Plantfriend, UFA Revue and thephilanthropist.ch win Q-Award 2021

"Despite - or precisely because of - the crisis, the three teams have broken new ground with a great deal of creativity, great professionalism and, above all, a clear commitment to the needs of the readership, and have won the coveted industry award." is how the Q-Award jury explained its decision.

Plant lover: Successful relaunch after 119 years
In the Print category, the Plant lover a magazine that can look back on a long history: Founded in 1900, the magazine was for many years purely a customer magazine of the Meier garden center in Dürnten. Three years ago, the publisher decided to turn it into an independent, critical magazine.

The implementation was not easy. It meant convincing the readership with a clear concept, consistent implementation and, above all, high-quality editorial content. In the view of the Q-Award jury, this was achieved across the board: The Plant lover has positioned itself as an independent and critical magazine with a clear stance on sustainability. To this end, the haptic and visual aspects of the product have also been enhanced, and the range of products for readers has been expanded to include travel, courses and excursions, as well as the online presence.

An overall concept that fully convinced the Q-Award jury. The success of the "Readers first" strategy proves it right: Subscription circulation has been rising steadily since the relaunch.

UFA Review: Focused on the readership

The second winner in the Print category is also a magazine that was founded as a customer magazine. In recent years, the editorial team has emancipated itself considerably and reports in a more balanced and utility-oriented way. The relaunch last year is a logical consequence of this development. Credibility was strengthened thanks to the clear focus on the readership.

The Fenaco cooperative, the publisher of the UFA Review, is owned by farmers. To remove any doubts of deception or dependency, in-house content is clearly labeled to distinguish it from the appearance of trade content. In addition, all advertisements and PR contributions are transparently labeled. This gives the editorial specialist content more credibility. All in all, a successful relaunch that convinced the Q-Award jury not only in terms of content, but also thanks to the new layout and feel.

thephilanthropist.ch: Passion for good content

How do you pay attention to over 13,000 foundations in Switzerland that are primarily analog? The strategy of the online platform thephilanthropist.ch aims to pick up analog readers with a meaty print publication and lead them into the regular online magazine. This is also intended to reach a younger readership. The basis is a service platform built on a comprehensive database of all foundations domiciled in Switzerland.

The goal is achieved with a web presence that is not only convincing in terms of content, but also in terms of design, user guidance and the skilful integration of LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and newsletters. What's special about it is that there are no expensive systems behind the entire digital concept, but rather work is done with inexpensive programs such as Teams, Adobe, Google and WordPress. In addition, the editorial team is distributed decentrally in various cantons and all processes were set up digitally from the very beginning.

The overall concept as well as the perfect implementation in terms of content and visual appearance convinced the Q-Award jury to give the Digital Award 2021 to thephilanthropist.ch.

The trends of recent years

For 17 years, the Q-Award has been taking the pulse of trade or special interest publications. A few clear trends have emerged in recent years: For example, trade media have caught up with the often higher-circulation special interest titles. In general, professionalism has increased enormously and is hardly inferior to the very big publishing houses in our country, even if they have to work with much smaller budgets and teams. And last but not least, it is evident that success is primarily to be found with the readership. Pure PR publications have less and less chance of being noticed. On the other hand, independent and critical editorial teams show how new readers can be won over and how they can be tied to a media brand, even in this day and age.