Transcript
Speaker: We fell in love with quantity and we forgot about the quality side and all the media industry they don't care about because they run on big numbers. Welcome to Friction Reloaded, the podcast.
Speaker: I'm Florian Schleicher, a marketing strategist, and this is where we cut through the noise. Because everyone is talking about trends, but most of it is noise. In this podcast, I sit down with industry leaders, marketers, and strategists.
Speaker: And together, we don't just talk about what's coming. We uncover what it means and what you can do with it. It's all about real perspectives and actionable insights. No fluff. So let's dive in.
Speaker: My guest today is Andreas Ziesler. He is a distinguished brand strategist and marketing expert who has shaped numerous well-known brands in Austria. He currently serves as head of marketing and branding at Donauversicherung, where he oversees the entire brand presence, from strategic positioning to execution across all channels, and has played a key role in evolving and repositioning the brand.
Speaker: Previously, he held leading marketing roles at Casinos Austria, Wiener Städtische Versicherung, and served as marketing director at McDonald's Austria. He began his career at the Austrian Lotteries, where he successfully developed and expanded a wide range of products, including formats that remain integral to Austria's brand landscape today.
Speaker: What sets him apart is his unique combination of strategic thinking and hands-on execution, from defining brand vision to delivering impactful campaigns. He's also known for his ability to lead teams, inspire people, and make complex ideas easy to understand.
Speaker: And his work has earned him multiple awards, including recently being named Marketer of the Year in 2025, a clear testament to his effectiveness and success in marketing. With that being said, it's an honor to have you on the show, Andreas. First of all, thank you very much for having me here today.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a pleasure. I wrote a trend report and ever since I've been thinking a lot about what shifts are happening in the advertising landscape, in consumer behavior. And I know you're also thinking about what shifts are happening. So I would be curious, what is currently on your mind when you think about movements in the advertising landscape?
Speaker: yeah When I had the honor of being named Marketer of the Year and during the award ceremony, I tried to use the this opportunity to simply speak about, not simply speak about campaigns, brand or business success, but to reflect a little more on what our industry is facing at the moment, the role marketing and the media plays in society today.
Speaker: and on the systems we have created and the responsibility that comes with this enormous communicative power we hold in our hands. Because whether we like it or not, communication has become one of the defining forces of modern society.
Speaker: Advertising no longer only sells product media, no longer only distributes information, and platforms no longer only connect people. it They shape the perception, they shape attention, and ultimately they shape the reality.
Speaker: So as marketers, agencies, media people, we decide every single day what becomes visible, what gets amplified.
Speaker: what receives attention, and what disappears into irrelevance. So, you know, this is ah a very strong position we are in as marketers. Yeah, it's it's great power, and that comes with responsibility.
Speaker: I tried to summarize my ideas in three thoughts so on different flight levels. The first is about freedom. at That's the highest flight level. Our industry likes to speak about freedom, you know, freedom of speech, freedom of communication, open markets, competition, innovation.
Speaker: Right. So these principles are ah deeply connected to liberal democracies and the success of our modern economies. Advertising itself, I think it's it's built on the idea that different voices compete for attention in an open marketplace.
Speaker: But I believe something fundamental is currently shifting, not because freedom itself will disappear, but the freedom is increasingly being transformed by the economic logic of attention.
Speaker: In theory, digital platforms create game-changing communicative freedom. you know Everyone can publish. yeah Everyone can reach audiences.
Speaker: Everyone can participate. And just to to stop you right there for a thought while I was writing my master thesis that has now been 16 years ago, I wrote about social media back then and yeah how it actually changes how brands communicate.
Speaker: and how the culture of communication changes. And while a lot of things were true about what I wrote, with one thing I was very much wrong, which was the thought, which was also prevalent back then in in most thinking circles, that it would actually democratize the world even more.
Speaker: No, no, it it didn't. You know, because because in practice, visibility is not distributed equally. It's distributed by an algorithm.
Speaker: Yeah. And it's no longer social medias more ergolinic media, media. It's algorithmic and the algorithm rewards what performs. Yeah. but So out outrage performs, conflict performs, think about truth social.
Speaker: what's what What's going on there? Polarization performs. Neuensation doesn't. you know and Nobody does explain things in a proper way. So differentiation often loses against emotional intensity and complexity struggles against speed.
Speaker: That's it. that's That's a very uncomfortable reality that we're living in. And many business models in modern communication increasingly benefit from not from an informed public, but from an emotional escalation.
Speaker: yeah And this is not the preliminary about individual morality. It's not blaming specific people inside companies. It's it's a structural thing.
Speaker: no The system is optimized for engagement and and the economies reward attention. That's it. That's simple. And especially with attention spans getting lower and lower, most people lose the ability to think complex thoughts.
Speaker: And that's, I think, also the challenge of the world that we have at the moment, which is we have very complex problems which require very complex solutions. But if we don't have the mental bandwidth to think about the complexity anymore, we tend to be drawn to someone who offers us a very simple solution, which is yeah explaining the rise of populism again.
Speaker: Yeah. So ah we... incentivize the wrong things at the end. you know we We only incentivize reach. yeah and and and And reach is not a given factor.
Speaker: yes So I think we should reflect on um on ah the concept of reach itself. In our industry, reach is often treated almost automatically as a positive metric.
Speaker: More reach equals more success, but reach itself has no moral value. It's on an amplifier, and amplification can be used for the good or for the bad.
Speaker: And the important question therefore is not only how many people can we reach, but also what exactly are we amplifying? Because not every campaign needs to be as loud as possible.
Speaker: Some campaigns could deliberately be smarter, more differentiated, more trustworthy, more meaningful and so on. Because I actually believe that in a world of increasing noise and volume, trust and intelligence may become competitive advantages again, hopefully.
Speaker: And also probably for not everybody, but for some people. that for some people. The question then is whether we'll have a further polarization of audiences where some are just going for the easiest, fastest, simplest solution and others more for, okay, I want to do it right. I want to take my time. I don't want to rely 100% on the algorithm and what companies think I should do.
Speaker: but probably some people just won't be able to do that because they have so many worries in their life that they can't worry about their information diet. Yeah, you're absolutely on the spot. so So my second thought is about efficiency.
Speaker: no Efficiency is probably the dominant ideology of modern marketing. Everything is about optimization, you know faster targeting, better optimization, lower acquisition costs, higher conversion rates.
Speaker: more scalable systems and so on. And obviously efficiency matters, but without efficiency, no market economy will function on the long run. So we we have to cope with that.
Speaker: But efficiency is not neutral because efficiency always depends on what we exactly optimize for. And this is where where things become interesting. Because most of our marketing systems today are extraordinarily good at measuring distribution efficiency. you know We can measure impressions with precision, we can take clients in real time, we can optimize performance campaigns automatically, we can calculate attribution models across multiple touchpoints.
Speaker: the Technological sophistication is remarkable, but despite all this sophistication, our systems are still surprisingly weak in measuring the quality.
Speaker: you know We measure whether something was seen, but not necessarily whether it was understood. As you said, that's the big difference. We measure whether someone clicked, but not necessarily whether their trust increased for the brand.
Speaker: We measure attention duration, but often not cognitive or emotional impact. So what the the recipient was thinking about. And the this so I think this is a dangerous imbalance because organization naturally optimize what they can measure easily.
Speaker: And as Peter Drucker, the famous V&E said, what gets measured gets managed. h And on the other hand, it is true what is difficult to measure often becomes strategically invisible.
Speaker: So if we don't measure quality, it's ah not a strategic target or we we lose it out of sight. But how do we measure quality? How do you also at Dona Insurance measure that? You currently have a campaign out there do have a campaign out there. How do you measure the success of that?
Speaker: we You can measure the success, as you said, but you can measure the quality of your communication. I think that's that's the big problem because there are tools out there. We understand tension metrics much better today. We can analyze trust, things like that. But you have to have a study or read a book on that.
Speaker: There is no KPI, no no common KPI in the media industry for that. And as long as there is no KPI, because, you know, when you plan or set up a campaign, your controllers ask for numbers, your board ask for benchmarks, and your procurement, they ask for comparability for different offers.
Speaker: So... There are very many KPIs for the quantitative side and there are no common for the qualitative side. m And if you don't have any numbers at hand, you lose an argument very, very easy and very fast.
Speaker: Why do you think that we don't have KPIs for quality? Because we we're in love with quantity. We fell in love with quantity and we forgot about the quality side and the all the media industry, they don't care about because they run on big numbers and it's easier to go on big numbers if you only follow the qualitative side.
Speaker: yeah and And this is where it becomes dangerous because the quantity becomes ah a moral alibi at the end, a way of saying the system optimized it, the algorithm recommended it, the performance metric proved it.
Speaker: So you give away all your your responsibility and the responsibility slowly disappears into dashboards. It's not the human who's taking response.
Speaker: And I think that's one of the biggest leadership challenges for our industry these days. How to combine the technological efficiency with the human responsibility.
Speaker: Because optimization itself is not the wisdom. no yeah it's it's number It's number crunching. Algorithm can optimize distribution, but they are very bad in defining social values.
Speaker: Yes, absolutely. so So this responsibility still belongs to us. And I think this will be a major step for the industry to set up a systematic quality metrics alongside performance metrics.
Speaker: Not instead of efficiency, you know, efficiency will stay for sure, but in balance and to balance with it. Yeah, I would be curious because in your latest campaign, you will also actively ask people what they want and yet want them to share what they want from an insurance, what they want from life in general.
Speaker: And you can, of course, track how many responses you get. But I also would be curious, are there any insights that you have learned from that outreach, from asking them for their comments that you want to share already here?
Speaker: I think this was just a clever idea of asking people to think about their lives. So if you ask a question to another person, you have to make up your mind first. So you have to think about your own life.
Speaker: And when you think about your own life, maybe insurance is a very low interest product comes into your mind as well. So that was the the emotional hook.
Speaker: Ah, yeah. Okay. the Sneaky way to actually get people to think about insurance, which is per se not a very emotional product. It is not a very emotional product and no one wakes up in the morning and well, I have to get the household insurance. Maybe health insurance if you feel bad, but...
Speaker: But I'll tell you something there. I worked for Too Good To Go before I started my own company. I was head of marketing there. And per se, saving food and going out there and getting the food, that's a very emotional thing.
Speaker: And yet still, one of my best friends, he still works at Too Good To Go. He's the head of brand. And one time we had a conversation and he said to me, you know, Florian, nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks today I should say food with too good to go.
Speaker: yeah In general, I think we as marketeers by far overestimate how much people actually think about our brands. Yes. That's why we have to advertise so much. Yes.
Speaker: Because people don't wake up with the with the with the idea of buying yeah a product. Yes, exactly. Because in the end, they just want to have a comfortable life. Yes, that's And that leads me to my third thought, you know, it's about Europe platforms and convenience.
Speaker: You know, we in Europe today, we face ah a communicative dependency. or You know, a large part of our digital public sphere is controlled by non-European, let's call them platforms, whose infrastructure, their algorithms and commercial incentives, we do not influence ourselves. So we depend on Either the West or the East.
Speaker: If it's TikTok, in the East. And we often think ah regulation will help us in Europe. It won't. It's the market. I think a very important aspect, often underestimated, is UX, user experience.
Speaker: The global platforms succeeded not only because they had scale, you know. They succeeded because they radically simplified advertising. They removed all the frictions from it I can give you a very simple everyday example.
Speaker: My sister runs a small hotel in the south of Austria. If she wants to advertise, she opens Meta or Google, TripAdvisor selects a target group, uploads content, defines a budget, enter payment details, and within minutes the campaign is up and running.
Speaker: This is intuitive, fast, accessible, low threshold. Now compare this experience with many European media environments. I don't know any in Austria, and I tried it in the German-speaking world.
Speaker: There is none because I'm doing the advertising for my sister as well. So there is none. m And those big platforms, they collect one-third of the global income for small and medium enterprise advertising. They don't only target the big ones, the big guitars. They only go for the small for the little money. And that's why they are so successful.
Speaker: So very often did the quality of the media environment on these platforms is not high standard. we We have better standards, higher journalistic standards, higher trust rates.
Speaker: Strong editorial control, greater social responsibility with the European platforms. But the the access is more fragmented, it's less integrated, and it's less intuitive.
Speaker: And, you know, small business, they go the easy way. They have no media agency at hand who can help them and do the booking and things like that. So money will always go the easy way.
Speaker: And it's not because they dislike quality, all those advertisers. It's because time, simplicity, usability, the powerful economic forces. That's what I believe European media companies need much stronger collaboration models. In Austria, they atraic this started and tried to, but it's more like ah about trying, not about putting things on the market at the moment.
Speaker: They tried to do it for for big companies, but completely forget about the the the smaller ones. So what I really would like to see are shared booking systems, you know shared standards, shared quality standards.
Speaker: shared interfaces and uns simplified access, you know. Because I believe the sovereignty and in communication will not be decided politically. I think that's a field we will lose.
Speaker: It will be decided on a technical side and on the side the user experience and and the ease of use. That's a rather grim also picture that you're drawing there, which is the reality.
Speaker: What gives you hope when you look at those issues that you just mentioned? What gives me hope? That the there are some people...
Speaker: who already know about those frictions in the market, they try to overcome it. But it's like in war, you know, you have to have the force, you have to have distinction and you have to have the will to fight.
Speaker: If you say, oh, well, no, meta is too big, we never will do so. Like we had a platform in Austria, which wanted to tackle Amazon Kaufhaus Österreich.
Speaker: And they failed. And everybody was happy that they failed. you know We should be very sorry that they failed. And was like, ok let's give it a second shot. Let's give it a third shot. So we always think... Why were people happy that it failed? Because they said, oh, well, the Austrians, it's a it's a homemade, not not well-made, not well-done thing.
Speaker: We are too small. All those self-fulfilling prophecies... So we were making fun about ourselves and while doing that. We were making fun ourselves while doing that, yeah. he said Well, it was done by the ministry and and they are so bad at the ministry of economics and so on. We said, well, well Second try, third try, once again.
Speaker: I would be curious also because you mentioned Meta and how simple it is to advertise there and also the reach that it gives companies. You are probably also advertising on Meta with we do so have the insurance. How do you balance that counter way that you don't want to just support those platforms, but you also want to invest into the Austrian or European media landscape? while knowing that you might not be as efficient in ah brackets there, how do you balance that? I think out of home is a very good advertising to reach across all age groups, all society groups.
Speaker: So we do a bit of other form advertising. We still do TV commercials, linear and non-linear on the streaming platforms. as It's non-linear. And we do a radio, think. So we cover quite some non-US or non-overseas platforms. You know, ah that last part will make someone very happy. The last interview I did before I talked to you was with the head of marketing from O3, Austria's biggest broadcasting station. So I think they'll be very happy to hear that radio still has a lot of relevance. When I started with Donauversicherung five years ago, we said, okay, let's completely go online.
Speaker: and that That's the new way. And we want to to focus on on younger customers. And we started to go 100% online. But on the market, nothing happened.
Speaker: With the youngers, our ratings went up, but not you couldn't really measure it. And when we put TV on the media plan again, it spiked. The old TV, maybe for for a low interest product, you still need TV.
Speaker: So that's why we have TV in the media at the moment. I like the approach of really testing it because then you know it. You tested the 100% online approach. It didn't work as well as the mixed approach.
Speaker: Yeah. We had some budget limitations. So we said, okay, let's go online only. At the end of the day, they didn't pay off as we wanted. Yeah. But maybe it's a question of time, you know, maybe in two or three years, it will be different again.
Speaker: So that's another thing, a given thing for the future. So as you said, you have to test and and we try to have testings going on all the time with new forms of advertising.
Speaker: You know, another shift that we're seeing that I'm very intrigued by is that physical and real world, real life activities, experiences are becoming a thing that people cherish a lot and where they have and build deeper brand connections.
Speaker: Because precisely what you said, everything moved digital. And now the scarce thing is the offline activity. yeah So I would be curious, as an insurance doesn't really have a physical store, no product that you can actually touch. um And most of times you just get in contact with it when you have a problem.
Speaker: Are you also thinking about in real life experiences that you can create to actually create those emotions that the product per se misses a little bit?
Speaker: I always say representatives are the the real product, you know, because ah if they do a consultancy with you and then you talk about your insurance status, that's the product. As you said, a paper with a policy on it, that's of no value for the customers.
Speaker: Exactly. yeah And the touch points, if a claim, if something happened to you and then the touch point of the claims management, that's the moment of truth. Do you then work also a lot with informing them on how they should actually bring those experiences and that touch points out there?
Speaker: Yes, they are trained for sure. They are trained. They are trained with every new product and they are trained with basic selling skills. And we we measure that, you know, after every new contract or every new claim, our customers get the feedback and we ask them for feedback and then and then they measure the touch points. Because then the whole...
Speaker: brand experience is not really something that you can that much influence with your marketing. Because if we think about the the four Ps, for example, yes, you can set a price, you can package it nicely. um yeah But the product itself, if you say it's the representatives out there, you don't have much impact on that directly.
Speaker: No, you have to sell every product internally first. So if you have a new product on the market, let's talk about the household insurance, then you have to have the story out there. What are the new features?
Speaker: Why does the customer need it? And why is it good for the customers? yeah And so they have to understand that And as we had our campaign, our main campaign theme is, I will, I will.
Speaker: So ah that we we carry internally as well, so that the the people in the company say, I will, I will, I will do something for the customer. yeah So it works both internally and externally. It it it works both ways, yes. Very interesting.
Speaker: This has been very thought provoking also, the whole conversation. Thank you for sharing those insights. Before we wrap it up, do you have any questions for me? ah When did you come into contact with an insurance company?
Speaker: The first time. The first time I really got in touch with an insurance company was when I think I had my first car and I had to sign up somewhere. So what I did, i was 18.
Speaker: So I just asked my dad, so what should I do? and and that's the that's the standard That's the standard procedure. Ask your parents. Yeah. Yeah. And then he just recommended his representative again, product. yup And then I got in touch with with them. And ah now I don't have a car anymore. I'm still with the same insurance. I'm not anymore with this sales representative, but his son actually. So he just passed me down in a way. yeah yeah And yeah, now my my my home my household insurance is there. And yeah,
Speaker: Yeah, whenever I have a question, I just reach out to them. so That's a standard procedure, I would say, for a customer and for representative as well. So to pass the customers on to the next generation, that's why we want to bundle them in small groups so that you have a mix of different ages so that there is not a handover for all the customers at one time.
Speaker: yeah But the the the representatives of the product, as you said, that's absolutely right. Very interesting perspective. All right, Andreas, Andy, thank you so much for taking the time, for sharing those thoughts, for also giving us some hope.
Speaker: Yeah, it's in our hands, you know, it's not in somebody else's. ah it's if If we ask the market for qualitative KPIs, they will have to provide them.
Speaker: If all the marketeers stand up and say, well, give us those. No, I'm quite optimistic that um i'm I'm an optimistic person by myself. so I think you also have to be, because otherwise Stefan Sagmeister's talk, he also said no invention ever was created by a pessimistic person because you have to imagine a positive future. Otherwise, why would you even think about the future?
Speaker: Yeah, that's right. But the older you get, the more you think about the future. But the less time you have. So that's crazy. Because when you're young, you don't think about the future.
Speaker: That's the parallel. There's so much time. There's so much time. So I think that's a great way to end this. Thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you for having me. And I look forward to our next conversation already. Thanks so much.
Speaker: And that's it for today. If something here made you think, send it to someone who could use it. You can find me on LinkedIn or through my newsletter called Future Strategies on Substack for More.
Speaker: And if you're ready to move your marketing from insight to action, reach out. That's what I do. Until next time.
