Pirates to be put through the ringer
Copyright Matter & Gretener are raising awareness with a campaign against counterfeiting and brand piracy: «Stop Piracy.».
Copyright Matter & Gretener is raising awareness with a campaign against counterfeiting and brand piracy: "Stop Piracy" The topic is highly topical: whether it's job destruction, damage to health, support for organized crime or undignified working conditions - when buying counterfeit products or pirating, someone always pays the price for the supposed bargain. In Switzerland alone, the economy loses an estimated two billion francs due to counterfeit products. Worldwide, five to seven percent of internationally traded goods are already counterfeit. The "trivial offenses" range from illegally copying films to buying counterfeit Rolex watches on vacation to buying medicines online. The Stop Piracy platform launched in 2005 - a public-private partnership under the leadership of the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IPI) and the Swiss Committee of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC Switzerland) - now wants to ensure greater knowledge and conscience. The campaign has been launched privately, but is supported by political Bern.
Appeal to fairnessMatter & Gretener won the contract in a pitch at the beginning of September. In their awareness-raising campaign, the creative agency is now working with pointed headlines. These are intended to cause concern and raise awareness of the consequences and dangers of counterfeiting and piracy. The campaign also aims to appeal to the fairness of each individual. The campaign is aimed at everyone involved in the product flow - producers, importers, retailers, authorities and consumers - and can be seen on billboards in German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland. Various other campaign tools are planned.
Over 500 interventions are already necessary at Swiss customs every year due to counterfeiting. In Switzerland, only one case is known to date, where someone in Graubünden was fined 300 francs for piracy. There is also no groundbreaking federal court ruling yet. We are therefore still to a large extent in a gray area as to what constitutes piracy and therefore illegal intellectual property. In the pharmaceutical sector in particular, numerous counterfeit lifestyle drugs, from Viagra to vitamins, are circulating "thanks" to the Internet. The campaign shows that such medicines are not only illegal but can also be dangerous for those who trust them. There are no hygiene regulations and no health checks. The installation of counterfeit spare parts in cars is similarly risky. This has already led to numerous serious accidents, particularly in South America.
The campaign aims to raise awareness: Anyone who buys counterfeits is not only harming the economy, but also themselves. A counterfeit is not a "good deal" - just because others pay more.
The campaign was presented to the general public by Federal Councillor Christoph Blocher on Tuesday of this week at Unique Airport in Kloten. The media conference of the Institute of Intellectual Property, which reports to him, was deliberately scheduled here because the temptations of piracy are very great during vacation trips.
Despite the Federal Council, the campaign is not financed by the Confederation. Various representatives of the industries concerned, such as Suisa (music), Safe (film), SMH (watches), Swissmedic, Interpharma and the cigarette industry association, are sponsoring the individual subjects.
With such a broad base of support, it was naturally not easy to find a common approach to the subject matter. The solution with a typo campaign was therefore ideal for CD Daniel Matter. Unlike visual implementations, the catchy texts can be used in the same way for all sectors. In addition, such simple text posters also save money, which is better spent on a broader distribution, as strategist Marcus Gretener calculates. The informative and witty texts can later be printed on various message carriers such as airplane refreshment tissues, boarding passes, invoices from Internet companies, envelopes from travel agencies or flyers in pharmacies.
For Matter & Gretener, the posters were also intended to attract attention through a deliberate mix of advertising and official communication - "work in public space instead of public relations". Nevertheless, the PR agency Richterich & Partner is using this in a targeted manner in the media in sync with the campaign. Further information on the campaign will also be published on a website, www.stop-piracy.ch.
Andreas Panzeri
Appeal to fairnessMatter & Gretener won the contract in a pitch at the beginning of September. In their awareness-raising campaign, the creative agency is now working with pointed headlines. These are intended to cause concern and raise awareness of the consequences and dangers of counterfeiting and piracy. The campaign also aims to appeal to the fairness of each individual. The campaign is aimed at everyone involved in the product flow - producers, importers, retailers, authorities and consumers - and can be seen on billboards in German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland. Various other campaign tools are planned.
Over 500 interventions are already necessary at Swiss customs every year due to counterfeiting. In Switzerland, only one case is known to date, where someone in Graubünden was fined 300 francs for piracy. There is also no groundbreaking federal court ruling yet. We are therefore still to a large extent in a gray area as to what constitutes piracy and therefore illegal intellectual property. In the pharmaceutical sector in particular, numerous counterfeit lifestyle drugs, from Viagra to vitamins, are circulating "thanks" to the Internet. The campaign shows that such medicines are not only illegal but can also be dangerous for those who trust them. There are no hygiene regulations and no health checks. The installation of counterfeit spare parts in cars is similarly risky. This has already led to numerous serious accidents, particularly in South America.
The campaign aims to raise awareness: Anyone who buys counterfeits is not only harming the economy, but also themselves. A counterfeit is not a "good deal" - just because others pay more.
The campaign was presented to the general public by Federal Councillor Christoph Blocher on Tuesday of this week at Unique Airport in Kloten. The media conference of the Institute of Intellectual Property, which reports to him, was deliberately scheduled here because the temptations of piracy are very great during vacation trips.
Despite the Federal Council, the campaign is not financed by the Confederation. Various representatives of the industries concerned, such as Suisa (music), Safe (film), SMH (watches), Swissmedic, Interpharma and the cigarette industry association, are sponsoring the individual subjects.
With such a broad base of support, it was naturally not easy to find a common approach to the subject matter. The solution with a typo campaign was therefore ideal for CD Daniel Matter. Unlike visual implementations, the catchy texts can be used in the same way for all sectors. In addition, such simple text posters also save money, which is better spent on a broader distribution, as strategist Marcus Gretener calculates. The informative and witty texts can later be printed on various message carriers such as airplane refreshment tissues, boarding passes, invoices from Internet companies, envelopes from travel agencies or flyers in pharmacies.
For Matter & Gretener, the posters were also intended to attract attention through a deliberate mix of advertising and official communication - "work in public space instead of public relations". Nevertheless, the PR agency Richterich & Partner is using this in a targeted manner in the media in sync with the campaign. Further information on the campaign will also be published on a website, www.stop-piracy.ch.
Andreas Panzeri
