campaigning. US opinion researcher Celinda Lake concluded the event. She used the example of several election campaign surveys in the USA to illustrate how surveys can be used sensibly to develop a good campaign strategy.

Simone Isliker

One of the seven barcamps at the Summit. Here, Katja Prescher from Getunik discusses with the participants whether all campaign topics are also fundraising topics and how fundraising can be used sensibly in campaign work.