Publigroupe, and in particular the Media Sales business segment with Publicitas, has been in a process of transitioning away from pure print marketing towards an increasingly digital full-service provider for several years, the advertising marketer said in a press release on Tuesday. The appointment of the new CEO, who will take over operational responsibility for Publigroupe and all its holdings from Hans-Peter Rohner, Chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO, on September 1, 2012, is intended to accelerate this development even further.

The 47-year-old Arndt Groth is a German citizen and has held various management positions for 17 years, initially mainly on the publishing side at the Georg von Holtzbrinck and Handelsblatt publishing groups and at Interactive Media, then a subsidiary of Axel Springer. Since 1998, Arndt Groth has worked for leading Internet companies and marketing organizations with a digital focus. The business graduate was Managing Director of Double Click in Germany and Interactive Media. Arndt Groth was Managing Partner and CEO of ePages, Europe's largest provider of e-commerce stores, before moving to the global marketing network Adconion in 2008. As European President at Adconion, he played a key role in the further development of one of the world's largest platforms for the distribution and monetization of digital content. Following the successful acquisition and integration of Smartclip in 2011, Arndt Groth joined the Advisory Board of the Adconion Media Group in February 2012. In addition to his operational duties, the Hamburg native has been President of the BVDW (German Association of the Digital Economy) since 2003.

Hans-Peter Rohner, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Publigroupe: "In Arndt Groth, we have gained a proven digital media marketing professional from the very beginning for the role of CEO, who also knows the publisher side and the print business in detail. He is ideally qualified to successfully position Publigroupe in the digital market in Switzerland and at European level."

Arndt Groth, future CEO of Publigroupe: "I am looking forward to this new challenge. Publigroupe is a company with a long history that is excellently positioned through its numerous holdings to become a leading marketer of digital media in addition to traditional print marketing and to offer its customers services along the entire marketing service chain. Whether at branding, display, search or performance level, Publigroupe has expertise in every business segment that needs to be further strengthened and expanded.

Investors react positively

Publigroupe announced back in December that Rohner intended to concentrate on the chairmanship in future. At the same time, the company announced that around 200 jobs would be cut by 2015. According to SDA, Groth does not have an easy task ahead of him at Publigroupe. The start to the year has been miserable, said Chairman of the Board of Directors Rohner at the annual media conference at the beginning of March. He explicitly did not rule out further job cuts at Publigroupe. Investors apparently trust the new man at the helm to steer the company back on the road to success. He comes from the online business and has a huge network in Europe, emphasized an analyst from Bank Vontobel. Groth seems to guarantee that Publigroupe's future positioning as an online company is more than just lip service.

Investors also reacted positively to the appointment of the new CEO. Publigroupe's share price was up 5.3 percent after the close of trading. By contrast, the overall market as measured by the Swiss Performance Index closed down 0.52 percent.

 

Raquel Vidal has been working in sales since 2006, according to a statement on Tuesday. She was initially head of sales at Students.ch and in the summer of 2010 took over sales and team management at the Amiado Group; there she was able to build up mobile know-how in addition to a broad network in the online sector. As of the beginning of April, Vidal will therefore join the Adello team.

According to the announcement, the team expansion is not yet complete. There are currently two additional positions to be filled in the areas of sales and operations.
 

Over the past few weeks, a completely independent appearance has been created, with great emphasis placed on the corporate language, the agency said in a press release. The entire corporate identity, including the logo and the Website.

 

On June 4, 2011, the Geneva daily newspaper published the following article: "Controversial school report: a pupil goes to court". The report stated that a non-graduate high school student complained about an anomaly in his school report. The principal
The signed repetition decision was dated earlier than the handwritten application by the class teacher. The principal's name was clearly legible on the facsimile of the certificate published by the "Tribune de Genève". However, he was not personally contacted by the newspaper before the article appeared. The report only quotes the Department of Education and the director of the office responsible for secondary schools.

Even if the school authorities had forbidden the principal to comment on the case, the "Tribune de Genève" should, in the opinion of the Press Council, either have noted this in the report or otherwise covered up the name and signature on the picture.
 

Since mid-February, Meta Design has been supporting German Kindernothilfe in the development of a new corporate design, as the agency writes in a press release. The aim is to strengthen the "Kindernothilfe" brand in the future in order to create a clear brand image among employees, donors and stakeholders and thus remain competitive in a highly competitive market.

 

Publicitas Publiconnect, responsible for marketing interactive job and real estate market ads, is now offering its online booking tool with the additional features "Universal Editor" and "Ad Hosting," according to a statement Monday. These features allow job and real estate customers to have platform-specific content processing within the same job. For example, an ad can be captured in multiple languages simultaneously. In addition, online templates are available to users so that they can present their presence in job boards and on their own homepage in line with their corporate design. This eliminates the need to produce a template for each individual job board provider.

Publicitas Publiconnect will present the full range of new tools and services in the field of job posting workflow at the "Personal Swiss" trade fair for human resources management from April 17 to 18, 2012.

As of April 10, 2012, Jan Maurer will take over as Head of Consulting and become a member of the Executive Board of Wirz Wietlisbach Dialog, as the agency writes in a press release. In the newly created role of Managing Director, he will support Guido Wietlisbach, who in addition to his overall responsibility as CEO will continue to be responsible for strategy and dialog. The Executive Board is completed by Stefan Dätwyler, CD Art, and Rinaldo Poltera, CFO. Maurer was most recently co-owner of Ping Pong, Head of Marketing at Ikea Switzerland and previously a partner at Unikat. He is a federally certified communications manager and holds an Executive MBA in Marketing.

Margot Vögele and Nicolas Edelmann have recently taken over the management of the Dialog consulting and cross-media consulting divisions respectively.
 

With its high level of acceptance in French-speaking Switzerland, the portal is the ideal addition, Homegate wrote in a press release on Monday. Immostreet.ch SA, which also publishes a magazine, will continue to be run by the current management. The partners have agreed not to disclose any details. The Zurich-based company, which belongs to the Tamedia media group, currently holds a 20 percent stake in Immostreet.ch.
 

Touchpoint management is already part of Process's consulting expertise, the agency said in a press release. In order to further expand this expertise and support it scientifically, the agency has entered into a strategic partnership with the international consulting and research company Accelerom.

Accelerom is the market leader in research-based touchpoint management and will support Process and its customers in identifying, analyzing and managing the relevant touchpoints of a brand.