Sponsoring National

Aspirin in the „Land of Ideas“

Bayer official partner of the initiative „Germany – Land of Ideas“

Guests at the unveiling of the sculpture "Milestones of Medicine": Peter Rauen, vice chairman of the Council of sports in the Bundestag, Michael Rogowski, former Federal Interior Minister Otto Schily, Werner Wenning, Chairman of Bayer AG, Manfred von Richthofen, Mike de Vries, Managing Director of FC Germany GmbH (from left to right)

Inventions from Germany have changed the world – and the country wants the millions of visitors and thousands of members of the press that will come during the FIFA World Cup in Germany to realise that. Bayer have joined the location initiative and image campaign “Germany – Land of Ideas” as an official partner. The initiative is organised by the government and commerce and industry and German President Horst Köhler is the patron.

“Bayer have been a driving force behind German innovation for over 140 years and we will continue to deliver ideas that will help raise the quality of life in the future,” said company boss Werner Wenning. Therefore it is only logical that the company has decided to back the initiative “Land of Ideas” that is coordinated by the Fanclub (FC) Deutschland GmbH that was founded especially to deal with the task. A total of €20 million will be pumped into the initiative by the government and commerce and industry.

In 1999 and 2000 Bayer were one of the eight large German companies that backed the German Football Associations bid to stage the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

A multilevel programme has been developed for the “Land of Ideas” initiative so that the public in made conscious of German inventions. The “Walk of Ideas” – a walk round the German capital passed oversized sculptures of groundbreaking German inventiveness - will mark the start of the campaign. In line with this an oversized sculpture of an Aspirin® tablet made by Bayer, one of the “Milestones in Medicine”, was unveiled by Bayer chairman Werner Wenning (picture) on the Friedrich-Ebert-Platz in Berlin on March 30 2006.

In the course of a nationwide competition “365 Places in the Land of Ideas” were chosen from 1,200 applicants before being presented to the national and international public. The Bayer site in Bitterfeld, where among others the Aspirin® tablets are produced, won the competition. On January 19 Bayer presented an extensive information programme on site in Bitterfeld that showed the importance and the history of Aspirin®.