"Basically, we are commissioned painters"

Advertisingweek.ch: Alex Schill, in 2020 Serviceplan Suisse hosted the "ÜberCreative Summit" for the first time, an event you launched a few years ago. You and dozens of colleagues traveled to Zurich for it. Tell us what the Summit is all about? 

Alex Schill: We've been doing this for four years, twice a year, at different locations. Sometimes further away, sometimes a little closer. The Summit is an enormously important event for us, where the creative heads of the Serviceplan agency group come together worldwide, spend time together and discuss ideas. That's about twenty or thirty people who can work at a very high level.

How must one imagine the gathering of so many top creatives in one place? 

Shill: At least half a day we all work on a principle we call "wigwam": Small groups, high speed and positive discussions of the outcome. Ideas must not be killed, that is forbidden. By the way, there is an old saying about this: "The ancient Persians used to deliberate drunk and decide sober." In the "wigwam" we try - metaphorically (laughs) - to be drunk and allow all ideas. As a result, we gather a lot of thoughts very quickly, which we let run free for the time being. We check them later.

Raul Serrat: But as the host, I want to say: There's culture and a bit of a party, too (laughs).

Hand on heart: With so many top creatives, aren't there vanities among each other? Situations where you have to manage pedagogically? 

Shill: That's where something comes into play that we are very proud of: The members of the Serviceplan Group are not organized in competition - but in partnership. There are other agency groups that let their different country agencies pitch against each other. We don't do that. I am convinced that you don't have to make others look bad in order to make yourself look better. We live a deeply partnership-based system that delivers the very best results for clients in the end. When a colleague calls from Moscow and says "I have a problem," it's not like you say "I have problems myself" and lock the door. Rather, it's taking two hours and saying "Send this over and I'll take a look at it."

Serrat: The Summits are an example of cohesion, really. But this cohesion also exists in everyday life in the agency group. I remember when I was a new member - the first time in Hamburg, the first meeting there in the German branch - with Alex and the creatives there: They had already won a lot more in part, collected more golden lions, but you immediately met on eye level. No one argued from above.

What does Serviceplan Suisse hope to achieve as host of the "ÜberCreative Summit"? 

Serrat: We want to present ourselves as a location - "little Switzerland", the "Gallic village". I think we're doing a pretty decent job and it's nice that we're getting a stage.

"Creative" wasn't enough of a title for your summit? It had to be "ÜberCreative"? 

Serrat: The term really also expresses our daily work at the House of Communication in Zurich. New thoughts are shared not only within the team, but also with the ladies at reception, for example. "ÜberCreativity" means in concrete terms that creativity cannot be confined, is not restricted, but rather everyone should internalize and live it. I believe that you only get really good results by working together with different disciplines, cultures and people ... you can't stay in the advertisers' guild.

Shill: That's why there's never this statement at Serviceplan: "Here now sit the creative people and there the consultants or strategists. I resist such extra departments for the creation of ideas. The whole company, the whole agency group, needs creativity!

Then let's make it concrete now - with a question that is as simple as it is complex: What does creativity mean to you personally? 

Shill: You get asked that more often, or what I also often hear: "How do you come up with your ideas?" My answer is always a bit of a truism, but it's true for me: Creativity has to do with curiosity or with being a child; it's an openness to being able to get enthusiastic about something in the first place, to be fascinated at all, to approach things positively at first. For me, that's where a lot of creativity comes from.

And I see that very many people wall themselves off in their habitus, in their everyday life, and as a result a great deal of creativity is lost because they no longer want to be inspired. When I see these armchairs (points to the armchairs next to him) - what do they remind me of? Where have I seen something like that before? Where do I know the color from? Who has sat on them before? That's completely away from advertising now, but advertising is only part of creativity for me. We don't do free art. We are far away from that. Basically, we are commissioned painters (laughs out loud).

Serrat: I would agree with that. I always say: There is art and there is commerce. There's a clear difference - we're in the commercial realm of creativity, which means that you have to guide free creativity with guardrails, with clear goals. Sometimes that even makes it easier, because you don't look too much to the left and right, but know roughly where you want to go. But I think the example with the children for completely free creativity is great: If you have to deal with children yourself, then you see how that can also get lost. This ability to create a whole world with a piece of wood ... and then at some point the children get older and this ability decreases.

How do you reconcile "free creativity" and "commercial creativity"? 

Shill: One must claim for oneself to lead a life in which free creativity is possible. By being guided by childlike questions, "Why not? Why shouldn't I actually do this now?" May not always make sense then, but you do things simply because they seem exciting. And because you create memories that you can draw on later. When you have a certain goal in mind and are looking for a solution.

Serrat: A lot of space is also needed - to try things, to throw things away, to make things anew.

Serviceplan's preamble refers to the regional characteristics of the respective group members: It is quite important that local stakeholders retain the respective coloration of their country, their culture, despite belonging to the Serviceplan network. Creatives from all countries are now gathered at the "ÜberCreative Summit": Do you notice regional differences in the understanding of creativity? 

Shill: Just as I tried to say that creativity - if it is completely free - tends to follow universal criteria, I would also say that regions and countries grasp different definitions for the "playing field". The jokes that work in Germany don't necessarily work in China. That doesn't mean that the joke isn't funny in principle, but the environment of evaluation is just massively different.

When you talk to colleagues from all over the world, can you feel the pulse of the international advertising industry? Where is it going better - and where worse? 

Serrat: I find it very exciting that you don't just talk about differences, but discover surprising similarities! For example, Belgians come to you, seek out conversation and you realize that their circumstances are similar to those in Switzerland. Similar country size, population structure - and then you talk about what's on your mind.

Shill: What you can see well is how the advertising industry is developing in the respective countries - using our own houses as an example. At the first Summit four years ago, for example, Poland was, if I may say so, not among the most creative countries. Today it's completely different. It's crazy what has happened there in recent years.

In the Swiss advertising industry, we're seeing a trend toward consolidation: Farner is buying Rod, Publicis is buying Notch - big agencies are putting out feelers to integrate resources into their own portfolios. How do you assess this? 

Serrat: Difficult question. Basically, the major agencies naturally want to bring together as much power and capability as possible under one roof. I can't comment on individual purchasing decisions, but yes, you can see a trend there. But a counter-trend is also that small satellites are emerging, small agencies, studios that are very specialized in certain topics. That didn't exist in Switzerland ten years ago. It could be that the "in-between" is being called into question: medium-sized agencies that still want to do "everything.

Is Serviceplan a prime example of how pooling resources - while preserving individual skills - can work? 

Shill: International networks are buying more and more agencies in order to be able to credibly represent an overall portfolio. And recently, they have started to move the agencies they have acquired closer together. We are observing this with some satisfaction, because we have been doing this with the houses of communication since 1970 - the year we were founded. We have always bundled the basic disciplines of digital/tech, media and creation in one house, under one roof. We don't believe in a single media agency or a freestanding digital agency, but always in the interplay of the various disciplines.

The big networks are now gradually realizing this as well. However, we've been doing this for 50 years now and think that we simply have a little head start in terms of experience. And a certain amount of training. Because sometimes it's not that easy with so many different people and interests in one room. And that's what we mainly do here at the ÜberCreative Summit: Training. So that we can be a good team in the real game on the pitch.