After Nina Krucker took over the operational management of the agency from Martin Zahner on February 1, Yjoo is already able to announce the desired strengthening of the management team in Zurich. "This will further consolidate our position as one of the leading communications agencies in Switzerland", states CEO Nina Krucker in a press release.

Boost in a dynamic environment

The new Executive Board member Martin Hofer brings many years of consulting and management experience from the communications and media industry. He spent seven years at Burson-Marsteller, first as Head of Corporate Communications and later as Head of Public Affairs. Most recently, he was a member of the management team at Farner Communications. "I hope to be able to give the dynamic Yjoo agency an additional boost in its strategic market positioning," says Martin Hofer. "We are delighted to have found the desired addition to our management team in Martin Hofer. He fits in well with our culture, not only in terms of his profile, but above all as a person," says Martin Zahner, Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Entrepreneurial scope as a driver

Martin Hofer, the former head of the TV news program "10 vor 10" and editor-in-chief of Sonntagsblick, is to become a partner at Yjoo Communications. "I'm looking forward to the new entrepreneurial scope," he says. Gabi Badertscher, Sabine Bianchi and Samuel Güttinger as well as the two site managers Daniel Herrera, YJOO Lausanne, and Marco Werder, Yjoo Lugano, complete the management team, which is now well positioned for the next phase of development. "We can now move forward with our strategic, structural and cultural work with strength and confidence," says CEO Nina Krucker.

This was announced on Monday by the two media companies Ringier and Tamedia, which each hold 46.2 percent of the French-speaking Swiss daily newspaper. Among the potential buyers is a Geneva-based entrepreneur who has a solid financial basis and is supported by the "Amis du Temps" association.
is recommended, as Ringier and Tamedia stated. The Friends of the Newspaper Association, founded in mid-January, has over 700 members. The two media companies expect a response from potential buyers by the end of March. Ringier and Tamedia had put the western Swiss daily newspaper up for sale on October 8. In the opinion of the media companies, a strong owner would provide the best conditions for the continued existence and further development of the newspaper. If no convincing offer is received, Ringier and Tamedia will examine the purchase of the other's stake. (SDA)

The digital advertising industry's coordinating body for interest-based online advertising, European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance (EDAA), based in Brussels, is responsible for the Europe-wide implementation of the guidelines of the self-regulatory initiative for Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA). This cross-industry self-regulatory initiative was launched by leading European bodies to guarantee transparency as well as security in the handling of interest-based data.

Data protection as part of corporate governance

According to the press release, Goldbach has always been committed to voluntary compliance with the highest data protection standards and, following a thorough and neutral inspection, was one of the first companies to be awarded the EDAA seal of approval for careful data aggregation. For Michi Frank, CEO of Goldbach Group, the certification is a confirmation of the company's strategy: "Targeting products from Goldbach are an efficient and effective marketing tool to enable our advertising customers to target group-oriented advertising. The fact that we have now been honored throughout Europe by the official certifier shows that we are also aware of our leading position as a digital network in the extremely sensitive area of data security and act in an exemplary manner when dealing with relevant target groups."

 

The expansion of the team is intended to intensify the company's positioning in the consulting sector and offer media professionals improved services, according to a press release.

Lukas Meermann is a trained business historian with further training in strategic communications management and previously worked in the marketing and communications department at EY. Previously, the 38-year-old worked as a communications expert at Siemens and as a media spokesperson in the insurance sector from 2011 to 2013.

Michael Wiget brings his many years of experience as an agency journalist and in corporate communications at Swiss Post to EY's PR and media team. The media studies graduate has an MAS in Business Communications and has also worked for several years in communications agencies.

Eliane Panek will remain part of the team. She studied educational psychology, journalism and sociology at the University of Zurich and has been working at EY since the beginning of 2013. Previously, the 31-year-old worked in corporate communications at the University Hospital of Zurich.

On March 1, Philipp Kaleicli joined Adello as Senior Account and Operations Manager. He joins from Goldbach Audience, where he has built up a broad network and specific mobile expertise in recent years as Deputy Team Leader. Philipp Kaleicli holds a higher business degree and previously worked for Tamedia in various positions for 12 years.

Also as of March 1, Damian Huber joined Adello, having previously worked for Farner Consulting in various positions. Damian Huber holds a Master's degree in Economics and Media Studies from the University of Zurich, where he worked as a research assistant in various research projects. Khalid Sedighyar has also recently joined Adello, taking on functions in the area of national and international ad operations. Khalid Sedighyar holds a Master's degree in Banking and Finance, which is of particular benefit to him when optimizing campaigns with statistical models.

With these additional resources, Adello intends to further extend its advantage of being the first company to offer true algorithmic mobile audience targeting in real time, according to a statement. In contrast to programmatic buying or static behavioral targeting, audience targeting based on real-time analysis achieves significantly higher conversion rates and thus creates added value for advertisers and publishers.
 

Starting Wednesday, the National Council will debate how the SRG service will be financed in the future and what it should include. The current fee of 462 francs is to be converted into a lower levy. This would have to pay not only all households, but also companies with sales over 500'000 francs - regardless of whether radio or television is received. As the NZZ am Sonntag writes, Economiesuisse, the trade association and Hotelleriesuisse are resisting the planned changes. The de facto introduction of a media tax would lead to a double burden and consumers at home and at work would be taxed twice. They also demand that the SRG's mission be clearly defined before the fee model is decided.

"Glanz & Gloria" not a public service

In the opinion of the business community, the offer is too inflated: An annual 180 million francs for foreign films and series that can also be seen on private channels is too much, says Kurt Lanz of Economiesuisse. He also questions what shows like "Glanz & Gloria" and "Voice of Switzerland" have to do with public service. Consequently, competition with private broadcasters in the online sector is also inappropriate. According to Lanz, SRG should cut back on services that are already provided by private broadcasters.

The SRG criticism is supported by various parliamentarians. SVP National Councilor Natalie Rickli believes that one station per language region is enough. Martin Landolt (BDP) and Fabio Regazzi (CVP) want to limit the fees to 360 francs. Jürg Grossen (GLP) criticizes the planned new model because companies would pay the levy to the tax administration, but for private individuals there would still be a need for a collection agency. He proposes abolishing Billag and financing the SRG directly from the state budget in the future. Grossen is confident that he will find a majority in parliament with his proposal. He has not been able to convince the Federal Council: the latter would see the independence of a state broadcaster in danger and points out that full financing would require a 0.5 percent increase in value-added tax. (NZZaS/hae)
 

Young, creative teams of two from the advertising and communications industry represent their home countries in the "battle" for the coveted medals at the Young Lions competition held as part of the Cannes advertising festival. In order to be allowed to travel to Cannes, interested parties have to go through a selection process that is managed by the respective Cannes Lions representatives (Switzerland: Publicitas). Switzerland selects its young representatives in the film, print and cyer categories as part of the ADC Young Creatives Awards and has consequently already determined the teams in November for the competition to be held in June 2014 (Werbewoche.ch reported). Other countries are still looking. For example Finland: Until the end of March, works can be submitted for the national elimination.

The corresponding commercial shows why the industry is looking for a breath of fresh air, new ideas and unused creative approaches: Most of the ingenious ideas of recent months and years are no longer even suitable as pick-up lines in a dim bar atmosphere. No wonder: You've heard them a thousand times and seen them a thousand times - at some point, enough is enough. From Budweiser's "Wazzup," to the Olympus claim "Your Vision Our Future," to Van Damme's Volvo splits - "New Ideas wanted!" (hae)

200 went to the start. These Swiss brand names were selected rather arbitrarily (although not randomly according to scientific criteria) from corresponding directories. Only brands of media titles were excluded, since here, unlike with the other companies, communication is quite actually the corporate purpose. That was last fall, and since then data has been collected daily (freely accessible via a program interface). Now, after a good two months or exactly 69 days, a first interim balance can be drawn: How do Swiss brands perform on YouTube?

Half missing

The first finding was that no trace of half of the selected brand names could be found on YouTube. This was after weeding out will-o'-the-wisps from the rest of the world that - for whatever reason - have a Swiss brand name in the title. It's quite possible that a company channel didn't get caught in the programmed nets - but what's the point of a brand presence without the brand name? (This question can be answered by Publisuisse, for example, which changed the name of its channel from the original "publisuisse" to "Rainer Binggeli" during the observation period - a brief web search revealed that the man there acts as "Head of E-Channel"...).

The sleepers

Of the 100 or so brand names found, the number of videos that can be viewed has remained unchanged for 27 of them (i.e. just under a third). These include companies that have embedded a few videos on their website and parked them on YouTube - which can hardly be interpreted as an indication of an elaborate video marketing strategy. The Ovomaltine Wander AG channel, for example, is at a standstill. But the reason is quickly clear: Since the career of skiing ace Didier Cuche ended, no video talent has apparently emerged as a successor among the new sponsors. Or there are companies that have apparently forgotten about their YouTube presence, such as Feldschlösschen Getränke AG. There is the 2012 barbecue spot for beer marinades in the three national languages as well as a film about the stand at the BEA of the same year. Those who maintain their own YouTube channel remove outdated videos, which can lead to a drop in the number of videos available. This is so observed on nine brand channels, with most showing good increases in views. It is also worth noting that a good third of the channels observed have changed the title of their channel, albeit often only slightly - this is also an indication of dynamism and the spirit of optimism that currently prevails in video marketing.

The high flyers

Before the top performers are shown, the question arises as to the relevant criterion and, consequently, the relevant metrics in this area. The focus here is on these metrics:

Views: When a video is started, it counts as a call, regardless of whether only one second or the whole clip was watched. This is a disadvantage. What's more, such clicks can be easily manipulated (even if it's just to sell the video to the boss). Until August 2012, views were an important criterion on YouTube, which is still useful for estimating the popularity of a video or a YouTube channel. Based on this, the Werbewoche panel produced the following ranking as of the end of February:

Dwell time (watch time): The new King criterion is based on an estimate of how long a video has been viewed. Videos with good dwell time values are ranked higher by YouTube in search results and recommendation lists and thus have an easier time achieving greater reach. Dwell time data is not freely available, but can only be accessed by the respective channel owner on YouTube. Anyone who seriously pursues video marketing will continuously monitor the development of this metric and try to derive the right future procedures from it.

Subscribers: Anyone who subscribes to a channel will henceforth receive a notification as soon as a new video has been uploaded, and these will also be displayed on the personal YouTube homepage. Subscribers are the most loyal fans, so their number is an obvious core metric, especially when it comes to improving dwell time. This is because subscribers often watch videos longer than average visitors. To increase dwell time, it is therefore important to attract subscribers. Not only is the number of newly acquired subscribers important, but also the number of dropped subscribers is advantageously tracked on an ongoing basis and associated with the latest videos. In this way, it becomes clear which videos have brought additional subscribers and which have scared them away. The ratio of views to subscribers is also often taken into account. If your videos are often clicked on, but generate hardly any subscribers, this should set alarm bells ringing.

In the Werbewoche panel, the subscriber rankings are as follows:

The list of channels that gained the most subscribers during the observation period is interesting, because many names from the top list with the number of subscribers reappear here, suggesting a correlation.

Binding (engagement): Subscriptions are a way for the audience to interact with the videos and express their feedback. On YouTube, other metrics can be tracked: the number of likes (positive or negative), how often a video was added to one's favorites or shared with others, how many comments there were on a video, and what are the main messages. Video marketing is hardly ever done alone, but in conjunction with other channels, so keep an eye on these aspects, for example: How often was a video tweeted about, how often was it embedded on other sites (blogs, etc.), how often was one's own website accessed because of a video, and how often was a product or service sold because of it. If a product video has a four-digit number of views, but no further indications of engagement activities, it is probably advisable to rethink one's own approach.

The frequent producers

Also on the list of channels that produced the most videos (both overall and during the observation period), names from the above lists appear again. This is a strong indication that whoever produces many videos has many views and many subscribers, and thus is likely to have a successful video marketing strategy. However, this is not necessarily the only silver bullet: Roger Federer, for example, has just grown by a single video, which was easily enough for a top position (1,185,329 views, +27,574 and 21,511 subscribers, +357).

Steep growth overall

The great dynamism that currently exists in video marketing becomes apparent when evaluating the added figures of all active channels in this exploratory study. If the changes from the 69 days observed are converted to a year, there is a good nine-fold growth in the number of views. The figures for uploaded videos increase by just under six times and channel subscribers by a good six times.

Christoph J. Walther

The law graduate has got to know the communications industry from many different angles: as a presenter and Head of Music at a radio station in north-west Switzerland, he learned early on to combine words with emotions. As Marketing Manager at Joe's Multimedia, he was initially responsible for around 40 branches of the video store chain. He then switched sides and marketed the home entertainment products of studios such as Paramount Pictures and Universum Film in German-speaking Switzerland.

At CS2, Graf wants to expand marketing activities, support the sales team and realize CEO Dani Kalt's innovative projects in business development.

Picture: Cs2.ch

Eveline Dudda used to teach horticulture courses for SGBL (now Bioterra) and managed a coordination office for decentralized composting on behalf of Buwal (now Bafu). She has been working as a freelance agricultural journalist for more than ten years. With her office for "Journalism in the green sector", she covers a wide range of topics. The 55-year-old agronomist is a dual citizen (CH - D) and has two grown-up children and lives with her partner in Hinterforst SG.

In the previous year, a plus of CHF 50.2 million was recorded, although this was mainly due to the sale of real estate. By contrast, Publigroupe's operating result of CHF 0.8 million was just in positive territory, as in the previous year (CHF 1.6 million). According to the press release issued on Friday, the company is still struggling with a difficult market environment. The traditional advertising business in particular is performing poorly, generating only 805.2 million francs in 2013, 10 percent less revenue than in the previous year. Overall, the company's turnover shrank by 7 percent to 1.058 billion francs. The previous year had already seen a decline of 13 percent. (SDA)

The 2013 financial report is available at Publigroupe.com can be downloaded.

With Daniel Tschanz, Serranetga has increased its team of consultants to nine people. The trained typographer brings with him over 16 years of experience in national and international agencies. At BBDO Interone and Jung von Matt (both Hamburg) as well as Future Connection and DraftFCB/Lowe (both Zurich), Daniel worked as digital art director for renowned brands such as BMW, Unicef, Cailler, Nivea and Greenpeace.

With the signing of Vanessa Nettinger, Serranetga is consistently investing in the expansion of its expertise in the area of Real Time Advertising. Vanessa will strengthen the media team as Media Manager RTA. Before joining Serranetga, the 27-year-old, who has a degree in media economics, worked as Media Manager at the digital agency Plan.Net Suisse and already has extensive experience in the RTA sector.

The creative department was strengthened with two new, experienced employees. Florian Bosshard will be responsible for various client projects as Art Director. The 34-year-old was trained as a graphic designer at W,H,S, Werbeagentur in Zurich and most recently worked at Blue Spirit Communications and The House Agency. Matthias Ziegler, also 34, completes the team as copywriter/conceptual designer. A graduate in art history, he previously held the same position at TBWA Switzerland and Wirz.