For some years now, ÖKK has regularly advertised with eye-catching posters that refer to "diseases" that do not even exist (Werbewoche.ch reported). The basic design in the distinctive comic style remains constant, while the content of the posters is constantly changed to humorously highlight ÖKK's strengths and customer benefits. Topics such as "no-see-itis" (2008), "hot-air-itis" (2009), "lie-itis" or "no-listen-itis" (2010), "small-print-itis" (2011) and "paper-war-itis" (2012) are taken up.

Clearly above average

According to the press release, the campaign is paying off. APG|SGA's market research accompanied the poster campaign by surveying recall, brand association, and liking. (Long-term poster impact study PPI Poster Performance Index). The development of the results is clear: at the launch in 2008, around one third of respondents remembered the campaign; five years later, this figure is over 60 percent. ÖKK is thus clearly above the PPI average values of surveyed poster campaigns from the health insurance sector.

Brand more firmly anchored

The brand name is now also more firmly anchored. Whereas originally four percent of respondents correctly assigned the brand, by the end of 2012, 28 percent already named "ÖKK" as the correct brand. According to APG, this marked increase in impact is due on the one hand to regular poster presence in a consistent design, and on the other hand to the steady expansion of ÖKK's product range. Venanzi Vincenz, head of marketing communications at ÖKK, says: "In the highly competitive health insurance market, ÖKK has achieved a stable position in recent years. This is also reflected, among other things, in the positive development of the advertising impact of our poster campaigns."

All the necessary information and sales documents are available at all times and are continuously updated via a central backend. According to the press release, this makes it particularly easy to call up the required customer information or a desired product via the catalog display or the quick search, combine it with promotions and send the final order directly to the customer.

All orders are processed directly via SAP. This should save time, increase sales, shorten delivery times and ultimately also make customers more satisfied. iOrder won the prize for the best enterprise app at the Swiss App Award.

Responsible at Futurecom: Jürgen Vanicek, Michael Fehr (Consulting), Marcel Berberich, Dominik Dürst (IT Concept and Programming), Dominik Sigrist (UI Design),
 

Diartis, based in Lenzburg, is a Swiss leader in the development and distribution of standard IT solutions in the social, guardianship, home and healthcare sectors, according to a press release. The company plans to completely revamp its CI/CD and all communication materials in the first half of 2013.

Diartis chose to work with Etextera and the Bern-based agency Visu'l out of several applicants, according to the press release. In addition to all text tasks, Etextera will also be responsible for overall project management. Beat Hohermuth, CEO of Diartis, comments on the collaboration: "Our personnel resources are limited. It is therefore important for me to work with professionals who have mastered the entire spectrum of communication. The overall package from Etextera and Visu'l clearly stood out from the competition."
 

The naming of the function is mandatory if it is relevant for the understanding of the specific text, as the Press Council writes in a statement on Tuesday. 

The Switzerland-Israel Society complained that National Councilor Daniel Vischer had commented on the Middle East conflict several times in his column in the Basler Zeitung without disclosing his function as president of the Switzerland-Palestine Society. The Press Council now comes to the conclusion that the naming of the function is mandatory because it is not generally known and relevant for the understanding of the objectionable text.

However, it cannot be deduced from this that editorial offices are obligated to spend a disproportionate amount of time and effort researching possible overlaps between the topic of a column and a function of the author for every external text. In the present case, however, the Switzerland-Israel Society had repeatedly pointed out Vischer's function as president of the Switzerland-Palestine Society to the Basler Zeitung in the run-up to the publication of the offending column.
 
Teaser image: Daniel-vischer.ch

The family business, which is over 100 years old, is the exclusive representative in the canton of Zug for a range of watch and jewelry brands such as Rolex and Breitling. Allink was commissioned with the redesign of the outdated corporate design and the aging website.

The appearance was refreshed and streamlined. The logo and typography were gently optimized to better showcase the values of the specialty store. For example, the agency replaced the addition "watches and jewelry" with the year 1911, which is intended to stand for the attribute of consistency.

In the conception of the Website According to the press release, special emphasis was placed on functionality and an emotional and inviting look. The focus is on the location and history of the company. This is intended to encourage potential customers to visit. The website is designed as a responsive design and thus optimized for mobile users.

Responsible at Rösselet: Adrian Rösselet. Responsible at Allink: David Zangger (CD), Lea Defranceschi (AD), Jacqueline Felder (Graphics), Laura Hirt (Screen Design), Leandra Finger (Computer Science).

 

German retail companies are planning significant changes to their advertising activities at the point of sale (POS) by 2020, according to a press release issued on Tuesday. Sociographic changes in the shopper base, a resulting need to change their own business strategy and increasing competitive pressure will lead to a reorientation of advertising and marketing measures in the retail sector. As a result of these changes, the length of campaigns will decrease and advertising will become much more personalized. At the same time, German marketing experts expect a noticeable increase in campaign budgets.

The lion's share of this is accounted for by printed advertising, the importance of which is increasing during this change process. These results were determined in a comparative study conducted by the market research company Coleman Parks on behalf of Epson among 500 marketing and advertising managers from the retail sector in five European countries. The study, entitled "Vision 2020", makes it clear that more than 90 percent of German retailers expect to change or expand their current target group by 2020 in order to generate continuous growth.

As part of the study, Epson surveyed POS marketing experts in Germany, Italy, France, Spain and the UK on the use of digital and printed marketing materials. 75 percent of the German advertisers surveyed believe that a reorientation of their business towards a different socio-economic target group will be necessary for the success of their companies by 2020. This puts them well above the average of their colleagues from Europe (57%). However, such a change is not possible without addressing individual target groups at the POS. 77% of respondents from Germany will therefore rely on significantly more personalized advertising campaigns in the future (Europe: 62%).

Fast and close to the customer

According to the experts, individual campaigns will be much shorter in 2020 than in the past. While just over half (54%) of German retailers currently plan their advertising measures for a period of one week or longer, 57% of those surveyed expect campaigns to change several times a week in 2020. While around 4 percent of all measures currently run for a few hours, retailers expect this to be the case for 18 percent of campaigns in 2020. The vast majority (63%) of companies surveyed in Germany also stated that they intend to significantly increase their marketing budget over the next few years in order to adapt to changing requirements.

Large format printing faces new challenges

High-frequency, personalized campaigns also place new demands on the production of advertising materials. 71% of German respondents expect the volume of POS print advertising to increase by 2020, while a further 68% expect electronic forms of advertising to grow. The vast majority of advertisers rely on large-format materials: 88% of all respondents are convinced that these forms of advertising are best suited to draw customers' attention to certain products.

 

Mario Borri has been editor-in-chief of the publication Autoinformation since February 1. He takes over the management of the info sheet from José Peixoto, who is moving to Citroën. In addition to content, Mario Borri is also responsible for layout, according to a statement. Borri is an experienced automotive journalist. His career began in the mid-1990s at Auto Illustrierte. After successfully graduating from the Ringier School of Journalism, Mario Borri was part of the Bärtschi Media team for almost ten years. He then moved to the free newspaper .ch as a producer and editor. For the last four years, he was editor/realizer at the TV car show "Motorshow".

In order to strengthen the marketing and product management functions, Eurotaxglass's Switzerland Division has decided to no longer combine these two roles under one position in the future, but to fill them in two separate functions. As a result, Céline Tambour has been responsible for Eurotax Switzerland's marketing activities since February 1. Tambour is a French citizen and has many years of experience in the automotive industry, where she most recently worked for Adam Opel in the Digital Marketing & Online Media department. Céline Tambour will be responsible for Eurotax's B2B and B2C advertising, as well as press relations and contacts with associations and trade fairs.

 

In the DAB+ standard, up to 18 radio programs can be broadcast in CD quality on one frequency, as Bakom announced. The radio license was awarded to Romandie Médias. This is a community of private radio stations in French-speaking Switzerland, the SRG and Swisscom Broadcast. This community was obliged to broadcast three already licensed private radio stations as well as two of the SRG.

New digital services from Radio Rhône in Valais and Radio Fribourg/Freiburg were licensed in fall 2010. Soprodi also received a license. SRG plans to launch Rete Tre and SRF 4 News in French-speaking Switzerland. The network is to be set up in one step and is expected to begin operations in August. It is the second digital platform in French-speaking Switzerland. (SDA)
 

The Swiss banking sector, which was originally very discreet, has been in the media spotlight for some time now. Publicom therefore wanted to know how the industry is dealing with the considerable communications challenges and, to this end, interviewed media executives from 28 different banks.

The industry does not yet seem to have found the right answers to the ongoing attacks and the negative effects on its reputation, writes Publicom in a press release. On the one hand, the lasting negative image of the banking center is lamented everywhere, the main cause of which is critical media coverage. Print media play a central role, while social media are considered to be of little relevance for image building. From the point of view of the bank representatives, the greatest negative impact on reputation comes from the discussions surrounding tax issues (tax optimization problems and tax treaties), followed by bank client confidentiality and the performance of individual banks.

On the other hand, from an organizational point of view, communication within the banks is rarely given adequate priority, the report continues. The units tend to be small, and hardly any head of communications is a member of the executive board. The budgets for the systematic and comprehensive management of media reputation are comparatively small - especially when compared to marketing investments (for example, for advertising and branding) or even possible damage to reputation.

Where the reasons for this discrepancy between aspiration and reality are to be found cannot be answered simply or universally. However, the study suggests that those responsible for the media at banks cannot limit themselves to external communications. This is because the need for education regarding the importance of professional reputation management is often considerable within the organizations as well. 

Teaser image: Keystone

We are talking about a robbery that took place in Schaffhausen in March 2011. Four armed men had taken jewelry and watches worth several million francs from a jewelry store. In March 2012, Philipp Maier, head of the Schaffhausen criminal investigation department, informed that two of the perpetrators had been identified. One of them was in custody in another canton, while the other was in extradition custody abroad. The report was published, for example, on Nzz.ch published.

Today, Tuesday, almost a year after this success story, the Schaffhausen police again sent out the message that they had been able to identify two perpetrators. To Radio Top later admitted that this was the same reconnaissance as a year ago. The purpose of the message recycling is unknown. Internal oversight? Fishing for compliments? Or even for tactical investigative reasons (then thank you Radio Top!)? Or did they simply want to draw the general attention back to the fugitives and remind us of their previous successes?

However, the media gratefully received the announcement and Blick.ch was finally allowed to report again about the "Robber with dork glasses" report. This member of the gang is still on the run ("Robber with dork glasses on the run"). Probably he has taken off the dork glasses in the meantime and is therefore difficult to recognize. Even if the report is old - Blick.ch still had a real innovation to offer in 2013: From "Trottel-Brille" ("Who is this gangster with the dork glasses?") became "dork glasses". Perhaps the spelling will change again next year when the Schaffhausen police report the '12 manhunt success once more.

Screenshots 20min.ch and Blick.ch, February 12, 2013

For all the confusion about the dork glasses: On Twitter today, you could learn that the dork glasses doctrine is rather inaccurate and quite subjective. It's all in the eye of the beholder.

Thomas Häusermann

Source: Screenshot Twitter.com @mathiasstraehl
 

Barbara Zingg was born in 1976 and grew up bilingual (German/French). She brings with her many years of experience on both the agency (including Contexta and LGK) and client side. Most recently, she was Online Manager at Renault Switzerland in Zurich. The two members of the management team, Cendrine Gafner and Gilles Aeby, are responsible for strategic planning, conception and storytelling.
 

The presses were shut down at 11 p.m. Sunday, according to the Syndicom union. Work resumed at 6 a.m. Monday, a Syndicom spokeswoman said. The strike was orderly and without incident, she said. The management of the Basler Zeitung Medien (BZM) had presented a social plan on Thursday, which according to the union was not sufficient for the staff. Central open demand was a severance payment of 1'000 francs per year of service. As BZM did not respond by Friday evening as requested, a strike was called.

BZM: Strike is illegal

For the BZM management, however, the strike is "unlawful", as it announced: At the time of the start, clarifications were still underway and negotiations were pending. BZM therefore wants to "confront" the president of the personnel commission. It also reserves the right to take further steps. A BZM spokesman did not want to comment on the main demand for severance pay to the SDA news agency. This had only arrived on Friday, and the new ultimatum of the staff runs until 6 p.m. on Tuesday. A decision will then be made at the next works meeting on Wednesday afternoon. BZM will probably only be able to comment again after that.
 
Most Baz subscribers nevertheless received the paper on Monday, albeit with a delay in some cases. It was printed according to a "contingency plan" at Tamedia in Zurich; from there it's sent by truck to Basel. On the other hand, the part of the print run that was sent by mail - about one tenth - was completely cancelled.

72 print shop employees facing dismissal
 
From April, the Baz will be printed by Tamedia anyway, because BZM is closing its own printing plant at the end of March for profitability reasons (Werbewoche.ch reported). This affects 96 employees, 72 of whom are to be laid off. Preparations for this printing job are already underway, so Tamedia was able to take over at short notice during the strike. Incidentally, the strike also affected a partial run of the Coop newspaper, which is printed by BZM. This should have a delay of a good six hours on the usual production and distribution schedule - normally this paper is in mailboxes on Tuesdays. (SDA)