Swiss quality award

Good achievements in exhibition contracting and event marketing are rewarded with a Xaver in our neighbouring country. This year it was very selectively bestowed. Out of 18 possible prizes, only half were actually awarded.

A Xaver is not easy to get. The prize that the Expo + Event Swiss Association, which groups together trade fair companies and event agencies and their suppliers, this year awarded for the sixth time, was bestowed very selectively. In none of the six categories were all three prizes, gold, silver and bronze, conferred. Of at least 18 possible awards, only nine and two special prizes were given. The organising association emphasised this was not because of the number of submissions but based solely on the award criteria. "We deliberately set high standards to motivate agencies to achieve top performances together with customers", says Polo Looser, president of the association.
The decisions of the two judges panels were therefore very strict. For the trade fair awards the judges were Kurt Frischknecht, Messe Schweiz, Iris Sorgalla, Reed Exhibitions (Switzerland), and Philip Kramer, Orange Communications AG. For the event awards, Manfred Popp, tillate.com, Urs Brülisauer, Mister Schweiz Organisation, Michael Loris-Melikoff, Verein Street Parade Zürich and Corinne Hellmann, Milla & Partner, Stuttgart, judged the entries.
Being so sparingly bestowed is what gives the Xaver its "lasting value", Looser is at pains to stress. A Xaver is "the highest quality label for exhibition and event projects on the Swiss market", the Xaver awards were therefore one of the high points of the August Marketing Trade Fair X in Zurich. Everyone who is anyone turned up for the award-giving, which had something of a summit meeting.
In the category Customized, third prize was awarded to Creaworld AG, Bellach, and its customer Rigips AG, Mägenwill. The jury were even more impressed by Impact Unlimited GmbH, Rotebühl, and its stand for UBS at Fonds, to which they awarded silver. The judges awarded a special prize in the category Customized to a touring exhibition of the Swiss faculties of architecture. This was the work of Instand Architekten, while Bach Heiden AG was responsible for the fair contracting. The customer was ETH Zürich. In the categorie System there was only one winner. Here, Andreas Messerli AG, Wetzikon, won gold with a stand for its customer Caparol AG, Volketswil at Appli Tec. The Showcase exhibition (Aroma Productions, customer Danielle Stutz and Rea Eggli) fetched gold in the category Budget, with silver going to the trade fair stand Flyerline of the t'nt events GmbH at X'05, built by Andreas Messerli.
As for the events in the category Public, Uniplan Switzerland AG swayed the judges with its "Seile bewegen Basel", which the eponymous association had ordered. Silver went to Wunderman AG for a world record attempt at continuous phoning. The customer was the telecom provider TDC Switzerland.
Silver in the category Business was earned by Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett SG, who tailor-made the Mountain Trophy Swisscom for Swisscom Fixnet Wholesale, Zurich. "Extraordinarily strategic" were the judges words of praise for the gold winner of this category: x-act AG Live communication for UBS AG. For the conference motto "better together", 550 employees had to build a 2,000-m2 town out of 43,000 cardboard blocks, in which they later attended a city festival. A special prize in the category Budget was won, not by the event, but by the attention-getting effect it had, the launching of a new scent by Axe, Axe Click.
"Not all pretenders can become king", Kathrin Ebner, Head of Corporate Marketing Communication at Messe Schweiz, had said in a speech at the start of the event. Even though not everyone got to be a king on stage, none of the around 800 guests left Hall 3 empty handed. There was a blue and white cuddly toy for everyone. Its name: Xaver.

m+a report Nr.6 / 2006 vom 22.09.2006
m+a report vom 22. September 2006