Berlin-BVG advertising: The City of Love

That was a Wilmersdorf well-being: a few sparrows argued around the crumbs of a baguett, but overall the mood was peaceful in front of the French restaurant on Leon-Jessel-Platz. People also call it a mushroom place because there is a fountain in the form of a large stone mushroom. The water rippled calmly. The Paté Paysan had tasted. The orange of a miller shone in the evening sun. And I would have preferred to call it across the square: “Let’s forget Paris! Berlin is the city of love! “

It was not only the color of the trash can my heart warmed up. “Bucket loves you” stands in white on orange reason. Behind it a heart like an exclamation mark. A city in which even the containers for what we throw away are capable of love – how can it be surpassed?

The color orange is considered an anti-force color, I found out last year. The reason for this information was the opposite of love: violence against women. The Marzahn-Hellersdorf district has established another orange bank against violence against women. “Hellersdorf says no to violence” is on the bench. There is also a QR code that leads directly to advisory and help offers for women.

Even if buckets love in Berlin: “40 percent of women in Germany have experienced physical violence since they were 16 – and that is not even the dark number,” said district mayor Nadja Zivkovic (CDU), and also why help is important. »Violence against women is versatile, from the turning on the street to the faust flash in the living room. And where women and mothers are beaten, children and entire families are often affected by violence, «she says.

A city in which even the containers for what we throw away are capable of love – how can it be surpassed?

The Federal Office for Family and Civil Society Tasks claims that the campaign was initiated with the bank in 2021 in the Rhein-Sieg district and then joined other cities and municipalities nationwide. We copied a Rhineland campaign in Berlin. Not really, right? But there is another story about the benches in Orange: It says that Zonta, the international service club of women, had the idea with the symbolic seating furniture. Service club means: Zonta is something like the Lions Club or the Rotarian Club – just for women. So people who simulate solidarity to feel good and celebrate it on nice club evenings.

So Zonta had the idea of illuminating buildings orange to draw attention to the rights of women. Then Corona and then the energy crisis came – that was the moment to think about something new. Something sustainable should be something that you can’t just snap out. So Zonta came up with the idea with the orange benches. New York – that definitely sounds better than Rhineland. And orange better than Mocha Mousse, Matchagrün, Buttergelb, Turmeric, aubergine and violin (a mixed color of gray and beige) – the colors that a fashion magazine has just announced as insanely trendy. Loving in orange is almost old school.

Whereby: Love in Berlin is also in Gelb: “Because we love you” call the social media accounts of the BVG, our beloved Berlin transport company. And even if you don’t always notice this love in everyday life in late buses, full trams and grubby underground stations-it is there, you can feel that somehow. Just as Wolf Biermann felt the love of the Central Committee of the SED and described in his song “That makes me popular”: “And you lock me up in the freezer: I feel comfortable. I feel the party’s care with every degree of cold. With every bucket of dirt I feel the love of the ZK. For the whole 11th plenary I say twelve times: yes! Hurray! “

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The BVG came up with this with love ten years ago – or the GUD Berlin GmbH agency. This got some prices for this. Among other things, the “German Brand Award” in gold in 2016. “How can a public transport company reach the hearts of its passengers?” That was the initial question. GUD, it is explained, chose the following strategy for the BVG and its “#weilwernwerdicht” campaign: “1. Polarize: with the commitment ›Because we love you‹. 2. Set the target: use hashtag. 3. Networking: cross -media. 4. Entertaining and informing: Self -ironic, with heart and snout. “And then what the marketing strategists had predicted:” The expected shitstorm was reversed within a very short time – to significantly better image values. “

The jury of the “German Brand Award” found the class, because: “In most cases, it is not well ordered in most cases. Several campaigns have been passed without really changing anything. «The BVG campaign is very different. “The fresh-cheeky and wonderfully self-ironic campaign reveals a BVG that takes itself on the shovel in a sympathetic way and thus hits the right tone, especially in young people-the clou is the viral videos› I don’t care ‹-but also older people should not leave it untouched To be communicated is evidence of a well -considered strategy that – if you look closely – in reality is not as crazy as it appears at first glance. «

In any case, love in yellow is durable – and recently it cannot be stopped. Anyone who keeps doors of subways, trams or breasts openly open and thus delayed driving has to expect a penalty of 50 euros since the beginning of May. Around three million people are on the road every day in the U – Bahn, buses and trams of the BVG. They should all love each other, but this means that the BVG superiors and the people who drive through the city with the publications sometimes understand different things. To put yourself in the door, although it was already said “please stay behind” and the red lamps flashing, many consider it an act of charity when you see that someone else is trying to reach the train.

The BVG considers this to be loveless towards passengers who are already in bus, train or tram. “So that the company runs smoothly and all passengers get to their destination safely, mutual consideration is the be -all and end -all,” says the BVG. Therefore, the usage regulations were added to the following rule from May 1st: »Anyone who will be unimaginating and delayed the closing process and the departure, this threatens a contractual penalty of 50 euros.«

Any keeping of the doors delays getting in and out with direct effects on the entire line. In addition, blocking can “be dangerous in the closing process”. Anyone who is still in the door after the sound signal is in the door area. And then the BVG cut out this sentence: “In the sense of a smooth process and the current course› Stability before growth ‹The BVG asks all passengers for caution and support for rapid descents.” That sounds very in love.