Advertising agency Zurich provokes the Germans

«Nothing against Berlin. But you don’t seriously want to grow old here, do you?” That’s what the advertising agency Wirz AG from Zurich wrote on a mobile billboard and had it set up for one day last week in front of the doors of the five largest advertising agencies in the capital of Germany.

With this provocative statement, the agency is trying to attract and lure young creative talent to Zurich.

Under the hashtag “GoodByeGermany”, the agency writes on its recruitment website: “If you feel like jumping into a crystal clear lake instead of contracting a rare skin disease in the Spree […]”We should get to know each other.” An action that is hurtful.

“What is meant to be brutal here comes across as arrogant”

“Young, wild, dirty. And all the other clichés. It’s a bit tiring, but also completely understandable if you only look superficially at Berlin,” notes a Berliner on Linkedin and says goodbye with “greetings from green, sedate and bourgeois Charlottenburg”.

And a Zurich resident from the marketing industry also criticized the advertising agency’s campaign: “Nothing against Zurich. But what is meant to be brutal here comes across as arrogant’.

“Good advertising can offend and provoke”

That was not the intention behind the campaign, says creative director Caspar Heuss of Wirz against Blick. The headline shouldn’t come across as arrogant, but “is simply a life experience put down on paper,” he explains.

“I myself have lived in Berlin for almost ten years and I know how young creative people feel in this city.” As long as you are young, you like the wild, the noise. “Very few people want to grow old,” he says. “So there’s a lot of truth in the headline.”

Many users can agree with that. «I don’t know anyone a bit older who still likes to live in Berlin. So it fits’, is a response on Linkedin, for example. The mood is mostly amused.

Marketing expert Stefan Vogler also had a positive opinion of the campaign. “Good advertising can offend and provoke,” he tells Blick. “Then she gets noticed and people talk about her. Nothing happens with bad advertising.” Since the headline of the ad agency is intended to appeal to people in the same industry, it could be a bit more exaggerated. “The campaign will certainly be different for them than for people outside the industry,” says Vogler.

“For us, the campaign is a great success”

And on something else, the marketing expert and the creative director of Wirz agree: Germany is a very large and therefore very important market for the advertising industry. Berlin in particular is a magnet for young creatives. Although it is difficult to find young talent in Zurich, according to creative director Heuss, Berlin has it all. “That’s why this action was an attempt to fish in a different pond, where perhaps the more colorful fish swim.”

And some fish have already bitten. “Yesterday around noon there were about 25 registrations and we expect even more registrations,” says Caspar Heuss. “For us, the campaign is a great success.”