Swiss has declared advertising a rear issue

This year not only marked the tenth anniversary of the grounding of Swissair. It was just as prominently featured in the media: The new national airline Swiss has adjusted its positioning and brand profile. And it has done so at an altitude that is already proving to be quite comfortable. The trend at Swiss has been on a reliable upward trajectory in recent years. In the first nine months of 2011, the airline carried 11.6 million passengers, 9.5 percent more than in the same period last year. Swiss has flourished above all in its European business and in cargo. "We were one of the few airlines to come through the financial crisis in the black," confirms Markus Binkert, Managing Director and Head of Marketing at Swiss. This also has an impact on advertising.

In recent years, Swiss has focused heavily on the turnaround. This could be said to have been accomplished by the financial crisis at the latest. Therefore, there was now time for a new fundamental discussion: Where do we want to go with Swiss? What should the brand stand for?

"It could no longer be a turnaround," says Markus Binkert, summarizing the conclusion of a broad-based analysis. This project resulted in a new strategy: "We continue to rely on our business expertise. We have our Group theme, in which we actively participate. But we also have the Swiss brand, which we need to focus on even more." In the new phase, the topic of quality and customer proximity should therefore be addressed much more consistently than before. The management sees the fact that Swiss is a manageable size compared to other airlines as an advantage that they want to make greater use of. "It enables us to be closer to our customers and to respond even better and more individually to their wishes and needs," explained Chief Commercial Officer Holger Hätty at an orientation on August 18 this year.

This media conference was accompanied by huge hype. The communications industry speculated that "our national airline" could reanimate the old Swissair name. The fact that "only" the logo was being redesigned caused some of the euphoric reporting in the run-up to the event to turn around. Why spend so much money on graphic cosmetics? What has been lost in this hasty look at the new logo is that this change is only the end of a long process.

The figurative mark was designed by the Nose agency, which has been advising Swiss on brand management since 2007. This has now led to more than just a comprehensive new campaign. "Now, for the first time, we have something completely new. We have changed the focus and switched from individual campaigns to a campaign platform," explains Marcel Benz, Senior Manager and Head of Marketing Communications at Swiss. The discussion about the new logo only came after the basic brand concept had been discussed.

"It was to be expected that the media would love the logo and speculate about a revival of Swissair. However, the emotions of Switzerland are less of an issue abroad," adds Binkert. With 70 destinations worldwide, Swiss has to address just as many potential customers around the world to fill its planes.

From the individual idea to the platform

When Swiss began working with Publicis in 2008, they more or less adopted the flight paths of the advertising that had already been launched. At that time, it was about an evolution from the basic principle of communication. "During this phase, we had more individual campaigns that were very successful in themselves," acknowledges Markus Binkert. The "LX forty" video by Oscar-winner Marc Forster, for example. Nadine Geissbühler's San Francisco plane, styled with flower power, also stood out in terms of advertising. "People all over the world have been talking about it, but Flowerpower does not represent the Swiss and Swiss brand," summarizes Binkert.

"As a company of our size with a manageable advertising budget, it is very important that everything we do always pays off in the same direction," calculates the Head of Marketing. This is why Swiss advertising should be very consistent in future. The new appearance with the platform now presented for the first time is designed to run for five years. It is designed in such a way that the same platform can be used to cover a wide variety of topics over the entire period: Product advertising, price advertising, destination advertising, image advertising, tactical advertising.

From now on, all measures will focus on the principle: "We are the airline of Switzerland. "As an airline, market power and size are a clear advantage - because of the economies of scale. We don't have that. So we have to use our manageable size to our advantage," explains Markus Binkert. This is communicated with three values: authenticity, the Swiss understanding of quality and customer proximity. "The chocolate on board, the captain who says goodbye to people at the door. Lots of little things where customers are already telling us: this is what Swiss stands for."

The Swiss cross on the tail fin is the symbolic guarantor of all these promises. The claim: "Our sign is a promise."

In order to be able to dramatize this new approach in correspondingly different images, the communications specialists at Swiss worked closely with Tim Hoppin's team at Publicis to take a close look at the worlds of the various airlines. All these competitors advertise "mostly very similarly" either with images of their destinations, the smiles of their crews or - soon to be the norm - with super-cheap fares. It is astonishing to note from this analysis that hardly any airline bases its advertising on the fascination of flying. Every boy wants to become a pilot, every adult who flies is surprised why the heavy bird still takes off into the air. Time and again, Swiss employees have noticed this: Almost all passengers experience their emotions and enjoy it high up above the clouds, "where freedom is probably limitless". The airplane as an instrument of transport for wishes, dreams and experiences thus became the main visual element of the new platform.

The airplane as a brand ambassador

"We stage the aircraft and show it graphically and carefully composed from interesting perspectives. Almost like cars in car advertising," describes Marcel Benz. Publicis was able to recruit Tom Nagy for this special look. The airplanes he photographed, each with the distinctive Swiss cross on the tail fin, will now play a central role in all subjects. The new platform thus becomes a stage for the aircraft as a brand ambassador.

"We used to differentiate between brand advertising, product advertising and promotion. That no longer exists in this sense. Everything can run side by side on the platform: Image, attitude, price," Markus Binkert goes into detail. Swiss has a promise and this can be found as the main message in the headline. This can be underpinned by an offer. For example, the price-performance ratio. But it can also be a reference to small things where Swiss is good, for example the business class seats with air cushion upholstery or the chocolate on board. "We also use Swiss clichés in the headlines, but with a wink," says Marcel Benz. Consequently, with this concept there will no longer be pure price communication, but all topics will be communicated at the attitude level.

For the current wave, there are currently five ads in use throughout Switzerland. So far, posters, e-boards, online advertising, a 20-minute cover and various advertisements in the most important newspapers have been seen. Some of these are double-sided. The campaign is complemented by thematic subjects in the Geneva and Basel catchment regions. In total, over 20 subjects have been designed.

They were photographed in great weather during the few dry days in August at Zurich Airport. "We were really lucky." Internationally, the campaign is being launched in 12 markets. The subjects there specifically address the situation in these areas, for example in the greater Lyon area, Stuttgart and Milan, where the region and its similarities with Switzerland are referred to with a sympathetic mischievousness. The platform is also used intercontinentally with individual ideas. In Hong Kong, a streetcar will soon be running in the look of Swiss aircraft.

And the costs? In order to keep these within reasonable limits, the rebranding is being rolled out in four phases. First of all, the most frequent customer contacts have already been changed: Internet, tickets and boarding passes. The in-flight magazine is also already appearing in the new look.

The next step is to convert the Swiss airports. Start in Zurich in mid-November. All Swiss offices in Switzerland will be converted by the end of the year, and all stations and offices worldwide by the end of 2012. In many airports, it is only the screens where the software with the logo needs to be adapted. The utensils at the stations, from suitcase labels to pens and dispensers, will be changed gradually. "We made a conscious decision to make the change gradually and not from one day to the next. That would have been too expensive. The effort involved is manageable," reveals Binkert.

Aircraft also have to be re-sprayed, but not on a large scale. This would not only incur technical costs, but also the expensive downtime of the aircraft on the ground. However, the new concept means that only minor elements need to be changed. The old logo with the red double cubes on the engine is sprayed over in white. In the lettering, only the dotted i has to be removed so that the letters are perceived as capital letters. Switzerland in four national languages, including Romansh, no longer makes sense. This addition was only added to the aircraft. "There were a few inconsistent elements in the old design," marvel Marcel Benz and Markus Binkert. It is an iron rule in aviation that the logo corresponds to the symbol on the tail. In the case of the old Swiss, Tyler Brûlé pepped it up on the engine as a one-off special case. By moving the logo to the tail fin, Swiss has now visibly given this old course the most effective place for some counter-steering - combined with the claim: "Our sign is a promise."
Andreas Panzeri

Markus Binkert (left), Head of Marketing, has his roots in the hotel industry and joined Swiss in 2005 as a strategy consultant with a focus on consumer goods and transportation. As Head of Business and Global Sales, he oversaw the integration with Lufthansa. From 2007, he was Head of Product and Services at Swiss before becoming Head of Marketing at the end of 2010.

Marcel Benz, Head of Marketing Communications, has broad experience on the agency and client side. Helped shape the launch of Orange in Switzerland. Head of New Business Energy Zurich. Trained as a communications manager.