"Diverse and challenging cultural reporting in all parts of the country is part of SRG's core mission," the SSM wrote in a statement Tuesday. The Swiss Radio and Television Company SRG has a performance, supply and promotion mandate in the cultural sector and must also serve an audience outside the mainstream.

SRG is submitting to market logic and is making large-scale savings in cultural reporting in all parts of the country. In French-speaking Switzerland, the redesign of the cultural radio station Espace 2 was already completed last spring. The former culture station now broadcasts music. Audio and video contributions are increasingly found online.

According to SSM, the same is happening to the culture channel Rete Due in Italian-speaking Switzerland. The "Lyra" project that has been launched envisages a radical realignment of the cultural offering. Word contributions are to be significantly reduced and background broadcasts cut back.

At SRF Kultur, too, there was no end to the cutbacks. Other programs such as "Nachtflug" and "Fiori Musicali" on Radio SRF 2 would be canceled, would have to realign themselves and, like "Kulturplatz" and "DOK" on TV-SRF 1, would receive less funding. According to SSM, the cutbacks associated with the company-wide development of online formats are causing great uncertainty among employees.

According to the SSM, culture holds society together and is more important than ever. However, cultural production in Switzerland is in the greatest crisis in decades. The SSM considers it devastating that SRG is now further weakening the Swiss cultural scene by cutting qualified cultural reporting. (SDA)

Demand for dynamic video ads, especially on internet-enabled TV devices, has risen sharply at Zattoo in the past year. More than 90 million video ads were played on its own platform via connected TVs in 2020. Demand for the Dynamic Ad Substitution (DAS) advertising format used by Zattoo was particularly high, as the TV streaming provider writes in a press release. The proportion of TV advertising played via DAS rose from 10% in 2019 to over 80% in 2020.

The number of participating TV channels where the dynamic video ads are played via connected TVs has more than doubled in the last year. In addition, Zattoo is recording continuously growing usage on connected TVs. Already 60 percent of Zattoo users stream their TV via an internet-enabled TV set - and the trend is rising. As a result, the advertising space available for dynamic video ads on Zattoo increased significantly in 2020.

"The positive developments in our advertising business show that there is great demand for our advertising formats despite coronavirus, especially on connected TVs," says Oliver Knappmann, Chief Sales Officer at Zattoo. "On the one hand, this is of course due to the increase in TV consumption last year. On the other hand, it is also due to the enormous potential and increasing relevance of dynamic video ads, which more and more advertisers are discovering for themselves. TV advertising that is exchanged using DAS not only offers better performance, but is also fully programmatic and can be booked automatically in small quantities. This also makes it interesting for advertisers who would otherwise not be able to afford TV advertising."

High demand due to better performance

According to figures from the TV streaming provider, the high demand for dynamic video ads on internet-enabled TV devices is due to the better performance compared to conventional advertising formats. The completion rate for video ads on connected TVs is around 97%. On other devices, this rate is only around 73%.

In the last two quarters, Zattoo ran an average of more than 200 different campaigns via DAS. Since Zattoo started using this technology on behalf of the participating TV broadcasters a few years ago, a significant amount has already been distributed to these TV broadcaster partners.

As part of its promise of "Next Generation Fundraising," the agency puts Fundtastic its focus on "digital first," but also works all other channels with a 360-degree communications approach. Fundtastic came into being because Sibylle Spengler, as a marketing director and NGO employee, has always missed services that combine fundraising with digital transformation in an overarching way.

"For years, I've been grappling with how organizations can use new strategies to address today's social and environmental crises. With Fundtastic, we can do this even more consistently - together with the organizations that are open to this change," says Sibylle Spengler, explaining her move from the NGO to the agency side.

Spengler has worked for various organizations in fundraising, marketing and communications in Switzerland and Colombia for over 25 years, including the last 10 years as a member of the executive board. She is also president of Swissfundraising.ch.

Entrepreneur Markus Wanner, together with Nicolas Schibler, has detached Trade Marketing Intelligence TMI from Migros with a management buyout. Nicolas Schibler is the digital, transformative head of Fundtastic with his experience from his executive positions at PKZ Burger-Kehl & Co., Micasa, MGB and Thalia Buchhandel.

Michael Gassler is an advertising and communications expert with a heart for brand management and integrated communications. He has worked in leading positions at agencies such as Advico Young & Rubicam and Exxtra Kommunikation.

Valentine Vogel has been working in fundraising for as long as her colleague Sibylle Spengler. She has worked for various fundraising organizations, but also knows the agency world's field of activity very well. She has been working as an independent consultant for many different organizations for about 10 years.

Fundtastic combines the fundraising and communications experience from the NGO world of Sibylle Spengler and Valentine Vogel with the marketing and digital competencies of Nicolas Schibler, Michael Gassler and Markus Wanner from the retail sector. In this way, the agency will benefit from the close cooperation and resources with Trade Marketing Intelligence TMI and will be able to support NGOs and NPOs with a wide range of services.

Since 1981, Air Prishtina has been connecting Kosovo, Northern Macedonia and Montenegro with numerous European metropolises. Flights to the popular vacation destinations Ohrid and Podgorica can now also be booked on the Air Prishtina website.

To mark its 40th anniversary and the expansion of its route network, Branders has created a revamped brand and communications identity for Air Prishtina. "The design refresh ensures a consistent, recognizable and modern look and feel of our brand, especially in digital and social media," said Leyla Ibrahimi-Salahi, Board President and CEO of Air Prishtina.

The redesigned logo gives the striking eagle a distinctive and calmer appearance and is accented by a contemporary typeface. The shape acts as inspiration for the new design element of the Air Prishtina wave, which is intended to provide a distinctive look in the digital presence.

A newly designed imagery shows the natural treasures and landscapes of Air Prishtina's destinations and authentic, emotional travel moments. Desaturated colors create a calm color climate and strengthen consistency and recognition in the appearance.

The government wants to strengthen Swiss film with an amendment to the Film Act. The National Council agreed in principle, but reduced the quota proposed by the Federal Council from 4 to 1 percent.

The majority of the WBK-S wants to follow the Federal Council, as the parliamentary services announced on Tuesday. The decision was made by 8 votes to 4 with one abstention. A minority proposes to set the tax rate at 2 percent.

The WBK-S also unanimously opposes the National Council's decision to exempt companies that operate networks or invest in networks from the obligation to invest in filmmaking. The Council of States committee has not yet completed detailed deliberations on the film law.

The Federal Council's bill also provides for the introduction of a quota for European films. As in the EU, 30 percent of the film catalog of video platforms is to be reserved for European films. (SDA)

Hybrid and virtual events have been the talk of the town since last year and are likely to remain so for some time to come. Even if the Corona pandemic is hopefully over soon, the advantages of such new event formats will not be forgotten so quickly and will change the event and congress industry in the long term. The Bern-based agency Newsroom Communication has been producing and designing livestreams for a wide variety of formats for many years. Since March 2020, the agency has already broadcast over 40 hybrid or purely virtual panels, discussions, conferences, webinars, press conferences, complete continuing education courses and many other events.

In order to meet this trend, the board of directors of Newsroom Communication will be strengthened by the addition of Bern congress sponsor Daniel Buser at the annual general meeting in March. Buser is a specialist in the field of dental implantology and has been instrumental in developing Bern into a leading medical location. As Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sitem-Insel, a modern competence center for translational medicine on the Insel campus, he is helping to promote the transition from medical research to practical applications. Daniel Buser is also Chairman of the Board of Directors of Kongress + Kursaal Bern AG. Thanks to his work, many international congresses and symposia have been brought to Bern in the past.

Buser will now also bring his extensive experience to Newsroom Communication and, as a new member of the board of directors, will ensure that the virtual implementation of congresses and other events in Bern remains innovative.

In concrete terms, invoiced sales fell by 42 percent to around 809 million Swiss francs, as the Group announced on Tuesday. If the positive impact of the acquisition of the online travel provider Vtours in 2019 is factored out, there is even a drop in sales of around 58 percent on a more comparable basis.

Hotelplan speaks of the "bleakest business result ever" and justifies this with the Corona crisis. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the travel industry has been deprived of almost the entire basis of its business. However, customers have been held harmless and all Corona-related repayments have been made.

Because of the ever-changing quarantine and other regulations imposed by governments, Hotelplan had to organize tens of thousands of return trips for customers, cancel trips or rebook flights.

According to Hotelplan, the 2019/20 fiscal year, which starts on November 1, was still off to a good start. With the Corona crisis, however, travel came to an abrupt halt in March and was only possible to a limited extent in the following months.

Financial support from Migros

According to Hotelplan, the drastic decline in sales as well as the repayment of customer funds led to the worst annual result in history. The Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund, as the owner, therefore had to come to the aid of the cash-strapped tour operator by securing liquidity.

All sub-segments of Hotelplan suffered. At 212 million Swiss francs, the Swiss tour operator Hotelplan Suisse achieved less than half the sales of the previous year, despite the expansion of vacation offers in Switzerland. Accordingly, branches were also closed and jobs cut.

A total of 425 of the Group's 2,277 jobs were eliminated, as already announced at the end of June. In Switzerland, this affected around 170 of just under 1,200 jobs. Two weeks ago, Hotelplan announced that 75 of 86 branches in Switzerland would be temporarily closed by the end of February.

Sales of the subsidiary in the UK and of the two business travel providers bta First Travel and Finass Reisen also fell by more than half in each case, as did those of the online travel provider Vtours.

Vacation apartments in demand in summer

By contrast, the vacation apartment broker Interhome held up better, with sales down by around 30 percent to 237 million. The easing of travel restrictions in the summer led to higher demand, particularly in the respective home countries, but this only partially compensated for the losses due to Corona.

According to Hotelplan, a forecast for the current 2020/21 financial year is hardly possible at present. However, the desire for vacations is there, as can be seen, for example, in the booking figures of Interhome, which are only slightly behind the previous year. Decisive factors for travel behavior include the success of vaccination strategies and general travel conditions worldwide. (SDA)

Mahler, who holds a doctorate in Business Administration from the University of Bayreuth, was most recently Managing Director Global Partnerships at Google, responsible for various countries in the EMEA region. Before that, he was VP Corporate Affairs & Business Development at Telefonica in Germany.

"With his wealth of experience, Alwin Mahler will be an important compass on the road to transforming Goldbach into a technology-driven marketing organization," Pietro Supino, publisher and TX Group president, was quoted as saying in the statement.

Under Supino, the Goldbach Board of Directors is thus composed of the following members in addition to Alwin Mahler: Jens Alder, who has returned to the Board after several years as Chairman, as well as Martin Kall, Konstantin Richter, Christoph Tonini, Samuel Hügli and Sandro Macciacchini.

"In the future, an algorithm will definitely actively recognize emotions based on a voice. An AI can learn a lot from a single individual. This makes it surprisingly easy for an algorithm to identify differences in emotional state. The question is how it responds. The system has to decide how to fulfill the user's wishes based on emotions alone," explains digitization expert Frank Eilers when asked by the news portal Press release.

According to the patent, the AI should even recognize the context in which Spotify is used, for example at a party or when users are alone at home. Spotify sees great potential in this feature to accurately assess users' music tastes without requiring any written input from them.

Many new Spotify patents

In addition to voice recognition, Spotify has also patented other applications in recent months. Among them is a karaoke feature that allows users to combine a piece of music with their own singing. Another future application is aimed at joggers and adjusts the speed of the music to the pace of running. (pte)

On Monday, Bernexpo Groupe announced that Tom Winter will become the new director of Bernexpo. He will take up his post on March 1, replacing Jennifer Somm, who announced in October that she would be leaving the Bern-based trade fair organizer (Werbewoche.ch reported).

Bernexpo Groupe wants to further develop its core business with new, digital business areas. Tom Winter is to "swiftly drive forward" the necessary innovation processes, the company wrote in a statement on Monday.

Winter was deputy CEO of Globus Switzerland and director of UPC Retail, according to the statement. He also gained experience as head of sales and distribution for an international telecommunications group.

BEA will not take place in 2021 either

Bernexpo Groupe has also canceled this year's staging of the Bern Spring Trade Fair BEA. It already fell victim to the virus last year. The organizer justifies the cancellation with a lack of planning security. It wants to create clarity for all partners involved. The toy fair Suisse Toy, which was to have taken place at the same time as BEA, has also been cancelled. The next BEA is scheduled to take place between April 29 and May 8, 2022.

The BEA has been in existence since 1951 and is one of the largest public events in Switzerland, attracting around 300,000 visitors and 900 exhibitors every year. (swi/SDA)

KFC is currently represented in the Swiss market with eight restaurants and continues to expand. To raise awareness of the American company among the Swiss population, Serviceplan Suisse was commissioned with digital communications. In the first phase, the "Switzerland Secret" campaign was used to draw attention to the KFC brand essence - the best-kept recipe for chicken (Werbewoche.ch reported).

In phase two, KFC founder and mascot Colonel Harland Sanders shed his reserved manner: A profile of the Colonel was created on the target-group-relevant dating platform Tinder, where he revealed his secret preference for spicy chicken with a wink. Those who matched the Colonel received a voucher for a 2-for-1 promotion of the new Zinger Burger.

The KFC Tinder promotion was additionally supported on Facebook and, according to the agency, can also be seen in terms of numbers: 630,000 impressions, 45% unique message open rate, 7,44% engagement rate and a 16% unique click-through rate.

Since its launch in 2018, Julian Graf has been hosting the YouTube format "Zwei am Morge" together with his co-host Ramin Yousofzai. The 28-year-old from Winterthur is part of the format's founding team and can be seen as a figurehead on various social channels. Since 2019, the show has also been broadcast on SRF zwei. In the same year, Julian Graf was nominated for the Swiss Comedy Award together with Ramin Yousofzai.

Now Julian Graf has decided to leave SRF, the company writes in a statement. "The dynamic and wild format 'Zwei am Morge' gave me the unique opportunity to introduce SRF to new, young people. The encounters with the most diverse people, the spectacular filming locations and the insight into the world of public service was very formative for me and I cannot thank the entire team enough for the unforgettable time. After these multi-faceted years, I would now like to focus on my private and professional situation and invest all my resources there," Graf is quoted as saying in the statement.

The presenter was already seen in front of the camera for the last time for "Zwei am Morge" on December 31, 2020. The show returns from its winter break on Sunday with Ramin Yousofzai and sidekick Robin Pickis and will appear on the YouTube channel every Sunday for the time being. The recap studio show on Fridays and thus also the broadcast on SRF two will be cancelled until further notice. SRF will now focus intensively on the further development of the format's content and will provide information at a later date about what will happen next with "Zwei am Morge," the statement continues.