FAZ Puts Its Iconic ‘Clever Mind’ on a Smartphone for the First Time
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Scholz & Friends and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung have unveiled the 102nd motif of their decades-old ‘Kluge Köpfe’ campaign, fronted by Kraftwerk co-founder Ralf Hütter — and for the first time show the featured ‘clever mind’ reading on a smartphone rather than a printed paper, a deliberate signal of the FAZ’s digital-first repositioning.
What happened
Scholz & Friends and the FAZ have released the 102nd motif of the long-running “Dahinter steckt immer ein kluger Kopf” (“Behind it there’s always a clever mind”) campaign, timed to Kraftwerk co-founder Ralf Hütter’s 80th birthday. For the first time in the campaign’s 30-plus-year history, the featured “clever mind” is shown reading the paper on a smartphone rather than behind a printed edition. A humanoid robot also holds a phone, under the line “Wir sind die Scroller” (“We are the scrollers”).
For one of German advertising’s most recognisable campaigns, breaking its own visual convention is not an accident — it’s a statement about where the FAZ now places its brand.
Why breaking your own convention is a big deal
The power of a long-running campaign is consistency — the printed paper held just so has been a fixed code for decades. That’s exactly why changing it carries meaning. When a brand deliberately violates its own most familiar visual rule, the change itself becomes the message; the audience notices precisely because they know the original so well.
Choosing Hütter — a pioneer who made machines and technology feel human and cultural — to carry that shift is a neat piece of casting. Kraftwerk’s whole legacy is embracing the future without losing soul, which is exactly the story a legacy newspaper wants to tell as it goes digital.
Marketing Minute’s read: distinctive assets are leverage, use them to signal change
There’s a lesson here about the value of distinctive brand assets. Because the FAZ built such a strong, consistent code over decades, it now has something most brands lack: a convention powerful enough that bending it makes news. Distinctiveness isn’t just about recognition; it’s stored-up leverage you can spend when you need to signal transformation.
The risk, of course, is diluting the very asset that gives you that power. The FAZ manages it well by keeping everything else — the format, the tone, the “kluger Kopf” idea — intact, and changing only the single element that carries the digital message. Evolve the one thing that tells the story; protect the rest.
What businesses should do now
Audit your own distinctive assets and treat them as leverage, not just decoration: the stronger and more consistent they are, the more meaning a deliberate change can carry. When you need to signal a shift, evolve the single asset that tells that story and hold everything else steady — surprise works only against a backdrop of consistency.
Quick FAQ
What changed in the FAZ campaign?
For the first time in the 30-plus-year ‘Kluge Köpfe’ campaign, the featured ‘clever mind’ — Kraftwerk’s Ralf Hütter — is shown reading on a smartphone rather than a printed paper, under the line ‘Wir sind die Scroller’.
Why does it matter?
Deliberately breaking a decades-old visual convention makes the change itself the message, signalling the FAZ’s digital-first repositioning to an audience that knows the original code well.
What’s the takeaway for brands?
Strong, consistent distinctive assets are stored-up leverage: bending one on purpose can signal transformation — but only if you keep everything else steady.
A brand code strong enough that breaking it makes headlines is a rare and valuable thing. The FAZ spent thirty years building the printed-paper convention precisely so that, one day, putting it on a smartphone would mean something. That’s the hidden power of distinctive assets: they’re leverage you can spend to signal change — as long as you change only the one thing that tells the story. — Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing
Distinctive brand assets are stored-up leverage — the more consistent they are, the more meaning a single deliberate change can carry, so evolve one asset and protect the rest.
Do you have a brand convention strong enough that breaking it would mean something — and are you protecting it well enough to keep that power?
If you would like to know more about this topic, please contact us on danieln@merxmarketing.co.uk
Sources: Horizont, turi2, Campaign Germany.
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Written by Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing Ltd and Marketing Minute
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