Rethinking Marketing – in Just 48 Hours. Raiffeisenbank Winterthur challenged us to create a new marketing concept under extreme time pressure. The result: a concept driven by humor, self-awareness, and authentic communication on equal footing.
Day 1
The first day didn’t actually begin until 6:00 p.m. – so really, it started in the evening. I attended Hack Winterthur 2026 as part of a fourth-semester course project. That’s where I met up with my two classmates, Leon Mühlbacher and Gian Felder.
After two informative presentations, it was time to choose our challenge. We decided to take on the one presented by Raiffeisen:
Raiffeisenbank Winterthur aims to achieve above-average growth next year. We are looking for innovative, high-impact marketing concepts unlike anything a bank has ever done before.
As communications students, this challenge was a perfect fit for us. Once we had made our choice, we jumped straight into brainstorming. From the very beginning, we knew the campaign needed to be lighthearted and, above all, funny. For a while, though, we weren’t sure which direction to take. Then the breakthrough came: Better Call Raiffeisen – a concept inspired by the TV series Better Call Saul.
Day 2
The next day started at 9:00 a.m. It was time to turn the slogan into a full marketing concept. Our first ideas included a hotline that non-customers could use to receive advice on banking-related issues. However, it quickly became clear that implementing this idea would have involved too many challenges. The core idea of positioning Raiffeisen as a problem solver, however, remained.
Throughout the day, we collected various building blocks for our concept: humor and self-irony, honesty and transparency, communication on equal footing, and Raiffeisenbank as a problem solver. The result was a campaign built around humorous and honest quotes under the slogan Better Call Raiffeisen. These quotes address everyday challenges faced by bank customers and present an ironic yet memorable solution: switching to Raiffeisen.
Day 3
The final day began again at 9:00 a.m. After developing the campaign the day before, the only thing left was preparing the pitch. We spent the next two hours working on its concept and design. After a well-deserved lunch break, we returned right on time for the pitch sessions at 1:00 p.m.
There, we also learned about some surprise guests: the executive board of Raiffeisenbank Winterthur. We were facing a real test of our abilities. After three exciting pitches, it was our turn. Leon and I took the stage and presented the work we had created over the past 48 hours in just five minutes.
Shortly afterward, we received feedback from Raiffeisen. Overall, they liked our idea and shared valuable suggestions for improvement. We then discussed these points directly with our lecturer and agreed on a plan for further developing the concept – even though we unfortunately did not win the competition.
Finalization
In the following semester, we used the feedback from Raiffeisen and our lecturer to develop a complete marketing concept. We built on our strengths while specifically addressing the weaknesses of our original idea. The result: an innovative marketing concept unlike anything a bank has ever done before.
(Files are kept in their original language to preserve the original contributors’ work as they created it.)