In 1995 Deutsche Bank advertised with the line Vertrauen ist der Anfang von allem, trust is the beginning of everything. In 2017 the brand consultant Klaus-Dieter Koch corrected it in the trade magazine Horizont: Vertrauen ist eben nicht, wie mal ein Claim der Deutschen Bank gesagt hat, der Anfang von allem, sondern der Endpunkt von allem. Und das gilt es sich zu erarbeiten. Trust is not, as a Deutsche Bank slogan once said, the beginning of everything, but the end point of everything. And it has to be earned.
advertising
The Best or Nothing
Das Beste oder nichts, the best or nothing, has been the slogan of Mercedes-Benz since a campaign that began in June 2010. The company presents it as the motto of its founder, Gottlieb Daimler. The trade journal Horizont reported at the launch: Der Spruch geht auf Firmengründer Gottlieb Daimler zurück. The saying goes back to company founder Gottlieb Daimler. Every source for the attribution that we found leads back to the company. None of them cites a letter, a speech or a note by Daimler. The head of brand communications at the time called the slogan generisch und damit authentisch, generic and therefore authentic.
The Good Things
Since 1988 the mail-order company Manufactum has sold solid, long-lived goods under the slogan Es gibt sie noch, die guten Dinge. They still exist, the good things. The range includes preserving jars, hat boxes, willow baskets and stainless-steel vacuum cleaners. The product texts use words such as altbewährt, long proven, gediegen, solid, and stabil, sturdy. In 2007 the Otto group took the company over.
The slogan promises that good things still exist. It also says that they have become rare.
When It Has to Turn Out Well
Wenn’s gut werden muss. When it has to turn out well. This is the established slogan of Bauhaus, a German chain of DIY stores. In 2019 a new agency developed the campaign further around the same claim. The company’s own site asks: Warum muss es eigentlich gut werden? Why does it actually have to turn out well?
The Day the A-Class Tipped Over
On 21 October 1997 the new Mercedes A-Class tipped over in a swerving test by a Swedish car magazine. Daimler-Benz stopped deliveries at once. It resumed them in February 1998, with electronic stability control fitted as standard, and it retrofitted the cars already sold. According to a report by the news agency dpa, fitting stability control as standard cost about 100 million marks a year. The reputation of the A-Class was damaged at first. The campaign that followed quoted the tennis player Boris Becker: Stark ist, wer keine Fehler macht. Stärker, wer aus seinen Fehlern lernt. (Strong is the one who makes no mistakes. Stronger is the one who learns from his mistakes.) Stability control later became standard in all Mercedes models.
Hopefully Insured
Hoffentlich Allianz versichert, hopefully insured with Allianz, is a slogan the insurer has used for decades. According to the trade journal Horizont, Allianz advertised with it as early as the 1950s. In 2003, the line was shortened to Hoffentlich Allianz. The word hoffentlich, hopefully, does not promise help after the damage. It hopes that the cover was arranged before.
Penny’s True Prices
For one week from 31 July 2023, the discount supermarket Penny charged wahre Preise, true prices, for nine of its more than 3,000 products. Scientists from the Technische Hochschule Nürnberg and the University of Greifswald had calculated the prices. They added the costs that food production causes for soil, climate, water and health. Maasdamer cheese became 94 percent more expensive. Vienna sausages became 88 percent more expensive. A vegan schnitzel rose by only 5 percent. Penny said it would give the extra revenue to a project for climate protection and family farms in the Alpine region.
Advertising With Pity
The clothing company Benetton ran advertisements in the magazine Stern that showed no product. One showed a duck covered in oil. One showed children at work in the Third World. One showed a naked body stamped with the words “H.I.V. POSITIVE”. On 6 July 1995, the Federal Court of Justice banned the magazine from printing the ads, because they were unfair competition. Its reasoning was this. A company that uses images of severe suffering to arouse pity for competitive purposes, without any objective reason, violates good morals in competition. The ads aimed only to create a mood in which consumers would side with the company.
On 12 December 2000, the Federal Constitutional Court overturned the rulings. The ads were protected as expressions of opinion.
Saturdays Daddy Belongs to Me
In 1955, the German Trade Union Confederation, the DGB, called for a five-day week of eight-hour days, a 40-hour week, with full pay. Its slogan for May Day 1955 was 40 Stunden sind genug – 5 Tage sind genug, 40 hours are enough, five days are enough. For May Day 1956, the DGB printed a poster with the line Samstags gehört Vati mir. On Saturdays, Daddy belongs to me. The five-day week then came industry by industry, in coal mining in 1959 and in banking in 1961. The 40-hour week was agreed in printing in 1965 and in the metal industry in 1967.
Master Business
A German craft business may advertise itself as a Meisterbetrieb, a master’s business, only if the owner or the technical manager holds the master title. According to the chamber of crafts in Dortmund, the rule exists so that customers are not misled. A business with another qualification may call itself a Fachbetrieb, a specialist business. The crafts’ own newspaper names two examples of advertising that can bring costly warning letters from competitors: a false Meisterbetrieb, and the slogan Alles rund ums Haus, everything around the house.