What does Switzerland mean to you?

I do a little freelance work for a financial services company. It’s not a big assignment – I meet the owner every three months or so, we have dinner while he pours out his problems (usually work-related), I filter them down into marketing proposals, his staff action them (or don’t), my cheque arrives in the post at the end of the next month.

Anyway, recently I’ve been asking: what image comes into the mind of the customer when they hear a certain word or brand name (and an image WILL come into their mind, whether they want it to or not).

In particular, what does Switzerland mean to you?

Above: Swiss chocolate and Swiss cheese. I was surprised to realise my ‘fridge is hardly ever without these items (some of the many things I buy without thinking). The cheese comes with genuine Swiss holes.

Above: the novels of Anita Brookner. She is not actually a Swiss writer but most of her books have a Swiss location or connection. I was introduced to her work by Helen B. Hotel du Lac won the Booker prize (Hotel du Lack of Interest I think The Guardian called it). Helen first started reading Anita Brookner because of the author’s connection with the Courtauld Institute. Anita Brookner’s writing is mesmerising. Nothing EVER happens. Her characters work in bookshops, go for walks beside Swiss lakes, experience life passing them by. And yet she makes these bland people seem sympathetic and absorbing. As a former copywriter I take a professional interest in this ability. Many times in my career I have been called upon to write about nondescript machines, incomprehensible financial products, electronic data storage systems etc. I used to console myself with the thought that even Kafka had to write health and safety manuals in his day job.

Above: Switzerland means The Reichenbach Falls. This is the location where Sherlock Homes battled with the evil Professor Moriarty and both plunged to their “deaths” although Conan-Doyle later revived Sherlock Holmes (including to help British Intelligence on the eve of the First World War in His Last Bow). I saw this advertisement in the Daily Telegraph and immediately wanted to take the Jungfrau Express from London to the Reichenbach Falls (note the ad’s use of long copy).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichenbach_Falls

Above: The Matterhorn, first climbed by a British team in 1865. As a symbol of Switzerland it is hard to beat - clever of INVESCO to use it as their logo associating them with the solidity of the mountain, the cleanness of the snow, the aspiration of the soaring peak. Financial Services are synonymous with Switzerland (a Swiss bank account says more about you than cash ever can, to paraphrase American Express), although this association has not always given them a good image (ie Prime Minister Jim Callaghan’s frequent anti-semitic jeers about the “gnomes of Zurich”).

Above: The Matterhorn also features in this novel by Michael Frayn. Frayn is one of our greatest living writers, although he doesn’t get the same kind of exposure as lesser writers such as Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, and Julian Barnes (I think all three are over-rated as novelists – they are treated by interviewers with the sort of reverence reserved for minor rock stars). Anyway, say “Switzerland” to me and I will think of the Matterhorn and then I will think of Michael Frayn – it’s the chaotic way my mind works.