If you want to do successful media relations in Switzerland, quality and cultural understanding are required. So it makes sense to work with a local agency with the right contacts – but only if it has access to decisionmakers and the right information.

I admit that I admire the Germans for being able to express themselves so eloquently. What strikes me again and again is the way they often use so many words to say so little. My way of speaking isn’t as polished and I use my words more sparingly.

To German ears, the Swiss tinge of my language sounds like a cacophonous mixture of gravel, noise and hissing sounds. I’ve actually been made to feel that. After two months of working together, the reservations were gone. My English also has a Swiss flavour. But people in the Anglo-Saxon world are apparently more language-tolerant.

And yet I have an advantage over my foreign competitors: I know most of the journalists – and they know me. But I’ll soon have exhausted my daily quota of words, so I’ll keep it short.

A small market where people know each other

Switzerland is a small market with the most important national titles concentrated in the Zurich, Arc Lémanique and Lugano regions. Journalists and PR agencies know each other. Local relationships are invaluable.

You don’t gain the trust of Swiss journalists straight away. Without the right contacts, any approach from a journalist, however subtle, or any media release, will end up in the wastepaper bin faster than you can say “Grüezi”. Despite this, we have foreign agencies and companies trying their hand at media relations in Switzerland But the communication barriers to entry are usually too high for them. If they’re not known locally, they rarely attract attention. At the same time, at headquarters – be it in Berlin, London or New York – there’s often little understanding of what makes a good story in the media.

Added to this, journalists are often underestimated. When I explain to account managers at agencies in London or Berlin that in Switzerland, switching from a bank to journalism can definitely be a career move (even if it’s recently been increasingly in the opposite direction), they look at me in disbelief.

Cultural differences

In recent years we’ve done successful communications for numerous international companies. Nevertheless, clients occasionally had reservations at the beginning of our collaboration. They had to do with the fact that people abroad see the Swiss market as being negligibly small, combined with a lack of geographic knowledge (“Oh, really, four languages in one country?”). Sometimes the reservations were also of a linguistic nature.

Each country has a different mentality. Local expertise is crucial for successful media work. In Germany there’s a penchant for clear hierarchies and precise language. The result is often formal, cumbersome texts peppered with empty phrases, with little content and telltale German Eszetts. They rarely find favour in the Swiss media. If you can’t get the gist of your story across to a journalist in an email or on the phone in two short sentences, you’ve lost. Harry Büsser, former member of the Handelszeitung editorial team, sums it up: “I want plain language. If someone doesn’t get straight to the point in an email, I delete it immediately.”

The battle for relevant information

It’s often companies abroad or PR agencies that hire us for media work in the Swiss market. The former see agencies as recipients of orders and our contacts are often the marketing departments. Their focus is on products and services that drive sales and growth. Storytelling isn’t their thing.

Of course, there are also people in these marketing departments who understand our needs as an agency. Even there, though, the corporate mindset prevails. This is also reflected in the language, which is often peppered with marketing slang. We then translate this language into a media-friendly form.

We focus on communicating content and building relationships, not only with journalists but also with multipliers. This always raises the cardinal question: Do we have access to the relevant decisionmakers and experts? Are we going to be granted transparency within the company? This allows us to develop good stories for the media.

Ideally, there should be a relationship of trust with the CEO. But the larger the company, the more likely it is that we’ll receive watered-down statements and information from second or third parties. This makes media relations more difficult.

The advantages of local heroes

Corporate groups prefer to have a single point of contact for their global communications. So they choose an agency with a global presence. Ultimately, however, effective PR depends on local expertise. This requires direct contact with management and an understanding of local conditions.

A company that wants to gain a foothold in Switzerland should consider in advance how it wants to organise its communications. When it comes to choosing an agency, the stronger the local roots, the better.