advertising Archives - Page 7 of 12

Behind the Newspaper

Dahinter steckt immer ein kluger Kopf. There is always a clever head behind it. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has used this advertising slogan since 1961. Since 1995 its campaign has shown well-known people photographed behind the open newspaper. In 2010 one of them was Joachim Gauck.

The paper itself has had no editor-in-chief from the start. A board of publishers sets its line. In 2009 the board had five members. When the paper turned 60 that year, one of the publishers, Berthold Kohler, said it would celebrate quietly. Uns selbst zu feiern ist noch nie so recht unsere Art gewesen. Celebrating ourselves has never really been our way.

We. Serve. Germany.

In summer 2011 the Bundeswehr started a large recruitment campaign. Its motto was Wir. Dienen. Deutschland. We. Serve. Germany. Defense Minister Thomas de Maizière had presented the slogan in an interview with the newspaper Welt am Sonntag.

In March 2013 the Schwäbische Zeitung reported on a panel with de Maizière and Archbishop Robert Zollitsch. The paper wrote that the word dienen sounds old-fashioned and suggests servility. De Maizière gave his own definition. Dienen ist der Einsatz für andere. To serve is to commit oneself for others.

The word is also part of the oath in Section 9 of the Soldiers Act. Ich schwöre, der Bundesrepublik Deutschland treu zu dienen und das Recht und die Freiheit des deutschen Volkes tapfer zu verteidigen, so wahr mir Gott helfe. I swear to serve the Federal Republic of Germany faithfully and to defend bravely the rights and the freedom of the German people, so help me God. The religious ending is optional.

On its 66th anniversary in November 2021, the Bundeswehr published a video under the same motto.

National Plan for Vacation Day

Since 2017 the U.S. Travel Association has promoted National Plan for Vacation Day on the last Tuesday in January. It encourages Americans to plan the vacation days they already have. In 2021 American workers earned an average of 15.6 days of paid time off and used 11.0.

In Doers We Trust

In early 2017 the freelance platform Fiverr ran an ad campaign called “In Doers We Trust” in the New York City subway. One poster read: “You eat a coffee for lunch. You follow through on your follow through. Sleep deprivation is your drug of choice. You might be a doer.”

Jia Tolentino quoted it in The New Yorker in March 2017. She also quoted a 2016 post on the Lyft blog about a driver in Chicago who was in labor: “she stayed in driver mode, and sure enough—ping!— she received a ride request en route to the hospital.” Tolentino called it a “faux-inspirational tale.”

The Yellow Angel’s Numbers

The ADAC is Germany’s largest automobile club. Its award, the Gelber Engel, the Yellow Angel, included a vote by members on the Lieblingsautos der Deutschen, the Germans’ favorite cars. On 14 January 2014 the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that only 3,409 members had voted for the winner, the VW Golf. The ADAC had announced 34,299. Its managing director spoke of Unterstellungen und Unwahrheiten, insinuations and untruths. A few days later the communications chief Michael Ramstetter admitted the manipulation and resigned from all his posts. In a survey published on 23 January, 47 percent said they now trusted the ADAC less than before the crisis. In December 2016, after a reform of the club, its president August Markl said that its reputation was fast wiederhergestellt, almost restored.

Poolside

In February 2014 Cadillac launched a television ad for its ELR car during the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics. The actor Neal McDonough stands by his pool and asks, “Why do we work so hard? For what? For this? For stuff?”

He says that other countries “take August off. Off!” Then he answers his own question: “Because we’re crazy, driven, hard-working believers, that’s why.” The ad ends: “As for all the stuff? That’s the upside of only taking two weeks off in August, n’est-ce pas?”

Cadillac called the ad a “brand provocation.” Some viewers praised it as “an unapologetic ode to American values.” Others called it “Ugly American chest thumping at its worst.”

In Case of a Case

Im Falle eines Falles klebt UHU wirklich alles. In case of a case, UHU really glues everything. According to one press report, the advertising line of the glue maker from Bühl dates from the 1930s. In 1932 the pharmacist August Fischer presented UHU, which a pharmacy trade report calls the world’s first ready-to-use, synthetic, crystal-clear all-purpose glue.

Im Falle eines Falles has become a set phrase in German. It means when the emergency comes.

We Can Do Everything, Except Standard German

In 1999 the state government of Baden-Württemberg began an image campaign with the agency Scholz & Friends. Its closing line became a catchphrase: Wir können alles. Außer Hochdeutsch. We can do everything, except standard German. The agency’s case study names the problem that the campaign had to solve. Baden-Württemberg galt auch als das Land der leistungsorientierten Streber. Baden-Württemberg was also seen as the land of achievement-driven swots. So the campaign showed people die Spitzenleistungen vollbracht haben und dabei sympathisch und menschlich geblieben sind, who had achieved top performance and had stayed likable and human. The self-irony, the agency wrote, beweist Größe und macht sympathisch. It shows greatness and makes people likable.

Prizes for the Worst

Since 2009 the consumer organization foodwatch has awarded the Goldener Windbeutel, the golden cream puff, for misleading food advertising. Since 2011 the public has chosen the winner in an online vote. In 2019 the prize went to Zwergenwiese’s tomato sauce for children, with 53 percent of almost 70,000 votes. It contained twice as much sugar as the version for adults.

Since 1977 the association Aktion Plagiarius has given a mock prize to the makers and sellers of especially brazen copies of products. The trophy is a black dwarf with a golden nose.

In January 2026 the consumer center of Hamburg named its Mogelpackung des Jahres 2025, cheat package of the year. Milka’s Alpine milk chocolate won two thirds of the votes. The bar had shrunk from 100 to 90 grams, while its price rose from 1.49 to 1.99 euros.

One Person, One Word

In January 2025, before the federal election, the Greens campaigned with posters of their candidate for chancellor, Robert Habeck. The slogan read Ein Mensch. Ein Wort. One person, one word. It adapts the old saying Ein Mann, ein Wort, one man, one word. On a Friday evening in early January, a company that said it was working for the Greens projected Habeck’s portrait onto the Siegestor, the victory gate in Munich. Under it stood the words Bündniskanzler. Ein Mensch. Ein Wort. Alliance chancellor, one person, one word. The police stopped the projection. A few days later Habeck defended it in a video podcast of FOCUS online. Natürlich ist das eine gewisse Provokation. Of course it is a certain provocation.