According to the figures compiled by Media Control, the overall market (consoles and games for consoles and PC) shrank by 7.3% (sales) and 10.6% (revenue) compared to the previous year. The fourth quarter, traditionally the strongest in terms of sales, provided less impetus overall than the industry had hoped. The decline in portable consoles (handhelds) was particularly massive at over 30 percent (sales and turnover), as reported by the Swiss Interactive Entertainment Association (SIEA) on Monday. The shift towards mobile apps and online games, which are not included in the SIEA market figures, had a negative impact in this segment. The losses were lower for home consoles. The games market (software) was also slightly down in 2010 at -6.3% (sales) and -5.8% (turnover). The decline here also came from the handheld segment.
 
 

In 2008, Subaru Canada had sumo wrestlers advertise for them. The full-figured athletes leaned into the car wash. In the new campaign, the lightly clad Sumos appear even more provocatively under the motto "Sexy Comes Standard" - mostly on the hood of the vehicle. According to the creative team, they wanted to celebrate Japanese tradition and at the same time emphasize the "robust and sexy design" of the Japanese car. Task accomplished. After all, the Subaru Forester is not a sleek sports car!

The agency responsible is DDB Canada, Toronto. The campaign has been on display since February.

The spot from 2008:

 

With the postponed start of broadcasting, the channel will lose advertising revenue for a month. Co-founder Kurt Schaad told the Sonntag newspaper that this time will be used to prepare even better for the launch. "We're not entirely happy about it," CEO Alexander Mazzara told the Sonntagszeitung. However, he did not want to say what costs are associated with the postponement. Swisscom and Cablecom are in the process of installing the fiber optic network, Mazzara continued.

These are not the first distribution problems the channel has had to contend with. At the end of last year, Cablecom announced that it wanted to include Joiz in its digital offering, but not in its analog offering. The Federal Office of Communications (Bakom) issued the cable network operator with a Connection concession to also distribute the television channel on the analog network. Cablecom then submitted a Appeal to the Federal Administrative Court. The dispute is pending.

Joiz for the multitasking generation
 

Hans Jucker worked for Swiss television for around 46 years. He mainly commentated on cycling, horse riding and boxing. Hans Jucker was a commentator at 13 Olympic Games (Sarajevo 1984 to Beijing 2008). In the 1980s and 1990s, he was also the television voice for numerous women's ski races. Hans Jucker made his debut as a freelancer for Swiss television in 1965. His last live appearance was at the end of January this year at the CSI Zurich.

The Swiss sports and media scene has lost a charismatic commentator in Hans Jucker, Urs Leutert, Head of Sport at Swiss Radio and Television (SRF), was quoted as saying in a press release. Jucker was a cult figure in the sports journalists' guild. His comments about "Schissponys", the "dumme huere Ruderer" or the confusion of ski racer Peter Müller with Pirmin Zurbriggern, which were not intended for the television audience, also became cult.

(Image: SRF/Oscar Alessio) 

At the end of August last year, Tamedia launched a paid app for the Sunday newspaper. Since the beginning of February, the weekend supplement Das Magazin has also been available as an app. Last September, company spokesman Christoph Zimmer told Werbewoche that an app was also being considered for the Tages-Anzeiger. Paid iPad version in planning. Details of this have now been revealed by Sunday, which refers to "internal information".

According to the report, an evening edition is planned, which will be available from 7 p.m. each evening. This will contain content from the print edition of the current and following day as well as content from the news network. There will also be an updated second edition, which will be available from midnight each night and will contain roughly the same content as the next day's print edition, enriched with additional elements such as photo spreads. However, some of the content will continue to be accessible free of charge.
 

Goodbye corruption stories and millions in write-offs. After a transitional year in 2011, Fastweb is to be restructured in the following years by introducing Marketing initiatives and efficiency improvements "achieve strong revenue and cash flow growth", Swisscom announced last week. The marketing strategy is called George Clooney. After all, the actor is also helping the Nespresso brand to shine. Clooney has been advertising for Fastweb in TV commercials and on the Internet since January. He is to represent the brand in a positive light, as a Swisscom spokesperson told Sonntag. How much Superhero Clooney is worth to the company remains a secret. Industry insiders estimate it to be around five million francs. Unfortunately, Clooney's involvement is limited to Fastweb. So he won't be appearing in Swisscom commercials in this country. What a pity. A real pity.

 

The increase in the number of entries is probably a sign that the years of restraint and tight budgets are over. We have an exciting year with many excellent entries in the competition, including for the three newly created categories, says Erik Neumann, who is responsible for the Swiss Dialog Marketing Prize on the SDV Executive Committee. Most entries were submitted in the offline categories and in the "International" category. However, the "Digital Dialogue Measures" category recorded the largest percentage increase, with twice as many entries as last year. Even though traditional mailings continue to play a central role in dialogue marketing, there is a clear trend towards digitalization, according to Christian Huldi, Chairman of the jury.

From February 22 to 24, 2011, all submitted works will be presented in a public exhibition at the Papiersaal Sihlcity in Zurich. All visitors are invited to vote for their favorite for the public prize. All other prize winners will be selected by a 21-member jury. The winners will be announced on May 27, 2011 at the Award Night at the Kongresshaus Zurich, when the motto will be "Get your metal".
 

At the School of Business of the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland in Olten, 21 communication specialists have successfully completed the 10th "Master of Advanced Studies in Corporate Communication Management" course.

The part-time compact course in integrated communication management lasts 21 months. It can be individually tailored to suit your own needs and those of your employer. The internationally accredited course enables graduates to take on demanding management positions in internal and external communication in companies, non-profit organizations and administration, as the University of Applied Sciences writes in a press release.

Online games promise advantages in the increasingly difficult battle for attention. Thanks to smartphones and social networks, they are becoming increasingly ubiquitous and merging with the real world. When it comes to the use of games in the advertising and communication environment, a distinction must first be made between two types: On the one hand, video games (so-called core games), which are mainly played on game consoles and on computers, and on the other, so-called casual games, which also include the category of advertising games (advergames, ad games). These two genres differ in important criteria (see chart). Core games are usually huge productions that require special hardware and often take players into other worlds for hours. Logos and messages (such as perimeter advertising in football games) can be booked via in-game advertising and displayed to players in suitable scenes.

Casual games (occasional games) are different. These are easy to play and correspondingly cheaper to produce. They offer a quick sense of achievement, are entertaining and can be played in between games and can also be quickly abandoned. A legendary advertising game is the grouse hunt, with which the Scottish whisky brand Johnnie Walker attracted attention a good decade ago. These are the main advantages attributed to advertising games: If you succeed in staging the brand world with the right target group, such advertising games can be used to positively boost your own brand. Because popular advertising games are often recommended to others, the brand message spreads virally. This allows a company to set itself apart from the competition and retain and win over customers. The success of the game can be tracked continuously and user and contact data can be collected.

Read more about this in the current print edition of Werbewoche.

The three brothers acquired a stake in Facebook at the beginning of 2008. According to calculations by Manager Magazin, they probably tripled their capital investment at the time. Oliver Samwer confirmed to Wirtschaftsblatt that they had sold their shares in Facebook because they wanted to concentrate on the early-stage and growth areas.

Most recently, the three Samwer brothers made a name for themselves by founding online companies such as Alando, Jamba and, most recently, Citydeal.
 

The provision amounted to CHF 102 million in the first quarter of 2010. In contrast, EBITDA, adjusted for the provision and currency effects, rose by 1.7 percent. This was announced by Swisscom on Thursday. The provision was the main reason why net profit fell by 7.1 percent to CHF 1.79 billion. Swisscom's net revenue fell by 0.1 percent to CHF 11.99 billion. Revenue, on the other hand, increased by 2.1 percent due to constant currencies.

The subsidiary Fastweb increased its net revenue in local currency by 1.5% to 1.88 billion euros. And Swisscom's revenue excluding Fastweb increased by 2.3% to CHF 9.4 billion. This increase is primarily attributable to the economic recovery, company acquisitions by Swisscom IT Services and growth in mobile telephony and bundled offers, Swisscom writes in the press release.

Swisscom's mobile customers in Switzerland grew by four percent to 5.8 million. Revenue from mobile data transmission by Swisscom customers rose by 33 percent year-on-year to CHF 435 million. Meanwhile, prices in mobile telephony fell by around 13 percent compared to the previous year. The number of Swisscom TV subscribers rose by 81.5 percent to 421,000 within the space of a year.

For the 2011 financial year, Swisscom expects net revenue of at least CHF 11.8 billion, EBITDA of over CHF 4.6 billion and investments of less than CHF 2 billion. Swisscom also hopes that after a transitional year in 2011, Fastweb will achieve "strong revenue and cash flow growth" in subsequent years thanks to the marketing initiatives and efficiency improvements that have been introduced.

Changes to the Swisscom Board of Directors
The Swisscom Board of Directors will propose Hansueli Loosli for election as the new Chairman at the next Annual General Meeting on April 20, 2011. He will assume the new role after relinquishing his operational activities at Coop on September 1, 2011. The current Chairman of the Swisscom Board of Directors, Anton Scherrer, will stand for election as Chairman until August 31, 2011 at the Annual General Meeting.

Hans Werder, the state representative elected by the Federal Council, will also take a seat on the Board of Directors from the next Annual General Meeting. Felix Rosenberg, who has been on the Board of Directors since Swisscom was founded, will hand over his mandate at the Annual General Meeting after many years on the Board as a representative of the Swiss Confederation.
 

However, the evening show offers little that is new for viewers who get information online during the day. Overall, it gave SRF's Tagesschau a good report card in comparison with programs from Germany and Austria, the audience council wrote in a statement on Friday. The Tagesschau is the most modern and dynamic of the broadcasts - professionally produced and with a good mix of topics. The focus on politics makes sense. In addition, the Tagesschau producers had more courage to deal with cultural and scientific topics than their German and Austrian colleagues.

The picture quality was also excellent, while the broadcast duration of 25 minutes was at the upper limit. The audience council was critical of the news value of the main edition. Particularly for people who get information about the current situation online during the day, the evening newscast no longer offers much news. Therefore, the Council proposes to create added value compared to the brief information on the Internet by providing more background and classification. More graphics and maps should also be used for this purpose.

The live broadcasts to the correspondents also give rise to criticism. When the presenters alternated between reading out news and asking questions, this was not always convincing.