Clever access to the editorial space
Agencies An unusual mixture of PR agency, creative team and media planner: the young Brand Emotion GmbH works off the beaten track.
Agencies An unusual mixture of PR agency, creative team and media planner: the young Brand Emotion GmbH works off the beaten track.
Last summer, when SF DRS Gotthelf-TV was broadcasting and the Zuppiger family were doing business in Saleweidli as they did 100 years ago, two gentlemen brought the Zuppigers a crate of Feldschlösschen Urtrüb - in bottles from back then, on a packhorse and in traditional dress. Despite rigorous SF-DRS surveillance, the delivery was successful and the campaign was broadcast on TeleZüri, in Blick and in various other media. One of the executors of this guerrilla-style PR campaign was media specialist Peter Hofstetter. Surprising, as one would expect such a campaign from an advertising or PR agency. But the owner of Mediaxis-MPG is no stranger to creative ideas when it comes to media planning - in fact, they are "a must". Business partner and strategic planner Adrian van Velsen agrees. "Information overload, zapping, longer advertising blocks and new technical possibilities mean that more and more advertising clients are questioning the effectiveness of classic campaigns. This makes it all the more important to embed campaign messages in the editorial environment," says van Velsen. He calls this "emotionalizing brands".
In order to put such emotionalizations into practice, van Velsen and Hofstetter founded Brand Emotion GmbH at the beginning of the year as a spin-off of Mediaxis-
MPG. Katja Klee, until recently consulting group manager at Contexta in Bern, took over the management of the agency. Klee describes the aim of the new agency as follows: "We want to get communication messages into the editorial environment efficiently." However, she does not primarily rely on guerrilla campaigns, but rather on existing offers such as cooperations with media, cross-media, product placement and sponsoring - "which we always enrich with innovative ideas." The three-person team does not wait for new special forms of advertising, but makes its own suggestions. "Our work is similar to that of a PR agency in certain respects. But while the latter approaches the editorial offices, we usually knock on the door of the advertising departments," says Klee.
This was also the case with the launch of a new lotion from Dove. The realization that "real" women are more credible advertisers for a skin-tightening product than models led to the idea of a casting for curvy women - on a page in Schweizer Illustrierte. But because more women came forward than expected, an entire SI supplement was created in cooperation with Ringier. The success also led to numerous other "uncontrolled" media reports. Klee: "It was a win-win situation for everyone involved."
She approaches media providers with this attitude. "We never exert pressure, definitely not," she says. But one thing is clear: the brand that Klee heaves into the editorial space benefits from the journalistic profile and concept of the medium. Doesn't she run the risk of undermining the credibility of the media? No, says Klee, because at Brand Emotion we make sure we have a good, open climate with the media providers. It's also not about
The current difficult economic situation of some media can be exploited. "But we are noticing that advertising customers are increasingly cutting their budgets for traditional advertising and looking for other ways to reach their target audiences. We are consistently following this trend," says Klee. The media companies have also reacted to these changes. Klee: "In general, it can be observed that the editorial environment is becoming more accessible for commercial messages."
Markus Knöpfli
Last summer, when SF DRS Gotthelf-TV was broadcasting and the Zuppiger family were doing business in Saleweidli as they did 100 years ago, two gentlemen brought the Zuppigers a crate of Feldschlösschen Urtrüb - in bottles from back then, on a packhorse and in traditional dress. Despite rigorous SF-DRS surveillance, the delivery was successful and the campaign was broadcast on TeleZüri, in Blick and in various other media. One of the executors of this guerrilla-style PR campaign was media specialist Peter Hofstetter. Surprising, as one would expect such a campaign from an advertising or PR agency. But the owner of Mediaxis-MPG is no stranger to creative ideas when it comes to media planning - in fact, they are "a must". Business partner and strategic planner Adrian van Velsen agrees. "Information overload, zapping, longer advertising blocks and new technical possibilities mean that more and more advertising clients are questioning the effectiveness of classic campaigns. This makes it all the more important to embed campaign messages in the editorial environment," says van Velsen. He calls this "emotionalizing brands".
In order to put such emotionalizations into practice, van Velsen and Hofstetter founded Brand Emotion GmbH at the beginning of the year as a spin-off of Mediaxis-
MPG. Katja Klee, until recently consulting group manager at Contexta in Bern, took over the management of the agency. Klee describes the aim of the new agency as follows: "We want to get communication messages into the editorial environment efficiently." However, she does not primarily rely on guerrilla campaigns, but rather on existing offers such as cooperations with media, cross-media, product placement and sponsoring - "which we always enrich with innovative ideas." The three-person team does not wait for new special forms of advertising, but makes its own suggestions. "Our work is similar to that of a PR agency in certain respects. But while the latter approaches the editorial offices, we usually knock on the door of the advertising departments," says Klee.
This was also the case with the launch of a new lotion from Dove. The realization that "real" women are more credible advertisers for a skin-tightening product than models led to the idea of a casting for curvy women - on a page in Schweizer Illustrierte. But because more women came forward than expected, an entire SI supplement was created in cooperation with Ringier. The success also led to numerous other "uncontrolled" media reports. Klee: "It was a win-win situation for everyone involved."
She approaches media providers with this attitude. "We never exert pressure, definitely not," she says. But one thing is clear: the brand that Klee heaves into the editorial space benefits from the journalistic profile and concept of the medium. Doesn't she run the risk of undermining the credibility of the media? No, says Klee, because at Brand Emotion we make sure we have a good, open climate with the media providers. It's also not about
The current difficult economic situation of some media can be exploited. "But we are noticing that advertising customers are increasingly cutting their budgets for traditional advertising and looking for other ways to reach their target audiences. We are consistently following this trend," says Klee. The media companies have also reacted to these changes. Klee: "In general, it can be observed that the editorial environment is becoming more accessible for commercial messages."
Markus Knöpfli
