This thought led to the idea of developing an information platform for eight construction projects around the most important buildings in the city of Zurich. A platform that not only informs about figures, visions and current construction phases. But concretely about the people who bring these extraordinary icons, which shape the cityscape, back to life. With expertise, commitment and sometimes with skills of ancient craftsmanship.

Zhtreat.ch provides Zurich's residents with background information on all aspects of structural change in the city of Zurich that otherwise remain hidden behind construction barriers. For the renowned architectural firm SPPA Architekten, historical events are researched, building visions visualized and current construction stages documented. Above all, however, the people who implement and drive these building projects are portrayed in their work.

For this purpose, video portraits are created that provide insights into the respective projects, visions and activities. This is intended to give the often listed building projects a completely new and very personal face.

Overall responsibility: Beat Graf (SPPA Architects). Video Portraits: Beat Hürlimann (Huerlimann Creative Communications). Concept and idea: Ralph Halder (Halder Record).

Large pop-ups and promoted posts obscure or suppress what we actually want to see on our small screens. In the city of Zurich, concerned teachers kept their pupils in their classrooms during the solar eclipse for safety's sake, because looking at the obscured sun is harmful to the eye. A similar level of care was required from advertisers, because looking at screens obscured by irrelevant brand messages is harmful for the sender and annoying for the viewer. On Facebook, it is easy for users to ban the originators of annoying messages from their newsfeed forever: "Hide all ads from this brand."

So far, the majority of advertising and media specialists seem to care little about this. On the contrary. Instead of class, there is sophistication. Fields for "skipping" pop-ups are getting smaller and better hidden. Just as well hidden as the omniscient cookies and algorithms that anticipate every conceivable need, whether real, guessed or invented, well in advance with a corresponding advertising message. That leaves clickbaiting as the supposedly most creative form of sophistication, which, with teaser messages such as "What happened next moved the world to tears ..." expectations into the unredeemable.

Sophistication is good and is part of the business in a serious form. But without creativity and passion as strong counterparts, advertising on the web and social media degenerates into a disruptive factor. Uli Wiesendanger, TBWA co-founder in a personal interview: "Advertising is more boring today than it used to be." The 80-year-old identifies one reason for this in the way brands are "pandering" to buyers. You don't need to know consumers in detail. This bothers him, as does the firm belief that you have to win buyers as friends via Facebook, which he himself "pushes aside". Wiesendanger is celebrated as a hero in the comments ...

Wiesendanger, who would like to see a bit of scandal, clever argumentation and humor in advertising, brings the growing importance of the regional aspect of advertising into play. He builds a mental bridge between sophistication and creativity. It's about proximity as a goal and targeting as an instrument. Targeting in the sense of sophistication with clever data management: where, when and with what material needs is a target person currently on the move? In our fragmented media landscape, it is no longer possible to find out without the help of intelligent analysis tools. The Swiss painter and graphic artist Hans Erni died on March 21 at the age of 106. Targeting in the sense of creativity requires dedication and devotion. Erni identified completely with Switzerland. As the NZZ wrote in an obituary, he used "his bourgeois realism for achievable goals" in voting posters for the Battle of Cultivation (1942), for women's suffrage (47) and for the introduction of the AHV (54).

His 500-square-metre picture "Switzerland, the vacation land of the peoples" for the 1939 national exhibition is unforgettable. Using a collage technique, he combined tradition and technology, striking a chord with the Swiss people at a difficult time. He was the hero of the "Landi" because he "drew after people's eyes", the NZZ continues. "He created an art that can be understood without knowing anything about art," wrote Hans-Jörg Heusser in 1983.

What you read about Erni now, you should be able to write about advertisers. You don't have to be able to design according to the eyes of an entire nation. But you do need to be able to do so with the eyes of many small groups. Targeting is guidance via sophisticated tools and execution with dedication, care and skill. Targeting is a challenge for us advertisers. Tools help and impact techniques maximize the probability of positive reception. That leaves the content, whose top priority is relevance. The right strategy and a team of enthusiasts ensure order in dynamics and diversity. In the coming articles, I will shed light on these topics. With sunlight, free from darkness ;) - hopefully.

Beat Hürlimann
 

The #CreativeRevolution of the 1950s gave rise to a new kind of advertising, thanks to pioneers like Bill Bernbach and David Ogilvy—one that respected people’s intelligence. Those who simply rattled off a USP were frowned upon. In vogue were those who used clever ideas to bring humor, irony, wit, and emotion into the mix. Since the 2000s, we’ve been living in the advertising and marketing era of # Digital Disruption. It has brought us the shift from analog to digital and from contacts to connections. Those who tell advertising stories are frowned upon. Those who market themselves using the customer journey, social media, amazing tools, content marketing, engagement marketing, and big data are in vogue.

Big Data was a hot topic at this year’s Marketing Day. It was described as the “oil” of the economy—and of Obama’s election campaign. Using insights from supporter data, lifestyle data, voter registration data, and social media data, the campaign team led by speaker Julius van de Laar created the perfect campaign. He called it “Data & Microtargeting.” Equally crucial: “Test & Track Everything.” A/B testing for email subject lines, for example. The KPI was the total amount of donations generated per subject line. Data was indispensable in the Obama campaign. According to van de Laar, however, the decisive factor was the message—which also addressed the opponent’s weaknesses—as well as its sender, who always came across as authentic. With Christian Rätsch, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi Germany, the big data journey takes us from the election campaign to the bathroom for now: Monitoring children’s toothbrushing with the Oral-B app. We continue into the kitchen to the refrigerator, which detects its fill level and contents and immediately makes ordering suggestions. Greater convenience, more personalization, and an ever-present community thanks to big data. With KLM’s Meet & Seat, for example, you can use profile data from Facebook, Google+, or LinkedIn to find out who on your flight is attending the same event at your destination. Wow! Hilton offers discounts based on your Klout score, and in Japan, Bayer uses flu detection to warn of emerging viral threats.

There were also skeptics. Prof. Dr. Gerd Gigerenzer of the Max Planck Institute appealed to gut instinct and heuristics, a concept he advocates as, in a sense, an alternative to big data. He advises us to act according to simple and intelligent rules, even if these occasionally lead to decisions that run counter to data logic. Hanspeter Thür is the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner. He says, «The mountain of data is growing.» And: «You can deduce probabilities, but when it comes to causality, things get tricky.» People can be prejudged based on data. It must be possible to regain self-control. «Anyone who wants to protect their privacy must be able to do so,» says Thür.

Karin Frick of the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute addressed the dilemma facing consumers. Big Data is a constant balancing act between convenience, connectivity, and self-control. These are deals that people make—or choose not to make—with companies like Google, Facebook, and others, either because trust is lacking or because the value in return doesn’t seem attractive enough. Keith Reinhard, Chairman Emeritus of DDB Worldwide, set the stage for Marketing Day 2016 via a pre-recorded video message. He spoke about the dawning marketing era of the #UltimateRevelation as the «best of» the #CreativeRevolution and the #DigitalDisruption. At the heart of it all: The Power of Stories. Humorous, witty, and meaningful storytelling combined with the strengths of great digital tools and valuable data. Not just delivering everyday buzz, but launching and continuing meaningful stories. Don’t coldly and calculatingly tailor content to algorithms; instead, empathetically address needs and provide people with valuable decision-making guidance through stories. Don’t use big data to feign interest; instead, build trusting relationships with big-idea creations. Keith Reinhard is a guest speaker at Marketing Day 2016 on the topic of “The Power of Stories.” A perfect choice at the right time. A693047

You can find more quotes about Marketing Day 2015 at huerlimanncc.com.
 

36.6 million people watched the Oscars on TV. That's a few million fewer than a year ago. Nevertheless, the overall reach has probably increased. Thanks to social media. St. Peter sent rare rain clouds to Hollywood Boulevard at the start. A greeting to "Jesus-lookalike Jared Leto"? He was referred to as such in a tweet with 14,000 retweets and 13,000 favorites. You can find out more on Storify via the link at the end of the article. 4.5 million mentions were recorded for the two top hashtags #Oscars2015 and #Oscars on Twitter. Not including Instagram and Facebook. The atmosphere was good. The users were in a good mood. According to Tagboard, only 3 percent of the content with the hashtag #Oscars2015 was negative. 20 percent were positive and 77 percent were neutral.

The advertising industry is celebrating 50 years of TV commercials. His achievements are undisputed. Many of them are unforgettable. For Publisuisse CEO Martin Schneider, for example, the one in which a hand dips into green washing-up liquid. Palmolive! And my favorite? The Villariba versus Villabajo dishwashing duel. Fairy Ultra! That was in 1992, ten years before Italy won the World Cup title with catenaccio. This is an ultra-defensive style of football with very few offensive actions. Were the makers of this year's Superbowl TV commercials inspired by the catenaccio of the 80s? In principle, yes, if you take serious calls to action via TV commercials as a yardstick for offensive actions. 53% of all 104 (!) spots broadcast during the Superbowl game did not have a call to action. In 2014, the figure was 21 percent. Has the belief in the effectiveness of parallel use been lost? The catenaccio principle applies to TV commercials in general. That is surprising. Equipped with a snack and smartphone (61% said they watched the Super Bowl game with their smartphone in their hand), viewers are more willing than ever to gratefully accept space-opening sugar passes from commercials. Provided you take the trouble to pull out all the stops properly. A few examples.

#Hashtags - 42 percent of Super Bowl spots had a hashtag. So far so good. But the average insertion time was less than a second. Even the fastest tweenagers are unable to pick up a hashtag in this time. Firstly, a hashtag should be displayed throughout the entire commercial and secondly, it should already be known, at least in the core target group. If you want to get yourself talked about via a TV commercial in order to expand your network in social networks, there is no way around the intelligent integration of a hashtag.

#Downloads - Just 8 percent of all commercials with call-to-actions offered viewers an app to download. Anyone who invests over 4 million dollars in 30 seconds of airtime should be able to generate as many leads as possible from contacts via download.

#AugmentedReality - It sounds futuristic. But it's not. We're talking about image and sound recognition applications. Shazam, an app that recognizes pieces of music within a few seconds and displays song titles accordingly on the smartphone, is very popular. There are also numerous applications for image recognition that are currently being used in print-to-mobile. It is actually incomprehensible that not a single Superbowl commercial invited viewers to "listen in" via Shazam.

#Video apps - Videos can be recorded, uploaded and shared ever more quickly and easily in one go via social media apps. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are constantly improving the corresponding functions.

#Chat apps - It has been possible to chat in groups via the Twitter app for a few days now. The leading chat apps are WhatsApp and Snapchat. Using chat apps to bring commercial content into the conversation is an exciting impact option. "For TV advertising to have a future, it has to be good," says Martin Schneider. We take the CEO of the largest TV marketer at his word and look forward to an innovation offensive that really launches the quality match between screens. It is high time for this because Facebook, with over 3 million users, is now challenging TV for the position of the strongest reach medium for advertising.

Beat Hürlimann
 

With the horrific attacks in Paris, the threat of terrorism suddenly entered the collective consciousness. The slogans «Charlie Hebdo» and «Je suis Charlie» were shared millions of times. The social media platform Twitter played the biggest role in this: 12 million mentions of the hashtag within 36 hours. News sites covered the story by commenting on the tweets.
 
Why Twitter? Because it’s shorter, faster, more up-to-date, and unfiltered than the rest. Twitter is the alternative «Tagesschau»: no editorial staff, no moderators, no restrictions, no ombudsman, no public service. Twitter is a public forum. Anyone can tweet anything from anywhere: opinions and reports, accompanied by images, videos, and links. For decades, a spot before the «Tagesschau» was the advertising slot «to be.» Chronically fully booked and expensive, it was reserved for a wealthy brand elite. An ad spot on Twitter isn’t cheaper overall. But it’s different. Quite different. In impact, form, creation, and execution. Twitter is well-suited for advertising, marketing, and communication. What follows is an overview featuring statements about Twitter, each limited to 140 characters. Tweets on paper, so to speak. The continuation can be found via the link provided at the end.
 
CREDO – Twitter is committed to the open exchange of information. Communicate freely and openly to build trust. CENSORSHIP – In the first half of 2014, 25 profiles and 224 tweets were deleted worldwide. Is that all? TWEET – Length: 140 characters. Ideally 120 or fewer. Tweets with embedded videos and images spread more effectively than those containing only links. RETWEET – With a single click, users can share tweets. 20 retweets mean the tweet appears on the feeds of 20 Twitter users. NOTIFICATIONS Users receive an email as soon as they are mentioned in tweets with @username. Users like being mentioned. @PROFILE – Only those who have a profile can take part in everyday life on Twitter. There are 270 million profiles, 400,000 of which are in Switzerland. BOTS – 10%: All Twitter profiles are bots. These are computer-run profiles. The risk of deception is also present on Twitter. HACKS Twitter profiles can be compromised. It's important to monitor your own profile regularly. Tools like Hootsuite can help. SHITSTORMS Flaming often breaks out on Twitter. Ms. Leuthard just got torn apart. Empathy helps. But so does thinking before you tweet. OPINION LEADERS – Recruiting influencers with a large following and high-quality content is the most important task when building the network. PR – Journalists, editors, bloggers, and celebrities: They have a particularly strong presence on Twitter. Twitter is the most important PR tool. 24/7 – Twitter users couldn't care less about office hours. Opportunities and risks lurk around the clock. Long live shift work. CAMPAIGNS – Twitter gives messages wings—provided they’re relevant, presented in a cool way, and the team is fully committed. HASHTAG – # Jesuischarlie is a hashtag. Anyone who mentions it in a tweet right now is automatically contributing to the coverage. NEWSJACKING – The lights go out at the Mercedes-sponsored stadium. Audi tweets live: “We’re sending you some LEDs.” 12,000 retweets! EVENTS Thanks to users tweeting live with hashtags, the event’s reach extends far beyond the event community. This offers brands opportunities for conversation. SECOND SCREEN – 95%: Discussions about TV shows take place on Twitter. TV and Twitter—a dream team. But the creatives are still lacking ideas. PROMOTED TWEETS are tweets that are paid to be promoted. Warning: Twitter users react strongly and vocally to irrelevant tweets. PROMOTED VIDEOS are sponsored tweets with videos. The service is currently in beta and is designed for second-screen campaigns. Example: #SelfieABC. Click here for the link. BUY BUTTON – In-Tweet sales are currently available in the U.S. as a beta feature. When it comes here, you should be ready. REPLIES Responding to tweets is a priority. Acknowledging compliments, answering questions, or calming heated tempers. Speed is important. FAVORITE It's a small token of appreciation. Users appreciate things like that. Favorites are added to the favorites list and can be viewed. DIRECT MESSAGES are those reservations that follow one another. And only they can see the content. TWITTER LISTS is a feature that allows you to create user groups. This is where the printed version of this post ends. Beat Hürlimann
 
You can find out more about Twitter on Storify via huerlimanncc.com.

"Wetten, dass …?" was canceled last Saturday. Viewing habits are changing. Television’s dominance as the leading medium for entertainment is wavering. But what about television’s role as the leading medium for advertising? Television remains unquestionably strong and important. Nevertheless, anyone who didn’t start in 2014 will have to do so in 2015: venture into new territory. It’s almost midnight. I’ll skip the numbers, trust your powers of observation, and keep my feet on the ground. Instead of lounging comfortably on the sofa in flip-flops, we’re increasingly entertaining ourselves, staying informed, and connecting while on the go—wearing sneakers, ballerinas, or navy boots.

For us in the advertising industry, the shift from desktop to mobile is, in terms of impact, like jumping from a cozy sofa onto a noisy street. Starting today and continuing regularly in the future, we’ll be discussing how we can still make our messages heard in this changed environment. “New in Social Media” is my short-form column in *Werbewoche* covering the latest developments in social media and related fields. To get started, read the pilot post, which offers some well-intentioned guidance. We’re kicking things off with a bang.

EXPLOSIVE – Use the power of newly acquired knowledge to blaze a trail toward new solutions and perspectives. TNT stands for Techniques, Narratives, and Tools. Techniques are drivers of impact. Tried-and-true methods, such as the use of testimonials and experts, are combined with newer approaches, such as clickbaiting and newsjacking. Narratives are content that provides material for stories with the potential to go viral. Tools are all kinds of resources, such as those for networking (Facebook, etc.), publishing (blogs, microblogs, aggregators), data collection (analytics), or content creation (photo, video, and GIF apps). Unfortunately, risks are also part of the business. Anyone responsible for advertising investments in social and digital media must also familiarize themselves with these risks. A current example: bot fraud is a fraudulent computer program that automatically generates millions of fake clicks. Adweek reported that fake clicks amounted to $6.3 billion in 2015. Eleven percent of these were display clicks, and as many as 23 percent were video clicks. The equivalent on Facebook is fake «likes.» “10 vor 10” reported on this. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has launched a task force to combat this. The situation appears serious. There is a huge need to catch up on knowledge about the new media landscape. As an immediate measure, I recommend that all advertisers subscribe to the ADWEEK Technology Today newsletter.

A more comprehensive list of sources is available in the blog post. You don't have to be on par with your top specialists. But you do need to be willing to open the budget tap for the right reasons.

FOCUSED – Organize the wide range of options into a matrix based on objectives and focus on marketing. Perhaps the shift toward marketing has fallen somewhat behind in the battle for cubes and lions. Advertising is marketing communication. We’re talking about real-time engagement marketing as an alternative to classic transactional marketing. At its core, two completely different philosophies collide. The major difference is revealed in the entirely new roles of marketing managers and creative agencies. In the old model, the tasks of both parties are limited to marketing and promoting finished products, respectively, with mass messages via interruptive advertising. In the new model of engagement marketing, marketing managers and advertisers are already on board as soon as new and improved products and services are being considered. This is because the most forward-thinking among them are already taking the pulse of product experiences today by actively initiating real-time dialogs with users via monitoring and management tools on Facebook, Twitter, newsletters, or in-app chats to actively initiate real-time dialogs with users, thereby incorporating valuable insights and sentiment into the development and design processes without delay. General Motors provides a current example. Users of the new Chevrolet Trax are encouraged to share their experiences and impressions via Facebook and Twitter using the Trax’s built-in Wi-Fi. What’s innovative about this approach is that the feedback is sent directly in real time via an Oracle data dashboard to the development department, where improvement measures are initiated immediately. Seth Godin, a globally recognized marketing expert on engagement marketing, says: «If you are serious about engaging the customer, you realize that the most valuable moments you have are when the customer is using your product, on the phone with you, actually engaged with you.» The challenge lies in giving those particularly positive reviews an extra boost by tracking them down in real time, acknowledging them, and sharing them further. After all, nothing yields better results than so-called peer-to-peer conversations, in which users share positive product experiences with one another. This isn’t exactly a new insight. But now, for the first time, we have the opportunity to put it into practice as part of real-time marketing communication campaigns!

WELL-PLANNED AND ORGANIZED – Define clearly budgetable areas of focus, and above all: get started! Facebook for the masses and Twitter for influencers—in my opinion, these are the most important drivers when it comes to expanding and deepening your network. Native mobile apps with chat features, product finders, and store locators are just as much a part of a modern marketing communications program as web-based multimedia long-form stories. New forms of communication require new forms of organization. Conversations take place simultaneously in multiple locations with different groups of people. This presents a logistical challenge: How does the right content reach the right people at the right time, and what needs to be done to ensure that the content spreads further? Outgoing NZZ Editor-in-Chief Markus Spillmann sums up the change: «When you talk about an editorial meeting, you’re still thinking entirely in terms of the old world. Today, there isn’t just a single meeting anymore, but many, spread out over the course of the day, because we also have to manage various channels and offerings.» Replace «editorial meeting» with «briefing,» and the statement applies directly to the future work of creative agencies.

Beat Hürlimann

Responses and opinions on the post can be found at www.huerlimanncc.com
Welcome! Otherwise, see you in January, when we’ll be back on social media.
 

On October 28, Taco Bell set its social media accounts to "black and zero". White in black, they announced: "Taco Bell #OnlyIntheApp". News of the social media blackout spread quickly and it soon became clear that the digital media innovator with the bell in its logo had heralded a new trend with its #OnlyInTheApp call: brands should increasingly lure users back into their own territory. In technical jargon, this is known as owned media. Incidentally, the social blackout did not last long. But the message got through and the launch of the "Taco Bell Ordering App" with a top-notch user experience offers us a lesson in the latest trends.

Motivations and insights

Taco Bell is now the fast food favorite of millennials in the USA - the generation of 18 to 35-year-olds. This is no coincidence, but the result of a clear strategy. As early as 2012, 20 percent of the 280 million dollar advertising budget was invested in digital media. "You have to go to these other screens," Taco Bell President Brian Niccol told AdvertisingAge in 2012. Thanks to this early advertising move to smartphone screens, the company is now a long way ahead of the competition in terms of experience and creation in mobile digital marketing. Two examples: Inspired by a user Instagram post, Taco Bell created Instagram-ready packaging with the slogan "Right now I am eating a Waffle Taco and you are not." Taco Bell was also one of the first brands to use Snapchat as part of a marketing campaign. In tweets and Facebook posts, followers and friends were asked for Snapchat adds as follows: "We are on @Snapchat. Username: tacobell. Add us. We are sending all of our friends a secret announcement tomorrow!

#Shhh". Brilliant! But there are other reasons than millennials and the mobile boom to bring self-hosted digital platforms back into play. Jordan Kretchmer, CEO of Livefyre, writes with reference to the Taco Bell campaign: "The era of free social marketing is over." Kretchmer's statement is based on the realization that the now publicly listed network operators Twitter and Facebook have begun to monetize their services with advertising offers. This affects companies that operate pages and profiles. This is because it is now virtually impossible for them to expand their networks or supply the existing network with content without spending money. In concrete terms: if a company posts or tweets a post on its Facebook or Twitter page, it will only be displayed to its own fans and followers in the newsfeed if these posts are purchased as "sponsored content".

A second reason is the massive oversupply of content. Today, there are seven times more users on social media networks than there were just five years ago. Moreover, the number of posted content is breaking records every month. The sobering conclusion for the operators of social media profiles is that supply is outstripping demand, with negative consequences for price development and impact quality. A third reason is the big data problem. According to a recent study from the USA - also reported on by the Tages-Anzeiger - 91% are of the opinion that consumers have lost control over the amount of information they give out. 64 percent are now of the opinion that the use of data for advertising purposes should be more strictly regulated. And 60 percent doubt the benefits of information disclosure. In such a climate, confidence-building measures and added value in return are indispensable. After all, 55% are willing to disclose data or share content under the right conditions.

The new Taco Bell app

For Jeff Jenkins, the ordering app is the greatest invention since the introduction of the "drive through". Back then, customers could buy menus and take them with them without having to leave their car. Today, customers can put together, pay for and order menus to their own taste in advance via the app. When they arrive, the tacos, burritos or combos filled with the best ingredients are ready for instant pick-up. Tressie Liebermann, Senior Director, Digital Marketing & Platforms: "We want to give them the opportunity to customize and personalize the way they never could before." Jeff Jenkins, Director Digital Experience and New Concepts: "One of the key benefits of the app is the ability to skip the line in a restaurant. So you can place your order at your own terms." The most valuable indicator in app development was and is customer behavior. 70 percent of all purchases are made via "drive through" and 30 percent via "dine in". Of the dine-ins, 50 percent are takeaways. In other words, very few portions are consumed on site in the restaurant. This is where an ordering app offers the perfect added value. The centerpiece and current favorite of consumers is the "Rotator Reorder" function. When the smartphone is rotated by 90°, the user's own favorite menus appear and can be ordered immediately. We humans are creatures of habit and gamers. This feature serves both. The current functions are the beginning of a series of further functions, always with the aim of making the user experience simpler and richer. The most valuable indicator here is customer feedback. But according to Lieberman, trends from other markets also provide inspiration for innovations.

The creators of the "SagesderSchweiz" campaign launched at the beginning of October for the Swiss Media Association must have thought the same thing. They went into the fast lane and created a campaign with a modern twist. 480 advertisements in two months. It is set to be one of the biggest print campaigns in Switzerland. Is this campaign on track? It's too early to predict. The goals are ambitious: Print is to be brought into the conversation as an emotional, highly regarded online composite medium in order to halt the decline of print.

The campaign is powerful and progressive. 480 print advertisements in eight weeks - you're in the realm of advertising giants. Leading advertising and social media professionals were also brought on board. With ContentFry, an extremely sophisticated tool also performs the aggregation work. And the idea? Wringing opinions from people in public is en vogue, and the hashtag as a symbol provides the right impetus for cross-screen media consumption.

But there are also points of criticism. Allow me to make a comparison: hashtags, microsites and aggregators without campaign editors behave like a carriage without a horse. The traction of this type of campaign depends on how everyone involved gets involved once the campaign has started. 13 followers with 0 following and 7 tweets as of 20.10.14. Not enough traction. During the World Cup in Brazil, I took a close look at the advertising strategies of participating brands and gained three insights into how to bring traction to modern, cross-media campaigning.

The first insight - boosting your own presence

If you want to motivate people to take action, you should set a good example. In Persönlich you can read that Mr. Wanner, member of the executive committee of the Swiss Media Association, will not be posting a statement. Pete Cashmore is the founder and CEO of Mashable, an extremely successful news portal. Mashable is gaining ground worldwide, particularly in the Connected Generation segment, which is of interest to advertisers. One reason for its success is the presence of Pete Cashmore as a person and the presence of Mashable as a brand on all social media channels. To date, I know of no truly successful example where a hashtag has been at the center without also having a strong presence of its own, at least on Twitter or Instagram. A social home base like this is essential. The majority of the World Cup brands analyzed pursued a three-pronged strategy. Catchy hashtags, strong social media profiles and lively social media hubs were used. The hubs included web-based microsites for desktop users and mobile apps for smartphone/tablet users. I think we need both today. Ultimately, however, this decision depends on the context in which the exchange should take place: Is it on the move, stationary, private, professional, etc.? It is often a mix. At #SagesderSchweiz, "only" the strong integration of its own social media profiles is actually missing. But it is relevant to success. Twitter in particular can be used to give such campaigns additional momentum via influencers - I'm thinking of all the permanent and freelance journalists in the press who are very active on Twitter by profession. However, such activation only makes sense from your own profiles. There is also another argument. In the run-up to the World Cup, Adidas opened its own product profile @Brazuca on Twitter for the Brazuca match ball. During the World Cup alone, the number of followers more than tripled. Adidas can now use these followers for future campaigns. Adidas is pursuing the same product profile strategy for its Töggeli shoe models. It is a form of advertising sustainability.

Second insight - working with triggers

This is where we open the advertising propaganda box. With technological development and the growing diversity of media, the arsenal of available effect drivers (Neudeutch: triggers) has also grown steadily. One of these is the cooperation approach used in our present campaign. Print readers become online users by contributing something. The reward is a few square centimeters of presence on newsprint that is seen thousands of times. A second trigger is the event approach. We inject campaigns with topicality. We differentiate between events that can be planned and events that occur spontaneously. Halloween and Santa Claus Day can be planned. Why not a #daysofSwitzerland series as - for example - Samichlausversli? There is even an official name for the impact technique with spontaneous events: newsjacking. This involves specifically looking out for stories that are making waves on Twitter, Facebook or elsewhere on the web and that fit into your own context. Newsjacking requires two things, and both are generally essential for digestible social media advertising: open eyes and hearts for the true interests, needs and sensitivities of your own stakeholders as well as quick-wittedness with a little pinch of mischief. Adidas started the World Cup with over 1000 ready-made contents. They were prepared for many things. However, spontaneous events performed best. For example, the hammer goal by Colombian top scorer and Adidas shoe wearer James Rodriguez.

Adolf Ogi's legendary New Year's speech on January 1, 2000 on Swiss television live from Kandersteg was the subject of much discussion. Who remembers? Today, 14 years later, TV appeals by Federal Councillors no longer make waves. What happened? While the Federal Council has stuck with SRG broadcasters as the primary mouthpiece for video messages, media consumers have turned to other sources. Wouldn't it be time to use the Federal Council's messages for new distribution channels? This is a question that we should all be addressing this fall at budget time. It's not as if nothing has happened in media land since last fall ...

Federal Councillor Leuthard's appeal against the single health insurance fund was viewed 311 times on the SRF web portal, shared twice on Facebook and once on Google+. The article was not shared on social media. No wonder: you won't find the video on the SRF News Facebook page, and it seems that the Federal Council doesn't even have a Facebook page. This is extremely surprising when you consider that over three million of his "flock" use the Facebook channel at least once a month.

The way Mrs. Federal Councillor's video contribution ended up in the quasi-anonymity of the SRF web player is exemplary. In my opinion, both the Federal Council and SRF lack a social media strategy!

There is currently hardly any mention of social media in the SRG guidelines on public service. It states: "Numerous broadcasts can be viewed as delayed streams via the websites of the individual SRG television channels." There is no question that every resident of the country theoretically has the opportunity to access the messages of the Federal Councillors. SRG also takes the technical aspect of its distribution mandate seriously by having, as it writes, "a complex infrastructure". However, the number of just over 300 views after seven days in the above example shows that the strategy of having its own complex infrastructure is increasingly reaching its limits in practice with regard to the public service mandate. An infrastructure that SRG also uses via Publisuisse to sell advertising space for companies. The problem of making it increasingly difficult to reach broad sections of the population - foreign-language immigrants are also part of the "public" - cannot be solved by focusing on its own infrastructure.

The New York Times Innovation Report gets to the heart of the problem with a phenomenon. More and more visits to media news sites are coming from social media streams, search engines or newsletters. The result: homepage visits are declining, while site views remain constant. The classic homepage, especially the navigation, is losing importance. Instead, the social teasing of individual posts is gaining in importance. This refers to posts from news pages, websites or blogs that are posted or tweeted via backlinks in your own social media feed. Responsible for this development are two trends that have been running in parallel for some time and have now suddenly coincided: the social media and mobile boom. All major social media networks are now recording more hits via smartphones and tablets than via desktop devices. As of December 2013, the figure for Facebook in the USA was 68%. On Facebook alone, the number of monthly active users via mobile services has increased from 751 million to over 1 billion. There is no doubt that mobile use is also intensifying the use of social media networks - especially the undisputed king Facebook. This is because use is possible at any time via smartphone app.

TO BEGIN: On August 1st at 12:58 am Pete Frates wrote on Facebook: "So I am nominating myself for the #icebucketchallenge cut I can... ice water and ALS are a bad mix, so I got my friend Rob Van Winkle to help me out (the names of 9 users follow) you have 24 hours to dump a bucket of ice over your heads!!! #StrikeOutALS #Quinnforthewin."

TO THE ISSUE: ALS is an insidious disease that irreversibly damages the motor nervous system of those affected and leads to death. The feeling of paralysis in patients is similar to the feeling of having ice water poured over your head. Hence the challenge from the US ALS Association: you have the choice of either pouring ice water over your head and posting the picture on the web or donating 100 dollars to the ALS Foundation. You can then name three people who can take part within 24 hours.

TO SUCCESS: According to CommunityNZZ in Storify, the challenge has brought the foundation 739,275 new donors and $41.8 million in donations since it began, compared to $2.1 million in the same period in 2013."

THE RECIPE FOR SUCCESS: The idea of the ice bucket has obviously given this fundraising campaign magical powers. You need to know that there are thousands of such fundraising campaigns worldwide every year. We go in search of the magic potion recipe and find ingredients. I would like to explain five of them.

1. CONTENT. This is a topic that affects everyone. ALS is an insidious disease for which there is still no cure. It is an appeal for donations, and the funds go entirely to research. Not every company can come up with a setting like this. But it's about the question of meaning. There is simply far too much advertising junk in the social media feeds. The ideas lack insight. Posts that combine seriousness and humor are successful and tolerable. By seriousness, we mean a benefit that offers the prospect of real added value. In this case, this is the appeal for donations, combined with raising awareness of the disease. The campaign itself provides amusement, in a wonderful way, by pouring ice water over itself - which brings us to the second success factor.