The 45th Wirz Cocktail, which was held under the motto "Such a coincidence: How likely is the improbable?", will go down in the history of the Wirz Group's traditional autumn event as the best-attended so far. The "AURA" in downtown Zurich, chosen for the first time for this purpose, proved to be the perfect venue and the hosts also seem to have done many other things right once again.

Under the direction of the brilliant SRF presenter Mona Vetsch, psychologist and columnist Peter Schneider, Monika Bütler from the University of St. Gallen, Mercedes-Benz Switzerland CEO Marcel Guerry and Green Liberal Group leader Tiana Angelina Moser discussed, joked and fabulated. The latter was able to entertain with amusing anecdotes about voting behavior in the Federal Parliament. The biggest laugh of the evening, however, was provided by the usual sharp-witted Peter Schneider, who expressed surprise in this context that in Bern, before important votes, one or the other politician is apparently "locked in the toilet.

"When it comes to choosing a theme, we don't usually leave anything to chance. This year we did. It worked out well," said Wirz Group CEO Geri Aebi, host of the evening, in his usual trenchant brief introduction to the topic.

Following the panel discussion, the invited guests had the opportunity for personal exchange during the aperitif. It is not known to what extent the groups that emerged were "chance acquaintances". It is all the more certain that the "coincidence" provided enough conversation material for a long, enjoyable evening.

Our subscribers will find more pictures of the event in the current print edition of Werbewoche on Friday, November 20.

According to the company, it remains to be seen whether the efficiency enhancement program will lead to job cuts. The three technical magazines Megalink, Technica and Chemie will be merged. This is what company spokeswoman Monica Stephani said on Wednesday in response to a report by industry service Klein Report.

According to Klein Report, however, the restructuring measures have already led to major job cuts: at AZ-Medien, 20 employees were given notice of termination on Tuesday. A total of 1,600 job percentages are affected in the "Media Switzerland" division. At the specialist publishing house of AZ-Medien, 8 jobs will be cut, and within the IT and customer contact departments, 12 jobs will be cut. Economic changes were given as the reasons to the approximately 100 people who gathered at the AZ-Medien-Telli building on Neumattstrasse in Aarau at 3 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon.

The increase in weekly working hours in the media company will apply to employees who are not subject to a collective labor agreement, among other things, as of June 1, 2016. Stephani spoke of a "harmonization" of weekly working hours within AZ Medien.

Publisher Peter Wanner's AZ Medien suffered a bottom-line loss of CHF 6 million in 2014. Sales rose by 2.3 percent to 247.7 million Swiss francs. (SDA)
 

In addition to the Christmas TV spot, the million-dollar lottery ticket will also be advertised 360° this year with posters, advertisements, radio spots and traditional POS media. As a key visual, the Santas are used cross-media on all channels. During promotional roadshows, they encourage visitors to shopping centers to scratch off a giant million-dollar lottery ticket and Swisslos is looking for the most surprising experiences of "real" Santas in Blick. The best stories will be published in Blick and the winner will fly to Rovaniemi in Finland to meet the realest of all Santas.

Responsible at Swisslos Intercantonal National Lottery: Rolf Kunz (Head of Marketing & Distribution), Bettina Dürrenberger (Head of Product Management Lots), Patrick Weisskopf (Product Management Lots). Responsible at Erdmannpeisker: Gabriel Peisker, Sybille Erdmann (overall responsibility), Torsten Maas and Grit Wolany (concept) Patrick Fawer (art direction), Selina Helbling, Aline Bächler (consulting), Christina Weibel, Tabea Ott, Jenny Ziörjen (media design). Responsible at Markenfilm Switzerland: Uli Scheper (producer), Nalle Sjöblad (director), Jean-Noël Mustonen (cinematographer). PR: Panta Rhei PR. Promotion: Spool. Media Planning: Mediafactor.
 

The core target group is potential, current and former patients and their relatives. The main objective of the quality report is to convey credibility and trust. All reports were written by employees and each provided with name, picture, core competence and contact details. In this way, a high degree of authenticity is achieved.

A simple but effective concept ensures that the patient always feels at the center of attention when reading: Relevant questions that concern patients and relatives before a hospital stay are answered by means of articles, facts, individual statements and pictures. In this way, the patient feels taken seriously and competently advised.

The quality report is published in electronic form as an ePaper and interactive PDF as well as a printed version with 15'000 copies.

Responsible at Schön Klinik: Alexander Hauenschild (Managing Director), Petra Berghaus-Wagner (Head of Communications and Networking). Responsible at KSP Krieg Schlupp Partner: Anita Kummer (creative direction), Rahel Witschi (art direction), Daniel Zehnder (text), Christoph Ilg (consulting management), Natalija Ferrari (consulting assistance), Florian Hammerich (photo), Craft367 (image editing).

As Eastern Switzerland depends on private transport and a car is often indispensable for shopping at Coop Bau+Hobby, the agency analyzed and evaluated the traffic flows in the catchment area. In three waves, the most important access roads were then covered with individual posters.

Responsible at Coop Bau+Hobby: Christoph Theler (Head of Coop Bau+Hobby), Stefan Schwär (Head of Communication/Advertising), Cécile Sprenger (Project Manager Advertising). Responsible at agency at the airport: René Eugstair (Creative Direction), Dominique Rutishauser (Art Direction), Valeria Hörler (Graphics), Patricia Eugster (Consulting/Media).
 

In his previous position as President International & Global Operations, Perry Valkenburg was responsible for Digital and Consumer Marketing at TBWA. His clients, with whom he has already won gold in Cannes several times, include companies such as the innovative shopping platform Wish.

TCC offers customer loyalty programs for Swiss retail and energy companies. "In today's world, the digital and real worlds are increasingly merging - including in the retail sector. It is therefore particularly important for us to support retail companies in making the best possible use of this new digital environment for their consumers and to promote their loyalty online. With Perry Valkenburg and his many years of experience, we are ideally positioned to do this," says TCC Managing Director Thomas Lehmeier about the new Group CEO. 

The team of consultants at Primcom, a PR agency specializing in the travel industry in Zurich, has recently been joined by Wiebke Sander. The 41-year-old from Westphalia has worked as Communications Manager for Swiss Travel System, a subsidiary of SBB, for the past four years.

Wiebke Sander studied economics and completed journalism training as well as further training as a social media manager. She has gained tourism experience at Switzerland Tourism, Railaway and at Smarket, an agency specializing in tourism marketing.
 

The new EWZ.zürinet campaign started a month ago (Werbewoche.ch reported). In addition to conventional posters, an online campaign and a new event concept, EWZ now also relies on a nationwide novelty: an interactive poster. It was developed in collaboration with Wetalkwithyou and APG|SGA.

Following the campaign launched by Vizner Borel. "My Zurich. My Network." participants can create their own T-shirt texts and submit them for a competition. The most creative entries then appear on the interactive poster and can be browsed on site using a swipe gesture.

On the other hand, passers-by can inform themselves about the EWZ.zürinet fiber optic network on the interactive poster. The poster thus becomes an oversized tablet with touch function.

To avoid having to enter personal data on site, the T-shirt created for the contest submission will be sent by e-mail. Alternatively, the participant can download his or her created T-shirt to his or her cell phone via QR code and submit it using the competition access optimized for mobile devices.

The interactive poster can be seen for three weeks in Zurich Oerlikon at the Sternen Oerlikon stop.

In a jury marathon that lasted from half past eight in the morning until nine in the evening, almost all the remaining categories were judged in Berlin. As in the previous year, Switzerland will again receive three gold awards in 2015. In the medal table, however, there will still be some changes - a similarly good overall result as last year is within reach. Only the gold placements will be determined immediately during the judging, the rest will be calculated and determined later.

But it is already clear: Stories will win an Epica Award. The Triumph campaign "Find the One" was moved to the shortlist of the category "Fashion, Footwear & Personal Accessories" by the pre-jury according to Epica regulations. Reason: Too good to be eliminated prematurely due to extraordinarily strong competition. In this category, only the globally acclaimed H&M campaign "Close The Loop" was rated better at the judging in Berlin. Whether Stories will be enough for silver will be announced by the Epica organizers on Wednesday and communicated on Thursday.

Publicis can also look forward to (another) award (errors excepted, as always). In the category "Public Interest / Social", the Zurich agency convinced with the campaign "Women should not be worth less" for the Women's Center Zurich. In this category, only the "It happens here" campaign by Ogilvy & Mather London (Werbewoche.ch reported) - however, it was not rewarded with gold, but only with silver. Nevertheless, the good rating for Publicis is remarkable. On the one hand, because the campaign had to be shown in the original German version and explained by Editorial Director Marc Tungate due to linguistic requirements (e.g. drill vs. female drill; headphones vs. female headphones), on the other hand, the simple execution of the submitted subjects was occasionally criticized. Nevertheless, the creative idea was understood and well received.

The rest is speculation and will only become clear on Wednesday. In the radio category, FCB Zurich still has a real chance of winning bronze with its Neuroth quiz show campaign. Also in this category: At least two very strong campaigns stood in front of the sun for the promising Swiss entry in the fight for the best placings. Publicis is also still flirting with a (non-gold) award for L'Oréal in "Health, Beauty, Cosmetics & Toiletries. Ruf Lanz is hoping for an award in "Luxury & Premium Brands. Also open is the final evaluation of the work "Toy Soldiers" by Havas Worldwide Zurich for the Zurich Chamber Orchestra. Other award wins are also still possible.

Thomas Häusermann

The Swiss medal table 2015
                                                                                                                                      

Leo Burnett	1
Publicis	1	?	?
Wirz	1
Stories		?	?
Total	3	?	?

Of the 250 positions, 190 are to be achieved by means of retirements, layoffs and staff reductions, SRG announced on Tuesday. In addition, 60 vacant positions will not be filled. In order to limit the reduction to a maximum of 250 jobs, SRG and the SSM union have agreed on a zero wage increase for 2016 and a social plan.

SRG's management has been intensively looking at alternative cost-cutting proposals to minimize the job cuts. These included, for example, cuts in programming, lower expenses or a solidarity-based reduction in the number of employees, as spokesman Daniel Steiner explained in response to a question.

However, individual proposals would entail a high implementation effort or even additional costs, SRG writes further. It is also bound by current contracts and has to fulfill obligations under labor law.

Nevertheless, the SRG emphasizes that the cost-cutting program will also have an impact on programming. The individual language regions will provide information on the specific implementation in the next few days. The cost-cutting measures will be implemented starting this month.

SSM considers consultation procedure an elaborate token exercise

According to a statement on Tuesday, the SSM is disappointed that the SRG does not completely renounce layoffs until the introduction of the new fee system. The fact that 400 proposals submitted by employees in the consultation process have not led to a reduction in the announced job cuts is incomprehensible, it said. 

In particular, the union finds it incomprehensible that the SRG did not agree to temporarily consider a reduction in equity or an increase in external debt to cover any losses.The SSM describes the elaborate consultation process as an alibi exercise. (SDA/sis)
 

The proportion of people suffering from hunger has halved since the 1990s, the number of people without clean drinking water has fallen by 50 percent and more and more girls are going to school. 

Facts like these prove that a better world is possible - and that development aid can actually achieve a lot. In its new print campaign, Helvetas does not show the public the classic negative images, but stages positive facts as an exciting combination of infographics and photo staging.

The multi-year campaign was launched on November 9, 2015. In the coming months, further subjects will continue to provide optimism with well-founded positive statements.

Responsible at Helvetas: Stefan Stolle (Head of Communications and Fundraising). Responsible at Spina's Civil Voices: Lorenz Spinas (overall responsibility), Miriam Fischer (art direction), Susi Kammergruber (concept/text), Tullio Tomasini, Sarah Bertschinger (consulting).
 

Since Tuesday, Tagesschau has also been offering its short format "Tagesschau in 100 seconds" in English and Arabic. All of the reports in the foreign-language version are accompanied by English or Arabic picture panels. German opponents of asylum are furious about this. ARD is responding to the wave of refugees with this format and wants to offer more "service for immigrants in Germany".

It is also exciting to see what the channel presents as important news for refugees: The foreign-language short program shows different content than the "Tagesschau in 100" seconds in German. For refugees, the first day of broadcasting included reports on Pegida demonstrations, terror suspects arrested in Alsdorf and the joint fight between France and the USA against the Islamic State. (sis)
 

The current short news program in English can be found here.