Statement provides clients with strategies, ideas and concepts to activate brands and consumers. "We don't think above- or below-the-line, but blow-up-the-line. We turn the brand into a channel, supplement classic reach communication specifically with qualitative 1:1 contacts and thus ensure engagement, interaction and bonding between brand and consumer," says Philipp Brunner, Partner at Statement.

With the signing of Roger Gebert, the agency is now securing additional expertise and experience in precisely these areas. In Switzerland, Roger Gebert was responsible for the brands Ben & Jerry's and Milka, among others, as brand manager. As the agency writes in a statement, this happens in the course of various new customers, about which one will still inform at a later time.

The new platform features a modern, fresh design and celebrates the 150th anniversary in an atmospheric and elegant way. The platform was designed in a responsive web design and also offers a comprehensive anniversary experience for mobile devices. As an important economic player in the region, BLKB wants to offer the population even more: monthly competitions and events as well as concerts and service area inaugurations, all of which are communicated centrally via the new platform. In addition, BLKB is donating 150 benches to the region - this campaign will also be dramatized via the website, as well as offline, with a special promotion. On the anniversary website, congratulations can be posted via Twitter, Facebook or Instagram with the hashtag #blkb150.

Responsible at BLKB: Urs Uehlinger (overall responsibility), Werner Geng and Edgar Waibel (market communications). Responsible at Notch Interactive: Peter A. van der Touw (overall responsibility), Vera Weber (consulting), Roger Oberholzer (strategy), Jeff Gerber (creative direction), Marco Klein (art direction), Alain Aebersold (design), Sämi Weber (text), Tobias Fuhlroth (technical direction), Jonas Huber (interface programming), Sebastian Manger (application programming).

Combining the respective core competencies is expected to create attractive synergies, according to the statement. Thanks to this cooperation, real estate providers can potentially reach up to 2.4 million more visitors per month who are looking for a house or a new apartment online. In the Tel.search.ch telephone directory, corporate customers could previously book directory entries highlighted in color. If these customers advertise on Homegate.ch at the same time, they will now benefit from additional functions that increase the visibility of the entries. The directory entry will be enriched with pictures of the advertised property as well as a direct link to the current advertisement on Homegate.ch. The entries thus stand out from other listings. Thus, the offers are found even faster by the users.

New corporate customers will be able to benefit from these opportunities during the first half of 2014. The cooperation will also be steadily expanded in the coming months. In the process, the two partners will jointly develop new services that provide valuable location information to real estate seekers.

WW: VBZ's recruiting campaigns have won awards at the German Society for Human Resource Management or in Berlin at the HR Excellence Awards. What makes them obviously better than the campaigns of the competition?
Jörg Buckmann: That's relatively easy to say: We do more cheeky personnel advertising. Specifically: We try to make advertising for personnel just as passionate, emotional and professional as advertising for the company and our services. This is a basic attitude, but it calls for partly different competencies than before, especially for us in HR. We also invest quite consciously in good HR advertising and call on the support of our "house agency" Ruf Lanz for larger campaigns. This is another reason why our advertising campaigns - whether for VBZ or for staff - come from a single mold.
 

Based on what experience do you find the right language for your target groups?

Part of the job in HR is to know the market. That's not so hard, either - after all, we conduct job interviews every day. That's how you sharpen your eye for where interesting target groups are, almost automatically. And then, of course, there's experience. Take tramp pilots, for example. Every year, we look for 60 new colleagues for this career change. We have noticed - and here the so-called early turnover is a painful and expensive pointer for us - that people from service professions and, above all, with experience in shift work, which takes a lot of getting used to, catch on more quickly than average. From this realization, the step to defining the right target groups is not far away. For this job, it is people from the catering, sales and other service professions.
 

Isn't it a bit insulting or perhaps even cynical to speak of "tramp pilots"?

Oh well, let's leave the church in the village - and the pilots in their Airbuses and Boeings. Although, we are very serious about this job title, because it also applies very well to the streetcar cockpits. If only visually and in terms of positioning - ask a female streetcar pilot how it feels to glide through the pulsating traffic of Zurich behind the huge window. You are right in the middle of it, at the front, in the center. And the job description has also changed in recent years: What has not changed is the high level of responsibility and the ability to concentrate - just like pilots of the skies. Customer service and information in the event of a malfunction have become increasingly important. And a good, professional appearance. This development can be traced very nicely on the basis of professional dress. By the way: For many tramp pilots, this profession is also a dream job, almost a bit like an engine driver for the city.
 

How important is it for you to pick up the campaign in the other media as well as social media?

Very important. We try to follow the changing communication needs of the target groups. That's why we mix classic media, which still make sense in a broad-based campaign, with new ones. So we rely on radio advertising just as much as on blogs or Facebook.
 

What is the feedback on the campaign in numbers?

The figures for the campaigns, the third of which is already running at the moment, are sensational. But with applications from women doubling from 16 to 31 percent, I think it's fair to use that term. By 2012, the percentage of women sitting at the front of the streetcar was 21 percent. In 2013, thanks to the target group-focused approach, over 40 percent were women. And that's without any quota requirements, but just through targeted, good recruitment advertising. One that is also fun, a bit cheeky and courageous - or cheeky, as we call it.
 

You have written a book on the subject of "Recruitment. What "drove" you to do it?

First and foremost, it was simply the sheer joy and passion for the topic of HR marketing that made me pick up the keys. Because this, and that was a second motivator, is still a wallflower. And yet, as you can read up and down the country, we are in a "war for talents", as is well known or alleged. God knows that very little of this is reflected in personnel advertising. That is why I have written a book, or rather published it together with experts from Switzerland, Austria and Germany, which on the one hand contains 13 good practical examples and on the other hand addresses the attitude that is needed in HR in order to finally make more clever personnel advertising. I often experience that HR colleagues report back to me that they find the personnel advertising of VBZ striking and unusual, and that they would also like to go in this direction. My book is intended to give a few tips in an entertaining way and perhaps also a portion of courage to do just that. Entertaining means that the book is not an academic treatise, but rather a story book. Because I portray five exciting personalities who embody the five essences of cheekiness. Our advertiser Markus Ruf is one of them, but also Künzli owner Barbara Artmann and three other people who have something to say in HR. My hope, which is of course entirely immodest, is that the almost 300 pages of paper will plant at least a tiny seed of inspiration for fresh HR advertising in the minds of HR professionals.

Interview: Andreas Panzeri

Ruf Lanz has designed a job advertisement for female streetcar pilots in the form of a fashion report for the Zurich public transport company (Werbewoche.ch reported).

Coming soon to bookstores and already available as an e-book from Springer Gabler Verlag.

41-year-old Daniel Schäfer grew up in Kaiseraugst AG and has lived in Basel for more than 20 years. He also trained as a primary school teacher there and taught at schools. In 1997, he switched to journalism and graduated from the Ringier School of Journalism. He first worked for the Basler Zeitung and from 1999 as a video journalist for Tele 24.

He has been working for Swiss radio and television since 2000. For the first eight years, he was a domestic TV correspondent for north-western Switzerland, so he is no stranger to the job of a correspondent and its demands. In 2009, he joined Tagesschau as an editor and producer. He has also worked on various special assignments, for example as a special correspondent at the UEFA Euro 2012 in Warsaw or as a co-producer of the 2012 US elections. Daniel Schäfer has also been part of the editorial team for the Basel Fasnacht for ten years.

Barbara Flückiger, Head of Domestic TV Correspondents: "Being the sole TV correspondent in Ticino is very demanding. I am therefore delighted that SRF is able to send such an experienced and accomplished journalist as Daniel Schäfer to southern Switzerland.

Daniel Schäfer: "Many German-speaking Swiss like Ticino, but actually know little about it. Conversely, the people of Ticino often feel that German-speaking Switzerland doesn't take them seriously enough. I want to give the southern canton a voice in the programs of 'Schweiz aktuell', '10vor10' and 'Tagesschau'."

Daniel Schäfer will move to Ticino in August 2014 to take up his position as a correspondent.

The "Blinde Kuh", the restaurant in the dark that supports blind and visually impaired people in a unique way, was looking for ways outside of traditional communication to increase awareness. Wirz Werbung capitalized on the USP of the restaurant concept and declared the "Blinde Kuh" to be the only place where a real blind date can take place. In partnership with Radio 24, Wirz developed a branded content campaign: "The Real Blind Date" was staged as a matchmaking show and the 310,000 Radio 24 listeners came into contact with the campaign on the station and online every day for a month. First with calls to apply for the date, then with (purely acoustic) introductions of the selected men and women and finally with the final reporting on the actual blind dates, which took place on Valentine's Day. The whole campaign was not only a great success for the "Blinde Kuh" and Radio 24, but apparently also for all the blind date couples, who decided to see each other and even meet again after the dinner.

Responsible at Blinde Kuh: Stefan Zappa (Head of Marketing), Adrian Schaffner (Operations Manager). Responsible at Radio 24: Barbara Novak (Head of Marketing), Nick Laederach (presenter), Gerry Reinhardt (Head of Social Media/Online), Tanja Fetz (producer of "Abig-Show"). Responsible at Wirz Advertising: Thomas Kurzmeyer (CD), Raul Serrat (AD), Wolfgang Bark (text), Lilian Metzker, Stephanie Lüscher, Valentin Mattes (graphics), Stefan Schmid, Lorena Ladner, Prisca Grollimund, Fynn Erni (consulting), Mario Müller (production consulting).
 

Scherrer is 33 years old and has been working for the NZZ since 2009. In the army, Scherrer is Head of Communications for Command Support Brigade 41 and holds the rank of Major. He will take up his post on June 1, as the cantonal police announced on Tuesday.

Werner Benz worked for the Zurich Cantonal Police for 40 years, including 21 years in the Communications Department.
 

The 47-year-old is familiar with all forms of journalistic radio work. He began his career at Swiss radio and television in the editorial department of the Zurich/Schaffhausen regional journal. He then worked as a Zurich correspondent and at "Echo der Zeit".

Franco Battel has been the foreign editor responsible for Italy, Mexico, Central America, Cuba and Liechtenstein since 2008 and has been reporting from the UN headquarters in Geneva for the past year. In spring 2015, he will take up the position of Italy correspondent, succeeding Massimo Agostinis, who is returning to Switzerland at the end of the year.

Franco Battel has been familiar with Italy since his studies. He studied history and constitutional law in Zurich and Rome. Since then, he has continued to study the country intensively and has traveled there regularly. Last year, as foreign editor and project manager, he was responsible for preparing coverage of the Italian elections.

Martin Durrer, Head of Foreign Editorial: "We are delighted to have found a journalist for the correspondent position in Italy in Franco Battel, who has a wealth of experience and is already heavily involved with Italy."

The ad is part of a fundraising campaign for Syrian children, who should also be provided with blankets and jackets. The Norwegian agency Släger Kommunikasjon points out the phenomenon that people usually support people in need in their immediate vicinity, but feel little need to help when disasters occur far away.

The idea of conducting such street experiments is not entirely new. Nevertheless, moving scenes have been created that countless people have shared with their friends and have been viewed over twelve million times on YouTube. Has the successful viral spot also triggered a corresponding flood of donations? (sis)
 

In the first two days, the numbers really skyrocketed. "It was huge hype," Voigt said. Now it's a matter of consolidating people's interest. It takes time for visitors to use the Internet platform every day, he said. After the initial excitement, the numbers dropped again, as expected. Today, however, according to Voigt, about 65 percent of the hits Watson achieved in the first few days are being reached. The media company does not disclose these access figures.

In terms of download figures for the iPhone app, Watson is in the top three, alongside Blick and 20 Minuten. For Android devices, the Watson app has only been available for a week. However, Voigt is not yet satisfied with the platform in its current form. He still sees potential for improvement everywhere. Watson is a construction site that is constantly being developed.

Money from Aargau

The project is largely financed by Aargau publisher Peter Wanner. AZ Medien and Wanner's private BT Holding each have a 42.5 percent stake in Voigt's company Fixxpunkt. The makers of Watson anticipate a financing requirement of 20 million Swiss francs for the first three to four years.

 

By creating the part-time position of 50 percent, the LR is responding to the growing demands on communication, particularly in product marketing and new media, as the umbrella organization of the Romansh-speaking community announced in a press release on Tuesday.

Journalist Diana Joerg will be the face and voice of LR in the future. Joerg began her career as a journalist in 1991 at the private broadcaster Radio Grischa. After several years with various media in Zurich, the 49-year-old most recently worked for SRF's regional journal Graubünden. Joerg grew up in Domat/Ems and has been familiar with the Romansh language since childhood.
 

In December 2013, Urs Wolperth joined Cash as Key Account Manager. With over 20 years of experience at various Swiss banks, Urs Wolperth looks after all customers and partners from the financial industry and the luxury sector.

In addition, Pascal Weder joined the team as Senior Account Manager in January 2014. Pascal Weder has many years of online experience in the media industry. At Cash, he is available to direct customers and agencies for questions, new ideas and bookings.

The Cash sales team has been led by Marco Spadacini since the beginning of the year. He has already been working in sales at Cash for over five years and knows the portal with its wide range of advertising options and services.