Swiss Brand Congress 2023: Thomas Schwetje becomes "Marketing Thought Leader

The Swiss Brand Congress at the Grand Hotel Dolder has long since established itself as a fixed date in the marketing and communications industry calendar. Once again this year, the 500 or so participants were inspired by exciting practical input, keynote speeches from clever thought leaders and plenty of networking opportunities - with some highlights standing out in particular.

Thomas Schwetje becomes "Marketing Thought Leader

First of all, there was Thomas Schwetje's award as "Marketing Thought Leader" of the year 2023. The Head of Digital & Customer at Coop was honored by the Swiss Academy of Marketing Science for his work at the retail giant - and couldn't help but accept the verdict of the panel of experts. "When the professors say that," said Schwetje in a video interview with werbewoche.ch, "I've learned: you don't contradict professors!" With his witty quote, the experienced Coop marketer was referring to the illustrious composition of the Academy jury, which consists of marketing professors from the universities of St.Gallen, Basel, Bern, Fribourg, Lausanne, Lucerne, Zurich, ETH Zurich and IMD Lausanne.

Adrian Steiger, Head of Digital Excellence at Coop and Schwetje's colleague, whom werbewoche.ch was also able to speak to at the marketing congress, appreciates many things about his boss, but especially his support for innovative projects that need to be taken forward. Steiger also sees a great feel for business opportunities as a strength of the freshly minted winner of the "Marketing Thought Leader" award. The laudatory speech was given by Prof. Dr. Reto Hofstetter of the University of Lucerne, who paid special tribute to Schwetje's decisive and early approach to working with customer data and building clubs at Coop. Schwetje merged the Digital and Customer divisions at Coop a year ago and is now responsible for the company's entire IT and marketing at director level.

Digital home for classic cars

The ideas presented by the agency Publicis for combining treasures from the offline past with the digital present were also extremely exciting: The new, virtual classic car home "Roarington" makes the same possible. The project was launched by Fritz Kaiser, a successful serial entrepreneur. His passion for classic vehicles has created a platform on which these historic automobiles can live on. Kaiser worked closely with Publicis in Zurich to develop the branding and design of the "Roarington" metaverse environment. The result is a virtual world that aims to capture the essence and charm of past decades and offer users, especially the younger generations, an authentic experience - explained in a video interview by Roger Oberholzer, Strategy Consultant at the agency and CEO of the Metaverse Academy.

Creative Boost by Dennis Lück

Star advertiser and stage darling Dennis Lück also provided his usual nonchalant inspiration. At this year's Brand Congress, the 2017 Weaver of the Year entertainingly presented ten "completely open secrets of success" for the creation of creative campaigns. He brought many examples from his agency's campaign, which helped Olaf Scholz to become German chancellor in 2019.

If you want to get to the bottom of the secret of creative advertising, watch the video interview with Dennis Lück, which werbewoche.ch conducted on the occasion of the Brand Congress 2023. Among other things, Lück says: A central idea is not an idea. That's a misunderstanding. For Lück, a central idea is an idea that is used to steer the brand. You control a brand by the way you behave. A good guiding principle can do that. Or: ambition is cool - "Ambition is the most important quality if you want to work with me."

With this clear message, Lück emphasized the importance of ambition and commitment in order to achieve impressive results. Then his final advice was, "Always follow your heart. It knows exactly how to communicate." These profound words remind us that the authenticity and emotionality of a message are key. By following the heart and listening to one's intuition, one can create a kind of communication that touches people at their core.