Advertising at Zürifäscht

The Zürifäscht 2013. MK Mr. Stahel, no other event has a sponsor list as long as the Zürifäscht's. What makes it so special?ROLAND STAHEL It’s actually the other way around. We don’t really have many sponsors. But we do have a lot of partners—about 135 festival booths, to be exact. They invite their sponsors to organize an entertainment program or some other attraction at their booth. That’s how the sponsors contribute indirectly. Since we have a policy of listing everyone who contributes to the Zürifäscht, you can find them on our website. The reality is that we’re too big and too much of a «one-stop shop» to attract many sponsors. That’s because sponsors prefer clear structures and usually target a specific audience.MK What kind of sponsors are you targeting?STAHEL We are particularly attractive to major distributors and communications companies because we provide them with a vast network of contacts. In 2013, we had over two million visitors.MK What do the sponsorship opportunities look like? STAHEL For example, companies have the opportunity to sponsor one of the popular fireworks displays. We took a targeted approach to this. We then negotiated specific offers with these companies. After all, it’s quite different when a bank or a major retailer, for example, sponsors the children’s and family fireworks display. The services must be as tailored to each company as the companies themselves are. Another challenge is ensuring visibility. Unfortunately, this is only possible to a limited extent in our case. The ban on advertising tobacco and alcoholic products in the city of Zurich makes sponsorship even more difficult. This makes it hard to define what we can offer in return.MK Did the Zürifäscht ever have a main sponsor?STAHEL That's right. In 1998, Zurich celebrated its 125th anniversary. To mark the occasion, the insurance company treated Zürifäscht attendees to two fireworks displays. Since then, however, we haven't had a main sponsor. This is partly because banks and insurance companies, in particular, aren't allowed to sponsor explosive events.MK How will this affect future celebrations?STAHEL As a result, we must offer even better packages and operate more successfully in this specialized and complex area of sponsorship. For the 2019 festival, we plan to bring in experts to advise us on developing a sponsorship strategy that will enable us to create better, customized packages tailored to a wide range of needs.MK And what is your marketing strategy?STAHEL We’re keeping our advertising efforts to a minimum. Quite simply because we have a «luxury problem»: the large number of visitors. When you hear “Es isch Zürifäscht” these days, you know exactly what to expect. The name has become synonymous with the event itself. We’re satisfied with this word-of-mouth buzz and the media coverage it generates. So we’re not making any further attempts to draw even more people to the festival in Zurich. We’re already at our maximum capacity, and to ensure we don’t exceed it, we’ve even planned measures to create more space for visitors within the festival grounds.MK What are these measures?STAHEL Take the Zürifäscht app, for example. Last year, we had great success with it, racking up 70,000 downloads. And this year, we want to double that number. The app is set to become even more modern and will serve not only as an information platform but also as a tool for tracking the crowds. App users are tracked via GPS. So we’ll know where most people are. This will allow us to send users push notifications to warn them about crowds and, at the same time, suggest an alternative route. With the app, we want to provide visitors with added value by allowing them to move around more freely. Author: Melanie Granados