Gravel, cranes, containers against the backdrop of vines shining in autumn, old cars with internal combustion engines are being loaded onto the quay for scrapping.

The campaign makers from Winfried Kretschmann's State Ministry chose the Neckarhafen in Stuttgart-Wangen for the presentation of the new state advertising campaign.

It stands for everything that Baden-Württemberg should also stand for: technology, innovation, quality of life, scenic beauty - and of course saying goodbye to the internal combustion engine.

It is only a few kilometers to the Daimler headquarters in Untertürkheim.

Posters with the sentence “Welcome to The Länd” have been hanging in many places for a few days.

Rudiger Soldt

Political correspondent in Baden-Württemberg.

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The Prime Ministers of Baden-Württemberg Erwin Teufel, Günther Oettinger (“We are all sitting in one boat”) or Winfried Kretschmann have never been noticed by Oxford English. The green head of government even admitted at the presentation that his English was even worse than that of his predecessors. But that's not what the umbrella campaign is about. A federal state that has practically cultivated its provinciality and Swabian inhibition for decades needs an advertising slogan that can be posted in Shanghai and Portland: It should be “The Länd”.

Kretschmann called the claim "clear, straightforward and self-confident".

He had trimmed a full 30 seconds when the slogan was first presented to him.

Then he was convinced: "Anyone who has even a bit of humor can endure that." The campaign will "develop international radiance" and set new standards.

The Prime Minister hopes for more attention for Baden-Württemberg.

How necessary an image refresh is also shown by Annalena Baerbock's difficulties with the correct accentuation of the country's name.

"Made in the Länd"

The new slogan puts an end to the small-minded, diminutive fuss about the "Ländle". It replaces the advertising campaign designed by Scholz & Friends from 1999 (“We can do everything except standard German”). The budget remains the same at seven million euros per year, and the campaign is financed from the budget of the State Ministry. In a two-stage competition, the jury decided on the proposal from the Jung von Matt Neckar advertising agency, which had applied together with Milla & Partner. The latter should design trade fair appearances and realize the campaign spatially. The managing director of Jung von Matt Neckar, Peter Waibel, praised the “most beautiful T-shirt English” of the new claim, which is often posted on the Internet: “There are fans. Yes, there are Bruddler too - but the campaign is lived and everyone is talking about it. "

The extremely successful first country campaign had been limited to the Internet since 2015. There was also no lead agency for years. Large companies such as Daimler, Trumpf and Stihl suggested to the green-black state government that the country should be better marketed internationally, especially to recruit skilled workers from Asia and the United States. That is what “The Länd” is supposed to do. Products could say “Made in the Länd”, in tweets, on websites, business cards and letterheads, the claim should draw attention to the fact that Baden-Württemberg is still the “Land of German Opportunities”.

Ola Källenius, the Chairman of the Daimler Board of Management, does not want to have “Made in the Länd” milled into the Mercedes battery cells or engine blocks. The manager, who grew up in Sweden, paid the country the greatest possible compliment: In the past 20 months he had not come out of Stuttgart due to the pandemic and had repeatedly asked his wife whether something was wrong with them. The answer was clear: "The Länd has it all."

In the social media, many people from Baden, Wuerttemberg and Hohenloher complain about the advertising slogan: "Do you have a koi Swabian gkennd, if you do, then just go to Ländle." began with a container on Stuttgart's Schlossplatz: A hoodie produced by Trigema in a bright yellow national color costs 19 euros.

For the price, the sweaters should do very well in the land of savers.

The fact that “The Länd” is neither correct English nor correct Swabian shouldn't matter.