"The time for quick wins is over".

Advertising Week: Martin Walthert, congratulations on winning the title of Advertiser of the Year 2020. What are the ingredients of your success?

Martin Walthert: I don't know what the criteria are for being voted Advertiser of the Year, you'd have to ask the jury. I suppose it's a combination of, on the one hand, long-term performance and continuity in eye-catching advertising and, on the other hand, what the potential is for the industry, what the person stands for. So also a certain
Representational function.

Next year you will also sit on the jury, which is made up of former winners of the Egon.

Walthert: (laughs) Exactly, then I'm sure I'll learn more about the ingredients it takes.

Digitec Galaxus' advertising is the talk of the town, winning prizes and awards. At the Edi, they and their team just won gold in the Commercials category. The campaigns are often self-deprecating and always close to people. What does Digitec Galaxus do right?

Walthert: We take an unusual approach. We don't do one-way communication, i.e. we have a perfect product and take the perfect picture with the perfect message, but we leave a lot open. We engage in dialogue and don't simulate an ideal world. Everything doesn't always have to be perfect, but as close to the people as possible, be it with the customer reviews at Digitec or the ironic breaks in advertisements through real life at Galaxus. This is unconventional in form and content and goes down well.

At Digitec Galaxus, advertising is homemade. You have an in-house agency, and so you are your own client. That certainly has its advantages, doesn't it?

Walthert: The biggest advantage is that we have fast decision-making channels. We sit back to back, the decision-makers are, so to speak, always in the same room. I can look over the graphic designer's shoulder, he can look over the media planner's shoulder, we do it all ourselves. That gives us a fast exchange and a very high output.

And you do not have to justify yourself to the client.

Walthert: You do have to justify yourself, but not in advance and only internally. For example, we have digital marketing, then the graphic designers, media planning and brand management. We have different perspectives, and that's important. But what doesn't happen is that we think, "We don't even have to propose that, it won't be approved anyway."

Tobias Zehnder, you are a strategist and co-founder of Webrepublic. You founded the agency eleven years ago with your partner Tom Hanan and are now on your way to becoming a full-service agency. Companies come to you and say we want to improve our performance or optimize our visibility. So you want better marketing strategies, how does Webrepublic go about it?

Zehnder: That's a big question, first of all I would like to congratulate my colleague here, I would have voted for you too if I hadn't been nominated myself. (laughs)

Walthert: Thank you.

Zehnder: As an agency, we ensure that our clients' overall performance is translated into successful communication. We achieve this by
we take a holistic approach. My function as a future strategist is to stay a little ahead of reality.

That means in plain language?

Zehnder: I act as an interface between the market, the agency and the client, evaluating needs, trends and dimensions. Then I look at what skills are needed to optimize the client's communication. The transdisciplinary teams that form the basis of a successful marketing strategy are then created accordingly.

But that's not enough for Webrepublic. Together with the Wirz agency, you founded "BoB", "Best of Both", in order to cover expertise in creative as well and thus offer clients broader support.

Zehnder: Exactly. BoB is our unconventional response to current developments in the industry. Our two agencies have an extremely high level of expertise in different areas - Wirz in creative, we in digital. Through the partnership, we can use this expertise profitably for our customers.

And now another piece of the puzzle is added...

Zehnder: The launch of 360° Media. We stretch from digital touchpoints into the classic world: TV, out-of-home, print, radio and cinema.

Does that make Webrepublic a full-service agency then?

Zehnder: We bring everything under one hat with it. The question of what is the best way to understand the creative possibilities of a campaign is one we pursue together with our colleagues at Wirz. The technical implementation, i.e. the channel coverage, is already our core competence. And we have professionalized the media planning that results from this with 360° Media and expanded our previous digital portfolio with offline. But there's still a lot to learn, of course.

For example?

Zehnder: How does billboard and TV advertising work? (laughs)

Martin Walthert could help out there.

Zehnder: Exactly, we'll still be discussing that. But we are confident that we will also be able to handle these new channels. We are entering the market with technology, creativity and media so that we can offer our customers everything from a single source - from the poster at the streetcar station to the experience on the website.

Walthert: I think it makes super sense to offer such a total package, where it's ultimately about the content.

Zehnder: I also see it that way. In this way, it is possible to address the target group with a message that is relevant to them where they are.

Is it even possible to separate marketing, advertising and communication?

Walthert: To ensure that everything comes from the same mold, it is of course mixed together. And ultimately, all channels should speak the same language. That's why it makes sense to have communications, marketing and creative implementation all in one department. Especially in these fast-moving times.

You once said in an interview with Werbewoche that a lot of things can't be measured precisely and that you shouldn't just look at the numbers. How can that be understood?

Walthert: We already measure as much as possible, including every campaign we do. But it's important that you measure every measure with the right means. And that's sometimes misunderstood, I think. You have to know exactly what the goal of a campaign is, and then measure only that goal - and preferably with the methodology that works for that. Every tool spits out some number, and you have to critically question what I've measured at all, what are the third-party factors? And whether my method is suitable for this.

Tobias Zehnder, customers want to measure how their campaigns are received, what role does Webrepublic play here?

Zehnder: Towards the end of the noughties, everyone wanted to make advertising measurable. And that worked well as long as digital was a closed cosmos. It was possible to say: someone moves around, searches for something on Google, buys the product, and so on. Today, however, we are in a kind of post-digital world. There is not a single customer touchpoint anymore that is not somehow digitally influenced. But - and I see it the same way as Martin - there are things that are not measurable.

What for example?

Zehnder: If you send me on Whatsapp the Airbnb where you were last Christmas, and I book that afterwards, that action is not directly measurable. That's why it's so important to understand where measurability stops. The amount of tools and numbers is immense, but if you don't know what's behind it, that information doesn't do you any good.

Walthert: I think you're doing a good job. You're transparent and don't sell numbers without thinking. That's a good way to position yourself as an agency. And it's credible, which is very important.

Zehnder: In the last two years, the understanding of data-driven communication on the client side has developed extremely. And now I come back to your question: What is our role as an agency? It's cool when you work with people on the client side who know exactly what they expect from us as an agency. They can rap their knuckles when things aren't going right. The mutual understanding is already there, so to speak. But there is also the other side. So one of the most important questions is who from our team is used on which mandate. So, where do we need a coach, where an operative? That is one of our most important tasks: Making sure that the right consulting takes place.

Markets are conversations, say the Cluetrain Manifestos. People don't buy products, they buy values that fit their own self-image and with which they can present themselves in the community. How can companies position themselves?

Walthert: The greatest value you can have as a company in the jungle of offers is that you are credible. And if you publish real customer reviews as advertising subjects, for example, that also has a credible effect and is close to the people.

How did the idea of customer ratings actually come about?

Walthert: The idea came up at some point in a pizzeria. We thought, let's do something new and visually striking by also putting 1-star ratings on posters. That's much more credible than just good ratings.

Was there ever a "No, that's not possible" from the CEO's side or an exclamation from the producer's side like "That's damaging our products,
when it's advertised that the fucking thing doesn't work"?

Walthert: That was already the case in the initial phase, and I also had to smooth things over here and there. That was really something new. And when you do something new, it gets noticed - and not always just positively, you have to reckon with that.

What did the work of persuasion look like?

Walthert: In the online world, there is transparency anyway. People rate every piece of crap. So it's not about sweeping criticism under the rug, it's about dealing with it. And so every bad rating is also an opportunity. The customer isn't out to bash the company; they have more or less justified criticism. And if you respond to it well, you might even be more sympathetic than before. And you may even have learned something to do better in the future. If you can convey that, then a bad evaluation is not bad at all.

Zehnder: I have to say, you guys are ruining advertising. (laughs) You've set a new standard with your authentic and playfully designed commercials. The antithesis of perfectly coordinated glossy advertising.

Walthert: Yes, that's our secret master plan. We want to make sure that every time you see an ad, you're not quite sure at first whether it could be one of ours ... (laughs).

Do you think people still want to see such perfect make-believe advertising, is it still in keeping with the times?

Walthert: I don't think you can say it so sweepingly. For example, when they see a beautiful, kitschy Christmas ad, even though they know it's an ad, they still find it beautiful, the emotions it triggers. And I think that's a good thing, because irony would be boring.

Zehnder: Exactly, so mega cheesy, like the Coca-Cola truck, it still touches me.

Isn't it also about the target group a company wants to reach with its advertising?

Zehnder: Yes. Understanding the target audience is very important. The tonalities can be very different. That's why we'll probably never have ironic
See advertising from Chanel.

Where do you see the biggest challenges and opportunities in the coming years?

Zehnder: The time for quick wins is over. I believe many companies where silos still exist have a huge construction site ahead of them. Marketers need to get away from that thinking now: Neither sales and marketing can be separated, nor "classic" and digital advertising. The year 2020 is a turbo digitization year. And really locating this digitization in companies and driving it forward together is back-breaking work. At Webrepublic, we therefore also offer consulting services to help companies recruit the right people for their digitalization. So in marketing, the next two to three years will no longer be about the big question of which channel to book and how, but how to design all communication across all channels in a meaningful way.

We change the perspective. You both have children. How do you explain to them what you do for a living?

Walthert: Well, my children are still young. They are four and six years old. But when I'm at the movies with them, for example, and there's a Galaxus commercial on, they sometimes shout out loud: "Ah, Daddy, you made that commercial!" And I tend to sink a little deeper into my seat.

How old are your children, Tobias?

Zehnder: Two and five. Right now, they just see that I spend all day in online meetings, so sitting in front of the computer, then sometimes they'll say, "Daddy, you shouldn't watch so much TV." (laughs)

About your hobbies I read the following, Martin, you sing in the choir and you, Tobias, focus on safe values like family and wine.

Walthert: Yes, that's great with the singing, but because of Corona there are of course no choir rehearsals at the moment.

Not by zoom?

Walthert: No, I already sit in front of the computer all day, I can't do that.

Zehnder: I have to be completely honest, right now there really isn't much going on at all except work and family. Although that's actually nice, it's a bit exhausting in this particular year.

But you can basically drink wine even in corona time, right?

Zehnder: You can drink wine, although I wouldn't call drinking itself my hobby. But I do like to occupy myself with the world behind it. I find wine an enormously exciting subject. How do you put a place, a landscape, a vintage into a bottle, and how do you do it so well that it can last for decades?

What do you miss the most?

Zehnder: I'm looking forward to going on a real hike with my wife again, that came up short this year. Or a city trip.

To round things off, is there any kind of life wisdom that accompanies you both through everyday life?

Walthert: I try to live in the present and not get too lost in the future and the past. And not to get too upset about things I can't change. But that's not so easy, especially during Corona.

Zehnder: I put up a poster in our shared office the very first week Tom Hanan and I just started Webrepublic that said: Work hard and be nice to people. It sounds corny and a bit hackneyed, but it's never lost its importance for me.