Real partnerships!

There is venison schnitzel, tender as butter and heartily seasoned. "We think it's perfect for today," says Benno Maggi, pleased with the compliments. Once a week, the co-founder of Partner & Partner cooks lunch for his entire crew. Sometimes he is relieved at the stove, which is open to an open-plan office in the agency, by other employees or even clients. "The joint lunch has become a fixed ritual in cultivating our Partner culture," explains Ingrid Brun del Re. She is the communications manager at the agency just behind the train station in Winterthur - and she has an important announcement to make at this deer dinner today: Partner & Partner is the exclusive partner for Switzerland in the newly founded international network "The Golden Dudes". The community of interests was launched by the German agency group "Zum goldenen Hirschen ". This group employs over 400 people at eight locations.

Partner & Partner has been active in Germany for 15 years and has maintained a close partnership with the "golden deer" for several years. Both agencies were founded in 1995, and in both the founders and owners are still involved in the day-to-day business. "For years now, we have been exchanging ideas, projects and the potential of an international alliance. Therefore, our engagement with the 'Dudes' is not the start, but the further development of a successful cooperation," explains Christoph Eschmann, one of the owners of Partner & Partner. In addition to Partner in Switzerland, the alliance has offshoots in most G-20 countries. These include agencies such as Extreme in Paris, Animal Farm Amsterdam, Metal in India and IQ Marketing in Moscow. From now on, all alliance partners want to realize their common ideas and visions with "The Golden Dudes" all over the world, set fresh accents in the communication scene - and conquer the international market together with their clients.

"In the Swiss communications market, clients with international operations in particular often have the problem that they only have large network agencies or self-made solutions to choose from. With the alliance 'The Golden Dudes', Partner & Partner now offers companies with an international focus the chance to reorganize their international communications." Creativity, individually assembled teams, country- and culture-specific solutions, and cost efficiency - these are the guiding principles of the "Golden Dudes," which translates roughly as "best buddies."

The sustainable partner model

"An alliance of agencies that tick in the same way and function like a social network is a perfect fit for Partner & Partner's philosophy. You throw a question around, exchange experiences and knowledge, without money always flowing straight away," explains Christoph Eschmann, who ensures the connections to the international network within the agency in Winterthur. Benno Maggi, meanwhile washing dishes in the kitchen with employees, adds: "Creative crowd sourcing within like-minded international agencies and not petty bourgeois Swiss agency thinking."

Partner & Partner, which now has 27 employees and annual sales of over CHF 4 million, is designed as a "sustainable agency model". After the two founders Benno Maggi and Kaspar Hintermüller, two new partners joined in 2009, and the next generation is already in the starting blocks. "Partner & Partner should really be celebrated as a process. That way, the company can continue to develop, and everyone benefits," says Kaspar Hintermüller. All four of today's partners are managing directors, with equal rights and equal participation. Even in daily business, there are no classic hierarchies and responsibilities like in an old-school agency. "All employees are entrepreneurs or at least think entrepreneurially. This benefits our customers in particular. They don't need creative directors, they need ideas and solutions," says Benno Maggi, although his background may be the closest thing he has to a creative director.

Benno Maggi worked as a director and film producer after his training as a graphic designer. His works have been shown at various festivals in Switzerland and abroad, as well as in Swiss cinemas. In the late 1990s, he completed additional training in strategic marketing and financial management at Stanford Business School. Since 2002, Maggi has been a senior consultant in his agency in addition to his role as managing director.

Common roots at the WoZ

Denise Nick, who has been with the company since 2003 and a partner since 2009, entered the industry with a commercial apprenticeship at the Beobachter publishing house of Curti Medien. She then worked in various editorial departments until her "revolting phase" broke out at some point. Nick became involved with the WoZ, "the only independent newspaper in Switzerland. Although with the best references and experience, she started as an intern "with even less pay than the others ". Nevertheless, she stayed for seven years and eventually became managing editor. She tried to shake up the advertising market and get the business going. "In a media landscape that had changed a lot, we now also agreed at the WoZ: We need marketing and we have to advertise."

For the reorganization, the alternative newspaper was looking for a professional consultant. That was Benno Maggi. Together with him, the WoZ management managed to get marketing up and running internally. "A marketing/advertising department and proper structures were introduced," Nick is still proud of her second "revolution." But she realized she was reaching her limits in this new structure and decided to pursue further education. At Sawi, Denise Nick graduated as a planner as well as head of marketing communications. When Nick wanted more part-time work, also for her children, Partner & Partner was able to offer her a tailor-made solution. Today, she is primarily responsible for the agency's "health corner" with clients such as the Swiss Cancer League and Health Promotion Switzerland, as well as a proven expert in real estate communications with mandates for almost all real estate companies in Switzerland. In addition, Denise Nick is the "boss" in the store and a role model and point of contact for (almost) everyone.

Christoph Eschmann, fourth in the group, has always had something to do with media. "I didn't come to advertising, advertising came to me through its change," he says. Because, "Good advertising today organizes the dialog with the target group directly - without media in the conventional sense in between. And that interests me." For Eschmann, the term media thus also needs to be reconsidered. "It was coined in the age of mass media - when it took an industry to distribute content - that's gone today. The Web is no longer a medium in the classic sense; it's TV, radio and newspaper all in one."
 
 However, the World Wide Web did not yet exist when Christoph Eschmann entered the professional world. But Werbewoche opened the right door for him. "My father brought this trade journal home every time, and I read about media and marketing in it with growing interest. " Curiosity developed into a career that also brought him to the weekly newspaper WoZ via the Schaffhauser Nachrichten and Atelier Binkert. During his further training as a planner and later as Head of Marketing Communications, Christoph Eschmann formed "an efficient learning team" with Denise Nick in each case. He then became CO managing director of the WoZ in May 2003. "I learned and experienced an incredible amount about how organizations work during a period of reorganization and restructuring at WoZ." In 2006, he started at Partner & Partner. There, he consistently drove the agency's digital and mobile focus, with the result that his company is now living the mobile future. The youngest of the bunch and currently still a junior partner is Gianfranco Acocella. The designer grew up in an Italian specialty store. "My nursery was a Harass."

From this perspective, Gianfranco "had his first contact with the industry while putting together countless promotional gift baskets. More concretely, his talent was then nurtured during an apprenticeship at the Thurgauer Zeitung, the vocational diploma in design, and a job in Zurich at Guye & Partner. He then moved to Partner & Partner in 2002. In 2004, the creative wanted to take a year of inspiration and went on a trip around the world. After three more years in Winterthur, the question of additional training arose. Benno Maggi, however, had a more practical idea: his young talent should spend a year at the agency "Zum goldenen Hirschen" for further promotion. So in 2009, Acocella became a guest AD in Berlin. In the German capital, he was first supposed to join the "green team" and help get as many Greens as possible into the Bundestag. But then he was put into the even more stressful pitch team. Here, 13 specialists developed new ideas for competitive presentations day after day. The "Swiss" had four juniors under him and did such a good job that the hip "stags" made him an offer for a permanent change. "But love - not only for Winterthur - led me back again, but I brought the stag with me," smiles today's Junior Partner - and is already looking forward until he too becomes a full partner at Partner & Partner.

Andreas Panzeri