Rents are continuing to rise. This cost spiral is reflected not only in new buildings, but also in renovated old apartments. And the need for renovation is enormous: around 1.5 million buildings in Switzerland are in urgent need of an overhaul. As a general rule, as soon as the landlord renovates and thereby increases the value of the property, he may increase the rent to the extent of the increase in value. However, measures purely aimed at maintaining the value of the property do not entitle the landlord to increase the rent.

In practice, however, this distinction is not easy to make. Only in the case of extensive renovations - i.e. when several parts of the building are renovated and the balcony is enlarged - does tenancy law allow a flat rate of 50 to 70 percent of the total investment to be passed on as value-enhancing. The longer maintenance work has been postponed, the lower the corresponding percentage is to be set. It is more difficult if only individual parts of the building are renewed. In this case, the percentage that can be passed on is generally calculated on the basis of the difference between the cost of the new equipment and the inflation-adjusted cost of the original equipment.

Check the rent increase
The following criteria must be taken into account:

Example A: Amortization of the facility: This is the successive repayment of the invested capital over a certain period of time. It results from the expected life expectancy of an asset.

Example B: Interest on investments: Interest is to be paid on the capital actually invested. The appropriate interest rate is taken to be the interest rate that is half a percent above the reference interest rate for mortgages. As the interest-bearing capital decreases annually due to amortization, interest is paid on half of the capital over the full amortization period.

Example C: Future maintenance costs: Future maintenance is calculated as a percentage of the investment costs.

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Book tip

Tenancy law: Moving, costs, termination - everything tenants need to know
Numerous examples, tips and sample letters help - even in tricky cases. 256 pages, Fr. 34.- , ISBN 978 3 85569 429 7, Beobachter-Buchverlag.Net-Metrix Audit, February first interactive women's magazine in the world44 million unique clients worldwidecomScore, November 2010

 

As an added value for the Swiss viewers of RTL II and for local identification, RTL II will be presenting Switzerland-specific content in future. From April 1, RTL II News will broadcast its own weather forecast for Switzerland in its program, as announced in an RTL2 press release on Thursday. RTL II is also focusing on the Swiss audience with a new outfit.

For the appearance in Switzerland, the broadcaster has enlisted the services of chart-topper Baschi. He will create an unmistakable country-specific design with image trailers and advertising island separators. Baschi will be seen in image trailers and advertising island separators on RTL II. Other prominent compatriots will follow as testimonials. In addition, individual formats that are particularly popular in the neighboring country will be adapted for Switzerland in the medium term.
 

Of the 100 winning posters, 53 came from Germany, 45 from Switzerland and 2 from Austria. As the poster designers DNS-Transport Zug announced on Thursday, 1600 posters took part in the competition. From June 2011, the winning motifs will be on display in Berlin D, Essen D, Nuremberg D, Dornbirn A, Lucerne CH and Vienna A.

The "Zuger Chriesiwurst" poster shows the sausage, which was created in 2009 as a new Zug specialty, on a light blue background. The whole poster is reminiscent of advertising from the 1960s. It was designed by DNS-Transport Zug (Ueli Kleeb, Caroline Lötscher) and the "inventor" of the sausage, Zug butcher Marcel Rinderli.
 

Fans can choose one of five proposed categories and make their own suggestions as to what should be on offer. Music lovers and festival fans can already secure sensational festival packages. Prizes will also be raffled off among all participants.

An app with an integrated voting system was developed for the competition and integrated into Post Finance's Facebook page. The process is very simple: start the app, select one of the suggested categories and tell us what you want to offer. Just fill in the registration form and you're done. Participants can choose from the following suggestions: "Bar & refreshing drinks", "Game - endless fun", "Relax - pure relaxation", "Service - useful and helpful" and "Social Media - Hello World". In a sixth category, you can submit your own ideas. The category with the most votes will be implemented in the Post Finance Lounge 2011 at the Swiss festivals. Every participant can take part in the prize draw. The competition started on March 24 and will run until April 24. The campaign will be accompanied by Facebook video ads.

A separate voting system was developed for the Facebook app, which allows users to get involved and have their say. Users can make their own suggestions for each category in a comment field. The wishes marked with a #Hashtag also appear directly in a tag cloud. Every like, vote and suggestion can generate a feed in the user's profile to boost virality. Voting enables direct participation in the competition.

A short motion Graphics Video explains the voting competition in a simple way and is also used for Facebook video ads.

Responsible at PostFinance, Sponsoring: Ronny Kupferschmid (project management), Sylvie Morgenegg (main responsibility). Responsible at Isuntu: Cyrill Schneider (Creative Direction), Panajot Jelev & Naomi Meran (Consulting and Project Management), Vale Florea (Art Direction & Motiongraphics), Thomas Beutler, Johannes Röttger (Programming).

 

According to the Agefi press release, the Agefi SA press group, which is indispensable for the Geneva financial center, will thus once again independently operate the advertising and marketing business for the daily newspaper and now for Indices and Agefi Magazine after 15 years. Switzerland's business and financial daily will further strengthen and expand the joint sales organization in Lausanne and in Zurich.

With this step, the independent media house based in Lausanne is taking over responsibility in its strategic core business and gaining direct contact with its advertising customers. According to the press release, this decision is based on the wishes expressed by many customers.
 

All in all, the sponsoring association "We are" has printed a total of 174 magazines in 8 years. These include Ensuite Bern, Ensuite Zurich, Artensuite and Danse Ensuite. At the beginning, Ensuite was predicted to survive for a maximum of three months, according to a press release from the cultural magazine. In the meantime, the magazine has become a major cultural magazine publisher in Switzerland with around 70 employees, four cultural magazines, web offerings, books and its own distribution network. The 100th issue marks an important milestone for Ensuite.

The culture magazine is clearly positioned as a readers' magazine - not as a promotional publication for the culture industry. For the past three years, many cultural institutions have joined Ensuite or started to advertise.
 

A good 21 percent of all Internet users already do this daily or almost daily. The comparison with the survey in summer 2010 shows a significant growth for the group of SSD users, which has increased by a remarkable 27 percent. The growth in SSD heavy users is even more impressive, with an increase of 56 percent. Around one million people in Switzerland use Internet services via smartphones and the like every day or almost every day. This is according to the special report Net Metrix Mobile.

The current special report Net-Metrix-Mobile 2011-1 confirms the trend that such devices are increasingly being used for visiting the World Wide Web. The special report focuses primarily on Internet users of small screen devices (SSDs). SSD users include users of mobile phones/smartphones, MP3 players/iPods/PDAs and personal organizers with Internet functions. The proportion of these Internet users has increased significantly since the survey in summer 2010.

Compared with the previous wave, the sociodemographic trends are largely confirmed, although a slight consolidation can be observed, as the report continues. The gender difference is somewhat smaller than in the summer 2010 survey, but male SSD users still outnumber female users by a ratio of two to one. In terms of age groups, 14- to 39-year-olds are once again overrepresented, while the 50+ generation is clearly underrepresented in Internet use via smartphones and the like. SSD users are still more likely to be in full-time employment, and there is a slight increase in the number of people in education compared with the previous wave. In terms of income groups, there is again an overrepresentation in the highest category - with incomes above CHF 10,000 per month.

Mobile internet applications
The latest report now also includes data on the use of mobile Internet applications such as e-mail, mobile browsers and applications (apps): Around one in five Internet users access e-mails via a mobile device every day or almost every day. Among SSD users, it is already one in two, and among SSD heavy users, it is even three out of four who retrieve their electronic mail daily or almost daily via corresponding small screen devices. Mobile browsing is also clearly popular among SSD users at 68 percent and the use of apps at 62 percent. Among SSD heavy users, these shares are significantly higher at around 73 percent and 78 percent respectively.

The special report NET-Metrix-Mobile provides basic sociodemographic information and usage data on mobile Internet users and, in particular, on users who surf the Web on small screen devices such as smartphones. From 2011-1, data on the use of mobile Internet applications such as e-mail, mobile browsers and apps will also be available. The study's population consists of people aged 14 and over who live in Switzerland or the Principality of Liechtenstein, who have used the Internet at least once in the last three months and who can communicate sufficiently well in one of the national languages German, French or Italian to be able to take part in an online survey. The surveys took place between November and December 2010.
 

With tool-based search engine optimization SEO, Searchmetrics offers its partners and SEO experts automated statements on important SEO key figures. According to a press release from Unic and Searchmetrics, SEO enables a highly focused and interest-based target group approach and is therefore an increasingly important part of the online marketing mix. The Searchmetrics Suite helps to maintain an overview of a large number of possible SEO and SEM key figures.

Reports on keyword positions, the number and strength of links to the website or the competitive situation on the search results pages are just some of the functionalities of the Searchmetrics Suite. Customers can thus significantly increase their return on investment ROI on the marketing budget, as the press release explains further. The Searchmetrics Suite has access to a database totaling 25 million keywords and 50 million domains and can exchange data with common web analysis tools. Thanks to Searchmetrics' international orientation, local peculiarities, for example in Switzerland or Austria, can be taken into account.

From April 2011, Searchmetrics will enable automated queries from the Google index for German-speaking Switzerland It will now be possible to make immediate statements about the position of a website for certain search terms specifically for the German-language google.ch site. The service is currently available for German-speaking Switzerland and will be expanded to French- and Italian-speaking Switzerland in the course of the year.
google.ch index.

 

SFLB was commissioned to design a new brand identity. The first works will be on display this spring.
 

The measures can be seen in all Coop stores until July 16, 2011.

Responsible at Coop: Jürg Peritz (Head of Marketing/Procurement), Helmut Träris (Head of CCM Nearfood/Hard Goods), Thomas Schwetje (Head of Marketing/Services) Christof Braun (Deputy Head of Advertising), Estelle Schöpfer (Project Management), Lukas Scheuber (POS). Responsible at Valencia Communication: Michael Gerber (CD), Tommy Schilling (senior art director), Anett Oldenburg (junior art director), Guillermo Garcia (senior copywriter), Marco Fritz and team (polygraphy), Sabina Wothe, Jolanda Heller (consulting); production: Fototalier 4X5 Marcel Ringgenberg, Allschwil (photography), Sota AG, Zurich (image editing).
 

The prevention spot by advertising agency Numéro 10, including a practical guide to power snapping, can be seen today, Thursday, at 7.45 pm on Star TV's "Die Werbewoche".
 

The new film shows a convinced do-it-yourselfer who is about to show a friend his latest works. He seems only slightly talented, because both his self-constructed birdhouse, as well as his tree house brand self-built are anything but perfect. Only one thing seems to have succeeded. An immaculate garden house is the showpiece of his garden.

The reason for the perfection is also the slogan of the new campaign: He bought it at Obi. The film is running immediately on SF1, SF2, Sat1, Kabel eins, RTL and all regional stations in German-speaking Switzerland.

Responsible at Obi Switzerland: Margrit Østergaard (Head of Department Marketing & Communication). Responsible at Jung von Matt/Limmat: Livio Dainese, Fernando Perez (CD), Daniel Pieracci (text), Daniel Serrano (AD), Laura Grümann (graphics), Ilonka Galliard (agency producer), Dominic Daeppen, Ariane Sonderegger (consulting), Filip Nilsson (director), Pumpkin Film (production).