turning corporate creativity into market success

Adidas (consumer goods)

As part of one of the branding projects launched for the North American market, the task was to design innovative options for textile designs. The campaign lasted nine months and was primarily targeted at young people.

Universal Music (music industry)

Universal Music is one of the biggest international record labels. Alongside releasing music, Universal also manages all appearances of world-famous musical artists that have contracts with them.

As part of a branding/design contract, for a few of the label’s artists, we developed and designed a web presence, which had to incorporate their respective album concepts. This included, for example, using contests and gamification to mirror the website’s actual simple content in an engaging manner. The albums that were connected with our work all made it to the No. 1 spot on the Billboard charts. A huge success across the board!

ESPN (sports television)

ESPN’s Upfront presentations are the most important event of the year for the U.S. TV network. The gala evening serves to recognize the achievements reached over the past year as well as to present new projects for the year ahead. The purpose of the event is to close agreements for the coming year with the TV broadcaster in a celebratory atmosphere so that the network can continue to broadcast shows. In addition to the “customers,” high-profile Hollywood celebrities are also invited to entertain the guests. In this framework, the presentation has to be perfectly executed and carefully thought-out.

In collaboration with other specialists and ESPN management, we developed a presentation concept and design. We are proud that our graphic contributions helped make last year’s event the huge success that it was.

Die Schweizerische Post (public service)

A former member of the executive management and head of the post office network wanted new ideas for how to make the time customers spent at the post office more enjoyable so that they would have a positive association with the company’s brand. Of the many (then) new ideas, the Swiss Post ultimately decided to realize the shop-in-shop concept in which they set up stationary shops (that we now know so well) within the post offices.

Mc Paperland (trade)

This Swiss SME is in an increasingly consolidated market. Contributing factors for this include the increasing digitalization of operative business as well as consumers’ rising awareness of their environmental impact and interest in buying environmentally friendly (green) products. On top of this, foreign companies are gaining influence on the Swiss market with competitive prices.

The assignment consisted of developing an innovative market development strategy, which included a new, clearly defined customer value proposition as well as streamlined logitics supply chain. To this end, processes were defined and recommendations regarding their implementation were provided. Great emphasis was placed in particular on generating a high added value for private and corporate clients, for example, in purchasing or order processing.

Global Tax Reclaim (Switzerland) GmbH (service provider)

The abovementioned company (GTR) specializes in cross-border tax reclaim for private individuals as well as companies. Executive management intends to sell the company for the best price over the next three to five years.

Here the task was to address the following questions: How can this service be improved through innovations that generate added value? Which new target group could be addressed with existing or new services? Which markets should GTR focus on, for example, in an expansion strategy - and what would this look like? How can GTR accelerate growth while successfully managing the huge increase in administrative burden brought on by its business model?

World Vision (NGO)

World Vision Switzerland has the ambitious goal of virtually doubling the donations they take in by 2018 to total CHF 94 million.

Our team was tasked with developing ideas for an innovative recruitment strategy, including a compensation and retention model, that would better enable the company to achieve this goal. The aim was also to using cutting-edge technology to make charity activities even more transparent. In this context, the then new idea of using a QR code was suggested to World Vision, which would allow financial donors to effectively track what their donations were going.

Hausmuzik (NGO / culture)

Hausmuzik is a nonprofit organization in the heart of New York City, which consists of young, passionate classical musicians. They put on benefit concerts in wealthy private households –essentially bringing the “art gallery” directly into the living room – in order to host concerts, for instance, in prisons and hospitals, with the resulting funds.

The task was to complement Hausmuzik’s auditory presence with a visual presence in the form of branding. This enabled the organization to gain access to more attractive customers and opportunities even more quickly and continue successfully expanding their mission as a charity.

Universität Zürich (education)

The University of Zürich was looking for an innovative concept to significantly streamline operations.

As part of this project, the university was shown how the almost 30,000 students and 8,000 faculty members could use a fully integrated chip card within the university campus to gain unlimited access to all systems with a single identification medium, including using cashless payments for numerous services. More specifically this included access control, vending machines, the registers as a POS in the cafeteria, copying machines, etc.

ETH (education)

The situation and project requirements of ETH were very similar to those of the University of Zurich. ETH was also looking for an innovative concept to help significantly streamline their operations.

As part of this project, ETH was shown how they could use a fully integrated chip card on their campus to make it possible for their nearly 20,000 students and 8,000 faculty members to use various system with a single identification medium, including making cashless payments for numerous services. As with the University of Zurich, this included access control, vending machines, the registers as a POS in the cafeteria, copying machines, etc.

Hawe Hydraulik (industrial manufacturing)

All M&As Hawe had underwent were carried out by different internal project teams. This resulted in a significant loss of knowledge that these teams then had to organize and build from the ground up for each new project. No company-wide best practices had been defined and no systematic evaluation of Hawe’s acquisition success had been carried out.

The assignment consisted of M&A questions related to project organization, screening and process methods, collaboration recommendations, roles and responsibilities, due diligence, integration of employees into the new group as well as key figures for the evaluation M&A success.

Schweizer AG (industry)

Founded in 1887, the Swiss SME Schweizer AG offers comprehensive solutions for floors, ceilings and walls – from a single source – whether building shells or in the interior, for new buildings as well as for renovations and restorations.

Initial situation

For the MINERGIE standard, the quality label for new buildings and modernized old buildings of all building categories, expert knowledge and precision is essential: Until recently, Schweizer AG employees would examine the thickness of the building walls of structural buildings and fill out a checklists by hand. The respective data then had to be sent on to external experts who provided them with the wall’s insulation values. This was extremely time consuming and costly.

Solution

Here, the innovative solution for streamlining the entire process was to use an insulation-value calculator on a tablet that would allow Schweizer AG employees to immediately calculate values themselves without extensive further training. Using a mobile app, they can now enter the conditions as well as the thickness of the material layers of the walls (which often consist of multiple layers of different material, such as plaster, plastic, stone, etc.) and then received a response about its thermal conductivity and thus whether it meets MINERGIE standards.

Skycampus (real estate)

At the railway station Zurich-Altstetten, a project called Westlink is coming to life, which aims to create a new center of life for modern citizens in the heart of Zurich. Located right on to the Zurich-West Tram, the SBB property is extremely well connected. In addition to the modern apartments, offices and shops, large-scale areas for dinning and business services are intended to create a new urban lifestyle for all those involved.

The task was to impart this important project with a new identity through branding that would breath more life into the exclusive sense of living in the best location.

Universitätsspital Zürich (healthcare institution)

The University Hospital of Zurich was looking for an innovative solution for connecting various peripheral devices with another (e.g., parking system).

The objective was to set up the system such that it could be upgraded for future requirements, for example, for the access control of particularly sophisticated rooms (e.g., labs or operating rooms). Retina scanning technology was then used so that responsible employees could continue working in a sterile environment without having to use their hands to gain access to these rooms. An upgradeable system for electronic patient files was also discussed, which nursing staff and treating doctors could access at any time using mobile technology.

Heim im Bergli (residential care facility)

Medical care and support are experiencing deep-seated change.

The assignment was to present the facility with options for strategic innovation. Relevant trends in numerous areas (demographics, technology, changing consumers behavior, etc.) were identified in order to highlight new business segments that could provide this residential care facility in the heart of Luzern with a strong and sustainable basis for the future.

Raiffeisen (retail bank)

Raiffeisen consists of more than 300 banks in Switzerland. It is no secret that banking products are becoming increasingly similar across the industry, and many banking customers are less than impressed by the product selection. As such, the Raiffeisen’s central offices in Switzerland were looking for innovative concepts and instruments they could offer their member banks so that they, in turn, could offer their customers on the frontline an engaging customer consulting experience.

During workshops and through a small pilot project, Raiffeisen was shown how modern technology like iPads could achieve the desired effect.

PostFinance (financial service provider)

PostFinance was looking for a way to attract customers using an online consulting platform with an innovative concept and design. At the same time, they wanted to use cutting edge technology in combination with the previously mentioned online platform in their personal consultations.

During a workshops, topics like data security, ensuring Internet connectivity (in case a sale representative is doing business in the mountains), using digital signatures on the iPads to enter into contracts, data consistency between the online consulting platform and the iPad consulting session as well as additional challenging topics.

Basler Versicherungen (insurance)

Of the then almost thousand sales representatives (or customer consultants), only around two dozen had the expertise necessary to effectively address the topic of pension planning with customers with regard to taxes, pension, lumpsum payments, etc.

The objective was to present Basler Versicherung with an effective means of using their sales representatives to get their foot in the door with this challenging topic. At a later consulting stage, the sales representatives could then set customers up with an expert in pension planning. Basler Versicherung was presented with a structured consulting process in which sales representatives could casually address the topic of pensions with the help of modern technology.

VP Bank (private bank)

In a workshop, VP Bank was shown how an innovative consulting concept could be used to impress customers with their company and its products. Financial planning in particular was consider a possible instrument for convincing customers of the bank’s professionalism in the long-term. VB Bank was also shown how replacing the standard checklist in customer talks with touch screens elicited enthusiasm from customers.

Project Melius (public service)

The Swiss Postal Service decided to carry out an extensive revamping of their IT solutions. This included introducing a new integrated system that combined their customer relationship management (CRM), content management (CMS) and customer feedback management. Up until then, they had one isolated system landscape that was made up of the various systems and applications. To keep up with future requirements, they were seeking an integrated all-in-one solution for the three main tasks mentioned above.

In this context, the objective was to give this important project a face and brand the new solution.