The new name alone was a signal. The traditional annual meeting of the Swiss Advertisers' Association became the SWA Summit. That sounds bigger, more focused, perhaps also a little more ambitious. And indeed, the event at Zurich's StageOne seemed like an industry get-together with a higher flight altitude. Clients, agencies, media companies, marketers and creatives came together not just to mark their presence, but to address an overarching question: What actually counts when reach, clicks and performance alone are no longer enough?

Effect before volume

SWA President Jan de Schepper kicked things off for the first time. And the new president used his first Summit stage to clearly define the framework. The classic ROI, he argued, is often interpreted too narrowly in marketing - as a measure of efficiency, as a cost figure, as an answer to clicks, views and "cost for something". But that's where the problem begins. "With the new ROI - return on impact - effectiveness comes before efficiency," said de Schepper, thus providing the guiding principle of the afternoon.

He described a paradox that is probably familiar to many marketing departments: The dashboard says success, but little moves in people's minds and hearts. Campaigns perform on paper, but they don't move people. Strong media player performance does not mean a strong impact. De Schepper therefore pleaded for a return to what really counts: Attention, brand vitality, trust, affinity and ultimately business success. In other words, impact before volume, and away from vanity metrics that may look good but don't carry enough strategic weight.

The fact that he did not just deal with the topic in abstract terms made his presentation particularly interesting. De Schepper also spoke about the practice at Swissquote and Yuh, where he is responsible for marketing. He said that measurement there was not just at one level, but also via account openings, NPS, customer feedback, marketing mix modeling, brand tracking and other studies. At the same time, brand management is always a balance: continuity in the promise, but also constant renewal in order to attract attention and stay fresh.

AI as an opportunity - and a risk

Of course, de Schepper also focused on artificial intelligence. He sees AI as a great opportunity for better customer experiences, more personalization and greater speed. But his speech was no naive tech hymn. He warned against relinquishing control over data, strategy and positioning. AI can scale, optimize and personalize - but it cannot automatically ensure that content touches.

This is precisely where the danger of a new arbitrariness lies. De Schepper picked up on a term that is already circulating in the USA: "AI slop". In other words, the flood of average, generic AI advertising that does one thing above all else - devour more and more media budgets and ultimately make Big Tech richer. Impact is not created through AI slop, but through meaning, consumer insights, courage and cultural relevance. According to de Schepper, good advertising is the opposite of average.

It was also remarkable how clearly he incorporated the advertising environment into his considerations. Referring to studies on credibility and advertising impact, he argued that traditional media still had significant advantages over social media in terms of trust, conscious perception, brand recall and brand safety. This was his first counterpoint to a marketing reality that all too often follows platform logic.

An association on the rise - and a transition with an announcement

Before the start of the actual program, de Schepper also looked at the association itself. The SWA now has 218 member companies, a record number. New members such as Hotz, ACS Zurich, Galenica, Mikasa, MediaMarkt, Swisscaution and OBI show that the association is continuing to gain weight in the market. The afternoon also saw important personnel changes.

Yvonne Baumgartner was introduced as the future Director of the SWA. She will start as Co-Director on September 1 and take over as Managing Director on January 1, 2027. Roland Ehrler, who has shaped the association for many years, will remain on board until the end of 2026 to oversee the transition. The fact that Ehrler later visibly enjoyed the DeLorean and Dennis Lück's appearance was fitting: a last big summit under his aegis that could certainly afford something.

Anna Kohler takes the helm

Anna Kohler, editor-in-chief of m&k, then took over the moderation. She led through the afternoon with pace, tempo and a good mix of quick-wittedness and clarity. Even in her brief follow-up discussion with Jan de Schepper, it became clear that the summit did not want to stop at big buzzwords. It was about concrete metrics, brand management, attention in a competitive environment and the question of how impact actually becomes tangible in the everyday lives of marketing managers.

Kohler kept the program together without taking center stage. This was particularly good for the event. The afternoon had rhythm without seeming rushed and a lightness that did not detract from the weight of the content.

Visible is not seen

Then Mike Follett took to the stage. The CEO and founder of Lumen Research from London opened the keynote block with a thesis that was probably unpleasant for some in the room, but all the more relevant: visible is far from seen. With the help of eye-tracking data, Follett showed that although most advertising is technically considered visible, in reality it is not perceived at all or only fleetingly.

The figure that stuck was sobering: only around 30 percent of advertising is actually seen - and for an average of just 1.6 seconds. A proportion is lost because nobody looks. Another large proportion is because advertising is actively ignored, for example when scrolling through social media. Digital low-attention channels in particular came under pressure in his argument.

Follett's central message was as simple as it was momentous: attention is not simply a by-product of reach, but a hard currency. If you only look at cheap contacts, you can be massively mistaken. After all, the "true cost of attention" is not where playout is cheap, but where actual perception occurs. The fact that traditional media perform better in this logic than many digital environments fitted in well with the thematic line of the afternoon. As did his conclusion that creative advertising generates more attention across all channels. Follett's presentation also ultimately amounted to a plea to think about creation and media planning more closely together again.

No return without impact

The second speaker was Professor Dr. Sven Reinecke from the University of St. Gallen - an old acquaintance on many marketing stages and a reliable voice for decades when it comes to thinking together impact, strategy and controlling. Reinecke began with a question that is particularly uncomfortable in economically strained times: "What's the point?" For marketers, this is often the most hated question, he said. And yet it is precisely the question they have to ask themselves.

Reinecke quickly made it clear that pure efficiency logic falls short. Anyone who only wants to manage marketing using ROI headcounts is walking into a trap. After all, if marketing investments tend towards zero, every efficiency figure will eventually look dazzling - just without any effect. Therefore, impact must first be generated before we can talk about efficiency in a meaningful way. Or to put it another way: without impact, there is no return on investment.

His presentation was particularly strong where he unfolded the complexity of the causality problem without becoming academically dry. Impact can mean different things: Attention, attitude change, behavior change, recommendation or sales. It is crucial that the goal is clearly defined first. Only then can it be measured in a meaningful way. Anyone who equates advertising success directly with sales is ignoring reality. Too many external factors play a role: weather, distribution, discounts, competition, carry-over effects or spill-over effects between products.

Quality beats belief in key figures

Reinecke therefore advocated a calibrated multi-method approach: surveys, experiments, attribution models and marketing mix modeling - but not all at the same time indiscriminately, please. If you want to measure everything at the same time, you risk "paralysis by analysis". A step-by-step approach is better, depending on the objective and question.

His presentation on the subject of quality was particularly interesting. According to Reinecke, advertising quality is a product of strategy, creativity and craftsmanship. In other words, not just a pretty surface, but the precise interplay of positioning, insight, originality and clean execution. AI can help here - especially in the craft and in parts of the research. But original creativity and, above all, the relationship aspect of communication will remain human for the time being.

Reinecke thus set a second strong accent in the afternoon's AI discourse. He quoted Paul Watzlawick: "Communication has a content aspect and a relationship aspect, and the latter determines the former. It is precisely at this relationship level that purely AI-generated communication reaches its limits in his view. This was not a retreat into analog, but a sober indication of where technology is already strong today - and where it is not yet.

When Doc Brown shook up the industry

And then came Dennis Lück. Or more precisely: Doc Brown. What already sounded like a show in the media release apparently unfolded on site with a mixture of spectacle and precision that only a few can master. After a cinematic intro, the DeLorean raced across the screen, fog rolled in, the stage door opened - and Lück took to the stage as a time traveler. It was great cinema and, of course, deliberately exaggerated. But it wasn't just a gag. It was performative proof that impact begins where someone dares to leave the norm.

Lück's keynote speech "Back to the Impact" spanned pop culture, advertising theory and creative practice. His initial observation: the big marketing questions change much less than we think. For decades, everything has ultimately revolved around the same question: how can we reach our customers better? What changes are the tools, the media, the distractions, the temptations.

Perhaps the most succinct definition of the afternoon was provided by Lück himself: "Impact is when attention and relevance kiss." This sentence contained almost the entire program of the summit. Attention alone is not enough. Neither is relevance alone. Only when the two come together is real impact created.

Depth of range instead of just reach

Lück spoke as a creative who does not reject measurement, but shifts the focus. "We measure everything except impact," he said. He is not only interested in how an idea performs afterwards, but also whether it has what it takes to trigger something in advance. To this end, he presented his striking measurement model, a matrix with which ideas can be tested for their reaction and impact potential. Not scientifically sophisticated, but deliberately simple and therefore effective.

Time and again, he reduced his thoughts to catchy phrases. "AI is the brush, but not the painter" was one of them. Lück showed how he uses AI in creative processes - as a sparring partner, as a provider of perspectives, as a tool for recombination. But not as a substitute for originality. Creative techniques, counter-trend logic, changes of perspective and cultural observation remain the real fuel for him.

His keynote was at its strongest when it took a stand against the shallowness of purely number-driven marketing. "Impact shits on reach. But loves depth," said Lück. This was not a rejection of reach, but of its exaggeration. In his view, millions of views with hardly any response are of little value. What is more important is the intensity of the contact, the depth of the reaction, the cultural charge. This coincided surprisingly well with Reinecke's idea of contact quality - only Lück made it sound much less professorial.

A plea against fortune cookie communication

His appeal to save the industry from "happiness cookies" was also typical of Lück. This refers to messages that feel like great truths but ultimately just sound empty. Communication sentences that are quickly formulated and immediately forgotten. For him, this is precisely one of the core problems of modern brand communication: too much mediocrity, too little courage, too little precision in thinking and writing.

His final chord was "Not Normal". Impact loves the non-normal, said Lück. If you want impact, you have to look for ways that don't simply follow the expected. That was half creative technique, half attitude. And probably also the reason why his keynote speech did not get bogged down in staging despite a lot of show. It wanted to remind the industry that originality is not just decoration, but often a prerequisite for impact.

Jan Kempter gets to the heart of the matter

After this high-energy performance, Anna Kohler created a deliberate contrast with the sofa talk. She welcomed Jan Kempter, who had been named Advertiser of the Year 2026 just two days earlier. The Creative Director of the Wirz Group, responsible for formative campaigns for Switzerland Tourism and Migros, among others, embodied the calm, focused perspective on creativity rather than the big show moment.

Kempter put the issue in a nutshell: relevance is crucial. If you stand out, you are already doing something right. But even more important is the question of whether a message means anything to people at all. This was an almost seamless continuation of the afternoon's debates. He also remained calm on the subject of AI. Yes, artificial intelligence will change jobs and processes. But in the end, people with common sense and cultural understanding are always needed.

The value of coming together

Then the first part was over and the 400 or so guests moved on to the stand-up dinner. This is perhaps where the real value of such an afternoon was revealed. The SWA Summit was not just a stage program, but a consolidation space. Clients, agencies, media representatives and marketers came together not only to listen, but also to think ahead. The exchange in the room is part of the impact of such a format.

Especially in an industry that is becoming increasingly differentiated, divided into data logics, platform mechanics, creative disciplines and technology issues, such moments are gaining in importance. They create an overview, friction and topics for discussion. They bring together different perspectives without forcing everything down to a common denominator. The fact that m&k later mingled with the guests with a video camera and wanted to know what time they would set the DeLorean DMC-12 for a trip was therefore a perfect fit. It took the motif of the afternoon and playfully extended it into the room.

A Summit that deserves its name

The first SWA Summit was therefore more than just a renamed annual meeting. It was an industry gathering that took its central theme seriously. Jan de Schepper sharpened the strategic framework, Mike Follett delivered uncomfortable attention theses, Sven Reinecke categorized the topic of impact scientifically and practically, Dennis Lück transformed it into creative fireworks, and Jan Kempter brought it back to a human scale at the end.

In between, there was also an association that is reorganizing its personnel. Yvonne Baumgartner was introduced as the future director, while Roland Ehrler is visibly entering the transition phase with pride and composure. The fact that he enjoyed the DeLorean was almost symbolic. The SWA is moving into the future without denying its own history.

And perhaps this was precisely the best point of the afternoon: in an industry that is constantly looking ahead, a cinematic car from the 1980s can suddenly become the perfect symbol. Not because you want to go back. But because it reminds us that the future doesn't just happen. You have to shape it. With relevance. With impact. And sometimes with a pinch of Hollywood.