The use of social media has so far only paid off for large companies, namely those that use social media proactively, innovatively and with a willingness to take risks, i.e. in an "entrepreneurial" manner. For SMEs, on the other hand, no effects on corporate success have been identified. However, Sascha Kraus from the University of Liechtenstein and Isabella Hatak from the Vienna University of Economics and Business, the project leaders of the study, suspect that the main reasons for this are the poorer framework conditions.

According to the project managers, the first thing needed was a positive attitude towards social networks on the part of the entrepreneur. Furthermore, an effective allocation of resources as well as a professionally suitable social media manager with sufficient free capacity is required. In order to be successful in social networks, a company must above all be prepared to act "entrepreneurially" and create its own markets with foresight and not just react to customer needs.
 

Diego Yanez, the editor-in-chief of Swiss Television, is stepping down after just three years (Werbewoche.ch reported). According to surveys conducted by the NZZ am Sonntag, there does not appear to have been a scandal, but rather some people are talking about "signs of wear and tear". Yanez had come out of the management meetings frustrated on several occasions. He had worn himself out with his duties as a manager.

The 55-year-old Yanez is widely described as sociable, honest and reliable, with a "chummy manner". Francesco Benini's commentary identifies another problem. Stepping on employees' toes when things don't go as they should - that's difficult for the editor-in-chief.

"You can't manage journalists like bank employees, that's not possible. You have to take the team with you," Yanez justifies to the NZZ am Sonntag. If a bank manager ordered employees to all wear blue ties, they would do so. Journalists would show up in shorts if ordered to do so. Yanez earned a degree in business administration and worked as a foreign exchange trader at a bank for four years before deciding to pursue a career in journalism.

There is no doubt about Yanez's qualities as a journalist. Whether he will leave his mark on Swiss television as editor-in-chief is less clear to the NZZ am Sonntag. (sis)
 

Following the successful launch of the "SRG Insider" platform in spring, traffic on this online community is to be maintained at a high level, according to a press release issued on Friday. The new campaign with the motto "Your opinion counts!" by Ogilvy One aims to achieve this through targeted involvement with topics that are relevant to the target group and important in terms of media policy.

In online banners and on the "SRG Insider" platform, three young people from the target group express their opinions, some of which are provocative, others on the cutting edge. Visitors to the platform can also comment on these opinions or leave their own opinions on other topics. An online campaign, Facebook ads and a new Facebook platform lead the target group to "SRG Insider".

Responsible at SRG Deutschschweiz: Jasmin Rippstein (Project Manager "SRG Insider"), Viviane Aubert (Project Manager Social Media). Responsible at Ogilvy One: Stefan Schäfer (overall responsibility), Bettina Righetto (consulting), Benjamin Franken (CD), Oliver Glitz (concept & copy), Karl Badde (AD Digital) and Simone Paulzen (text).

Corporate media are increasingly being scrutinized for their contribution to the economic success of the company (return-on-communication). And rightly so, as Clemens Koob, managing director of the market research and consulting company Zehnvier and professor at Erding University of Applied Sciences, says: "The investments a company makes in publications are not insignificant." Nevertheless, according to Koob, only about one-third of companies today systematically examine the impact of their customer magazines. The proportion is even lower for employee magazines.

Many managers shy away from the perceived effort that a reader survey entails. "The pressure of day-to-day business is increasing. Those in charge are finding it increasingly difficult to take a step back and switch to a bird's eye view," says Alfredo Trasatti, CEO of Infel Corporate Media. Infel Corporate Media and Zehnvier have therefore jointly developed a tool for measuring the acceptance and impact of corporate media that promises to provide clients with meaningful results easily, quickly and inexpensively.

The reader survey called CM-Cockpit® can be used to examine factors such as content, design, reader benefit or image impact of a magazine. At its heart is a standardized questionnaire developed for corporate media. Based on the scientific principle of "Check 5," it covers all relevant dimensions of corporate media: Content, appearance and design, use, media engagement and brand impact.

Thanks to the standardized questionnaire, the lead time for a survey is only three weeks, according to the initiators. The addressees can participate by mail or via the Internet, and 100 to 300 questionnaires are evaluated according to the first-in principle. The results are available within three weeks in the form of clear and informative documentation.

More information: Infel.ch. 

 

Hiltl adds a new chapter to its history: Right next to Haus Hiltl at St. Annagasse 18, the Hiltl store with Switzerland's first veggie butchery opened on November 21, 2013. At the "butcher's counter", tofu, seitan & Co. and vegetarian Hiltl specialties such as tartar, Züri schnitzel or homemade cordon bleu are offered for open sale. A release Friday announces the campaign launch for the new store.

Ruf Lanz, Hiltl's long-standing agency, is promoting the new veggie butchery with the two campaigns "Ceci n'est pas" and "Vegi-Schenkel".Ruf Lanz is also turning cows in the Zurich area into advertising vehicles. After all, they would benefit in their own bodies if more tofu, seitan or tempeh were eaten in the future, according to the press release.

Responsible at Hiltl: Rolf Hiltl (overall responsibility), Marsha Lehmann (Marketing & Communications). Responsible at Ruf Lanz: Markus Ruf, Danielle Lanz (Creative Direction), Isabelle Hauser (Art Direction), Maren Beck, Markus Ruf (Text), Sabrina Luck (Consulting). Photography and image editing: Felix Streuli. Illustration of the campaign "Ceci n'est pas": Ernst Feurer.

The simple ingredients for a public outcry over an advertising poster: a nagging German wife, submissive, willing foreign women, and a Turkish mistress wearing a headscarf. And, as an aside, a bit of mockery of domestic violence. At least, that’s how the German Advertising Council summarizes the complaint it received: «The complainant believes that portraying a Turkish woman as submissive and a German woman as bitchy and violent is racist and discriminatory, both toward Turkish and German women. Furthermore, the portrayal of a battered husband who flees to a submissive Turkish mistress as a solution is also discriminatory and trivializes the existing problem of domestic violence.» Ashley Madison is hardly unhappy about the commotion. (sis)

The internationally active Swiss construction equipment group is in transition from a product manufacturer to a provider of solutions and services for envelopes and spaces, according to a press release issued by the agency on Thursday. It is in this context that the newly designed AFG World competence magazine has been launched. The first issue, which was published at the beginning of November 2013, focuses on energy efficiency.

Stories, visions and protagonists

The new AFG World illustrates the corporate strategy on 40 pages. Industry experts, urban planners, architects and visionaries have their say. A few examples: The cover story "The efficient high in the north" focuses on two major urban development projects and their approach to sustainability: Hafencity in Hamburg and the new town of Glattpark near Zurich; in the article "Houses must perform!", award-winning Berlin architect and artist Jürgen Mayer H. explains his idea of what kind of building envelopes could be in demand in the future.

Responsive online implementation

AFG wanted an adequate online implementation so that readers could read the magazine on all channels. Yjoo works with the editorial system from NS Publish, which makes it possible to use the entire content directly for online - without having to go through an additional content management system.

Multilingualism

Multilingualism is part of the concept of the new competence magazine. AFG World is therefore published in German, French, English and Czech, each in two languages: D/F, D/E, D/Cz. Two issues per year with a circulation of around 23,000 copies are planned, each on a specific main topic corresponding to the corporate strategy.

Responsible at AFG: Stefan Kern (Head of Communications, Editor-in-Chief), Annika Hug (Project Manager, Editorial Office). Responsible at Yjoo: Martin Zahner (CEO, Concept), Samuel Güttinger (Partner, Art Director), Jens Wiesenhütter (Project Management), Christian Nill (Editorial), Lian-Ling Chan (Publishing).

 

The interview partners from the SMECA board: Lionel Vincent Baldenweg, Great Garbo (l.), Roland Schmid, Jingle Jungle, Adrian Frutiger, freelance composer, Lysander Gelewski,
SMECA Managing Director German Switzerland.

WW: Swiss media musicians feel underpaid. Are you too badly organized?
Adrian Frutiger: There is, or rather was, a long-standing competition between composers for commercials and feature films. An already small group was divided once again. That was also practical, one could, if one wanted, play us off against each other. Today, however, there are many musicians who work for both genres. Together we want to make ourselves heard more. In December 2012, we founded our new association with this in mind. All genres are represented in the Professional Association of Swiss Media Composers: Feature film, commercial, jingle and game composers.

How many members does SMECA have today?
Lysander Gelewski: There are 43 of us. We estimate the number of all full-time or part-time media composers in Switzerland at 200.

Is the association a suitable instrument?
Gelewski: The subject of usage rights and commission fees for media music is very complex. That's why it's viewed positively by the entire communications industry to finally have a competent contact. We have united all media composers under one roof and can now formulate our interests together. This includes representing the media composers to two target groups. On the one hand, there are the collecting societies, especially Suisa, Swissperform and SIG. The other target group is the producers' associations. As a third goal, the SMECA association wants to promote the work of media composers, which we achieve through networking, workshops and information dissemination.

The Internet has developed into an uncontrollable playback field. What does this mean for composers?
Lionel Vincent Baldenweg: On the web, we come off relatively badly as content creators. Our music is used very often and intensively. But we get little to nothing out of it. The people who are supposed to represent us in this regard have simply not yet been able to agree on a clear common strategy.
Roland Schmid: The Internet has been around for almost 20 years. But the collecting societies have still not managed to define a tariff for this medium. It took years of negotiations and legal disputes to reach an agreement with Google, for example, for uses on YouTube.
Frutiger: At least in the last few years, the development became foreseeable, and it is just a bit lazy that there is still no plan at Suisa for a fair compensation of music on the net.
Baldenweg: SMECA would like to make budgeting easier for our customers, i.e. producers and advertising agencies, in the future. For this purpose, guideline values are to be created and recommendations made. Then an advertising agency can count on a precisely defined amount for the music in its budgets right from the start. New standard contracts are also a major concern for us, because they would benefit the entire industry.
Frutiger: Our customers pay very high media fees. As composers, we should actually also be compensated with minimal royalties. But that doesn't apply to the web yet.

Should new money come in or just redistribute the existing?
Gelewski: New money, because there is no actual online rate at Suisa yet. Getting to grips with the new reality is very difficult. The development is rapid. But Suisa continues to work with age-old tariffs that were designed for completely different music uses. This leads to huge discrepancies between expenditure and revenue.

You are dissatisfied with the compensation system. Where does the money go that is withheld from you?
Gelewski: Of the approximately CHF 7.5 million that Suisa collects annually for advertising spots in SRG programs, 15 percent is deducted as administrative costs. 10 percent goes to social welfare and cultural promotion. Then - and this is the bone of contention - Suisa takes 20 percent of the royalties and allocates them to music use in other television programs. The numerous foreign series in particular benefit from this. This means that we have to do without 45 percent of our royalties and thus more than 3 million a year.
Baldenweg: And in addition one must still specify: The 7.5 million are not all for Swiss composers. This is the sum for the entire SRG advertising pie with spots and thus for composers and music publishers from all over the world.

How can music on the Internet be measured? After all, we're already seeing the problems with the debacle with TV usage figures?
Schmid: I maintain that large media agencies know exactly which target group clicks how much. Keyword targeting. The customer will only invest money if the success of a campaign can be measured. That's why measuring reach is not the problem.
Gelewski: We are not actually dependent on how many people see or hear a spot from us. According to copyright law, the decisive factor for remuneration is how much the advertiser has paid for the placement of his spot. This is called the "work revenue" or the "work expenditure". The only thing that matters to the advertiser is how many contacts it generates. We, on the other hand, are interested: Did the client pay 1,000 or 100,000 francs for his campaign?
Baldenweg: If no online tariff comes into effect, composers will be forced to raise their prices. As long as media budgets were not yet so heavily invested in the online sector, it was still possible to measure relatively clearly what came back from SRG and other TV stations in the form of copyright fees. You could evaluate quite precisely how much you could invest in a spot as a music producer. Now that the fees for classic media are decreasing and nothing or almost nothing is paid for online use, we lack the basis for reasonable planning. The commission fees in this day and age rarely cover the personnel and studio expenses to be able to realize a production at the desired level.
Schmid: That was always the argument of the spot producer during fee negotiations: "You'll still get a lot of money from Suisa afterwards." Due to the redistribution of royalties within Suisa and the lack of adequate tariffs in the online sector, this no longer applies.

Are the musicians too much artists and do not care about their concerns?
Schmid: This is an important part of the problem. Taking care of one's copyrights means a lot of administrative work. Most creative people and especially musicians are busy with their ideas. From that point of view, we certainly missed out on some things. We should have intervened proactively earlier.
Baldenweg: We are poorly protected as musicians and have had to accept very large losses in recent years. Copyright revenues have dropped by 20 to 40 percent in advertising and between 30 and 70 percent in film. And that was the money we needed to invest in new productions, software and studios. So it's about the economic existence of a small but important professional group in the audiovisual industry.
Schmid: Suisa rejected all our requests at a meeting today. It seems that they do not understand or do not want to understand the industry-specific concerns of the media composers.

What are your next steps?
Schmid: Continue to negotiate, lobby, present the image of Swiss media musicians as it is, and get away from the complacent artist as a lone wolf. There are also possibilities to proceed further in court - with a fight all the way to the Federal Court. A small group of advertising composers led by our vice-president already won such a lawsuit against Suisa five years ago. But that costs a lot of nerves and money. We could put that to better use. A third possibility that we are seriously considering is the establishment of an autonomous collecting society.

Interview: Andreas Panzeri

Home means more than just a few pieces of furniture: it is the feeling of being at home - surrounded by people and things that you love. This is precisely the attitude that Ikea's new image campaign aims to convey. It was announced in a press release on Thursday.

Wirz Werbung created a TV commercial for the campaign that tells the story of a family living together - as authentic and unembellished as it gets. With a twinkle in its eye, the film shows how a couple of parents prepare for a children's birthday party in their own four walls and how, thanks to Ikea's clever ideas, it turns out to be great fun for everyone.

Responsible at Ikea: Mikael Pilblad (Marketing Manager Switzerland), Katrin Polzer (External Communication Manager), Annelies Bühler (Project Leader Campaign). Responsible at Wirz Advertising: Philipp Skrabal (ECD), Raul Serrat (CD), Marietta Mügge, Bianca Kury (Text), Rahel Nemitz (Art Direction), Petra Dreyfus, Yves Rückert, Stefan Schmid (Consulting), Sebahat Derdiyok (Agency Producer), Bigfish (Film Production), Sean Meehan (Director), JingleJungle (Sound Studio).

 

After his wife was diagnosed with cancer, «a kind of therapy kicked in» for him, the photographer said in the making-of feature for the commercial: «I grabbed a tutu, went outside, and took photos.» These pictures help not only Bob himself, but also his wife, Linda. She takes them with her to her treatments because the man dancing in a tutu makes her laugh. It’s easy to see why. It’s a bit absurd, but the whole thing looks funny—especially when it’s your own husband in the tutu.

It’s a little harder to understand why Bob posted these videos on YouTube and later made them available for Telekom’s campaign. «Special stories become bigger when you share them»—that’s the message of the Telekom campaign. For their part, Bob and Linda will likely receive money in return for their «The Tutu Project» and the associated «Carey Foundation,» which supports women with breast cancer. Last but not least, Bob somehow looks as if he’s enjoying having discovered public tutu dancing for himself. (sis)

A good 15 years ago, videos began appearing in the web browsers of the time—provided the necessary plug-ins (keyword: RealPlayer) were installed. About ten years later, the advertising industry began to take an interest in this, and the first advertising networks focused exclusively on video content emerged in the U.S. Today, video ads are the fastest-growing segment of the Swiss online advertising market. According to expert estimates from Media Focus’s advertising pressure statistics, video advertising is projected to grow by 30 percent this year. Industry professionals confirm this scale of growth: «The advertising budgets booked with us grew by about 30 percent per campaign last year,» says Jochen Witte, COO at Stailamedia and head of the Swiss Video Network, the first Swiss online video advertising network launched in 2009. The second such network in Switzerland, the Goldbach Video Network—which launched in February 2012—is growing at a similar pace. According to Alexander Horrolt, Managing Director at Goldbach Audience, growth is expected to be «well over twenty percent» this year and to remain «disproportionately in the double digits» next year as well.

Comparing such video networks is tricky, because not all of them are created equal. As is the case with the world of online video ads in general, the difference between in-page and in-stream video ads is important here. If videos on websites start automatically—in a typical ad banner format (such as a rectangle)—when the user loads the page, or upon user interaction (mouseover), these are considered in-page video ads. If the user specifically accesses video content, the embedded ad clips are in-stream video ads, whose typical formats are pre-rolls, mid-rolls, and post-rolls. In-stream ads are currently the favorite among online advertisers, as pre-rolls and mid-rolls have a greater advertising impact than in-page video ads. The latter are often perceived as disruptive—if they’re even heard at all: half of all internet users browse with the sound turned off. The situation is different with in-stream ads, where a video is specifically clicked on. In such cases, 70 percent of pre-roll spots are watched all the way through, and according to a German study, ad recall rates are four times higher than with in-page ads. Nevertheless, all marketers offer both ad formats, especially since in-page video ads can achieve a much wider reach than in-stream video ads.

Stailamedia and Goldbach Audience’s two video networks focus on in-stream video ads, with the Swiss Video Network generating approximately 30 million video ad impressions per month, while the Goldbach Video Network generates around 50 million. Most are played on desktops, and about a quarter on mobile devices. The strength of the Goldbach offering lies in the fact that it brings together all relevant Internet TV providers in Switzerland (Wilmaa, Zattoo, Teleboy, Blick TV, and Swisscom TV Online). Stailamedia emphasizes that the SVN functions as a closed network, allowing for cross-network capping (limiting the number of times a spot is played per user) and offering modern targeting technologies (sociodemographic, contextual). The direction in which video networks are heading is illustrated by the fact that both Goldbach and Adwebster have announced they will make their networks RTA-compatible next year, while S t a i l ame d i a already offers this feature today. With the introduction of automated trading processes, not only will bookings become more flexible and dynamic, but so will market conditions for all participants. Even today, international providers, video networks, and video RTA providers are entering the Swiss market. Of course, in addition to in-stream advertising on their own video networks, both companies also offer in-page ads on their display networks. However, they are not alone in this, as other network providers can do the same—those who have also incorporated video banners into their inventory and are bringing them to market through their own video network products. One example is Adwebster’s Video Network, launched a year ago. Adwebster CEO Michel Lazecki does not wish to disclose figures on current monthly video traffic. But even online advertising networks that do not operate an explicit video network are benefiting from the video boom on the web, as Leonardo Kopp of Admazing confirms: The Adfinity network records up to 10 million video views per month, exclusively in the in-page format.

YouTube: Competitor and Supporter

Since YouTube opened up to video advertising in Switzerland this past April, a major new player has emerged on the market. It took a few months to get off the ground, but according to this author’s observations, since the end of summer, only domestic commercials have been appearing before video clips on YouTube in Switzerland. It’s therefore no surprise that all the online advertising professionals interviewed for this article perceive the Google subsidiary as a strong competitor in the relatively small Swiss market. At the same time, the new offering in the video sector is seen as a valuable addition. This is reflected in the assessment of Leonardo Kopp from Admazing: «For us and our clients, the market entry has been positive. The targeting options, billing models, and performance are impressive. Plus, the impact of ads can be tested even on a small budget.» Jochen Witte of Stailamedia also sees a positive side to the new competitor: «Expanding reach can only be beneficial for the industry as a whole. The product innovations developed by YouTube internationally also enrich the further development of offerings from local service providers, leading to more attractive products and services for advertisers.» « According to Witte, the costs associated with branding-relevant metrics (such as cost per view) in YouTube’s products are »not necessarily cheaper than those of comparable offerings from Switzerland.”.

Reuse it or make a new one?

The question remains whether commercials originally produced for television should be repurposed for the web. This is the obvious approach if a TV commercial already exists. And if time and/or budget are limited, it’s also the only way to extend a campaign to the internet. But even if the goal is to increase the impact of the TV commercial, it makes sense to use the same commercial online. This is because the two channels are used by complementary target audiences. However, if a brand message is to be effectively disseminated online, separate online spots are essential—ones tailored to users« specific usage contexts and in which the campaign message is delivered early in the video spot. When spots are produced specifically for online advertising, special interactive features can be incorporated, such as social media links, accompanying banners, or links to online purchases. To support the practical implementation of these recommendations, the IAB published five standard format recommendations for online video ads (Ad Control Bar, Extender, Filmstrip, Full Screen, Time Sync) in September as part of the »Rising Stars” initiative.

According to Goldbach, several clients tried online video for the first time this year as an ideal extension of their TV campaigns and were «very satisfied» with the results. Some have already announced shifts in audience share in favor of online video ads for the coming year. And Stailamedia reports that bookings are increasingly being processed using Gross Rating Points (GRP) and Cost Per Point (CPP) rather than Cost Per Thousand (CPM). This trend toward online video aligning with traditional TV metrics demonstrates that the various video channels are moving toward standardization with a unified currency analogous to the GRP.

Christoph J. Walther
 

The point here is that these posters can only be seen on foot across the 15-meter-wide street. However, most of the targeted consumers are sitting in a streetcar or car. They therefore have a maximum of two seconds to catch the messages. The posters reduced in size here, with a height of approx. 20 mm, correspond relatively to a poster 2 meters high when actually mounted. In order to understand a poster idea in a second, the advertising space should be reduced to the decisive idea. So if you manage to fit your message into these postage stamp-sized fields, then you have understood the advertising (and will no longer be grumbled at). An age-old trick, but tried and tested.

My theory: All these poster designs contain various information, including small print for owls, but not legible for humans. As a designer, you also notice that all elements take up roughly the same amount of space. Anyone who has learned this profession and is not only proficient in InDesign knows that one part, the image, the headline, the white space or the logo must always take up more than 60 percent of the area in order to direct the main message or the attention to the viewer.

These media placements on Weinbergstrasse cost an enormous amount of money for 14 days. In my opinion, a huge amount too much. However, posters are not the only medium with the advertising disease of conveying as many messages as possible. TV, flyers, advertisements and brochures all suffer from this virus. This week's headline is that Pierre C. Meier is promising to pay me 17.65% more for my moths from January. (So! Editor's note.)

The large posters hung simultaneously on the wall of Zurich's Weinbergstrasse. Almost exclusively overloaded, superficial and humorless messages. It can't go on like this!

Theophil Butz, graphic designer, advertising agency owner, inspirer and since three years also
Motzer for Advertising Week readers. Please send any relevant information to [email protected]