The proceedings at the SFOE are based on a complaint filed by Suissetec in February 2019, the association announced on Friday. The verdict against the Groupe E employees was handed down on November 18, 2020 and is now legally binding.

A spokeswoman for Groupe E confirmed the matter at the request of the Keystone-SDA news agency. The company had included a brief reference to the new online store of its subsidiary Groupe E plus on its electricity bills to companies and private individuals. Electrical appliances are sold there.

It was not the intention to gain a competitive advantage from the customer data, explained the media spokesperson. At no time were the employees involved aware that their actions could violate the applicable legal system.

Also active on the free market

Electricity suppliers in Switzerland still have a monopoly position in the private customer sector. In addition, they are usually also active on the free market in other business areas, including building technology.

The law prohibits companies from using address data from the monopoly sector for other purposes. The Suissetec association has repeatedly criticized the fact that its member companies do not have a level playing field in competition with state-owned electricity suppliers.

In its press release, the association therefore describes the SFOE's decision as a "milestone in the fight against distortions of competition by state-affiliated companies". In 2019, the SFOE already convicted and fined those responsible at Elektrizitätswerk des Kantons Schaffhausen (EKS) in a similar case.

Groupe E was created in 2005 from the merger of Fribourg Electricity Works (FEW) with Electricité Neuchâteloise SA (ENSA). (SDA)

"YouTube's triumph may be limited in time. After the Corona pandemic, screen time could decrease again. Success with content during this time depends on the target group. Younger users primarily want to belong to a community; they can be won over as very loyal viewers, which is also rewarded by the algorithm. Older users are especially looking for specific content that is useful to them, which is why search engine optimization is important here," YouTube marketing consultant Julian Banse explains to the news portal Press release.

The video game streaming platform YouTube Gaming has experienced particularly strong growth. Overall, users spent more than 100 billion hours streaming gaming. In general, streaming grew 45 percent in the first half of the year. During the Corona period, more than half a million channels offered such content for the first time. As a result, more than ten million new streams have been created.

More transparency in guidelines

According to YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, the platform wants to offer more transparency regarding its policies in the future. YouTube took a lot of criticism in 2020 for lack of clarity regarding bans and demonetization. The rules regarding the dissemination of misinformation were also not always understandable. Especially on the topic of vaccinations, YouTube wants to crack down harder on fake news. (pte)

In recent years, Engelberg has made a name for itself far beyond the country's borders as Switzerland's freeride Eldorado. Unfortunately, only a few Swiss know that Engelberg is the perfect place for many other alpine experiences.

With a communicative reorientation and a multi-year campaign, the image of Engelberg is to be sharpened and Swiss guests are to be inspired by the variety of offers in the valley: Anyone looking for the feeling of the perfect moment in the mountains will be happy in Engelberg. This is what mountain-loving Swiss people long for. That's why Engelberg is saying from this winter: "This is it."

The umbrella campaign developed by MRB captures precisely such moments as key visuals and moving images. Moments of alpine elation that make the viewer long for such moments of happiness.

During the launch phase in winter 2020/2021, "This is it" will be made tangible and established as a trenchant attitude to life for Engelberg. The winter campaign, which was launched in December 2020, includes posters and megaposters, advertisements and social media as well as a small collection of clothing. The second phase of the campaign begins with the 2021 summer season and will continue with "This is it".

Freicom was founded in December 1993 by Ruth and Reinhard Frei in Balgach as Reinhard Frei & Partner. Among the clients of the first hour were Sparkassa Berneck (today Alpha Rheintal Bank), the Swiss Petroleum Association (today Avenergy Suisse) and the suburb (today Economiesuisse). Through the takeover and re-founding of Rhema, Rheintalmesse, and the founding of the Rheintaler Wirtschaftsforum in 1995, the Rheintaler agency quickly became a permanent fixture in the PR and event sector in eastern Switzerland.

Time to cut back

In the marketing, PR and event sector, Freicom has been one of the leading agencies in eastern Switzerland for 27 years, managing and handling well-known national mandates. Among the agency's milestones were the project management of Eastern Switzerland's appearance at Expo.02, Aua Extrema, the founding of the Swiss SME Day and various business conferences, or the campaigns for EgoKiefer, Repower, Huber watches and jewelry and many other major clients. Now it is time for the two founders to step back and arrange their succession. For the event sector, a suitable successor has been found in the Galledia Group, based in Berneck, with whom Freicom can look back on many years of successful collaboration.

Galledia Group ideal for succession

With over twenty of its own publishing titles, Galledia Fachmedien is one of the most important specialist publishers in Switzerland. In addition to preparing qualified specialist information in print and digital, Galledia Fachmedien organizes industry-specific networking events for its target groups. With the takeover of the entire Freicom team and the renaming of Freicom Communications AG to Galledia Event AG, Galledia gains a lot of competence and experience in this field. This will be used to further expand the new event area for the entire Galledia Group, both offline and online, and to successfully continue Freicom's existing, established events in Galledia Event AG. The goal is to maintain the strong position in business conferences in German-speaking Switzerland and to build up new events.

Competence and continuity retained

Reinhard Frei and his daughter Alexandra Vorburger-Frei continue to make their know-how and many years of experience in the event sector available to Galledia Event: Reinhard Frei with a part-time job as managing director, Alexandra Vorburger-Frei as deputy managing director. Together with the proven Freicom team, this ensures that in addition to new Galledia Event projects, the existing major events such as the Rheintaler Wirtschaftsforum, the Wirtschaftsforum Thurgau or the Ostschweizer Personaltag can continue to be successfully carried out for the benefit of partners and participants. Reinhard Frei will continue to work as a communications consultant in addition to his Galledia part-time job and a mandate at Micarna.

"Scholz & Friends Zurich has shown us new ways, both strategically and creatively-conceptually, to successfully develop the Salt brand in the future. We are looking forward to the cooperation and many joint successes," Salt CEO Pascal Grieder was quoted as saying in a statement.

"As the second largest private telecom provider, Salt plays a key role in the Swiss market, not only in times of pandemic. To successfully develop the Salt brand with a view to its history, current role and future potential is a great task that we are very excited about," says Tobias Händler, CEO of Scholz & Friends Zurich.

Initial work will be published in spring 2021.

Chappuis and Moesch would take over their functions at the earliest possible date, but no later than the beginning of May or August. This was announced by Telebasel on Thursday. They will take the place of editor-in-chief Karin Müller and executive trustee Michael Bornhäuser, who left the station during the past year.

For Philippe Chappuis, the new position as editor-in-chief means a return to Telebasel, where the now 46-year-old had already worked as a producer and journalist at the beginning of his journalistic career, according to the statement. He later worked at Ringier TV and at SRF 4, where he was deputy editorial director. Today, Chappuis is SRF's TV correspondent for northwestern Switzerland.

A native of Basel, André Moesch had started his journalistic career in the region at Radio Basilisk in Basel and Radio Raurach in Liestal, among others. He later managed regional radio and TV programs in eastern Switzerland, first for the NZZ media group and then for CH Media. The 58-year-old current Head of Public Affairs at CH Media is also President of Telesuisse, the Swiss Regional Television Association. (SDA)

Is content marketing a winner from the Corona crisis? Certainly not the industry as a whole - but parts of it, individual providers, and the basic attitude of non-promotional communication that is able to implement complex topics for companies and communities of interest. The Best of Content Marketing Award 2021 is intended to show how well this has been achieved across the industry and who, in the opinion of an independent jury of experts, has done it best. In an additional category, any submitted project can be entered free of charge for this special award.

Whether the communication took place as an event, magazine, in social media or in the form of a podcast is irrelevant - in the approximately 80 categories of the BCM, every project finds the appropriate classification.

Company departments are addressed as submitters

Europe's largest content marketing competition is once again responding to developments and changes in the market this year and is adjusting the categories: In social media, the spectrum of entries has been further differentiated so that a distinction can now be made between social media campaigns, long-term community management and individual measures.

Likewise in strategy: Here, the competition is responding in particular to the increasing professionalization of content marketing activities on the corporate side. "Content Operations" is the name of the new category, which is intended to be an attractive submission option for corporate departments in particular. This is a topic that represents a major challenge for many companies: the organization of content marketing - be it as a newsroom, be it with the help of tools, be it in-sourced or out-sourced. Whoever solves this task with flying colors has the chance to be the winner of the new category.

Another important topic in content marketing - for companies and agencies alike - is content distribution. It, too, is given more space in BCM. Paid, earned, owned? How do the channels interact and how are the KPIs of a project achieved? In the category "Content Distribution", which is also assigned to the strategy, the best cases for this find their place.

Winning a Best of Content Marketing Award can be used for all marketing and acquisition measures by agencies and flows with an evaluation factor of 2 into the creative ranking of Horizon one.

The shopping center has more than eight million visitors per year, around 100 stores and an annual turnover of CHF 400 million. Since 2016, Balexert has been part of Neo Advertising's Digital Shopping Network offering.

Currently, the offer in Balexert includes 15 digital advertising spaces, so-called totems, placed at the neuralgic locations of the center to cover 100 percent of the visitor flow. Two oversized LED surfaces - branding zones - are located at each of the center's main entrances.

From July 1, 2021, the following advertising spaces will now be added. These include a new branding zone with an area of more than 60 square meters, placed in the heart of the central atrium, 21 classic poster sites outside the center, prominently placed on Geneva's main traffic routes, and also 54 backlit poster sites in the shopping center's parking garages, which are particularly well suited for long-term advertising campaigns.

At the world's highest revolving restaurant, the Allalin, a Cupra Formentor has recently been enthroned in the midst of the glacier landscape above Saas-Fee. The young Spanish car brand has chosen Saas-Fee as the setting for a spectacular brand presentation. Also on board with Amag Import are Saastal Bergbahnen as well as WWP Creative and Feratel Switzerland as the new OOH marketer in ski resorts.

"As a new ski area advertising marketer in Switzerland, it is very important for us to work together with brands such as Cupra to show that high-impact productions on the mountain at 3,500 meters above sea level are possible and have a great advertising impact," explains Moritz Weibel, Head of Advertising Market & Partner Market at Feratel Switzerland.

In Saas-Fee, the name of the new Cupra car brand cannot be overlooked: Various big posters in the ski resort and the Cupra branding of two cable car gondolas draw attention to the collaboration. A special attraction is to be the Cupra Challenge: Ambitious winter sports enthusiasts can compete all winter long on a professionally laid out giant slalom course equipped with a start house and timekeeping.

Extension of services

Feratel Switzerland is a subsidiary of Feratel Media Technologies. The Rotkreuz-based company has recently expanded its business activities. In addition to its core business around technologies and solutions for digital destination management, the company now also offers exclusive advertising space on the mountain in Switzerland.

The number of users also continued to rise, as the online network announced on Wednesday. At least once a month, 2.8 billion users came to Facebook - around 60 million more than a year earlier. Daily there were 1.84 billion after 1.82 billion in the final quarter of the previous year. In total, 3.3 billion users accessed at least one app from the Facebook group, such as Instagram or WhatsApp, every month.

Cautious outlook

Facebook nevertheless spoke of "significant uncertainties" in the future. During the coronavirus pandemic, the company had benefited from the general boost in online business. However, if this trend reverses, it will also slow the growth of Facebook's advertising revenue. In addition, the online network has already warned that in view of the rapid growth in the second half of 2020, there will foreseeably be lower growth in the current year.

Another factor of uncertainty is the situation surrounding the transfer of data from the European Union. Last summer, the European Court of Justice also overturned the new Privacy Shield agreement. (SDA)

Around 150,000 visitors in total visited the national park last summer, said communications manager Hans Lozza on Thursday in response to an inquiry from the park. In it, the administration writes that, thanks to a guest survey, it is now known how Covid-19 has affected tourism in the national park.

20 percent of the 1,200 people surveyed said that they would not have come to the national park region without the pandemic. Around half said that Covid-19 had played some or a major role in their decision to visit the region. The 21 to 40-year-olds in particular were more attracted to the Engadin countryside.

92 percent of visitors come from Switzerland. Normally, the proportion of foreign visitors in summer is around 20 percent. (SDA)

"Unfortunately, the solution could not establish itself on the market and thus could not be operated profitably. Docsafe will therefore be discontinued at the end of March 2021," a Swisscom spokeswoman said on Thursday when asked. Previously, the industry portal Inside-IT had reported.

Docsafe could already no longer be ordered since last August, the Swisscom spokeswoman said. Existing customers can use the full scope of services until the shutdown at the end of March 2021.

Not a full-fledged alternative

Swisscom launched Docsafe in 2014 to offer a Swiss competitor to Dropbox. Docsafe was intended to simplify the handling of documents for companies and their customers. Companies and private individuals should be able to store their documents centrally instead of keeping them on paper in various folders. Swisscom announced to the media at the time that customers would be able to access their documents from anywhere via cell phone, tablet or computer.

The "blue giant" wanted to work with third-party partners to build a digital network that would make it easier for everyone involved to receive, organize, securely archive and reuse documents. This apparently did not succeed.

As an alternative, Swisscom recommends its Mycloud offering, which offers similar functionalities. However, Mycloud does not offer a password manager service, as is the case with Docsafe, said a Swisscom spokesperson: "We cannot recommend a specific alternative. We don't offer a specific service for it." (SDA)