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Since summer 2021, Christian Waitzinger has been Chief Experience Officer (CXO) at Plan.Net Group, one of the leading digital service providers in the field of customer experience and commerce. As an experience and design expert, Waitzinger is responsible for defining a service and product portfolio for designing and implementation of data-driven customer experiences. In the following Experience Manifesto, he describes what experiences means in today’s world, what it needs to represent, and what the requirements are for a high-quality experience.

The way that customers perceive and interact with brands – whether at home or on the go, via digital channels, in stores or when contacting a service hotline – has changed. Brands today need to provide a seamless, contextualized, and data-driven customer experience in order to meet customer expectations. This is nothing new. Yet, it is also no secret that very few companies have managed to satisfy rising customer demands and create a truly differentiating brand experience.

This is precisely what we are striving for with our holistic customer experience management: Our goal is to understand customers across every interaction, touchpoint and organizational unit – from marketing to sales to customer service departments. Our task is to orchestrate and systematically improve all of these areas, because the key to lasting customer loyalty is a brand experience that is unique, personalized, appropriate anytime, anywhere, and constantly evolving.

Ideally, this process is managed centrally by collecting and evaluating customers’ experiences and data. We utilize this information to continuously improve the experience across sales, customer service and e-commerce. The result is a loop optimized incrementally by decision-makers via a process of distilling the insights gained from customer interactions and incorporating these into communications and further product development. The primary task is to build a personal relationship with the consumer: to create an ongoing dialog that calibrates the right time, place, and information with the customer’s personal interests.

Alongside a number of specialized disciplines – such as data, media, tech, user experience design and creation – what is needed above all is a cohesive experience strategy along with overarching organizational structures and processes within a company that are attuned to customer needs. To achieve this, companies must network their individual expertise and create synergies between creation, media, data, and tech – in other words, they must think about and orchestrate their customer experience holistically.

INTRODUCE OVERARCHING ORGANIZATIONAL PROCESSES

An experience strategy must be supported by all departments. It requires the right resources, skills and tools as well as the empowerment of individual employees and departments to be able to make decisions quickly and independently. However, this is often difficult within the traditional organizational structure of a company. A better approach is to establish customer journey teams that collaborate across departments, as some of our customers are already doing today.

Holistic customer journey mapping plays a key role in the organizational process, allowing us to centrally collate key insights in terms of customer expectations, data, and processes. With these as a basis, we are able to identify customers’ rational and emotional needs and a range of potential areas for improvement, as well as the necessary tools and systems, and the KPIs we need to measure.

Another crucial task is to ensure that the insights gained from a customer journey are implemented and result in genuine improvement. This requires an ROX (Return On Experience) model across the journey to plan and monitor the entire experience.

ESTABLISH A FUNCTIONING BRAND SYSTEM

The brand core itself serves as the basis for the holistic experience along the customer journey. Decision-makers should critically reflect on whether their brand’s fundamental visual identity is designed to allow the brand to withstand the continuous evolution of digital products and services, and thus remain successful in future. The necessary components of the brand identity are constructed in a manner that allows them to quickly and
consistently convey a uniform and harmonious image across all channels – and whether the way that the brand is perceived will still make sense in the future if parts of the brand experience are automated.

Today, many brand guidelines still consist of 90 percent print and offline instructions, thus criminally neglecting the brand’s digital component. Yet interface design will continue to evolve in the direction of “Zero UI”. People will increasingly talk to computers and expect an intelligent response. Data will serve as the basis for almost all services and products – today and in the future. A coherent, modular, and centrally orchestrated enterprise design and asset management system is therefore indispensable. Without this existence, it is virtually impossible to create a coherent and personalized customer experience. In addition, further development of the design system must be approached not as a one-off project but instead as a program that is managed centrally and across all departments.

FOCUS ON CREATIVE EXCELLENCE

As well as digitization and automation, constant performance tracking and the latest tech stack, experience requires passion, soul, creativity and innovation. The best digital ecosystem is worthless if it is not brought to life through good content, a differentiated user experience, and emotional storytelling.

In terms of the user experience in particular, there is need for improvement because digital products and services often appear interchangeable. Currently, the majority of them are designed according to best practices in order to make the experience for users as simple as possible. This is not wrong itself – the aim is to ensure that applications are easy to use. But the result is that every app works in the same way, virtually all e-commerce checkout processes are interchangeable, and most websites share a similar structure with familiar navigation.

It is time to ask whether the development of the user experience has been shaped too much by the notions of utility and usability – and whether there is an over-reliance on branding and marketing activities to provide brand differentiation. User experience design must return to its own creative strengths and no longer act in isolation. A good user experience can also provide differentiation – especially when combined with appropriate marketing and branding, attractive storytelling and emotional content. This allows us to create special, memorable moments and a coherent, stand-out brand experience for consumers.

ALIGNING DIGITAL PRODUCTS WITH MARKETING AND BRANDING

Digital products and services today need to be fused with marketing and branding in order to create a perfect brand experience. Consumers should feel a positive sense of engagement at every touchpoint by being appealed to at the right time in the right context and always finding themselves in the ecosystem of the brand world.

That’s why it’s desirable to closely dovetail product and marketing activities: The insights gained in the product world regarding consumer behavior are extremely relevant to the creation of branding and marketing activities. Marketing data in turn informs product development. After all, you want to make the right decisions in all areas.

This requires merging the marketing and product loops, aligning content and experience, and orchestrating all the creative disciplines to create a unique brand experience for customers. Because a great user experience boosts a brand, and a strong brand has the power to positively influence a digital product.

GREATER LOYALITY AND INCREASING CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE

Everyone knows that it is many times more expensive to acquire new customers than to keep them within the brand ecosystem. And a positive experience is key here, too: After all, customers who are enthusiastic about the entire product experience have less reason to look elsewhere. So the better the experience, the greater their loyalty and customer lifetime value (CLV), one of the core customer experience KPIs. And the harder and more expensive it is for competitors to regain the customers they’ve lost.

At Plan.Net, we are convinced that a successful customer experiences will in future require an integrated strategy and organizational processes, a brand system equipped for the future, and, above all, creative excellence. As the most creative digital service provider in Germany today with a high level of expertise in data-driven tech, our aim is not only to not only generate the brand promises for our customers, but above all to actually deliver on them – with consistent, seamless, and creative appeal across every platform and touchpoint.


It was back in 1992 when Herbert F. Barber came up with the term VUCA – Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity – but it also happens to be a near-perfect description of how things are right now. Although initially introduced by Barber as a concept for strategic company management, VUCA also reflects the problems currently facing managers – including outside of their respective organisations. Today, it describes the influences that global dependencies, political controversies, technologisation and changing consumer behaviour are having on companies and entire sections of society – and therefore keeping 21st-century managers on their toes.
However, hardly any of these influences has brought about such far-reaching changes as the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been hanging over us since March 2020. It has led to events that many people had previously thought impossible: e-commerce penetration in the US grew from 16% to approximately 34% within the space of three months (by way of comparison, it took about ten years to increase from 5% to 16%); internal projects for which a timescale of around three years had initially been planned were launched over a single weekend; and entire industries were turned on their heads – restaurants, healthcare and traditional retail being cases in point. The coronavirus has led to longstanding certainties losing their currency and being replaced by a new normality – meaning that VUCA has taken on a whole new importance.

Digitalisation: the constant factor in the new normal

In the ensuing uncertainty, digitalisation is now a central instrument on the agenda of all company bosses as it allows them to respond more flexibly to these volatile influences and to introduce countermeasures. Although it had already been quite a challenge for many companies to take their company processes to the next (digital) level, the advent of the coronavirus now means that this has become a survival factor that will determine each company’s future. Whether it’s a question of expanding the online area to include offline sales, implementing projects entirely by digital means or managing teams via digital channels – digital services and platforms facilitate these initiatives in only a fraction of the originally intended time and are therefore a central component of company management. And one that is here to stay.

The challenges for managers involve overcoming the physical distance to individual colleagues brought about by the need to work from home and, in spite of largely decentralised teams, to create digital interactions with a view to implementing project processes and encouraging team spirit. As a result, the pandemic has increased the urgency of implementing digital solutions as this is the only way to counter the crisis adequately and to respond more swiftly to the impact that it is having. So it’s no wonder, then, that – according to a DMEXCO trend study – approximately 70% of managers based in the DACH region indicated that the pandemic will speed up their planned digital transformation projects to enable them to meet the new requirements.

Adaptability will determine future company success

Managers are currently being given a crash course not only in digitalisation, but also in change management and New Work. Here, one of the main critical success factors will be how individual managers practise ‘remote leadership’ in companies – this is because the agility and flexibility of the predominantly cross-functional and decentralised team members must be ensured continually. One fundamental aspect for companies is therefore how skilfully and quickly they can respond to crises and changes in their organisational environment and adapt their organisation accordingly.

VUCA 2.0 – an antidote for the current state of uncertainty

Driven by external influences, managers feel forced to explore new avenues and acquire new skills so they are in a position to face up to increasingly pressing questions. This is why it is necessary to have a clear understanding of the organisation’s common orientation and to be able to convey this successfully within the company and tackle the challenge together.

This is done by communicating a Vision, by Understanding the context, by presenting these with Clarity and implementing them with the necessary Agility – or, in short, with VUCA 2.0. This can be seen as the antidote to the VUCA term introduced by Herbert F. Barber. VUCA 2.0 gives managers guidelines that they need to apply in their operational management functions in order to keep on top of current and future challenges:

V ision:

More than ever before, managers need to be able to provide continual orientation in the context of changes and to put forward a vision that the organisation can gear itself towards. This not only requires the definition of a ‘guiding star’ but also the necessary degree of transparency that will allow each and every employee to devote themselves to the mission at hand. At the same time, it is important to create a common understanding of values and the organisation’s strategy so that managers are in a position to make relevant company decisions, thereby enabling their teams to take the same route.

U nderstanding:

As well as defining a common vision, a far-reaching understanding of structures and processes is important in order to be able to apply skills that exist within the company quickly and effectively. At the same time, an in-depth understanding of the company context must exist – this is necessary for adapting flexibly to dynamic requirements from customers, competitors and changes in the political climate. To this end, transparent communication and networking need to be established throughout the company so that any volatile influences can be nipped in the bud. Only in this way is it possible to respond flexibly to external changes, to minimise risks and encourage resilience.

C larity:

One way to deal with the complex internal and external organisational environment is with focused and clearly formulated company management. This will bring clarity to the existing fog of chaos, enabling effective countermeasures to be defined and implemented. As a result, processes can be structured more clearly, communication channels used more efficiently and company decisions conveyed quickly and resolutely so that, in spite of the existing complexity, they can be communicated transparently to employees and continually made visible.

A gility:

In order to remain viable for the future, companies need to be agile enough to adapt to external requirements and flexible enough to respond to a changing environment. This means that agility not only needs to be reflected in the company structures and processes – at the same time, it constitutes a leadership quality that is evident when managers demonstrate an agile mindset. This is why initiating a cultural shift and establishing flexible processes and cross-functional cooperation models is a central function for managers today. To do so, they must be able to communicate openly within the organisation and find suitable solutions for external changes quickly – without losing sight of the aforementioned ‘guiding star’.

Digitalisation is central to the success of VUCA 2.0

VUCA 2.0 offers managers an approach that can guide them in times of mounting uncertainty. However, this also means that suitable technologies need to be used, digital platforms set up and internal knowledge transfer geared in such a way that relevant information, data and transparency can be exchanged quickly and flexibly with regard to the changing situations. To this end, organisations should do away with siloed thinking, encourage integration and collaboration between different areas and establish mechanisms that motivate self-reflection. In addition, companies have to create an environment for ongoing learning and a values-based culture in order to provide employees with the tools they will need to deal with sudden, unforeseen events. This empowers individual teams and employees – through personal responsibility and reflection – to counter the combination of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity that is set to be the norm for the foreseeable future. Such an approach ultimately enables employees and managers alike to make use of the necessary information strategically and in the interests of the company – all with a view to optimising resource distribution and avoiding inefficiency.

VUCA 2.0 as a core skill of today’s organisations

Implementing the guidelines of VUCA 2.0 is ultimately a critical factor for managers when it comes to withstanding the challenges posed by the VUCA influences today and in the future – and emerging stronger than ever. By defining a vision, understanding their own organisation and ensuring clarity in their communication and agility in their actions, it is possible to take the edge off uncertainty and, in turn, to follow a common vision together. Changing management and employee conduct in line with VUCA 2.0 will well and truly bear fruit once it has been aligned with the right tools, platforms and technologies. However, intended change only occurs when its wheels are set in motion – and what better time for change than right now?

This article first appeared in TWELVE, the Serviceplan Group’s magazine for brands, media and communication. In the seventh issue, you will find further inspiring articles, essays and interviews by and with prominent guest authors and renowned experts centred around the magazine’s theme “Rethink!”. The e-paper is available here.

Augmented reality: what comes after the smartphone?

Augmented reality has been one of the great innovation topics of the technology industry for years now. The sector is currently focusing primarily on smartphone cameras, which allow users to project a digital content layer onto their environment.

However, the areas of application are much more diverse: with shopping apps, you can try on glasses or trainers before buying them virtually and project furniture into your own home. Google Maps has most recently started guiding the way not only with arrows on a map, but by augmented reality. In Pokemon Go, too, the Pokemons now sit in a real meadow and not just in the rendered game environment.

One common feature of the numerous augmented reality applications so far has been that virtually all of them have been limited to the visual aspect of augmented reality and were usually the smartphone platform of choice. At least as exciting, however, are the current developments that shift augmented reality from smartphones and integrate it into other wearables.

The sound comes from the glasses

The US audio manufacturer Bose, for example, is a pioneer in this area: at the SXSW 2018, Bose presented the first prototypes of its augmented audio sunglasses, nine months later in December the first two models came to the market. In contrast to other devices, such as the recently released OptiShokz Revvez, the sound from the Bose glasses is not projected directly into the ear via bone conduction and the skull, but via micro-loudspeakers.

Bose is marketing its glasses under the buzzword of augmented audio and not only supplies the hardware, but has also announced a comprehensive software development kit that will be launched at SXSW in March 2019 to encourage app developers to bring innovative and exciting hardware applications to market. This is where the whole topic becomes interesting, because a mere headphone replacement may be nice, but it isn’t really ground-breaking.

Augmented audio applications

Audio feedback, based on GPS location and the orientation of the glasses, allows information to be passed on relating to objects in the direct field of vision: information about places of interest or about bars and restaurants as well as directions. For example, navigation apps or city guides become possible without a smartphone screen.

In future versions of the glasses, gesture control by head movement can probably also be implemented, for example to accept calls or control media players. Location-based services that do without screen interaction and feed services or offers directly into the user’s ears depending on their position are also conceivable. Obviously, the integration of digital assistants with voice control such as Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa would also make sense in the future.

Augmented audio: just the beginning of the digitisation of everyday objects

Products such as the Bose Frames are just another step towards a world where all the everyday objects we carry with us become digital and smart. The device evolution has already brought digital services from the study (desktop PC) into the shoulder bag (laptop) and from there into the trouser pocket (smartphone) and to the wrist (smart watch). The head is only the next logical step in this development. In my opinion, the development in the smart glasses segment has not yet come to an end, despite some failures.

However, wearables that use audio as a transport medium are significantly more discreet and less invasive than spectacles or contact lenses projected directly in front of the eye lens and should therefore benefit from higher user acceptance.

So, what does the future have in store?

Will we soon be wandering cities dressed in smart devices from head to toe? Probably not. Although Nike and Under Armor, two major sports goods brands, are already developing smart trainers and Levi’s and Google have launched a touch-controlled denim jacket, all of these technologies will only become established when the services offered provide consumers with a truly concrete benefit.

On the face of it, the SXSW is a pretty poor deal. You spend 12 hours on a plane and then rush around downtown Austin with 30,000 other lunatics for a week to listen to lectures and panels in air-conditioned 80s-style conference rooms. Doesn’t sound very inspiring. For me, the conference is nevertheless one of the absolute highlights of the year, because you’d be hard pressed to find a higher concentration of excellent speakers on current trends in the digital world. Read about the topics and lectures I am particularly looking forward to below.

Digitisation has arrived in society

In recent years it has become apparent that the times when you had guaranteed attention with the next hype platform or app in the market are over. The issues have no longer been revolving around digital services or the marketing behind them for a while now, because digitisation currently covers all areas of life. The impact of this process on society, working life, health and urban development will be the dominant themes of the conference, as they were in 2017. The same goes for the demand for specific solutions that include new technologies in product development and the creative process.

The perennial favourites: VR, AR & AI

Virtual reality continues to be a hot topic, especially in the creative industries. While the search for meaningful application scenarios outside the niche continues, augmented reality is preparing to make the breakthrough into a modern storytelling tool suitable for the mass market.

AI, on the other hand, is much more established: Data as the DNA of the modern world and ever better algorithms promise automation and increased efficiency in many areas. But how much of this will find its way into consumers’ everyday lives? Amazon Echo & Google Home are now in millions of homes, but currently lead a sorrowful existence as glorified light switches and Bluetooth speakers for Spotify. What do the truly smart assistants of the future look like in comparison? And how are various industry pioneers already using AI today for communication, data analysis or product development?

Blockchain self-awareness

This year’s theme for tech conferences is probably inevitable: the blockchain. The flagship project Bitcoin has evolved from a democratic, borderless payment system into an investment bubble for dauntless investors. But there is tremendous potential in the technology behind it. How will smart contracts and transaction-based systems change our economic life, business processes and, ultimately, marketing? Ethereum co-inventor Joseph Lubin has titled his lecture “Why Ethereum Is Going To Change The World” and the other actors in the blockchain business are not lacking in self-awareness. It will be interesting!

Gaming & eSports

Representatives of the gaming and eSports world are also confidently taking an increasingly prominent place at SXSW. Often ridiculed by outsiders, gaming has now become a dominant force in the entertainment industry. The professionalisation of the eSports scene reached new heights in 2017 with millions invested in tournaments and teams. So if you’re still around in the second week of the conference, you should drop in on the lectures of SXSW Gaming. It could be interesting to see what the industry’s ROI expectations look like and what opportunities there are in marketing.

Problem children start-ups & disrupting dystopia

In contrast, the start-up scene in Silicon Valley is experiencing a bit of a crisis. At last year’s elevator pitches, every second comment was “Nice idea, but what are you going to do in three months’ time when Zuckerberg copies you?” The stifling market position of the Big Four has noticeably cooled the willingness of investors to provide seed capital for new start-ups. How can start-ups continue to raise capital to make their ideas a reality and grow in a world dominated by Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple?

A few months after the Trumpocalypse, the mood in 2017 was somewhat gloomy, a rather atypical level of self-reflection for the industry. In our enthusiasm for the digitisation of all areas of life, have we underestimated the risks of a fully networked and automated world? What will be left of the quiet self-doubt in 2018? The closing keynote from SciFi author & SXSW bedrock Bruce Sterling is likely to be an excellent barometer. An hour-long rant with subtle peaks against the self-loving tech and marketing scene will surely be a highlight once again. A fitting title for 2018: Disrupting Dystopia.

Away from the lectures

In addition to the lectures and panels at the conference, the event spaces of the numerous brands and companies will be another highlight. Exciting from a German point of view: the presence of Mercedes-Benz. The joint focus of the me Convention during the IAA had already indicated far-reaching cooperation with SXSW. Mercedes and Smart are now on the starting line in Austin as super sponsors and are hosting their own lectures and events on the topic of Future Mobility in Palm Park, right next to the Convention Centre.

In addition, visits to the brand locations of the Japanese electronics giants Sony and Panasonic are also likely to be worthwhile. In 2017, Panasonic exhibited numerous prototypes developed in cooperation with students on the subject of the Smart Home. Sony, on the other hand, devoted itself to VR.

The large number of lectures, panel discussions, pop-up locations and the numerous events off the official program make planning your SXSW visit a challenge. When you think back to your time in Austin on your flight home, you often realize that the most exciting lectures were those you caught by chance, that the best Brand Lounge was one where you just happened to be passing by and you only met the most interesting people because they were standing next to you in the endless queues. Resisting the temptation to plan everything in advance makes a visit to SXSW all the more interesting.

Digitisation has undoubtedly created great new opportunities in recent years. Opportunities that have brought us closer to our customers and that help us tailor our products and services even more closely to them. Yet even though we can now calculate every marketing campaign and every sales figure down to the smallest detail, one thing should not fall by the wayside: our intuition.

Because as colourful and diverse as our beautiful new world may be, mankind has basically remained who we always were: a sentient, empathetic being who longs for real contacts, wants to understand and be understood, who questions and participates and who still trusts in his very own – completely analogous – instincts: feeling, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling.

For 2018, the challenge is to combine the many opportunities of the digital with our empathic and intuitive capabilities – and to get the best out of both worlds, both for the customer and for our own employees.

Many questions will be raised when carmakers present their solutions and concepts for mobility of the future at IAA in Frankfurt in just a few days’ time: What do we do in the car if the car can soon drive itself? If the dashboard and side windows consist of screens in future, which contents do we use during the journey? What data does a fully connected vehicle supply and who uses it for what purpose? Manfred Klaus believes that achieving reduced emissions is just one aspect of what the car of the future will have to deliver. Writing in a guest article, the Plan.Net boss sees cars becoming their own communication platform in future – with new business models.

It is a mere coincidence that elections to the next German Bundestag are taking place on the final day of this year’s International Motor Show (IAA) in Frankfurt (24 September 2017). Fitting at the same time however, since Germany’s motorists suddenly find themselves in the middle of the election campaign. The debate revolving around banning diesel vehicles, electric mobility, software updates and hardware retrofits is dominating the media as well as political discussions.

There is no question but that the emissions from private vehicles are a key issue for the public at large – especially in the larger cities. Yet electric mobility is currently lacking the infrastructure and the reach to seamlessly replace the combustion engine on a grand scale. The same applies for the topic of autonomous driving. Just because studies indicate success, failure would still be the result in mass operation at present. As soon as the discussion on the diesel front becomes de-emotionalised, a different topic will raise its head for carmakers: with progressive vehicle digitisation and connectivity, the cars themselves will increasingly evolve into independent communication platforms – so a type of smartphone on wheels.

Many aspects of this development are grouped presently under the catch phrase “connected car”, which essentially encompasses three main feature areas. Firstly “general features” such as seamless Internet connection, WLAN hotspot in the vehicle or personal driver registration. Then there are the “vehicle-related features”, which include information on the vehicle condition, its position or additional on-demand features (brighter headlights, 4-wheel drive, and such like). Finally the “infotainment and entertainment features” provide real-time information on traffic as well as location-based services and content offers. Digital technologies can therefore already be found today in an entire range of car features – even aside from autonomous driving.

It’s just that most Germans have barely noticed it yet. Digital features have been advertised slightly cautiously to date by the manufacturers. According to a study on behalf of Motor Presse Stuttgart, only ten percent of Germans are acquainted with the terms “connected car” or “connectivity”. And even among Generation Y, the key target group for connected car offers, only one in every two is familiar with the term according to Deloitte. To add to this, the terms are also interpreted completely differently by motorists: from automatic parking assistance to the emergency call feature through to WLAN hotspot or a music playlist on the driver’s smartphone.

Initial studies by manufacturers, as demonstrated at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas, illustrate what could be conceivable in the near future: smart windscreens that offer more than just a pure head-up display, dashboards that simply consist of touchscreens and on which key features are processed like in apps or side windows that can be used via touchscreen to surf the Internet or call up apps. And when it comes to defensive driving, apps already exist in abundance. The latest offer however rebukes young people in an unusual way: if the novice driver exceeds the specified maximum speed limit, the app plays their parents’ favourite music. Now that should be punishment enough for most!

The Plan.Net Group is turning 20 and celebrates its anniversary with a tribute to two decades of Internet. Plan.Net was founded in 1997 and today is one of the largest independent digital agencies in Europe and in more than 25 locations worldwide.

Florian Haller, CEO of the Serviceplan Group, explains in an interview with Marketing Review St. Gallen on how the agency group is positioned and on current developments in marketing. He was interviewed by Sven Reinecke, Director of the Institute for Marketing at the University of St. Gallen and Friedrich M. Kirn, CEO of MIM Marken Institut München GmbH.

At the University of St Gallen (HSG) we teach students marketing and management. However, many of the people employed by agencies have not studied these subjects. You are a rare example of someone who has. Do you think that your training was helpful or would you choose a different approach now?

I benefited greatly from my time at HSG. And that’s because the advertising agency business has undergone some extreme changes over the last 20 years. Our core business used to be driven by gut instinct and was primarily creative;   I suspect a technical angle would not have been at all useful then. That’s all completely different now. Advertising agencies operate in a much more strategic and complex way. Advertising used to run on four or five channels; now we’re faced with twenty to thirty.  Not only that, these channels are also supposed to be interconnected. Apart from that, numerous new careers in the sector have developed over the years and now we can’t even imagine the advertising landscape without them:  just consider the digital forms of advertising. Business models have also developed enormously. It is nowadays essential that the management of a company the size of ours is based on strategic and theoretical principles. In this respect, I have no doubt that my course at the University of St. Gallen provided me with fundamental knowledge of great value. I think it’s a shame that so few high-achieving graduates from prestigious universities choose to work for large communication agencies.  However, maybe we should take it upon ourselves to put out a stronger message about the jobs and promotion prospects we can offer.

What were the events in your career so far that you would consider particularly “critical” and which have brought you insight?  

Each of the key points in my career was a real “aha moment”. Starting, obviously, with the course in St. Gallen and the “St. Gallen Management Model”. The most crucial thing I learnt was that managers should not settle for a superficial approach, but must recognise structures. The understanding and development of structures result in the design of successful strategies. Contact with businesses was strongly encouraged at St. Gallen: we gave presentations and contributed to manager seminars early on in the course. Even though we were quite young, it was quite normal for us to come into contact with senior management from Swiss and European companies. As a matter of course, this resulted in contacts which have endured now for decades. While I was at university, I realised how fantastic advertising can be. Incidentally, it was not clear at the time whether I would go to work in my father’s agency at some point.

Starting at Procter & Gamble after I graduated was an important time for me.  Going to Brussels and working for a pan-European brand in an international team was great fun.  The management helped us young marketing professionals feel personally responsible for our brands and we related very strongly to them. Over the six and half years at Procter & Gamble, I gradually realised that I would eventually want to work more independently so I joined my father’s agency.

How do agencies differentiate themselves from the others? Positioning, vision and principles at most PR agencies are very similar with little room for individuality, the focus is on brand management and creativity.

That’s true.  It is really difficult for an agency to set itself apart from the others in public perception. That is simply because agencies must live up to certain values. Customers expect agencies to be highly creative and not to damage their brands. It’s in their nature. There are no uncreative agencies.

We distinguish ourselves on the market with our four ‘i’s: innovative, international, independent and integrated. We are independent and partner-led.  We have an integrated structure, which, it should be noted, is not just theoretical, but actively part of our practice in the Houses of Communication. In our agency, traditional PR people work closely with media planners, data analysts and market researchers. Each agency within the group is a standalone unit. We have depth of specialisation but also integration. We achieve this by giving the teams geographical proximity and grouping them into customer teams. The other values that distinguish us are innovation and internationality.

Companies are increasingly pursuing a “one-brand” philosophy. Serviceplan operates as a group, but maintains very many “subbrands” and regional links. Is that not contradictory at some level?  Is it still necessary to maintain such a pronounced national presence in these global times?

There is a distinction between the service level and the brand level. At the service level, we do have separate agencies for specialist areas. For example, one undertakes nothing other than business intelligence. Another specialises in search engine optimisation. We see these specialist agencies as tools which customers can buy individually. Very specific expertise is developing in the specialist units.   Creatives look for other creatives and people working with technology need technology enthusiasts. As a group of agencies, we need to create the right environments and find employees that fit into the various areas. On the other hand, we are trying to cut back on the brand level. We don’t want each service area to have its own brand. That is not sustainable on the market. That’s why we have a brand for the creative product in the broadest sense:  Serviceplan. We have a brand for the ability to deal with channels – Mediaplus. The Plan.Net brand represents the digital segment, Facit covers market research and our newest brand, Solutions, deals with the realisation side of the business. The service areas are organised under these brands.

Does it make any sense at all now to maintain a regional presence in so many countries and on so many continents or should agencies rather look for synergies in the individual markets?

The Serviceplan Group is the first German agency to have a significant international presence.  We have either our own offices or partnerships in other countries. We currently have a presence in more than 35 countries, ranging from France to Dubai to China. Although Germany is so export-oriented, no German agency has ever  operated on such an international level as Serviceplan. This is unusual because German companies are valued for their reliability and technology-oriented thinking, amongst other qualities.  Global players such as BMW want to work with partners who can design international advertising campaigns and localize them for the country in question, so a company needs different expertise in the various markets. Anyone planning a campaign for the BMW 7-series must understand the Chinese market where many more cars are sold than in Germany, for example. In a nutshell: our customers are adamant that internationalisation is essential. I must point out that internationalisation is hugely enriching for the Serviceplan Group. Kick-off events at which teams from China, Europe and the USA get together and jointly develop a vision are memorable experiences for me. Internationalisation is unquestionably also an emotive matter for us. It is clear that our expansion concentrates on hubs which are economically significant. It is important to us that the agencies in the different countries are independent and look after their customers.    Synergies are created between countries, of course.

Serviceplan’s “House of Communication” model has integration at its heart. I don’t want to ask you about your favourite campaign – no one likes to rank their customers –  but which Serviceplan campaign best showcases integration?

(He laughs) We provide every customer with the service that is right for them. I am proud of that. Our day-to-day operations produce real flagship projects, of course.   I am proud of much of the work we do for BMW in which we combine creativity, media and the digital approach. A good example is the launch campaign for the i8. It is quite simply a fantastic product and developing the campaign for it was a pleasure. And then there’s the global aspect and the roll-out on every channel. This is a challenge even for a large agency. Everyone likes to see a satisfied customer. However, there are also less high-profile cases which I find really exciting. For example, we developed a campaign for the German Bar Association that worked mainly on a viral basis. Innovative thinking is paramount in a case like that.

360-degree communication is frequently called for – however, SMEs with modest budgets prefer an 80:20 approach.  Can you give examples of when “integrated PR” might not be the aim and what the importance of branding is?

In my view, the term 360-degree communication is not very helpful. The primary aim today can’t be to advertise on every single possible channel. Firstly, there probably is not enough money in most cases and there is also the question of the logic behind it. Innovative concepts do take careful account of the channels available, but try to find an intelligent way of linking that makes sense sequentially.

The current trend towards digitalisation presents us with more than one issue. Increasing digitalisation has the effect of bring the competition closer together. I think this makes the brand more significant. There used to be high barriers to entry. Customers had to go into a shop for advice before deciding on a new jacket. Nowadays we have the Internet and it is normal to carry out the comparison with a series of mouseclicks. It is therefore easy to defend the proposition that brand work today is as important as never before.

Research is currently examining the subject of “sponsor activation”. Why is sponsorship in many cases, despite the high costs of rights, insufficiently used and integrated in brand management?  Are there any examples of best practice?

The Serviceplan Group has a small business unit which is concerned specifically with sponsorship. This is an exciting subject and sponsorship can be enormously effective advertising. At the same time, sponsorship will never occupy a central place in agency operations.  Sponsorship decisions are often made with a great deal of emotion and caution is advised especially in planning a budget. Anyone who invests in a sponsorship, which usually involves a considerable sum of money, must ensure that enough remains in the budget to follow up with advertising.  Only this approach makes sponsorship efficient.

The communication landscape is diverging into many parts; it’s almost impossible to keep track of it.  The digital advertising sector is dominated by two major players. What will communication and advertising look like in 2015? How are corporate budgets changing, what is happening to the work done at agencies and by other market players such as market researchers

I’m not at all concerned about this. There are many subjects not discussed in the current hype surrounding digitalisation. Going forward, companies will still need partners who can develop creative ideas. Even in digital advertising, there is a huge need for consultancy. Agencies which rely on their purchasing power in the media will disappear, because computers will take on this work. There are still no answers to the questions of which customer data I can have, what price do I pay for it and how do I segment the available data? The need for consultancy will grow, not diminish. When I translate my channel strategy to Google or Facebook, it is probably  quite clear which channels my budgets are being used for. That is not something that advertising customers will want. Our future opportunities will lie in using different sources and putting together efficient offers for our customers.

Looking ahead: what will Serviceplan look like in 15 years time?

Let’s be happy if Serviceplan gets through the next five years successfully. Joking apart,  whatever happens, we will be even more digital in 15 years time. The proportion of digital services at our company is already over 50%. Today, 30% on average of our customers’ advertising budgets is spent in the digital area. The topic of data will be important in the future. Serviceplan will be doing more content marketing than is currently the case and will be even more international. Despite the justified scepticism concerning the frantic collection of data and the analysis of big data in many countries on this earth, we in Europe must be careful that we are not left behind. I am a committed defender of data protection and the controlled use of data, but the future will be to a great extent digital and the business models developing from this future are also digital. If we want to participate in this massive trend, we must remain open to the digital world. Particularly in advertising, we must ensure that it is not only companies in the USA in their safe harbour that do everything that is not allowed here and earn good money with it.  It is therefore important to stop people being afraid of Big Data.

Finally, can we have a few words on your commitment to Switzerland, where Serviceplan of course has a branch?

Happily. My father is Swiss and so am I. I did my military service in Switzerland and I’ve studied and worked there and I have many reasons to be grateful to the country. All things considered, we are the largest Swiss agency in the world.  Switzerland is also an important market for us, because it is a hub for companies with international operations.  For example, we work for ABB international global, which is based in Zurich. I feel very at home in Switzerland.

This interview was published in Marketing Review St. Gallen.