Audi's laser light technology illuminates even the darkest places. But how can this be brought to life in advertising? The idea: make the lighting of movie theaters part of an Audi commercial. And this is how it worked: in a commercial animated by Fluxif, an Audi drove towards the audience. And the closer it got, the more the auditorium lighting was turned up. Until the Audi laser light illuminated the entire movie theater. The media idea was implemented for a week in Zurich's Corso cinema.

Responsible at Amag Automobil- und Motoren: Donato Bochicchio (Head of Brand/Director Audi), Christian Frey (Head of Marketing Audi), Stefanie Koch (Head of Marketing Communication Audi). Responsible at Exxtra (Member of Y&R Group Switzerland): Markus Gut (CCO), Martin Stulz, Dominik Oberwiler (CD) Olivia Gnani, Sebastian Eppler, Andrei Vid (Art Direction), Susan Baumgartner (Consulting). Responsible at Fluxif: Fabian Scheffold (Lead Visual Artist) Filip Frisk (Lead Visual Artist), Martin Hernblad (Visual Artist).

 

Once working as managing director and creative director and as art director and designer for the company "Konform" respectively, the two creatives now combine scenic architecture and design even more consistently.

April 12, 2015, the official World Licorice Day, marked the launch of the new design agency on Zurlindenstrasse in Zurich. The address forms the creative heart of the new company. The company name "Lakrits" refers to the candy that is very popular in the north (more commonly referred to as "licorice" in German). The agency of Jvo Ruppanner and Michaela Brunner wants to work the market as diversely as the flavors and forms of the Lakrits present themselves. The focus is on scenic design. Lakrits spans the thread between vision and reality. By means of creativity and proven know-how in the possibilities of implementation, works are to be created that tell a clear story.

A wealth of experience

Both owners already have extensive experience in this field. Jvo Ruppanner acquired his design and construction skills through various stations - from sculptor to carpenter to lighting designer - before he became self-employed and formed the company Konform with 50 employees including design department and complete production with eight independent trades. At Lakrits, he consistently continues the path in new surroundings.

Michaela Brunner acquired her eye for the essential in several established design agencies. In 2007, she founded her own company "Medea-Design" and also sharpened her economic perspective. From 2011 to 2014 she was art director and designer at Konform. At Lakrits she can now exploit her wealth of experience and put it to passionate use.

Setting the stage for brands

Lakrits wants to establish itself as a stage designer for the theater of brands, so to speak. The core business is to develop visible and tangible stories and messages in space. For Michaela Brunner, one thing is certain: "In the future, brand and corporate identity will extend even more to tangible spatial design, since direct dialog as a counterpart to virtual communication places people as individuals at the center." The primal form of communication takes place in space - with all its facets and nuances. Accordingly, the design of environments would become increasingly important. This is where "Lakrits" comes in. "Our goal," says Jvo Ruppanner, "is to draw a red thread through the design competencies and thus consistently tell the story."

Lakrits is starting with a total of three employees. The goal is to double the number by the end of 2019.

 

The platform has been live since mid-April and is part of the regional online news portal Südostschweiz.ch. As part of the cooperation, the previous marketplace technology was replaced and a new, mobile-enabled solution from Immoscout24 was integrated into the Suedostschweiz.ch news portal at the beginning of the month.

Customers now benefit from additional services and products. For example, from existing advertisements on Southeast Switzerlandimmo.ch print ads can be booked and generated quickly and easily in Somedia newspapers. ImmoScout24 provides its own cross-media publisher tool "Online-to-Print" for this purpose. The advertisements published on the regional marketplace are also displayed on Immoscout24.ch and thus reach an even larger target audience.

With around 71,000 current rental and purchase properties, 6.4 million visits and 1.65 million unique clients per month (*Source: NET-Metrix Audit 2015-3) Immoscout24 is one of the leading Swiss online marketplaces for real estate. Martin Waeber, Director Immoscout24: "We are driving forward the development of our platform and offering customers a user-friendly and efficient environment - in the future, real estate seekers and advertisers in southeastern Switzerland will also benefit from this." Roger Wolf, Head of Classifieds Somedia, adds: "Thanks to the collaboration with Immoscout24, we now have a contemporary real estate platform and can offer our customers valuable and innovative additional services."
 

At the awards ceremony, hosted by Jan Böhmermann and attended by over 400 guests from business, politics, media and the digital industry, 39 digital works in 21 categories were awarded precious metal from 445 submissions: six with gold, 14 with silver and 19 with bronze. Among them were two entries from the Zurich agencies Serviceplan Suisse and Plan.Net Suisse: Silver was won by the BMW i3 campaign "The Ecoist" for BMW Switzerland in the category "Digital Advertising Campaigns - Cross-Media Campaign" and the social media campaign "The Flying Bicycle" for Stöckli Swiss Sports. With a total of seven precious metal awards, the Serviceplan Group was the big winner at this important event.

To the winners

Namely, on the poster in the advertisement that Wirz Corporate realized for the ADC festschrift as well as for the further communication of the APG|SGA offer that was newly launched in 2014. It took only five days from idea to implementation. Thus, the poster with Daniel Strobel became living proof that the innovate! team really does everything to open up the unlimited creative and technical possibilities of outdoor advertising for APGISGA's customers.

Responsible at APG|SGA: Stéphanie Bader, Ernst Fuhrer, Andrea Galatti, Hanspeter Gut, Bernhard Huber, Sabine Tschopp, Corinne Truttmann, Daniel Zurbriggen. Responsible at Richnerstutz: Christoph Birnstengel, Stefan Weber. Responsible at Wirz Corporate: Marcel Morach (AD), Andrea Laube, Thore Lingel (consulting); photographer: Stephan Knecht; responsible at Birdviewpicture: Ricardo Perret, Adrian Bretscher

The so-called Digital News Initiative (DNI) will be supported with 150 million euros in the coming years, according to Google. The alliance pursues three main objectives: Product development, innovation promotion and research promotion. The digital news initiative includes Die Zeit and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from Germany, the British newspapers Financial Times and The Guardian and the French financial newspaper Les Echos. La Stampa from Italy, El País from Spain and the Dutch media group NRC Media are also involved. Other media could join in the course of time. Institutions such as the European Journalism Center and the International News Media Association are also involved. Google wants to use the initiative to promote the use of online media and not least its search engine. The group and media companies want to work together to find out how new products can increase sales and strengthen audience loyalty. "Anyone working on innovations in the field of online news" can apply.

Model France

The pioneer for the new initiative is a fund financed by Google in France, which was set up at the beginning of 2013. Google set up a 60 million euro fund for digital innovation in the press, to which French online media projects can apply for funding. The project is set to run until at least the end of the year. This partnership was concluded after a lengthy dispute with the publishers. The French publishers had previously demanded a levy for search engines, which would be payable when Internet users access an article published online via Google search results, for example. Google had then threatened in a letter to the French government to no longer list French media in its hit lists if such a levy was introduced. (SDA)

Radio 1 boss Roger Schawinski said in a statement: "I am delighted that we have been able to appoint Jonas, a very experienced presenter with such a great voice. Jonas ideally complements our team with his personality." Jonas Wirz was part of the starting team of the youth station Virus in 2000 and has been a presenter of various programs on Radio 24 since 2006. Jonas Wirz succeeds Lisa Känzig as afternoon presenter. The 28-year-old will start an internship at SRF in the fall.

Bea Jucker has been back on Radio 1 this month. The 34-year-old occasionally takes over the moderation of various programs. Bea Jucker was already on Radio 1 from 2008 to 2013.

In Switzerland, we are spoiled: if there is a hairline crack in the road tar, an armada of road builders arrives the next day. In most cases, they even renew the road in anticipatory obedience - after all, there's always something to do. The advantage of this is that our roads are, on the whole, in immaculate condition. The disadvantage: construction sites as far as the eye can see. True to the motto: an end is always a beginning.

Other countries can only dream of such luxury problems. Pothole after pothole forms in the streets - and the authorities usually lack the time, money, motivation or competence to repair the damage. So citizens have to fight back themselves.

In 2012, in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, the Voskhod agency painted the responsible politicians around the potholes in the night and fog (Casemovie). Result: Holes repaired, Clio won.

In 2009, the fast-food chain KFC took the problem into its own hands in the U.S.: In five cities, potholes were repaired on a large scale - and given the "Re-Freshed by KFC" seal.

A group of creative lithographers - called Z999 - produced last year a Photo gallery around potholes and caused a national sensation.

 

In the spring of 2015, a Siberian artist attracted the long-overdue attention of the mayor of Novosibirsk through the use of lightly clad models. Road condition: moderate.
 

In England, however, an anonymous artist from Manchester has now found a way to get rid of the annoying holes with far less effort. He was prompted to take action after cyclists from his area repeatedly had accidents as a result of the road damage. Under the pseudonym "Wanksy" - in reference to the legendary street artist Banksy - he sprayed male genitals around the damaged pavement using washable paint. 

Images: Facebook.com
 

The genitals apparently draw attention to the damage so efficiently that it is repaired within 48 hours in a normal case. Says Wanksy - and proves the repairs with photos. The city of Manchester, on the other hand denies the context to the BBC, calls the "vandalism" "counterproductive" and refers to the children who could be harmed by the drawings. Unlike falling cyclists, however, the children are likely to survive the scribbles. (hae)