The initial situation is clear: Basel needs more blood, only 54% of which is covered. The missing blood products have to be purchased from other cantons on a daily basis. The donated blood is used to supply people who have suffered major blood loss following accidents or operations.

According to the agency, the concept is intended to encourage people to donate blood in an emotional, appealing way. It appears on F4 posters, advertisements, tram/bus banners and a flyer.

Responsible at the Basel Blood Donation Center: Diotima Lanz (Co-Head of Communications and Advertising), Claudia Kraus (Co-Head of Communications and Advertising). Responsible at OSW: Michael Oswald (Creative Direction), Carlo Tagliavini (Art Director), Michael Schär (Text), Nadine Siegfried (Head of Consulting), Caroline Strebel (Consulting). Photos: Pablo Wünsch Blanco.

Manuel Dähler, Director Mediapulse (Photo: Pierre C. Meier)

WW: The switch to the new measurement system has turned into a ratings debacle. The industry has been without audience figures for almost four months. Was Mediapulse a little naive when it made the switch?
Manuel Dähler: No, the changeover was planned for a long time. The story began in 2010 with a customer satisfaction survey. One customer requested that time-shifted television and web usage also be recorded. We then investigated which providers could get to grips with the Swiss situation and, together with customers and the Federal Office of Communications (Bakom), drew up a list of requirements for a new measurement system. On this basis, three companies were invited to submit an offer. In December 2011, our Board of Directors (BoD) finally decided to award the contract to Kantar Media.
 
Why did the BoD take so long and only decide on a provider a year before the changeover?
In August 2011, the Executive Board submitted a proposal to set up a new panel. Before the BoD agreed, it had various points clarified: For example, whether the applicant companies also offer the option of integrating radio research retrospectively. Or how the applicants are perceived in other countries. It took time to gather this information. However, we had already started negotiating the contracts before December, which subsequently enabled a swift conclusion. The decision in favor of Kantar was made on December 8 and the contract was signed on December 22. But it's true: Setting up a new panel in a year is quite a feat.
 
We like to believe that.
However, Kantar did not have to start from scratch. Mediapulse had already started to build up an address pool in 2009 with the New Establishment Survey, from which targeted samples could be drawn. If Kantar, as a foreign provider, had first had to get to know the characteristics of the Swiss population, one year would of course have been utopian.
 
Why wasn't the old panel simply converted?
Around half of all households would have had to be recruited anyway. We no longer wanted to recruit the addresses purely by telephone, as before, and also wanted to include households without a TV set but with an Internet connection. In addition, there would have been certain distortions in the old part of the panel (biases).
 
What kind of distortions?
In the last four years, we have had to replace between 20 and 25 percent of all households on the GRP panel for technical measurement reasons. Many households purchased new devices that the old measurement technology was unable to record. The lost households were replaced with socio-demographically identical households that had "older" devices. This made the panel more technically conservative. Households with new technologies were significantly underrepresented. Alongside the change in media use, this is the main reason why the new data differs so greatly from the old data.
 
One factor that made the changeover risky was the lack of a transition phase. Why was the old panel not continued in parallel?
Parallel operation was planned for December and took place. In spring 2012, Mediapulse had to decide whether parallel operation was necessary beyond the deadline of January 1. We assessed how high the risk was that Kantar would not be able to set up the panel within a year - leaving us without a panel. If this risk had been high, we would have allowed the old panel to continue. As Kantar has always reached the target size on time for the last five or six panels, we decided not to extend it. From this perspective, we made the right decision. The panel was there on time and parallel operation was not necessary.
 
With a parallel system, the advertising industry would now at least have data...
Let's imagine that the old panel was still running. The differences we know today would still exist. There would be two numbers for the same item. If I've learned anything from the whole exercise, it's that advertisers only want one number.
 
That is correct.
Apart from that, a parallel operation cannot be there to tweak the figures until they look like the old ones. The new system is good if it does not produce any errors and if the basis, the recruitment, is in order. Under these conditions, there is no reason to fundamentally question the figures - even if they look different. There is no alternative to jumping into the new world.
 
It was foreseeable that there would be winners and losers in the system change - stations that would gain and others that would lose. Did Mediapulse think about how to deal with the "losers" beforehand?
Of course, we have looked at the media acceptance of the new currency. We have paid less attention to the magnitude of the figures for individual broadcasters - certainly not enough from today's perspective.
 
Has Mediapulse looked at the figures with the broadcasters?
Not at station level, but we provided information about the key data at events in December and explained in great detail what changes there are: at the level of the country regions and the main target groups. We are relying on a new projection, which entails changes in key target groups. We have more households than expected - and fewer with children. The reach has increased slightly and the duration of use has decreased slightly.
 
And what happened next?
Information events with sender-specific data were held again at the beginning of January. In February, the BoD then began to debate whether the data should be published. We submitted the data to the BoD, which had it assessed by specialists.
 
These experts said yes?
They said yes - and after an in-depth discussion, the Mediapulse BoD also said yes. As a result of this decision, we began supplying data to marketers and broadcasters on February 14. From that moment on, every broadcaster knew their programs.
 
Only your own?
No, every customer saw more or less everything - including the competitor programs.
 
How did they react?
Despite all the preparatory work, certain customers were shocked when they saw the new data. Even those with representatives on the Mediapulse Board of Directors (see Info 1 below). Some intervened, so the BoD decided to wait before releasing the data. In addition to the first report, which was already underway, the BoD commissioned a second one, which focused in particular on local problems.
 
Why was the media science departmentCommission (MWK) not involved?
The MWK was involved when Mediapulse decided to request an external expert opinion at the beginning of January. We wanted to work with the MWK, but it was not possible to obtain an expert opinion in time. As a result, external experts were commissioned.
 
So the MWK was contacted?
Yes, we contacted the MWK in January.
 
Why wasn't the MWK brought on board for the development? After all, it had been involved in TV research for years.
Firstly, the MWK has a supervisory mandate. It does not act in advance, but issues monitoring reports retrospectively. Secondly, we know from previous reports where the Commission has its finger on the pulse, where it identifies weaknesses and where it makes suggestions for improvement. This knowledge was certainly incorporated into the evaluation.
 
Let's move on to communication: Mediapulse provided only scant information about the events. Your assessment?
Mediapulse's focus in the first three weeks was on troubleshooting, not communication, that's right. Firstly, there were problems with the station splits, secondly, errors occurred when assigning the audio recordings, and the third difficulty was the weighting via concession areas. These problems had to be solved quickly. Mediapulse was focused on this. We didn't know on what basis we should have provided information. Looking back, we have to admit: Perhaps we should have said publicly what we were currently doing. That would have increased transparency and created trust.
 
What happens now: when will there be figures?
Mediapulse has been delivering figures to its contract customers - marketers and broadcasters - since February 14. There was an interruption over Easter due to the super-provisional order. It stated that Mediapulse was not allowed to release any data - with the exception of customers to whom it had previously supplied the data under a confidentiality obligation. As we did not have an explicit confidentiality agreement with our customers, we stopped releasing the data until the court told us on request that we could release the figures again. On the other hand, everything relating to the marketing, planning, optimization and billing of advertising is not our responsibility, but that of the marketers (see Info 2 below).
 
In other words, marketers and broadcasters receive data and are in principle allowed to give it to their customers?
Yes, at least that is the interpretation of our lawyers (see Info 2 below).
 
What about the agencies: do they have access to the figures?
Mediapulse is still not allowed to serve agencies. Agencies that not only work with marketers' tools but also obtain data directly from us are affected by the stop due to the super-provisional ruling.
 
What is going on at Mediapulse in this regard?
We are in intensive talks with 3+ with the aim of eliminating the superprovisional injunction. We are trying to find an agreement - but not on the condition that there is a "Lex 3+". There is no way that 3+ will get an individual solution. And we are prepared to take a stand in court if we cannot reach an agreement.
 
Many broadcasters have given their customers a performance guarantee. Do you expect complaints from broadcasters who are experiencing a decline?
Due to our contracts, the target is relatively small - unless we can be proven to have made gross errors. I expect individual complaints from customers, but not masses. We assume no responsibility for the business that our customers do with the data.
 
Finally, the local stations: For small stations, the range of fluctuation in ratings is large - and has apparently become even larger with the new system.
The fluctuations did not increase. The difference between the GFK panel and the Kantar panel is simply that we can now show confidence intervals (statistical measure for the fluctuations of a measured value).
 
Is it even possible to survey local stations with the national panel?
You can also report audience figures for local stations, but you have to keep an eye on the confidence intervals, which are large in the local area. This has to do with the fact that there are fewer households in small regions. If we wanted to reduce the confidence intervals, we would have to measure x times the current number of households.
 
Shouldn't we admit to ourselves: The recording of local stations is pointless due to the large confidence intervals?
The problem that the confidence intervals become larger in small rooms cannot really be solved. However, if several days are combined, for example, the values become more stable and therefore more meaningful. However, other countries no longer report any figures at this level. We are currently in talks with Telesuisse, the Swiss regional television association, and are discussing various solutions. Of course, there is also the question of how much local broadcasters really depend on national viewer figures for marketing.
 
Interview: Isabel Imper and Pierre C. Meier

Info 1: Between independence and interests
The Mediapulse research organization, owned by the Mediapulse Foundation, provides data on the distribution and use of radio and television programme services in Switzerland. It was established to implement the legal mandate (Art. 78-81 of the Federal Act on Radio and Television, RTVA). According to Art. 78 of the RTVA, it should be independent of the SRG, other broadcasters and the advertising industry. De facto, however, the Board of Directors - with the exception of Chairman Marco de Stoppani - consists of representatives of vested interests: Rudolf Matter (SRF, representing the SRG), Martin Schneider (Publisuisse, representing the SRG), André Moesch (Telesuisse, representing the private broadcasters), Martin Muerner (VSP, representing the private broadcasters), Klaus Kappeler (Goldbach Media Group, representing the advertising industry), Roger Harlacher (SWA, representing the advertising industry).

Info 2: Events after the interview, as of April 24, 4 p.m.: Publication ban also affects broadcasters and marketersThe interview took place on Friday, April 19. On April 22, the Nidwalden High Court confirmed the super-provisional injunction requested by 3+ against the publication of TV ratings. According to the court, the publication ban also affects broadcasters and marketers. The expert reports commissioned by Mediapulse are not sufficient for the judges. The experts had only referred to narrowly defined topics and various problem areas had remained unexamined. 3+ is sticking to its existing catalog and thus to its demand that the system be tested by an independent organization. On the other hand, there is a catalog from Goldbach Media with requirements that must be "implemented before data publication". (The documents are available at Igem.ch/schwerpunkte/ tv-panel2013.) We will keep you up to date with developments on Werbewoche.ch.

On the subject for print subscribers: Will Mediapulse soon be superfluous? Christoph J. Walther on the change in the measurement of ratings due to the digitalization of the television world and the emerging alternative currencies.

The new head of entertainment at ZDF has spent a lot of time structuring since he took up his post in September 2012. Entertainment was set up on different legs. There were almost two entertainment departments. "In my first six months, I consolidated in the staff structure and then divided the department by genre a bit more clearly." Now there are 27 permanent editorial staff, plus Fuchs also works with freelancers. In Mainz, there are only a few in-house productions, "much fewer than at SRF, anyway." Specifically, only "Wetten, dass ...?", "Der Fernsehgarten" and a few music shows.

WW: Were you surprised that an external personality was chosen for this politically important post?
Oliver Fuchs: Yes, that was really something new. For a long time, ZDF had not appointed anyone from the outside to such a management position. Then there was someone who had really worked in the private sector, who therefore had no station history.

The outgoing head of entertainment Manfred Teuber is 62, the new program director Norbert Himmler, who was elected a year ago, is 41, and you are now 44. The intention of rejuvenation is not to be overlooked. But why does ZDF absolutely have to rejuvenate when statistically people are getting older and older?
We had an average age of our audience of 62 and this year we're already at 60, so we've already done two years. But it's not about excluding the older ones. That's a big misunderstanding! The demographic trends are well known. Our aim is not to lose the young completely. At RTL, the target group of "young people" was once defined as 14 to 49. In the meantime, that has also been changed to 14 to 59, because social developments have also been noticed at the young RTL. At ZDF, we are not addicted to youth mania. We want to reach the "actively family-oriented" and we want to reflect society. There will be programs that tend to be older - but there are also programs that are younger. The young are also contributors and have a right to offerings from us.

In a survey of viewers, ZDF's entertainment programming was given the attributes "Monotony"and "stagnation. Did you feel the same way?
To some extent, yes. The BBC has always set trends with formats like "Strictly Come Dancing," which, funnily enough, is shown here as "Let's Dance" on RTL. And in other areas, too, for example with their comedy on BBC 3. Without wishing to speak ill of anything, certain trends have been missed here. I believe that a large national broadcaster like ZDF must always be a pioneer and first mover. But it also has to be careful not to make too many "me too" products. But we've recharged the genre of cabaret and comedy in recent years and are very actively building on that.

Does this explain why an external person, specifically the CEO of Eyeworks, was brought to ZDF? Are such trendsetters mainly found outside the public structures?
Eyeworks, like many production companies, was fortunately entrepreneur-led. The shareholders were concrete people and not some fund or a large investor. In this respect, many things were always a bit easier, also because we ourselves were responsible for the management. But nevertheless: Eyeworks was absolutely economically positioned. The goal was to have success in order to earn money with it. And you can only be successful if you are innovative from time to time. The broadcasters were our customers at that time, and we had to prove to them that we were one of the fresher producers.

As head of Eyeworks, you were strategically, commercially and creatively involved. What will change at ZDF?
I've been with Eyeworks since the company was born. In 2000, we were an RTL subsidiary. I joined the company with a former managing director, Kai Sturm, who is now editor-in-chief at Vox. In 2002, Eyeworks, which is now active in around 17 countries, joined us, which was to lead to the internationalization of this small company in Cologne. In 2004, I took over as managing director, although everyone in Germany said: You're insane, such a small TV company won't have a chance in an already extremely competitive market. But that's exactly what appealed to me - to prove that it can be done. Likewise, at ZDF, I'm now being told that there are tasks to be done that weren't done in the past for nothing. But that's exactly what excites me here, too. To say again: No, you can rethink and question one thing or another.
 
At Eyeworks, interestingly enough, trash and highbrow films were produced at the same time. You once said about this: "Television is only a mirror of society". Does it stay with this message?
Of course, we have different tasks at a public broadcaster than at a private company. You can't do certain things at a public broadcaster, nor should you. We also have a role model function. But nonetheless, we also want to not only represent the entire breadth of society, but also invite people to watch with us.

What drew you to television when you first started?
I actually wanted to be a photographer. I was influenced by the Magnum photographers. They fascinated me because they not only made aesthetically beautiful art, but also always staged stories with their pictures. As a basis for this, I wanted to start training as a technical scientific photographer at ETH Zurich, but unfortunately my professor died. So the only alternative I had was to move to Cologne. There I studied "photo engineering" for six semesters, but then dropped out. That was just the time when RTL moved from Luxembourg to Cologne. In setting up this new television station, I saw the best opportunity to direct stories. Nevertheless, I went into production first.

Learning by Doing?
Yes, absolutely. The RTL station was laughed at, but Sat.1 had also relaunched here in the Mainz area before that. That was the opportunity at the time. Apart from the film school in Munich, there were almost no training opportunities in the field of television. Now every vocational school has a department where you can do something with media. I myself soon taught in the following development and still do a bit of lecturing at the RTL School of Journalism as well as at the Grimme Academy. "Learning by doing" was a good basis back then. Today, I wouldn't advise anyone to drop out of college to start in the media. I would rather say: Choose a course of study that leads to that goal, preferably part-time. But the competition among people who want to get in is very high.

Great competition in television and a Swiss won it. Do you sometimes experience a similar rejection in Mainz as Germans do in Switzerland?
I feel very much at home in Germany. I observe the development of this negative attitude towards Germans in Switzerland with great skepticism. I experience it myself when I travel to the skiing vacations with my German license plate. I feel sorry for this country, which forms such a highly developed society in terms of grassroots democracy, and is now dealing with this very strange issue. I think Germany is a great country at the moment, highly liberal, a woman as chancellor, a homosexual foreign minister. There is no country in the world that combines what Germany can do at the moment: a strong economic performance with a highly liberal political attitude, with a very colorful social commitment and such a high level of social security. Combining these four points in one country is quite difficult, and that's why I think Germany is great at the moment.

ZDF was stabilized in the era of Helmut Kohl as a "Entertainment steamer"and political counterweight to ARD. How big is the share of entertainment compared to information today?
ZDF's share of information is around 45 percent, which no one else can match. But there is always the question of the definition of entertainment. Television is first and foremost an entertainment medium. Even many information programs also entertain, think of "Terra X," for example. The successful fictional programs play a big role. Fiction shapes our access primetime, with the "Soko" series, among others. In primetime, too, big movies are programmed on many evenings, or romantic comedies.

Where do you see a stylistic difference to Swiss television?
Both have the advantage that they are national stations. In terms of funding, Swiss television would be more comparable to a 3rd channel in Germany. What always impresses me is the huge reach here. Even if you work for WDR, you can reach up to about 22 million people in the country. That can't be compared to Switzerland. The Swiss market has the advantage that you can create a national identity through language. We don't have that in a territorial state like Germany. Making television in Germany is so complicated because not only is the competition huge, you also have to overcome a lot of cultural and linguistic differences across regional borders. This capping of the nation, as Switzerland is able to do, is not possible here at all. Apart from that, I have the highest respect for Swiss television, but I'm also a bit surprised from time to time at how much is possible in the area of advertising and sponsoring, despite this monopoly position. There is not really a private market allowed. SRG is in a very privileged position.

In addition to the ban on advertising in the evening, ZDF has also been banned from showing sponsorship after 8 p.m. for a few months now. Does your department now have to earn more money in the afternoon as a replacement?
Editorial offices do not earn money. At most, they provide the best possible environment for advertising. But there's not much of that here. A maximum of 20 minutes per working day, and not after 8 p.m. The sponsorship ban in the evening affects ZDF, and I also have to accept budget cuts this year.

About the program: What do you want to change?
We are working intensively. We want to create events. We see that the show in particular can create a live experience that is otherwise hard to find on television. "Wetten dass...?" is of course one such example. Our anniversary show "50 Years of ZDF or a celebrity version of "Rette die Million" were also events and created an immediacy that can't be achieved in fiction. My goal is to do more of this eventization of shows: to make Saturday evenings a little bigger again with a certain theme or hook.

Are you also responsible for the digital stations Neo and Kultur?
No. "ZDF-Kultur" will probably not exist in its current form for much longer. There is a very close exchange with "ZDFneo". We do a lot of programs together. We work together on show development for late night and conceive new ideas for Sunday afternoons together. We also work together on various factuals and docu-soaps. "Neo" sometimes gets things for its first broadcast that we then have later in the main program, and vice versa.

To what extent can you still be creative yourself as a boss?
The last half year I spent a lot of time structuring. Entertainment was set up on different legs. There were almost two entertainment departments. In my first six months, I consolidated in the staff structure and then divided the department by genre a bit more clearly.

How big is your department?
There are 27 permanent editorial staff, but we also work with freelancers and have only a few in-house productions in Mainz - far fewer than at SRF, anyway. The only shows we produce entirely ourselves are "Wetten, dass...?", "Der Fernsehgarten" and a few music shows.

In the media for the afternoon was announced a "Innovation track from May"promised?
ZDF used to be at the forefront, if you think of the courtroom format "Streit um drei. Then the private broadcasters cribbed it and tightened it up, and we fell behind, and certainly treated some trends "stepmotherly. "Innovation track" is a lofty word in the overall industry. I'd rather put it this way: We're trying out a few things, so-called "factual" channels, for example documentary reality shows, which we'll soon be showing on Sunday afternoons.

What specifically will these new broadcasts bring?
We have first taken a look at the program at the edges. Not only because it has a more flexible program structure there. You can also try out more things here. We've relaunched Sunday afternoons. With Jörg Pilawa, we lost a presenter to ARD. We are currently holding talks with several potential successors. We have Jörg Thadeusz and Inka Bause with us, and at the turn of the year we'll be starting with Helene Fischer. By then, we'll have tested around 15 new formats. They're all one-offs, so I don't think it's that noticeable. I stand by the fact that we also do "try and error." I recently asked the director: How many flops can you take? He answered: "Out of three, it can be two. But the other one has to be right."

Under sharp observation is "Bet that...?". How far can your signature already be seen here?
I started with the relaunch. Certain parameters were set. But we did a lot of detailed work on the content, set up a new set and hired a new director. I'm also very happy with the role of the assistant, where we brought in comedy with Cindy aus Mahrzahn. In the first season, we were able to average nine million. That's a very good figure for an entertainment show and makes us a national event.

Is Swiss participation an issue for you as a Swiss?
We are meeting SRF Director Rudolf Matter these days together with SRF Head of Entertainment Christoph Gebel for a co-production conference. There we'll talk about programs that are jointly produced within the German-speaking public broadcasters. I would be delighted if Switzerland were to take part in "Wetten, dass...?" again.

What else could be possible?
You have to think again about competitive contests. What used to be "game without limits." I'm not saying that's the program. But there are new possibilities in this area, where you can once again create an event together - emphasis on event again - where sporting activities are mixed with entertainment. In the music sector, there is very close coordination, at least with ORF. We have just signed the contracts for an extension of the "Carmen Nebel Show" and there are exciting talks for the coming year.

As head of entertainment, you have a position of power. Can you make stars?
Of course television makes stars. But very often it is now the case that stars, especially in the musical and comedy fields, see television as a marketing platform for their own programs and goals. Of course, shows can still generate stars. I think it's like television formats: One in ten will do it. But that's not up to the entertainment director! Development work always has more to do with strategy. I don't believe in the individual who is so brilliant that he invents something great. Television format development is always a team effort and never a singular process that can ignore the other aspects like the market, the availability of artists, trends and the competitive situation.

What role does the Internet play in your department?
New media are a big topic for us. We have our own online unit with a head of development. As in Switzerland, we are subject to strong restrictions as a public TV station. But we're very active with campaigns on Twitter and Facebook, and with young programs like the "Heute Show," we're seeing that viewers on the Internet already account for a share of up to 2 percent. It's enormous what's going on in parallel now.

What do you enjoy about your new job?
So far, it's still super exciting. I came from a small company with 200 employees and now I'm in a company with several thousand. That has a completely different effect. Being on the broadcast side also means for me: I get to know more people than ever before. All the creatives, producers, artists want to talk to me. The insight into the industry is enormous, so I'm learning every day, and it's fun for me after more than 20 years in the business to get to know completely new aspects.

Interview: Andreas Panzeri
 

Swiss law has been repeatedly revised in recent times and continuously adapted to the directives of the European Union with regard to e-marketing. The federal government and consumer protection organizations can take comprehensive action on their own initiative. Violation of the rules is even punishable by law. It is therefore worth knowing the legal pitfalls so that you don't get caught out when designing websites, search engine marketing and sending advertising e-mails on the Internet.

Anyone offering their products in e-commerce, whether on a website, by e-mail or SMS, must indicate in advance that it is a commercial offer and communicate their contact details clearly and unambiguously, including an effective physical address and the possibility of contacting them electronically, e.g. by e-mail or contact form. In principle, prices do not have to be published in online advertising, except in the case of an offer that can be downloaded or purchased directly and in the case of value-added services, offers via telephone numbers with additional charges. Commercial e-mails and text messages (including newsletters) may only be sent to recipients who expressly request this or have explicitly agreed to receive them (so-called opt-in principle).

This consent must be given via a channel other than the one advertised. It is therefore not permitted, for example, to send someone an email asking whether they would like to receive commercial emails or text messages in the future. It is legal, for example, to ask visitors to your own website or customers placing orders whether they would like to receive e-mail or SMS advertising. There is one exception to the opt-in principle. Existing customers may be sent unsolicited advertising for the same or similar products by e-mail or text message, although in this case it is also advisable to explicitly ask for the relevant consent. Even if someone has agreed to receive commercial e-mails and text messages, they must have a simple way of refusing to receive them in the future for each e-mail or text message (so-called opt-out principle). The opt-out is usually carried out by means of a button that leads directly to unsubscribing from a corresponding list. Caution is advised with older addresses (e-mail, SMS) and addresses acquired from third parties.

In any legal proceedings, the sender must provide proof of explicit consent (opt-in) for each individual contact. In addition to e-mail and SMS marketing, an important means of e-marketing is also optimizing the display of one's own offers in search engines, i.e. search engine marketing. From a legal point of view, it is extremely problematic if protected brands and companies, i.e. company names, are used in elements that are decisive for search engine rankings, in particular in meta tags, hidden text, keyword stuffing, website titles and URLs. In addition to actual search engine marketing, there is also the option of placing advertisements with search engines that are displayed next to the list of hits when certain words (keywords) are searched for. Here too, third party brands and companies may not generally be used for the keywords. Apart from such practices, however, the non-exchanging directing of search engine users to one's own offers is permitted, as is the non-exchanging advertising of products in general.

Ueli Grüter, LL.M., attorney at law, Grüter Schneider & Partner AG, Zurich, is a lecturer in communications law and co-editor of the book Kommunikationsrecht.ch. He comments on practical legal issues in advertising once a month in Werbewoche. Questions for the Werbewoche legal expert at [email protected].
 

The benefits of the offer are dramatized on print subjects, in online measures, mailings and radio spots, the agency said in a statement on Thursday.

Responsible at Swisscom (Switzerland), Bern: Swisscom Communication Team B2B. Responsible at Contexta: Nadine Borter (overall responsibility), Moritz Staehelin (creative direction), Claudio Parente (art direction), Moricz Nemeth (graphics), Annette Häcki (text), Marc-André Singer (consulting group manager), Meret Bangerter, Monika Siegenthaler (consulting). Photography: Caspar Martig, Bern. Media: Mediaschneider, Zurich.

Last Thursday, April 18, the German Communications Association presented the 15th BoB "Best of Business-to-Business" Awards for the German-speaking region. The jury presented a total of 30 awards. Five of them went to the Swiss agency at the airport: Gold was awarded for the three-rope mailing for the Swiss Textile Association, silver for the integrated agency advertising, and bronze for the "True Heroes" advertising campaign for DPD, for the world's first QR crossword puzzle for SMC Swiss Marketing, and for the condensing mailing for Krüger + Co.

The 5 golden BoBs went to:

- Tempus Corporate for "361° - The Reinvention of the Family" for the client A.T. Keraney, in the Corporate Publishing category.

- Publicis Munich for "The blind power" on behalf of Maschinenfabrik Reinhausen, in the category Crossmedia & Integrated Communication Campaigns.

- Agency at the airport for "Three-rope shank for the future" on behalf of the TVS Swiss Textile Federation, in the category Dialog Marketing and Sales Promotion.

- Schindler Parent for "The Black Box Project" for the client Iggesund AB.

- Facts and Fiction for the exhibition "Fairy Tale Worlds" on behalf of the Goethe-Institut in the category Live Communication & Exhibitions.

The most successful agency in the competition was Agentur am Flughafen (1 x gold, 1 x silver and 3 x bronze).

To the award ceremony

On Friday, April 19, the agency at the airport also won the International category at the German Dialog Marketing Award ceremony and was the only agency in this category to export a silver award to Switzerland for the ski wax letter for Pitsch Sport.

 

According to the Study by the Career Cast network no job is as unattractive as that of a newspaper reporter. According to the SDA, press journalists came last in a ranking by the network - behind lumberjacks (199), soldiers without officer rank (198), actors (197) and oil rig workers (196). Photography is apparently a little less bad than writing - photojournalists still made it to 188th place, just behind dishwashers (187th place).

However, the study also has one more piece of awesome information in store: The top three places are occupied by: Actuaries, biomedical engineers and programmers.

The explanation follows on the heels: "Newspaper reporters have fared worse and worse in the job statistics over the years," reported Kyle Kensing from Career Cast according to SDA. This has to do with the great stress, the time pressure, the poor pay and the requirement to get a story under all conditions. But journalism is neither a dying art nor a profession without prospects, Kensing went on to emphasize. A rethink has begun in the industry.

The CareerCast analysis has been published for 25 years and, in addition to income, takes into account stress factors and future security, for example. Exactly the arguments that make a dream job a dream job. Or not? (uma)

 

In terms of awareness, the SBB ad from the Maxomedia advertising agency came out on top, followed by the Denner ad from the Vizner Borel advertising agency and the Chocolat Frey ad from the Leo Burnett agency. The Denner ad won the uniqueness criterion ahead of the Chocolat Frey ad. The ad for Villiger by the Metzgerlehner advertising agency came third. In the Brand Fit criterion, Denner wins ahead of Chocolat Frey and SBB. Chocolat Frey is ahead of the ad for Paul Kehl from the advertising agency By Heart and the ad for SBB in terms of likeability.

The impact check of Werbewoche April 2013 (PDF)

Detailed results (PDF)

 

The pending issues within Mediapulse are to be resolved immediately, writes the association. The TV quotas are to be released under the following conditions:

- All questions that are currently still open and could lead to a recalculation of the data must be resolved immediately and before the data is opened.
- The published figures must correspond to the actual measurement data collected. Tactical adjustments and manipulations of figures must be avoided.
- Media agencies and marketers must have access to the figures at the same time. It is unacceptable for individual market participants to have access to the data sets earlier than others.
- The TV panel must also be disclosed to media agencies and thus to all market participants.

In addition to the demands, the association emphasizes that the media agencies needed sufficient time to process the data (around four weeks) in order to provide the clients with correct and professional planning. Furthermore, the expected large deviations are due to the new methodology used to collect the data. The media agencies have no influence on the fact that the new TV ratings cannot be compared with the previous ones.

According to the press release, the association is convinced that "such an unsatisfactory situation" could be avoided if all market partners were represented in the User Commission UC and if it were more closely involved in decisions. For this reason, the BSW association is calling for the UC to be reorganized.

 

 
As soon as advertisers book online campaigns that are not performance-based but pursue branding goals, things get complicated. If the success of a campaign is to be measured not only in terms of clicks or transactions, advertisers are faced with various research institutes or marketers who use different methods to measure. Which target group is really reached, which advertising contact has which quality, is often difficult to understand. Mirko Marr, board member and head of research at the industry association IAB Switzerland, did not mince his words at the annual conference of the Swiss Society for Communication and Media Science (SGKM)*: "A Wild West has emerged in the online sector. The question now is: Is the sheriff coming to town?" Werbewoche spoke with Marr about the state of online research and the IAB Switzerland's goal of finding an industry solution.
 
WW: Mirko Marr, "Wild West" in the online sector. Can you be more specific?
Mirko Marr: The digital industry is fascinated by the measurement possibilities that exist in the online space. We have much more detailed access to online usage than to the usage of any other medium. That's great. But: the fascination with measurement has long prevented us from thinking about how to interpret and validate the data. If we want to market online, we have to have the numbers authenticated - as is customary with the other media. 
 
There are several players in the market: Comscore and Net-Metrix, as well as quite a few marketers. Is there any interest at all in unified research?
Certainly, many people are of the opinion that the digital medium does not need any certified figures because everything can be measured. Everything can be observed with tracking methods, from the contact with advertising material to the purchase decision in the online store. But anyone who says this is not aware of the many problems associated with tracking.
 
For example, data protection.
Exactly, one problem is data protection. Another is the completeness, the representativeness of the data. And above all, the measurement must be prepared in a form that the advertiser can process. At the moment, we are looking at impressions delivered. These are gross statistics and therefore not the data quality that clients are used to.
 
What data should be reported in the online instead?
We need information about the reach and contact frequency of a campaign in defined target groups. This is the classic metric accepted in the rest of audience research. We get these numbers by validating delivery statistics with a user-centric approach, classifying ad contacts rather than page views by different target groups.
 
How does this happen?
Via a panel survey or an onsite survey such as that conducted by Net-Metrix. In the latter case, however, only half-yearly data is available. The advantage of standing panels is that we have permanent usage information. This allows us to track campaigns and - something that is not yet possible today - measure campaign success.
 
Until now, marketers have done their own research to calculate the success of a campaign for customers ...
That's great. Marketer research is important. But it pursues a specific interest in each case. An independent industry solution would therefore be desirable. A measurement method and a currency that is accepted by the entire online industry - however incomplete and incomplete it may be. However, there is still a long way to go from marketer research to a common currency.
 
How far along are you in the process?
There are significant international initiatives. For example, the Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS) initiative in the USA. This is an association of all major clients, publishers and agencies with the aim of defining common measurement standards. At the same time, a Brand Advertising Committee has recently been set up at IAB Europe level. Among other things, this committee is concerned with the definition of generally applicable key figures for digital brand campaigns. In Switzerland, we are currently in the middle of the process of finding an industry consensus. That is challenging. A currency cannot be decreed by decree, but must grow. Incidentally, this was no different with early print research, before Wemf AG für Werbemedienforschung was founded.
 
What does success depend on?
The decisive factor will be how great the pressure from the clients is. Many major advertisers are behind the 3MS initiative in the USA. We're not there yet. How the online share of the advertising market develops will also have an influence. There are currently signs of stagnation in the display sector, in Switzerland at a low level. If this trend is confirmed, the question will quickly come up: Is it perhaps due to the way we measure?
 
Finally, on the subject of mobile: with the change in media usage, the next problem is already just around the corner. Getting user information on mobile is difficult. How are you tackling this difficulty?
It's true that the technical requirements are different in the mobile sector. But the problem is basically the same as in online. We first have to reach a consensus and then integrate the individual channels.
 
That means: Step 1 is a solution for online, followed by mobile?
No, the consensus must apply to all digital areas. For online and mobile, for display formats, for pre-rolls on Internet TV sites, for set-up boxes and so on. The only thing is that the first and most important step is to agree that the online sector must play by the same rules as the other advertising marketers. Unlike in the performance sector, we can't reinvent the rules of the game for brand advertising.
 
Isabel Imper
 
 *The interview was conducted at the annual conference of the Swiss Society for Communication and Media Studies (SGKM). The event took place on April 12 and 13 in Winterthur and dealt with the tension between science and practice. Further information: Sgkm.ch.

A recent study by INSEAD Business School and McKinsey comes to the conclusion that the negative effects clearly outweigh the positive ones. Facebook posts, YouTube videos or tweets with a negative tone have a much stronger impact than posts that focus on the positive aspects of a brand.

The effect of user-initiated social media activities was examined by the researchers using a marketing mix response model for two areas: the market for flat-screen televisions and the market for broadband connections. The model included the sales effects of user-generated brand messages as well as the impact of traditional marketing instruments (e.g. print, TV or outdoor advertising). Macroeconomic parameters such as general consumer confidence and seasonal sales fluctuations were also taken into account.

The example of the flatscreen TV brand in question initially shows the immense impact of a traditional customer approach originating from the provider: 45.4% of brand sales depend on provider-driven activities. These include advertising on the Internet (11.6%), in stores (11.5%), on TV (7.0%), in print media (6.9%), on the radio (5.7%) and outdoors (2.7%). Compared to supplier-driven advertising, the impact of consumer-initiated social media activities on sales is low overall. The net effect is only 0.6%.
 
A more detailed analysis of the tone of social media posts shows that positive comments on social media increased sales of the flat screen brand by 7.0% in the period under review. Neutral posts had hardly any effect, increasing brand sales by 0.5 percent. Negative social media posts, on the other hand, reduced sales by 6.9%.

It is revealing when you also consider how many social media ratings of the respective tonality are responsible for these effects. The number of positive ratings (14,762) significantly exceeds the number of negative ratings (3320). One thousand positive social media ratings therefore result in a sales effect of 0.47 percent, while one thousand negative ratings result in a sales effect of -2.08 percent. In other words, a negative social media rating has 4.42 times more impact than a positive one.

The analysis of a provider of broadband connections shows fundamentally similar results. In this case, the strong effect of established marketing instruments is also clear: TV (24.4%), internet (20.6%) and print advertising (7.2%) together account for more than 50% of new and renewed customer contracts. However, positive and neutral social media posts do not have a statistically significant effect on customer acquisition. Negative posts are different: they have a stronger effect.

In the period under review, negative social media ratings reduced the number of new and renewed contracts by 10.2%. From the researchers' point of view, this pattern is typical for offers with rather low customer involvement. Positive experiences have hardly any effect, while negative ones can have a substantial negative impact. Firstly, it can be concluded that traditional provider-driven marketing activities continue to trigger significantly stronger sales effects than user-generated brand messages in social media. Secondly, it can be stated that user-initiated social media activities certainly hold opportunities, but even greater risks. Great sensitivity is therefore required when interacting with consumers.

Clemens Koob

Every year on New Year's Eve, the famous English sketch "Dinner for one" is broadcast on almost all television stations. Again and again one can smile about this excellent English humor. And one apparently likes to watch it again and again. The same goes for Laurel and Hardy's piano transport or the dance with the globe in Charly Chaplin's "Great Dictator ". Then there are the "Fine Food" spots from Coop, in which the guests wait for the host and chef, who is stuck in a breakdown with his old Peugeot, the food dictated via mobile phone by the host, and all's well that ends well. After watching it twice, you understand the complicated story. After watching four times, you realize, aha, it's about fine food, no not from Buitoni or Knorr, but from Coop. All further encounters with this yuppie group achieve boredom to the point of a "No, not again" effect. In this way, a good advertising story can become truculent and turn its effect into the negative. Of these "funny" commercials, there are a lot of even more recalcitrant ones: the Thomy tubes, the children's milk-slice refrigerators falling from the ceiling, and so on.

My theory: If you want to create TV advertising with humor or wit, the "opportunity to see" must be reduced to two or three contacts at the most. If you ask at the regulars' table three days in a row: "Do you already know the joke about the Basler who wanted to become a Zurich citizen?", you'll be judged as a "Dubel". The same applies to advertising messages. Unless the joke is so ingenious that you want to see it more often. Like the Evian Babies, the Levis commercials or "Dinner for one". But the latter is only broadcast once a year. The be-all and end-all of successful advertising is continuity. But if the concept is continuously communicated with the same punch line, the desired effect tips over into the negative.

In my past advertising activity, we produced funny TV spots with "Flip" (Marti Schenkel) for EPA. The EPA jokes were very successful. However, we invented a cheap production system, so we aired each spot no more than four times. So every week a new gag. There are enough examples that this principle with frequently changing spots is better received by the audience. Unless you produce such a banal spot as the Fischer-Bettwarenfabrik Wädenswil, which can only be seen as good again with a lot of irony.

My put up is that I have ventured to try grafting a new grape variety on some of our vines in Italy.