The 32-year-old Matthias Thomann succeeds 26-year-old Raquel Vidal, who is going on maternity leave. After studying at the University of St. Gallen and Science Po Paris, Thomann worked in the pharmaceutical industry, including in the USA, Singapore, Italy, Germany and Switzerland. He then supported the launch of various e-commerce services in Germany and England for a management consultancy. Since the beginning of January 2012, 29-year-old Abi Bajrami has also joined the team as Account Manager and 22-year-old Joya Etterli in Sales Support.

The Amiando Group belongs to Axel Springer Switzerland.

Albin Kirchhofer will remain Chairman of the Board of Directors and will continue to be available for advisory tasks, according to a statement on Monday. This step is intended to ensure the long-term continuity of the company's management.

Basel West employs eight people and is primarily active in the field of corporate publishing. In the past year, the agency has gained a number of new mandates: UPK University Psychiatric Clinics Basel, the plywood and board supplier Sperrag, the wooden shelf Woodrack by Frank Bucher, the CD archive Grolli Box by the bookbindery Grollimund, Engelmann Textiles for Health, the new expo and event agency ME2BE Projects, the trust company Etag Basel, the telecommunications service provider Litecom, and the industry association Interpharma.

This would enable the agency to better meet customer requirements, as processes could be optimized as early as the campaign conception stage, the agency said in a statement. Costs could be reduced and the coordination of web measures improved. In addition, synergies between the various disciplines would be released, as the new team members would be involved in the projects from the very beginning and would contribute conceptually.

Since January 1, 2012, Philipp Heitz has strengthened Valencia's consultancy as Digital Media Director. The two web programmers Ruedi Christen and Marc Bissegger have been members of the creation team since the same date. In this way, twelve years of online experience each come from Colibri to Valencia Kommunikation.

Strategic brand consulting, which is closely geared towards operational issues, is an important pillar for Hotz alongside classic identity and brand development. In future, Hotz intends to focus its activities even more strongly on this area. "We have recognized that we can contribute most to the entrepreneurial success of our clients if we combine the otherwise separate worlds of management consulting and brand design into a single unit," says Mattias Weber, Managing Director of Hotz Brand Consultants.

Based on these findings, Hotz Brand Consultants have systematically developed their range of services in recent years into a successful brand consultancy that focuses on a company's communicative identity and consistent brand management across all services and channels. Likewise, a company's own employees and new forms of branding such as social media activities have rarely been taken into account in brand management. As a result, important strategic fields of action for systematic differentiation remain unused.
 

Two new faces at Marbet: Key Account Manager Fabio Lo Giudice and Junior Project Manager Annika Wenzel are the new additions to the Swiss team of the event, incentive and travel agency belonging to the Würth Group.

Fabio Lo Giudice holds a degree in tourism and has worked for Swiss International Air Lines as an internal travel consultant and for Tui Suisse and Cosa Travel as project manager for incentives and events. At Hotelplan Suisse, he most recently held the position of Account Manager and subsequently managed the planning, coordination and realization of medium and short-term marketing activities in the Marketing Services division. At Marbet Switzerland, Lo Giudice will support Benjamin Hütteroth's sales team as Key Account Manager.

Annika Wenzel successfully completed her dual bachelor's degree at DHBW Ravensburg in business administration for trade fairs, congresses and events management, in cooperation with Messe München. She then worked as a project assistant in the area of exhibitor support for Electronica (the world's leading trade fair for components, systems and applications in electronics) and will now strengthen Sandra Brändle's team at Marbet as a junior project manager.

Frank Marreau, Head of Marbet Switzerland is pleased to start the year with new colleagues both in sales and in the project team.
 

The Cinemaxx Mannheim not only offers the largest movie theater equipped with state-of-the-art projection technology in the whole of Baden-Württemberg, according to a press release. The entire complex will be available to the festival on Friday, March 23, to take a look back at 15 years of Spotlight and the commercial film vintages from 1998 to the present day in an entertaining supporting program.

With its three categories in two major competitions, Spotlight covers all formats and developments in moving image communication, according to the statement. The festival is divided into the Spotlight main competition for professionals and the Spotlight Students competition for young talent. For each of these two competitions, entries can be submitted in the categories "tv & cinema" and "web & mobile" for advertising on the Internet and on cell phones. There is also a prize for the Best International Adaptation and, for the first time in 2012, the "Cases" category, in which not only commercials but also other cinematic advertising formats can be submitted and supplemented with accompanying information. This new category will be judged exclusively by the expert jury.

Entries can be submitted online at www.spotlight-festival.de. The closing date for entries is February 3, 2012.

> More information
 

Brigitte Schäffer studied in France and after graduating, she worked for several years in Lyon and Bern. She gained experience through various trips and language stays and has now joined the Allaccess team. Schäffer will mainly be responsible for projects in French-speaking Switzerland.
 

According to 20 Minuten Online, Cablecom has included nine 3D porn movies in its rental offer since the end of December - the company says it is responding to a customer need. Swisscom, however, is unimpressed by the porn offensive. Spokeswoman Annina Merk told 20 Minuten that the company is sticking to its policy of not offering erotic films. Whether Swisscom will remain true to its anti-3-D porn stance for much longer remains to be seen. After all, the first 3D porn film "Sex and Zen", which was released this spring, outperformed all blockbusters - the film is said to have made more money on its first day than the previous record holder "Avatar". So the customer need really does seem to exist ...
 

In addition, from January 18 Bzbasel.ch an online information portal for the Basel region and BZ Basel as a digital e-paper. With the rapid launch of BZ Basel, AZ Medien is responding to the great demand from the user market, according to a press release on Monday - and the several hundred new subscribers who have already signed up will receive their newspaper immediately.

> AZ Medien launches daily newspaper BZ Basel

According to the agency, the dispatch from the Hamburg-based editing agency Wieners + Wieners was the most convincing to the strict jury in the end. "Send us your mistakes all year round. You'll get a few from us for Christmas," is written on the box that W+W sent out. Inside are lettered chocolates wishing "FOHREWEIHNACHTNE". So if you don't put the chocolate in your mouth straight away, you can make the correction yourself for once. Chocolate always goes down well as a gift for the festive season and the combination with the play on words also fits perfectly in terms of content. So the gentle temptation worked and Wieners + Wieners won the Evoq Three Kings' Cake.

For once, the Christmas card judges also looked at some statistical details in the current award, as the report continues. It is interesting to note, for example, that half of the designs feature a traditional Christmas motif, while all the others convey culturally and religiously "neutral" festive greetings. Out of one hundred cards, for example, around 20 are decorated with Christmas trees, ten with stars or snowflakes and a few with Christmas baubles. The color scheme of the festive mailings also reveals some interesting facts. The colors white and blue clearly dominate, each accounting for 25 percent. Traditional Christmas colors such as red and green account for a further 25 percent. The rest is spread across the entire color spectrum.

One trend has clearly increased over the past year compared to previous years: last-minute festive greetings sent by e-mail or as attachments. Although Evoq is pleased to receive all greetings, these did not make it into the awards. Also worth mentioning is the fact that purely electronic cards or online offers were used about as frequently as last year. Promotions via Facebook and the like still play a subordinate role, but that may yet change.

The nominated Christmas verses:
Wieners + Wieners, Hamburg (winner)
Sauter Bachmann, Netstal
Zip-Media, Zurich
Duplex Design, Zurich
Wirz Advertising, Zurich
Veloblitz, Zurich
Lichtung, Munich
Care Print, Innsbruck
Meta Design, Zurich
Peter Schmidt, Zurich.

Swiss Post will continue to run DMC as an independent company and we will also continue the partnership in the SDM group (Swissdirectmail), according to a statement on Monday. The takeover will have no impact on customers or employees. The acquisition has no immediate impact on the customers and employees of the DMC Group. The parties have agreed not to disclose details of the sale. The acquisition was completed (closing) on January 6 and is retroactive to January 1, 2012.

Swiss Post is fully competitive in the delivery of unaddressed mail and free newspapers, it adds. The acquisition strengthens the company's position in direct marketing and thus in its core business.

Swiss Post has held a 50% stake in Direct Mail Company and Direct Mail Logistics since 1996. Across Switzerland, the DMC Group employs 135 permanent and around 2,500 part-time staff at its sites in Lausanne, Biel, Thun, Zurich, Domat/Ems and Niederbipp.
 

Martin Hofer, previously Head of Corporate Communications, replaces Theo Zijdenbos as Head of Public Affairs. According to the press release, Theo Zijdenbos will continue to work for Burson-Marsteller as Senior Advisor Key Clients. Martin Hofer joined the company in 2005 as a Senior Consultant and has been a member of the Burson-Marsteller Executive Board since 2007. As former head of the TV news program "10vor10", editor-in-chief of the Sonntags-Blick and a long-standing journalist, he has broad experience of Swiss politics and its interfaces with business and associations. Martin Hofer has already successfully looked after public affairs clients in recent years and will continue to be responsible for argumentation and media training in the in-house studio.

Ute Dehn Christians, previously Head of Corporate Finance, will take over the overall management of the Corporate & Financial Communications division. Dehn joined Burson-Marsteller in October 2010. She specializes in reputation management, media and investor relations, corporate publishing, sponsoring and corporate social responsibility as well as change management. Prior to joining Burson-Marsteller, Ute Dehn Christen was a member of the Executive Board of GE Money Bank, where she was in charge of corporate communications, and spent ten years in senior communications and marketing roles at UBS.

The entry of Chris Cartwright as the new head of the Geneva office was announced by Burson-Marsteller in December. Prior to joining, Chris Cartwright was Head of Burson-Marsteller's Corporate, Issues and Technology Practice in the UK. Chris Cartwright has 18 years' experience in public relations, crisis communications and change Chris Cartwright replaces Tony Burgener, who has moved to Swiss Solidarity as Director.