Life coach instead of policeman
Matter & Partner gives the observer the impression of exceptional social skills
Matter & Partner gives the Beobachter an image of outstanding social competenceBy Andreas Panzeri The new Beobachter campaign from Matter & Partner uses four subjects and a cinema spot to show Beobachter readers developing "more cleverness for everyday life". Instead of playing bad cop, the Beobachter wants to offer more life advice in future.
Based on the slogan of the last campaign "There are already enough observers", the new management team at Förrlibuckstrasse apparently agreed that enough observations had now been made. "Take matters into your own hands" is the new and continuing call to the readership. Jean Frey AG is secretly arming itself early on against a possible competitor from Ringier.
The main message of the new image campaign is based on the realization that certain people simply know more about everyday matters. They can talk about health insurance, they know how many deductions are possible on their tax return. They know how to move house efficiently and how to avoid being ripped off by love text messages. These people are all attentive observers and readers of the service booklet of the same name published by Jean Frey.
According to the latest readership survey by Wemf AG für Medienforschung, there are 1045,000 "Beobachter" readers in Switzerland. They obtain their information from 335226 printed copies. According to Mach Basic, there were more readers a year ago, and the survey for the year 2000 showed even better figures.
Nevertheless, the magazine, which celebrated its 100th birthday this year with a big party, can still be called the most widely read magazine in German-speaking Switzerland. The slight decline in readership figures could be attributed to the increased coverage of consumer topics in other media and direct competition from magazines such as Saldo and K-Tipp.
The Beobachter now wants to stand up to these competitors by also focusing more on general topics in the future. Under the new editor-in-chief Balz Hosang, the Beobachter wants to be perceived more as a "normal" magazine in addition to its advisory function.
A toolbox full of life help
This is why the subjects of the new advertising are not the typical observer stories - such as how to test health insurance companies or save taxes. CD Daniel Matter from Matter&Partner wants to use his advertising to present more entertaining help for everyday life in a popular way instead of help for emergencies. "Help for life instead of a policeman" is the new slogan or, slightly modified, "The observer, your friend and helper".
The new Beobachter is intended to offer the reader something like a toolbox or "cleverness for everyday life".
The new Beobachter campaign demonstrates this cleverness with four subjects, each of which features an amateur who knows better than the respective professional. The customer in the garage demonstrates to a baffled mechanic how to really repair the engine. A cleaning lady explains to a group of managers what she doesn't yet know. A psychiatrist lies on the couch instead of his patient and his "case" listens to him.
The heroes of the campaign and the readers of the Beobachter are therefore "competent in all situations".
The newly appointed Beobachter editor-in-chief Balz Hosang has already had a decisive say in the style of this new advertising. For him and the publisher, it is "a fundamental problem" that the Beobachter is underestimated in the media world. "Advertisers don't find it sexy to advertise in the Beobachter. At most, they place ads for health products," says advertiser Daniel Matter about the image, which is now to be rejuvenated in parallel with the Beobachter's new layout.
New image welcome, new positioning not
A rather quirky movie spot also fits in with this. In this one, the animation specialists from Frame Eleven were allowed to "work their magic once again", as Matter puts it. Instead of filming properly, photos from the ad shoot were used in the cunning low-budget production.
The scene involving the desperate car mechanic and the much cleverer customer was thus assembled as a weird story from photographed individual images and underscored with crazy sounds from the garage. The "competence in all situations" is brought to the screen in this slapstick style in a rather exaggerated but effective way.
Matter & Partner has been advertising for the Beobachter for eight years. In the last campaign, which was somewhat cheekier in print, the agency on Zurich's Sophienstrasse attracted attention, for example, with a police officer wedged under a windshield wiper like a fine notice or with a caretaker's wife hanging on a washing line.
Today, Matter interprets this as support for a pointing finger image, which the Beobachter now wants to move away from. However, the publisher does not want this image change to be understood as a complete repositioning. "We have continuously adapted to current developments in the past," explains Head of Advertising Cornelia Brunschwiler.
Matter & Partner's concept for this campaign was not "advertising for advertisers", as Daniel Matter himself describes his work. It wanted to target real customers, namely young people who want to "take the reins" and subscribe to their own Beobachter for the first time after starting a family, for example.
The cinema spot is running in various cinemas in German-speaking Switzerland. The advertisements have been appearing in selected magazines such as Magazin, Folio, Facts and TR7 since the beginning of October. There are no posters for budget reasons, but the campaign is accompanied by Internet banners. The reader campaign will soon be followed by a separate advertiser campaign.
Based on the slogan of the last campaign "There are already enough observers", the new management team at Förrlibuckstrasse apparently agreed that enough observations had now been made. "Take matters into your own hands" is the new and continuing call to the readership. Jean Frey AG is secretly arming itself early on against a possible competitor from Ringier.
The main message of the new image campaign is based on the realization that certain people simply know more about everyday matters. They can talk about health insurance, they know how many deductions are possible on their tax return. They know how to move house efficiently and how to avoid being ripped off by love text messages. These people are all attentive observers and readers of the service booklet of the same name published by Jean Frey.
According to the latest readership survey by Wemf AG für Medienforschung, there are 1045,000 "Beobachter" readers in Switzerland. They obtain their information from 335226 printed copies. According to Mach Basic, there were more readers a year ago, and the survey for the year 2000 showed even better figures.
Nevertheless, the magazine, which celebrated its 100th birthday this year with a big party, can still be called the most widely read magazine in German-speaking Switzerland. The slight decline in readership figures could be attributed to the increased coverage of consumer topics in other media and direct competition from magazines such as Saldo and K-Tipp.
The Beobachter now wants to stand up to these competitors by also focusing more on general topics in the future. Under the new editor-in-chief Balz Hosang, the Beobachter wants to be perceived more as a "normal" magazine in addition to its advisory function.
A toolbox full of life help
This is why the subjects of the new advertising are not the typical observer stories - such as how to test health insurance companies or save taxes. CD Daniel Matter from Matter&Partner wants to use his advertising to present more entertaining help for everyday life in a popular way instead of help for emergencies. "Help for life instead of a policeman" is the new slogan or, slightly modified, "The observer, your friend and helper".
The new Beobachter is intended to offer the reader something like a toolbox or "cleverness for everyday life".
The new Beobachter campaign demonstrates this cleverness with four subjects, each of which features an amateur who knows better than the respective professional. The customer in the garage demonstrates to a baffled mechanic how to really repair the engine. A cleaning lady explains to a group of managers what she doesn't yet know. A psychiatrist lies on the couch instead of his patient and his "case" listens to him.
The heroes of the campaign and the readers of the Beobachter are therefore "competent in all situations".
The newly appointed Beobachter editor-in-chief Balz Hosang has already had a decisive say in the style of this new advertising. For him and the publisher, it is "a fundamental problem" that the Beobachter is underestimated in the media world. "Advertisers don't find it sexy to advertise in the Beobachter. At most, they place ads for health products," says advertiser Daniel Matter about the image, which is now to be rejuvenated in parallel with the Beobachter's new layout.
New image welcome, new positioning not
A rather quirky movie spot also fits in with this. In this one, the animation specialists from Frame Eleven were allowed to "work their magic once again", as Matter puts it. Instead of filming properly, photos from the ad shoot were used in the cunning low-budget production.
The scene involving the desperate car mechanic and the much cleverer customer was thus assembled as a weird story from photographed individual images and underscored with crazy sounds from the garage. The "competence in all situations" is brought to the screen in this slapstick style in a rather exaggerated but effective way.
Matter & Partner has been advertising for the Beobachter for eight years. In the last campaign, which was somewhat cheekier in print, the agency on Zurich's Sophienstrasse attracted attention, for example, with a police officer wedged under a windshield wiper like a fine notice or with a caretaker's wife hanging on a washing line.
Today, Matter interprets this as support for a pointing finger image, which the Beobachter now wants to move away from. However, the publisher does not want this image change to be understood as a complete repositioning. "We have continuously adapted to current developments in the past," explains Head of Advertising Cornelia Brunschwiler.
Matter & Partner's concept for this campaign was not "advertising for advertisers", as Daniel Matter himself describes his work. It wanted to target real customers, namely young people who want to "take the reins" and subscribe to their own Beobachter for the first time after starting a family, for example.
The cinema spot is running in various cinemas in German-speaking Switzerland. The advertisements have been appearing in selected magazines such as Magazin, Folio, Facts and TR7 since the beginning of October. There are no posters for budget reasons, but the campaign is accompanied by Internet banners. The reader campaign will soon be followed by a separate advertiser campaign.
