A CMO on a creative mission

"The shoot was fun," says Martin Walthert, laughing. "Very funny story, cool team, I'm happy." It's summer. The marketing director of Digitec Galaxus has just returned from an advertising shoot on a beach in Denmark. The conversation about his nomination for "Advertiser of the Year" 2020 is taking place in a meeting room at the Digitec Galaxus headquarters on Zurich's Pfingstweidstrasse. Many desks in the open-plan office are empty. Because of Corona, most of Walthert's 70-strong marketing team work from their home offices.

Advertising as a necessary growth driver

Fifteen years after Beat Mühlemann of Migros, Martin Walthert is once again being named "Advertiser of the Year. So it's not a premiere - and the Zurich native doesn't feel exotic either: "We have a large creative team and ultimately invest in the industry. That's why I think it fits." After all, he says, it's not about operational details, but about the weight you give advertising and the way you do it. "I think that as the communications manager of a successful, fast-growing company with two well-known and popular brands, I can credibly argue that creative, carefully crafted campaigns are not just a nice luxury, but a key long-term growth driver."

That's true even now, in times of pandemic. "We got a big growth spurt from Corona," Walthert says. "We hired new employees and were already structurally 'lucky,' if you can even call it that." In true Digitec-Galaxus fashion, the 43-year-old and his team spontaneously decided to adapt the text of two campaigns to Corona's daily routine. He also appeared himself in a thank-you spot with a wink. Digitec Galaxus has made a name for itself throughout Switzerland with just such campaigns: with advertising that is humorous and different. So successful, in fact, that the Migros subsidiary regularly tops rankings in terms of image and awareness.

In the Corona Spring 2020, many advertisers relied on thank-you messages. "The idea was to implement something suitable for Galaxus, with self-irony, but - particularly important here, of course - without making fun of the situation or others. So we spontaneously came up with this idea," says Walthert, who took on the lead role in the commercial himself.

Bold and direct

Walthert has always helped shape Digitec Galaxus' creative campaigns. He describes his collaboration with in-house Creative Director Flurin Spring and the production company Plan B as follows: "We sometimes adapt the scripts on set and fine-tune the dialog. What's special is that the marketing director deliberately dispenses with the expertise of agencies and instead has campaigns created in-house. In an earlier conversation with Werbewoche, Walthert already revealed the recipe for success of Digitec-Galaxus campaigns. "The most important point is that we have short decision-making paths. We don't have to run the campaigns through several instances; instead, we try them out directly and learn from them." In addition, there is a great deal of trust on the part of management. In his opinion, communicative measures of other companies are often seen as having too many people involved in the decision-making process. "We are not more creative per se than others, at most more courageous and direct."

Transparent handling of criticism

One example of this bold advertising is Digitec's product review campaign, in which the retailer also displays actual bad reviews in large print on posters. In the beginning, the marketing team had to convince the manufacturers of the products. "In the meantime, however, the manufacturers have understood that the campaign will not hurt them," says Walthert. "It's not about the products, but about the stars, the slogan, the joke behind it." He says the campaign is meant to portray that Digitec is a credible platform, which also benefits its partners. That's why comments that criticize Digitec itself also find their way onto the subjects. According to Walthert, this is proof of the company's transparent approach to criticism. "Mistakes happen everywhere and are also quickly publicized via social media today," says the Zurich native. "That's why it's much more relevant to allow criticism and deal with it constructively instead of trying to silence it."

Measuring communication goals correctly

So it's hardly surprising what Martin Walthert would like to advocate as "Advertiser of the Year" 2020: "I advocate more creative courage and the confident use of 'classic' campaigns, especially on the part of advertising companies." There are a lot of good ideas out there, he says, but often you can see from the results that too much has been wanted with perhaps too many stakeholders, instead of focusing on one essential goal and pursuing it consistently. "Related to this, it also seems important to me to measure the achievement of the communicative goal with the appropriate methods, which in my experience is often somewhat mixed up and leads to false conclusions," says Walthert. "For example, a campaign designed to solidify emotional brand loyalty doesn't need to show an immediate website traffic increase or even a sales increase." Only this paves the way for a clear message, the conscious use of means and the choice of the right channels, he adds.

Go with the change

Martin Walthert reflects a lot and doesn't rest on the old familiar. He has fewer big creative ideas, but rather offers his team support with his sense of what advertising might work, says the father of two. "We rely on humor, but we have to be careful not to offend anyone." Since he started at the company 14 years ago, directly after studying journalism, both the company and the demands on marketing have changed steadily, the 43-year-old says. In the beginning, he wrote newsletters himself, created product advertisements and printed flyers. Today, he manages six teams. "Constantly adapting to new situations has shaped me," Walthert says. "Just because we did something that way last year doesn't mean it has to be that way this year." Most recently, Walthert restructured the content area. "We want to play the right channels with the right content. We can do a lot better in this area than before," he says, explaining the decision.

The marketing manager is a member of the Digitec-Galaxus management team and is committed to ensuring that the digital company also invests in classic advertising. "In marketing, there is a tendency to make everything automated, everything online, everything performance-oriented, because it promises a tempting but also supposed measurement accuracy," Walthert says. "We are a counterexample. We also rely on performance-based advertising, of course, but at the same time we invest a lot in branding, image campaigns and emotional branding. And that works extremely well."

Everything for the cat

The continuation of the "We have the products, you have the life" campaign, which Galaxus launched in September 2019, once again took aim at familiar advertising clichés - in this case, cat food advertising.

Galaxus Christmas Campaign 2019

An idea that has been circulating internally for quite some time, to show the "reality" behind the usual cliché-all-together-Christmas-songs in the proven Galaxus manner.

Advanced product review campaign

During the Corona pandemic, many Digitec posters that had already been printed had to be put into storage in the meantime. The marketing team used the time to create additional subjects and expanded the product review posters to include questions, comments and discussions. In French-speaking Switzerland, a customer even made it onto the poster: she had commented that she would also like to be seen on one of the posters. Digitec Galaxus granted her wish.

Each subject is unique

In August 2020, Galaxus launched a poster campaign in which each subject was a computer-generated one-off. The regional shopping behavior of the customer was shown on 11,214 posters, hanging boxes, eBoards, ePanels and advertisements. There were a few stumbling blocks: For the inhabitants of different communities, a simple "-er" ending was not enough, as for example with the Klostermer*innen and the Ustermer*innen.