"We put the brand at the center"

Switzerland really didn't need another advertising agency. Dominik Schoch and Roman Sonders were convinced of that when they founded Schoch & Sonders in 2006. "We've also done enough advertising in our lives, so we wanted to develop a different approach." The two business partners, who found each other only after a long and completely different career path, found their individual concept for an agency in an agency for brand management. "We believe that brands need to be managed, and by a strong hand - for life. That's a basic philosophy that drives us together."

For the two, a brand has "character and personality, just like people. In a few seconds, I know whether something is my thing." For Schoch & Sonders, the path to a successful brand is "the active, consistent, continuous and focused alignment of the signals sent out, directed at all the senses." This is because a product or a company incessantly sends messages to the market, whether intentionally or unintentionally. People absorb these impressions through all their senses. Only the sum of the subsequent feedback "turns companies and products into brands". The desired reaction of the target group "can therefore only be influenced indirectly".

With this premise, the agency acts as brand leader together with the brand managers of its clients. As such, Schoch & Sonders develops the brand strategy and the brand design up to the complete brand appearance. Its clients have included Migros from the very beginning. In the meantime, several brands are also managed for M-Electronics. The start-up got its second reference with Emmi. This company has remained loyal to Schoch & Sonders to this day. The elegant packaging and the brand strategy for Kaltbach's cave-aged cheeses were created at the agency on Zurich's Stationsstrasse. Schoch & Sonders is particularly proud of the success of its "revival" of Gala cheese, after this old cult Swiss brand had to be repackaged following the transfer from Gerber to Emmi.

Dominik Schoch's design work is just as unmistakable on around 100 spices in the Migros range. The bookstore chain Orell Füssli has recently been presented with a comprehensive new look by Schoch & Sonders. Currently, work is underway on the presentation for a company in the pharmaceutical sector. A large car customer wants special light installations. A chocolate manufacturer has a new design developed.

Depending on the workload, eight to twelve permanent employees and freelancers are permanently engaged for Schoch & Sonders. In the "ideal case", the agency wants to be involved with its clients as early as the development of a new strategy. "Anyone who only orders a new and preferably funny campaign" is at the wrong address with the brand developers. "Clients come to us because we go through an entire process with them." To this end, it can also always be very valuable for the agency to work with the client to define the task in a joint workshop.

Another specialty of Schoch & Sonders is that they also work closely with specialists in the field of neuropsychology. "What signals does a brand have to send out so that the consumer is rewarded enough to go into the store and know which product they ultimately want to take out of the rack?" The two CEOs found the possible answers to this question on completely different career paths.

Dominik Schoch enjoyed five years of training at the art school in St. Gallen. This was followed by an introductory tour of various agencies in Zurich. "Ten years in the By Heart team were important for my development," he looks back. Here Dominik Schoch was allowed to have a formative influence on Feldpausch, PKZ, Burger and other brands from the fashion and beauty sector. Passugger was also a grateful customer.

During this phase, he said, he discovered his "passion for brands" and realized that in the future he wanted to do something more consistent than just traditional communications and advertising.

"I saw my fulfillment more and more in creating beautiful imagery and developing a sense of successful brands." As this approach fascinated him more and more, Schoch once again wanted to take a step further in his career. Dominik Schoch spent more than ten years working in agencies doing design work for national and international brands before going freelance. But the new challenge was not to be simply a change of style to another agency. "I wanted to live out my own ideas and pre¬ceptions." It was precisely at this stage that Do¬minik Schoch was introduced to his future partner Roman Son¬der. He hit it off with him right away. After a short time, the two "founded the agency on a white sheet of paper" and sketched out all their ideas, processes and visions together.

Roman Sonders came to the brand "not so straightforwardly. After an apprenticeship as a machine mechanic, he first worked in this profession for six months. But he realized early on that machines were not his thing. Sonders first set off on his travels. He used the longer time in France, the USA and Australia to learn languages. Back in Zurich, he "got stuck" in the hospitality industry. Today, the brand specialist knows that this "helped him a lot" in his later development.

In the hospitality industry, Sonders learned "to work really hard. Nevertheless, after three years of mixing drinks, "it became too boring for him, although I was allowed to work in a very dignified cocktail bar." While observing his guests, the bartender also became increasingly interested in the mechanisms of marketing. Sonders attended part-time marketing courses and then joined the company that was importing Hooth drinks to Switzerland at the time.

During this market launch, Sonders learned "on the job" how a still unknown beverage can become a trendy brand within a very short time - and how to subsequently make the most of the demand commercially. Sonders was able to gain valuable experience in the areas of marketing, advertising and promotion. "We worked a lot below-the-line with promotions at the POS in the restaurant, which of course benefited me as a former hospitality professional."

As a result of this success story with Hooth, Roman Sonders got a taste for it. He wanted to further his education as a marketing planner and later also completed the communications manager. During this time, he worked his way through a wide variety of areas, both on the client side and on the agency side. In addition to event management, he was also able to get to know sponsoring. The most important clients at that time were Feldschlösschen and Smirnoff. For them, Sonders designed and supervised the first event platforms, without allowing it to become too commercial and thus chummy for the target group.

During these times, Roman Sonders was also able to build up an extensive network with many "contacts that are still relevant and functioning today. One of these contacts led to a new job as an online marketer at Qualiclick. Just in time before the IT bubble burst, Sonders reoriented himself as communications manager at Ford. There he was in charge of the entire brand in Switzerland and, in addition to classic advertising, was increasingly responsible for holistic communication. Sonders recalls with particular pride how, thanks to his ideas, he was able to make Ford's appearance at the Geneva Motor Show his responsibility. "I recognized the value of the salon because I came from the event industry." This station was Roman Sonders' last before founding his own agency.

Roman Sonders still likes to get his strength from sports. He used to be a multiple Swiss champion in relay swimming and was part of the Swiss youth squad. Dominik Schoch also has an affinity for demanding sports. Around his job changes, he has always traveled to Asia for longer periods of time and trained in Asian martial arts. Schoch has passed several exams and most recently underwent rigorous training in a Shaolin monastery. At the same time, of course, Asian imagery has decisively influenced the designer during these trips, which are still taken regularly - albeit for shorter periods. "You can absorb a lot of information as a creative when you travel through these countries with your eyes open."

And the goals of Schoch & Sonders? The rooms in the agency offer space for 20 employees. From then on, it would become a strategic decision whether to add an optionally already reserved floor and thus also another hierarchy level. Or perhaps the connection to an international network? "I'm sure no one in New York or Shanghai is waiting for us," quip Schoch and Sonders. But some "new business at a higher level" would entice them. An international brand, for example, run by Schoch & Sonders out of Switzerland. "Preferably from the fashion industry."

Andreas Panzeri