With Big Data to Big Inspirations

Host Uwe Tännler, President of Swiss Marketing, was able to attract a whole series of high-profile keynote speakers for his anniversary event, who took numerous perspectives on challenges and visions for the future regarding the red-hot topic of "Big Data and Big Inspiration". Over 1,000 marketing and communications professionals took advantage of the industry event to update their knowledge, exchange ideas, and ultimately see who would take home the coveted marketing trophies this year. The event was moderated by Susanne Wille.

"Communication must become service"

Before Christian Rätsch, CEO of the advertising agency Saatchi and Saatchi and expert in brand management, got the chance to explain his experience with Big Data, Reto Brotschi, Head of Direct Marketing PostMail, pleaded for an unbiased attitude towards unaddressed advertising and presented Swiss Post's new advertising-friendly mailbox stickers: "Welcome good advertising" is to be emblazoned on all Swiss mailboxes with immediate effect and calls not least on industry representatives to trust their own work more.

Communications expert Christian Rätsch backed up his explicit demand that "communication must become a service" with a whole series of well-known campaigns that skillfully implement the rules of communication in the digital world and thus achieve success. Success, in Rätsch's experience, that increasingly pays off financially for companies. In his opinion, digitization is a great opportunity for companies, a real driver in the company's value creation in terms of interaction, service and sales.

"Intuition is felt knowledge".

Gerd Gigerenzer, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, analyzed what Big Data cannot do. He pleaded for more gut feeling and trust in one's own intuition. His criticism of Big Data, or rather the reliance on the evaluation of large amounts of data, is based in particular on the fact that collected data depict the past and thus the limits in terms of innovation are evident. If the future is uncertain and the situation unstable, he prefers simpler, less cost-intensive measurement methods and gives preference to and own intuition. Because, according to Gigerenzer, "intuition is felt knowledge."

Data protection: Opportunity or threat

The subsequent panel discussion with Karin Frick, Gerd Gigerenzer, Hanspeter Thür, Andreas Wiebe and Wolfgang Zimmermann clearly showed: Big Data is gaining relevance at high speed. The topic will occupy us over the next few years, regardless of which viewpoint one takes. In addition to solving data protection issues, the challenge will be to keep pace with technological progress. Because technology - everyone agrees - is always one step ahead of us.

"Message matters"

Julius van de Laar had the privilege of helping to shape both of Barack Obama's election campaigns. In his impressive presentation, he outlined the most important stages of successful campaign management and provided insight into the effective use of digital channels and social media. Nevertheless, his most important message was probably "Message matters." No plan, no matter how smart, can do without authenticity and content, van de Laars is convinced.

The winners of the 2015 Marketing Trophies are:

- In the specialpeis category: Bagno Sasso Mobili and Abegglen Management Consultants, Zurich for the project Swiss Eco Tap

- In the category SME: Swiss Bankers Prepaid Services and Contexta for the project Travel Cash - The Travel Money

- In the NPO category: Schtifti Foundation and Kreienbühl and Vogler for the Gorilla project.

- In the large enterprise category: CSS Insurance and Contexta for the Holistic Brand and Customer Experience Management project.

- The audience award went to Mazda and JWT/Fabrikant for the project Voilà ma Suisse