A cage for the lions

Five political parties, 136 committee members and 56.6 percent of the people of Zurich: The ZSC Lions won over the voters with their project for their own ice hockey arena. The referendum campaign was penned by the Zurich communications agency Serviceplan Public Relations Suisse.

ZLE Betriebs AG, the umbrella organization of the ZSC Lions, has been planning the construction of its own ice hockey arena since 2009. After a detailed site evaluation, an architectural competition, initial sketches, plans and blueprints, an important step was imminent in 2015: the project had to go through consultation with the municipal institutions and then before the people. While ZLE had prepared the project optimally thanks to a solid business plan and construction plans, it was now a matter of communicating the arguments in favor of building our own arena, convincing people and mobilizing supporters. The focus was therefore on communication - this came from the pen of the Zurich communications agency Serviceplan Public Relations Suisse.

The communication strategy, divided into the four phases "City Council", "Commission", "Municipal Council" and "Population", targeted the specific needs of the respective institutions and actors. The "yes" vote in the municipal council on June 15, 2016, was the starting signal for mobilizing the population for the vote on September 25, 2016.

The website Ice hockey arena.ch was built as a voting hub. On it was all the information about the project, the location, the financing, as well as explanatory films and messages from important exponents such as Peter Zahner, CEO of the ZSC Lions, or Captain Mathias Seger. Questions and comments could be posted directly on the website via feedback form, color in the form of a photo upload. Further information was distributed via the newsletters of the ZSC Lions as well as all sports clubs in the city of Zurich, by means of flyers in all mailboxes in the city of Zurich as well as a twelve-page special supplement in four neighborhood newspapers. These measures were accompanied by an advertising and poster campaign, social media posts, classic media work and stand campaigns in front of six Migros stores in the city of Zurich, where the ZSC Lions provided information on the vote together with well-known politicians from the neighborhood. In total, more than 80 different communication measures were implemented in three months, perfectly coordinated with each other.

A special feature of the voting campaign was the support and commitment of important personalities. In addition to the four city councillors Daniel Leupi, Gerold Lauber, André Odermatt and Filippo Leutenegger, who were involved in the steering committee of the project, five parties across the political spectrum stood behind the project: SVP, FDP, CVP, GLP and SP. In the specially founded "Committee Pro Ice Hockey Arena", 136 personalities from politics, sports, business, gastronomy, media and entertainment showed their faces. Throughout the entire process, communication was aimed at convincing people with facts and positive statements. Counter-arguments and positions were taken seriously and addressed, and partners were actively involved. After all, the vote cannot be won without broad support, even beyond the ZSC Lions fan community or from people with little or no affinity for sports. So the appeal was: "You too are a key player. Every vote counts".

Following the positive decision at the ballot box, the project will enter the concrete construction planning phase, including obtaining the building permit. The groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for 2019, which means that the 2022/23 ice hockey season would be the first for the ZSC Lions in their own stadium.

Responsible at ZLE Operation: Peter Zahner (CEO), Roger Gemperle (Head of Marketing & Communications), Sandro Frei (Corporate Communications). Responsible at Serviceplan Public Relations Suisse: Claudio Rotter (Managing Partner), Patricia Schmidt (Senior Consultant), Ladina Moser (Junior Consultant). Other partners: Serviceplan Suisse, Solutions Suisse, Plan.Net Suisse, CCTM, CA Media, Xess Marketing.