The 4th Appenzeller on the bench

The tattooed captain of the agency at the airport and its stylish crew immediately catch the eye on the agency's website. It may be too much of a good thing for some of those dressed in reserved black in the Swiss advertising pie. But the success of the agency, located in the north-easternmost corner of Switzerland, speaks volumes: around 300 awards in less than 20 years. And that's for a small team that now consists of ten people.What is the secret of Captain René Eugster? "I'm the 4th Appenzeller on the bench," he says with a laugh, alluding to the advertising for Appenzeller cheese. The man from Eastern Switzerland can now look back on 25 years of agency history. Together with around 200 guests, this was celebrated in style at the company headquarters near Altenrhein Airport. With the world premiere of "Bad Men" by Stefan Milius, a parodic joke about the agency on the "A", and a rock concert by the band "Blue Dogs Under", which was founded in-house.The frugality in his His parents' home - "that does it for us" - and his father's life regulated by the time clock led to the search for better solutions and the urge to become self-employed. But before that, he built up the marketing services at Lista Büromöbel. However, he realized: "I'm not boss-compatible", which is why he plunged into entrepreneurship as one of the youngest sales managers with a federal diploma, recalls Eugster. He had also been working as a marketing lecturer since 1988. He repeatedly had to deal with engineers who had to draw up business plans and asked him if he could help with the implementation in the areas of communication, marketing and sales. This led to the founding of the agency in 1993, together with his wife Pat von Engsberg-Eugster."What, you work with your wife together - is that possible?" René Eugster has heard again and again. That brings us back to the secret recipe. "It takes luck and boundaries," says the father of three children, two of whom also work at the agency. "The business was always latent in the family. But I never passed it on as a burden, it was always great fun," explains Eugster. "Nevertheless, we need clear boundaries. Everyone has their own skills and competencies. My wife is a businesswoman. I never talk down to her unless she wants my opinion." As a trained craftsman - a precision mechanic - he has learned to respect other people's professions. "We can have heated discussions with each other, but in a solution-oriented way."Rebelling against the conservative in his parents' home has meant that René Eugster is always on the lookout for unusual ideas that will attract attention. That's the only way to sell something. And advertising has to sell. The agency at the airport has always operated according to this motto. For Eugster, dialog marketing lies between sales and advertising. "We always implement projects where the aim is to trigger a dialog that leads, for example, to a switch from analogue media to electronic media, to a test drive or directly to a purchase. If that's what you're looking for, you've come to the right place," explains the agency captain.Another secret, that Eugster reveals is his participation in creative industry competitions. "Because we had never worked in an advertising agency, it didn't mean anything to us," Eugster looks back. "In 1999, a former course participant asked me if we would enter a piece of work for the direct marketing award. I didn't see the point, but I let him do it. After winning, I felt the PR impact and recognized it as an exciting way to stop flying under the radar - at the bottom of the world."Why there have been so many awards since then can be explained by René Eugster's great curiosity: "For me, there is no topic that I can't get excited about. Not settling for the first thing that comes along is my form of anarchy."