Change of plan. With success factors.

As the lead agency for the Swiss Film Awards, standing ovation was responsible for the award ceremony, including the redesign, organization and staging. In 2019, standing ovation impressed the Federal Office of Culture with its idea of focusing on the nominees, their works and thus the personal stories of the movie-makers. The planned concept for the Swiss Film Awards and accompanying events included a physical award ceremony in front of a live audience. But what happens when a virus turns concepts upside down and face-to-face events are no longer possible? The relevant project team redesigned the scheduled event with 850 invited guests, transforming it into a purely digital version. And found ways for the Swiss Film Awards 2021 to touch people’s hearts:

• With exciting content in the form of stories about the nominees and their works
• With a digital award ceremony from the RTS studios, where the popular presenter Mireille Jaton hosted the show, joined by the nominees via live links
• With accompanying communications on the www.quartz.ch community platform and on social media @prixducinemasuisse
• With a soundtrack by the Baldenweg siblings that provided the musical accompaniment for the event, creating an emotional connection to the movies in question

Focus: brand identity and communication.

With the 2021 ceremony, the new image of the Swiss Film Awards was primarily characterized by the redeveloped screen and studio design. And in terms of communication, editorial articles created excitement before and during the award ceremony. Specifically, text and video productions kept the movie-loving audience up-to-date on the www.quartz.ch platform and on social media @prixducinemasuisse. Plus, a live-ticker reported the highlights in real time during the award ceremony.

Awareness and reach.

The Swiss Film Awards are sponsored by the Federal Office of Culture. They are implemented in partnership with SRG SSR and the Association “Quartz” Genève Zurich and organized in collaboration with Swiss Films, Schweizer Filmakademie and Solothurner Filmtage. The Federal Office of Culture’s public tender defined specific goals for our Swiss Film Awards tasks. The aim was to increase national awareness and to position the Swiss Film Awards as a national event with global reach. Along with improving social media communications and establishing a contemporary community platform.

Nine years of successful teamwork

The fact that the Microsoft Café has become a must-visit red-zone venue is partly due to the longstanding collaboration between standing ovation and its Redmond-based client. For Microsoft, standing ovation is the WEF partner that performs the impossible. This was highly appreciated by the CEO Satya Nadella, who found the ideal accommodation thanks to standing ovation’s contacts.

The WEF partner that performs the impossible.

The on-site services provided by standing ovation range from booking numerous guest apartments, through shuttle services, to managing the entire Microsoft Café. The hectic WEF days are always preceded by a design and planning phase, which also focuses on the look and feel of the WEF Café.

Success for 20 Minuten

The finale was a big party in Zurich’s trendy Kosmos venue. 20 Minuten staff and publishing customers, as well as 20 Minuten fans, enjoyed highlights such as the appearance of Lewis Capaldi, who performed his global number one smash hit, “Someone you loved”. Kosmos had never experienced such a party night.

Second learning: Action needs expertise.

An authority and standing ovation? Such cooperation was uncharted territory for both partners. “We wanted to be the actors in the change process ourselves. With standing ovation we had an idea provider, sparring partner and coach. So the implementers and doers stayed. This constellation was decisive for success“, comments Nancy Wayland Bigler.

For standing ovation, the first step was to look at the complex change process from a bird’s eye view in order to identify hurdles and possibilities. “The project was divided into three phases,” says Thomas Volprecht, Head of Branding and Strategy at standing ovation, outlining the procedure. “In a first step, we worked out the elements of the change story from the perspective of the employees. This was followed by a co-creation phase, in which we discussed the joint road map and accompanying communication measures. The third phase was the conception of employee event, in which the culture of change was actively initiated und experienced by all employees.“

Shaping change means addressing the mind and emotions.

Thomas Volprecht, Head of Branding and Strategy standing ovation

Third Learning: Future means Teamwork

Then came October 16, 2018: More than 350 SVA employees had assembled at the „Kulturzentrum Aarau“ to initiate and intensify the culture of change. Everyone was excited, everyone wanted to get started. All the greater was the impact of the bad news: The management of the SVA Aargau had resigned shortly before the employee event; it was replaced by appropriate software. Now it was up to the employees to become active.

The strategy of the opening scene (conceived by the SVA team leaders) was successful: It created the right framework to experience the employee event as a festival of interaction, inspiration and dialogue. As an event service provider, standing ovation, together with the SVA team leader, created the various experience formats as well as the overall dramaturgy. “Thanks to the teamwork with standing ovation, it was possible to anchor the topic of change in the minds and hearts.“ But what was equally pleasing for Nancy Wayland Bigler: “It was possible to achieve a very large impact with a rather limited budget.”

Refinement as a thought model

Refinement – on which the chocolate industry is based – was our conceptual model. Just as cocoa beans are turned into delicious chocolate, we designed CHOCOVISION 2018 as a process of refinement. At the end, the conference experience became a convincing whole: information, discussion, networking, socialising and the Davos Alpine world all rolled into one. State-of-the-art conference and communication technology played a key role.

Communication as a flow

A professional news team operated the newsroom. The conference content was thus available in condensed form at all times, both real time and stored. An event app was used for the first time, with which each guest could shape “his/her” information flow and manage “his/her” conference. This was incorporated into the agile format which comprised three sessions: LEARN – LISTEN – LEAD.

Evolution as precision work

Evolution requires both: a big idea as a basic direction as well as precision work and cooperation with the customer’s event team for the implementation. With CHOCOVISION 2018 we succeeded in grouping a number of innovative ideas to a convincing whole. The discerning audience’s reaction was gratifying: The exquisite mix of ideas, information and relaxation was totally refined.

Allowing people to experience our unique character.

“Yes, we’re a brand with wide appeal and a great deal of support,” says Pascale Meier, Head of the Fundraising Team at Kinderspital Zurich. “But we want people to gain a different impression. Our fundraising efforts therefore focus on an understanding of the institution and its special services. We want to allow people to experience our unique character.”

Change of perspective. Absolutely vital!

What makes this children’s hospital unique? Its young patients. Everything revolves around the children’s experiences – their feelings takes priority. A change of perspective was absolutely vital. So we made this the starting point of the anniversary campaign. Children’s experiences are part of the Kispi brand. Anyone looking at the children’s hospital from a child’s perspective will experience the institution’s impressive performance.

Thingamajig was the solution.

Our hard work on the communication mechanism paid off. It ensured that the anniversary was consistently communicated across multiple media. And what about the implementation?

Our young protagonists were and remain great personalities.

Children find their own words to describe their experiences. They transfer their experiences to their own world using their own language. Their words are both surprising and relevant. We call this the “Thingamajig” mechanism. Children’s perspectives provided credible emotional access to specialist medical topics and attracted the necessary attention to the brand messages – live, online and in print.

Our key considerations for the Kinderspital Zurich brand experience:

• Change of perspective: The young patients were our brand protagonists.
• Thingamajig mechanism: Children find the right words and images to playfully create simple connections to important specialist and factual topics.
• Common thread: The Thingamajig mechanism formed the basic framework of the anniversary year and was used both online and offline.
• Public presence: Live communication brought the Kispi anniversary to everyday Zurich life and supported the communication measures.
• Topic-selling: Complex topics became gripping, multimedia stories.

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