Our office in Zurich would be short lived. Not only was the Kia business horrible to manage, but Christoph was by no means a star Creative Director. He also had few contacts and showed little interest in going out to hustle for new business. He was just happy to execute what he was given to do. Three years later, when the Kia contract expired, we quietly closed the Zurich office.

But that was not the end of my ambition in the Swiss German part of Switzerland. I knew that we would never be taken seriously as a national advertising agency if we didn’t have Swiss German clients, so I kept pushing to generate business in this part of Switzerland. Since we had only very little creative work of our own to showcase, I did something that no other advertising agency was doing: I showed the work of others.

After talking about our agency in general terms, I would show prospective clients creative work and transformative ideas that I loved. It was output from other agencies, mostly from other countries. I picked only truly exceptional work and said to clients: ‘This is the kind of advertising that Simko would like to do for you!’ To my surprise, a lot of clients simply forgot that the work they had seen had not been created by Simko, even though I said it. They remembered us favourably, thought that we understood how to identify great work, were entertained and, when the occasion presented itself, invited us to pitch for their business.

Following a meeting like the one described above, an opportunity arose for us in 1998 with Mövenpick. One of Switzerland’s most iconic companies, it had over time grown into a major conglomerate, including restaurants, cruises, hotels and consumer products. Its business was spread throughout Europe. Their headquarters were close to Zurich.

We were invited to pitch for all of Mövenpick’s business in what was described by the local press as ‘Switzerland’s pitch of the year’. The client invited five agencies in total. Four were Switzerland’s largest, most creative and best-known agencies—all based in Zurich. We were the fifth, based in ‘far away’ Geneva.

It appeared like a lost cause, but I approached it in a way that no other agency did: I ignored the lengthy and convoluted brief written by the global Marketing Director, and went instead to visit the marketing directors of each of the four business units. I quickly realised that none of the operational units wanted a uniform, global campaign, which was the objective of the brief. Only the newly appointed global Marketing Director wanted it; his colleagues in the units were looking for a way to continue doing their own campaigns, while paying lip service to the new man installed in Mövenpick’s headquarters. It was, I realised, a power struggle, one that I could help the units win. 

On ‘pitch day’, we were the third agency to present. The sessions were scheduled one after the other, starting at 7am. Each agency had 45 minutes to present, then there was a 15-minute break between agency presentations. There were 18 people present from Mövenpick, including the global CEO. Each of the units was represented not only by their marketing manager, but also by the unit CEO. The global Marketing Director was clearly outnumbered. 

Punctually at 9am I walked into the presentation room, accompanied by a creative director. On the way in, we crossed the previous agency, who had presented with 12 people. I later learned that they, like most of the other agencies, had run over their allotted time because of too many people and too many ideas, much to the irritation of the global CEO, who liked punctuality. 

I started by addressing the global CEO directly and said: ‘As part of the preparation for this pitch, I spent time with each of your business units. I met with the marketing managers individually and analysed their recent work. My assessment is that each unit has a highly successful campaign. There is no point in destroying what these gentlemen have done. My agency will present a solution that will allow every unit to continue running its own campaign, but will still give a sense of unity to Mövenpick.’ 

My creative director then showed in rapid succession about two dozen recently produced print ads from the different units. Each now included the line ‘Mövenpick. Pick the best’ and was accompanied by a beautifully animated seagull (the emblem of the brand), with its beak ‘picking’ on the most interesting or relevant part of each photo or illustration.

Our presentation took twelve minutes. I then asked if I there were any questions. The global Marketing Director said: ‘That’s it?? That’s your presentation?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But where is the global campaign that we asked for in the brief, the campaign that will feature all activities from all of our business units?’ ‘You don’t need it,’ I said, ‘it’s a waste of time and money. As I just said, Mövenpick’s business units are doing great work, all we need to do is to add a common tagline and your mythical seagull, to remind everyone that it’s the same brand.’ Then, looking at the CEO, I said: ‘By doing it this way, you will save each year at least USD 3 million in media, production and agency fees, and you’ll have better results.’ There was a long silence. I looked at my watch. It was 9:23am. I said: ‘If there are no further questions, then I would like to thank you for your time and offer you the next 22 minutes as a present from our agency.’ I then added: ‘If you decide to work with us, at every meeting you will get what you just saw—clarity, speed and pragmatism.’ Then I walked out.

At 1pm the same day, the Mövenpick CEO called me. He wanted to know if I was still in Zurich. ‘Yes,’ I said. Could I return to Mövenpick? he asked. When I arrived, he and all of the other business unit CEOs shook my hand. We had won the business. The CEO said: ‘It’s very difficult to get every unit to agree on anything in this company. But today was the exception, all business units picked you. Well done!’

Before leaving, I had a picture taken of the all the unit managers, the CEO and myself. The next day, the client received the nicely framed photo. It had the seagull pointing at me. At the bottom it said: ‘Mövenpick. Pick the best’. At the top it said: Thank you. 

Our Mövenpick win became the talk of the town in the Swiss advertising world and led to over a dozen interviews in the press. The Swiss Germans all wondered who this man from Geneva was, whose advertising agency no one had ever heard of. This led to additional opportunities.

The beer brand Carlsberg was looking for a new campaign and we were invited to pitch. As with Mövenpick, it was four big Swiss German agencies and us.

I interviewed the client and asked how they would decide. ‘We’ll do a consumer test; the winning campaign will be chosen by consumers,’ I was told. I asked to speak to the research institute and they explained to me which testing method they would use. I realised that the chosen method would privilege a campaign with a very simple message; given the structure of the test, anything remotely complicated would not be understood, because the images would be moving too fast.

I looked into Carlsberg’s international pool of advertising and stumbled onto a campaign developed years before by Saatchi & Saatchi in London. It showed beautiful, exotic landscapes, in the midst of which appeared a Carlsberg delivery truck, accompanied by the tagline: ‘Probably the best beer in the world’. The message was incredibly simple: we are the only truly global beer brand. I was sure that the typically understated word ‘probably’ in the tagline would work in Switzerland, where loud screaming is not part of the culture. I also thought that everyone, no matter what their local language, would understand the English line, and that the exotic landscapes would seduce the Swiss, who love to travel.

I contacted Saatchi & Saatchi in London and asked them if I could pay a royalty for their campaign. They were amazed that another agency would ask to use their campaign, but immediately said yes. They were happy that their work would be potentially shown in Switzerland and we arranged for a very reasonable fee.

On pitch day, as had happened with Mövenpick, every other agency arrived with at least fifty boards and a dozen people. I arrived alone, with ten boards. Every other agency presented scribbles created by expensive Swiss illustrators (at the time, scribbles showing your intention were shown first. Once a campaign had been selected, you hired a photographer and created real images).

I presented beautiful, ready-to-print images of Saatchi’s campaign. It took me ten minutes to take the client through the entire concept. The marketing director was confused and somewhat annoyed. ‘But we need a Swiss campaign, this is international,’ he said. I ignored his comment, turned to the CEO and said: ‘This will cost you a lot less, you won’t need to create a campaign in three languages and you won’t need to produce any material in Switzerland. Plus, you’ll be able to launch immediately, in time for the summer.’ ‘But this is a campaign from another agency,’ the marketing director complained. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but it’s excellent, it fulfils your needs and I’ve secured all rights for Switzerland.’

Consumers massively chose the Saatchi campaign. It was so simple and clear. And it looked so beautiful, compared to the scribbles that the other agencies had prepared. We won the business. There were celebrations not only at Simko Geneva, but also at Saatchi London, the harbinger of many more to come.