Swiss garage owners strengthen their own media

With the aim of sustainably strengthening communication with the approximately 11'000 garages and workshops, 4000 of which are AGVS members, as well as with the public, the Auto Gewerbe Verband Schweiz (AGVS) has invested considerably in its own media in recent years. The result of this offensive is that both its association magazine Autoinside and its websites (Agvs-upsa.ch with 21 section pages, Autoberufe.ch and Autoenergiecheck.ch) are absolute leaders in the reader market.

As part of the succession plan for advertising salesman Günther Kneisel, who retired at the end of 2016, the AGVS is realigning the marketing of its media: The future marketing organization is to be more broadly based. Based on a comprehensive analysis of the current situation in the advertising market, a roadshow among the largest advertisers and the examination of several organizational models, the AGVS has decided in favor of its long-standing partner Viva für Kommunikation. According to the statement, the agency's team has played a key role in ensuring that the AGVS's communication and content strategy has developed very well in recent years. It will take over marketing as of January 1, 2017. "The solution now reached guarantees a seamless connection between publishing, editorial and marketing," says AGVS Central President Urs Wernli, pointing out that this connection will be match-decisive in the future, especially for specialist media.

Caption: Urs Wernli (AGVS Central President), Georg Gasser (Managing Director Viva), Manfred Wellauer (Vice President AGVS and member of the Executive Committee) and Reinhard Kronenberg (Head of Journalism, Viva). Photo: Mario Borri.