The reward of solidarity

Publicis advertises a Mobiliar that distributes 105 million francs Gifts keep customers happy: In its 175th year of existence, Mobiliar is playing up a USP that it claims to be the only major insurance company in Switzerland. It results from the company's legal form: as a company organized as a cooperative, Mobiliar is obliged to give its policyholders a share in its economic success. While a good CHF 350 million was paid back to Mobiliar members between 1939 and 2000, the insurance company is drawing from its surplus fund with a big spoon in its anniversary year: around CHF 105 million is to flow back to the majority of the approximately 1.3 million customers in Switzerland this year in the form of premium reductions. The Zurich agency Publicis has made this enormous sum the subject of an ironic anniversary campaign, which is intended to create goodwill for the company founded in Berne in 1826 and, according to Art Director Uwe Schlupp, to take a small swipe at all large insurance companies that are not organized as cooperatives, where the shareholders alone are the beneficiaries of success. page 10