Swiss Sponsorship Awards 2018: Audience corrects jury decisions

Many things were new at this year's Swiss Sponsorship Awards at the Park Hyatt in Zurich: an expanded jury, a new location, a new attendance record and, for the first time, the two most important promoters of Formula E and the two most traditional cultural events in Switzerland united on one stage. And then there was the novelty of live voting by visitors: for the first time, they were able to help decide who would win the Swiss Sponsorship Awards.

"LGT Young Soloists" as a surprise winner

Patrick Cotting, jury president and one of the hosts of the event, was delighted with all the winners of the evening, but nevertheless highlighted one: "LGT Young Soloists were not on the jury's list of winners, so it's all the nicer that the audience partially corrected our decisions. I am personally particularly pleased that a classical project has now become the audience's favorite and winner of the international award and the audience award.

On public voting, he said: "Sponsorship always has a rational and an emotional side. The rational side is reflected in the strategic alignment, conception and implementation. This side was assessed by a jury of twelve experts on the basis of 15 criteria. However, there is also an emotional side, which is reflected in how the commitment is communicated, what story it tells and how it can win the hearts of the target groups. This is best judged by the audience on site on the basis of a description and emotional images and videos."

One of the new features of the sixth Swiss Sponsorship Awards is that the jury no longer decides alone and only has a 50 percent weighting when it comes to who wins the awards in the Sport, Culture, Society and International categories. All guests were able to cast their votes electronically live on site, which was actively used with an average voting rate of almost 90 percent of all visitors.

The winners of the various categories

Sports:

Swisscom World Ski Championships St. Moritz. In order to emotionalize the brand as a "partner of ski fans" and prove its technological leadership, the fan messages were milled into the snow over an area the size of 15 football pitches. The campaign "United in the snow. Connected on the net" campaign was extremely well received by fans, the World Ski Championship participants, the jury and then also by the guests at the Swiss Sponsorship Awards. Swisscom won ahead of Coca-Cola and BKW.

Culture:

Swisscom Energy air. The award for the best cultural sponsorship also went to Swisscom, for the "Swisscom Energy Air" campaign. Swisscom, which was still in second place after the jury vote, won by a wafer-thin margin, 0.5% ahead of second-placed LGT. The key communicative idea "Don't miss anything together" was implemented emotionally with a 360-degree approach, including a 360-degree virtual reality experience and the Energy Air Fancam, which created a personal memento for every visitor using a giant 360-degree crowd selfie.
Swisscom won ahead of LGT and Parisienne La Fabrik.

Company:

Natural gas Swiss Volunteers. By supporting the "Swiss Volunteers" platform, the Swiss gas industry not only wants to fulfill its social responsibility and create a positive image transfer for the natural gas brand, but also promote volunteer work in sport in general. This was recognized by both the jury and the guests in attendance. Erdgas won ahead of Fromm and Zenith.

International:

LGT Young Soloists.This project was also nominated in the Culture category, but won in the International category. The music, in this case classical music, arouses emotions, stands for style and class, elegance and through the young talents that are promoted in the orchestra, it also appeals to a young target group.
LGT won ahead of IWC and Davidoff.

Two further awards were presented:

In the category "Digital activation" won Parisienne La Fabrik. This award is the only one in which the guests were not able to vote, as the evaluation of all nominees in this area was carried out by Elca Informatik AG according to a catalog of criteria from the University of St.Gallen and with the use of various IT tools.

The highlight at the end of the Audience Award was awarded. The guests present chose "LGT Young Soloists" as the best sponsorship of the year. As a result, LGT will be a member of the jury next year, replacing last year's winner Julius Baer.

Formula E and cultural sponsorship in focus ahead of the award ceremonies

Before the awards were presented, there were two panels with top-class speakers. In the first panel, Nicolas Ziegler from ABB and Marco Parroni from Julius Baer discussed the new ABB FIA Formula E Championship and the upcoming Formula E Race in Zurich together with Patrick Cotting and the guests. It became clear that both ABB and Julius Baer have decided in favor of Formula E not only for communication reasons, but that it is a commitment that supports the corporate strategy and will ultimately also benefit the owners, i.e. the shareholders.

The second panel dealt with strategies for cultural event organizers to position themselves and thus ensure their long-term success and financial viability. Mathieu Jaton, CEO of the Montreux Jazz Festival, said that you have to remain authentic and not chase after every trend. Raphael Brunschwig, COO of the Locarno Film Festival, showed how Locarno had emerged from a crisis and reinvented itself: With a clear vision, strategy and with a new partnership approach. Representatives of the sports scene in particular were deeply impressed after the panel, such as Jörg Polzer from Nielsen Sports: "Many sports organizers could and should be inspired by so much strategic and conceptual thinking as in Locarno and Montreux. That was quite simply...WOW."