It was the most important ad of my life. And I made it the worst ad of my life.

An Aus­tra­li­an girl cal­led Sue was in Bern for a few months in 1991. We got to know each other, fell in love, ever­y­thing was gre­at. But after a few months she was told she had to lea­ve Switz­er­land again.

So I deci­ded to pro­po­se to her. (Not just becau­se she had to lea­ve Switz­er­land, I real­ly loved her).

I was alre­a­dy a copy­wri­ter at the time and knew that char­ming and sur­pri­sing adver­ti­sing works par­ti­cu­lar­ly well. Alt­hough I lik­ed to app­ly this to cam­paigns for com­pa­nies (and still do), I did­n’t do it for the most important advert of my life.

Sue and I were coo­king din­ner one night in my 1 1/2 bed­room flat. She was washing the salad in the sink, I was pee­ling pota­toes at the kit­chen table.

In this not par­ti­cu­lar­ly roman­tic moment, I asked her — with the tone of a cas­hier asking for a bonus card — if she wan­ted to mar­ry me.

How pathe­tic. I had­n’t come up with an idea, had­n’t crea­ted a nice moment, had­n’t told her how much she meant to me, had­n’t brought a ring, not­hing. Ins­tead, with the roman­tic flair of a con­cre­te block and the charm of a tax sub­mis­si­on form, I said mono­to­no­us­ly to the woman washing salad while pee­ling pota­toes: ‘Will you mar­ry me?’

Well, she said yes anyway.

So some­ti­mes even bad, uncrea­ti­ve and unchar­ming adver­ti­sing can be suc­cessful. But I would­n’t want to rely on that.

If I had to make a wed­ding pro­po­sal again, I would defi­ni­te­ly come up with an idea, crea­te a roman­tic moment. To increase the chan­ce of success.

But I hope it does­n’t come to that.

Sue and I are still hap­py together.