"He and his team have impressed with the professionalism and passion with which they have implemented their creative ideas in the show," Tom Schmidlin, head of development and comedy at SRF, was quoted as saying in a statement Wednesday. "For that, we thank them very much." There will certainly be opportunities to meet the ensemble members again in one form or another, he added.

Despite all the praise, SRF could not be satisfied with the format. The Sunday evening show had poor ratings. Most recently, the show still had around 15 percent market share. Its first season was even more popular, reaching ratings of just under 30 percent. (SDA)
 

The money is to be paid out in a lump sum to around 3.7 million households - if Parliament approves the procedure, in 2021. At the beginning of the consultation process, it was still assumed that 3.4 million households would be eligible. On Wednesday, the Federal Council adopted the dispatch on the legal basis required for the payment.

Maximum 185 million francs

The background to this are rulings by the Federal Supreme Court and pressure from parliament. In April 2015, the judges in Lausanne ruled that VAT may not be levied on reception fees. In 2018, they ruled that the federal government must pay back the taxes levied between 2010 and 2015.

The Federal Council intends to repay a maximum of CHF 185 million, CHF 20 million more than originally planned. Based on the consultation process, it is taking into account 5% interest on arrears for two years, which amounts to CHF 17 million. There is also a reserve of CHF 3 million in case the number of beneficiaries increases.

This had already been the case since the start of the consultation and up to the adoption of the dispatch: the draft for the consultation still mentioned 3.4 million households that were to receive the refund. Based on a current estimate, however, the figure is now 3.7 million households.

However, thanks to the inclusion of interest on arrears, the credit per household remains at CHF 50 despite the higher number of recipients. The Federal Council wants to reimburse the money as a lump sum. This means that households do not have to actively register and there is no need to clarify complex and costly individual cases, writes the Federal Council.

Not for companies

The Federal Council does not consider it appropriate to refund the wrongly levied VAT to companies. Most companies would have been able to deduct the input tax and would not have suffered any economic losses as a result. The others could register their claim directly with the Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM).

In total, companies paid around CHF 5 million in value-added tax on reception fees between 2010 and 2015. Only five of the 43 participants in the consultation would have demanded a refund to businesses. Parliament, however, has spoken out in favor of this, with the referral of a motion by National Councillor Sylvia Flückiger (SVP/AG). (SDA)

ViznerBorel says: Thank you "Köbi". With these words, the Zurich agency would also like to express its respect for Jakob "Köbi" Kuhn. For his great sporting career, but above all for his human and integrative personality in society. Jakob "Köbi" Kuhn was and remains a role model beyond all borders, says ViznerBorel. The film was shot during the 2008 European Championships for a Denner production, realized by Manifesto Films. The music was composed by Endo Anacondca from Stiller Has.

This is also in view of the coming year, which will see three major events - the European Football Championships, the Summer Olympics and the Ice Hockey World Championship in Zurich. Adrian Sutter will be Radio 1's first Head of Sports. The 41-year-old has been part of the extended editorial team for over five years as news anchor, producer and editor. He takes over the post of Head of Sports in addition to his existing duties.

"We are happy to have found this solution. Adrian has excellent sports knowledge and incredible drive, and will certainly take us a step further in planning coverage of sporting events," says Radio 1 Editor-in-Chief Jan Vontobel in a statement.

From December, Elena Wagen will also be joining the editorial team at Radio 1. Wagen, who holds a doctorate in law, has spent the last five years working at local TV station Tele Top as a VJ, presenter and, most recently, deputy program director. She will work at Radio 1 as a news editor and feature producer and replaces Nadine Landert, who is leaving the station at the end of the year.

As Head of Marketing and Communications, Achill Prakash and his team have set new standards in marketing communications with projects such as #myprivatepicasso or the first Swisscom Original series "Clash," Swisscom writes in a statement. Over the past two years, Prakash has successfully organized Swisscom's marketing organization according to agile principles. 

"Achill has set new impulses at Swisscom and has implemented innovative communication models as well as a fundamentally new media strategy, both of which are successful on the market," explains Marc Werner, Head of Sales & Services and member of the Group Executive Board. The nomination of the new management will take place in the coming weeks.

Picture: Mood Media/Shutterstock

The study shows that sensory marketing can lead to a ten percent increase in sales. In addition, shoppers spend an average of six minutes longer in the store if a pleasant shopping atmosphere is created using digital signage, sound and scent.

"We know that a pleasant atmosphere is decisive for 78 percent of shoppers when it comes to the question of whether they prefer to shop in-store or online. In the neurological study with Walnut Unlimited, we now wanted to investigate which individual factors in sensory marketing have what influence on customer behavior," says Scott Moore, Global CMO at Mood Media. "If sensory elements are given strategic priority when designing and setting up a store, this has an immediate positive effect on the emotional state of customers. And this leads to directly measurable effects." 

Evidence of the positive influence of sensory marketing

• Customers buy more products (increase of four percent) - and higher-priced products (on average, the value of goods increases by six percent) when sensory marketing is used.
• The use of fragrances is very effective, for example, when it emphasizes certain areas in the store. In the football department of Intersport, for example, the emotional level of visitors increased by 28 percent when a special fragrance concept was used there.
• The use of fragrance also led to a 26 percent increase in sales in the football department of the test store (compared to sales in the corresponding departments of the other stores).
• Eye-tracking studies (ET) show that attention to digital in-store screens increases by five percent when videos and moving images are displayed instead of static images.
• GSR (Galvanic Skin Response) measurements show that customers become restless when sensory elements are missing in the store. 17 percent of shoppers feel significantly less comfortable in an unusually quiet and stimulus-free shopping environment.
• Consumers like to look at themselves. The authors of the study describe this effect as the "science of narcissism". GSR and ET measurements show that shoppers' nervous systems are significantly stimulated when they can look at themselves in the mirror and interact with the products there.
• Customers' emotional reactions increase by 50 percent when they can touch products and engage with them. These results underline how important bricks-and-mortar retail is for the shopping experience.

"We will continue to ensure that we offer our customers an impressive and sustainable customer experience in our stores as part of our omnichannel strategy," says Chris Kleine, Director Design & Development at IIC-Intersport Intl Corp. "The study clearly shows how important sensory elements are in creating an emotionally positive environment in the store and thus ensuring that customers are happy to return."

Barbara Loop and Kerstin Hasse (from left) complete Annabelle's editorial team.

"I am convinced that, as a strongly positioned editorial team, we can Annabelle successfully into the new decade," says Jacqueline Krause-Blouin. Kerstin Hasse has been working at Annabelle since 2016. Initially, she worked as a volunteer in the reportage department, and in 2017 she was given a permanent position as online editor. In summer 2019, she took over as online director of Annabelle.ch. Previously, the 29-year-old MAZ graduate worked as head of department for the Bündner Tagblatt and as a freelance journalist for, among others, the Tages-Anzeiger, SRF and The magazine. "I am looking forward to this challenge and to the trust placed in me by Jacqueline Krause-Blouin and Medienart. The Annabelle brand is also to be strengthened digitally in the future, and I am very pleased to implement this vision."

Barbara Loop also joined the company in 2012 as a trainee reporter. Annabelle and has worked as an editor in the Lifestyle department since 2014. From January to May 2019, the 36-year-old took over as Lifestyle Director of the magazine during Jacqueline Krause-Blouin's maternity leave. A sociologist by training, she graduated with a diploma in journalism from the MAZ. She is the mother of two children. "I am convinced that the interaction between lifestyle topics and socio-political reportage will make the Annabelle unique and corresponds more than ever to the reality of life for modern, self-confident women."

The position of Editor-in-Chief was already filled at the beginning of the month with Jacqueline Krause-Blouin (Werbewoche.ch reported). The 33-year-old had already headed the women's magazine on an interim basis since August of this year.

The editorial team of Mis Magazine has devised an unusual guerrilla marketing campaign to gain additional reach with the 20 poster sites in the Bern-Thun region. For the cross-media campaign "Love it? Tag it!" cross-media campaign, the editorial team provoked people on Facebook and Instagram with calls such as "Scribbling allowed!" or "License to scribble granted". They encouraged their community to immortalize their own statements about the Swiss lifestyle magazine for design lovers and connoisseurs on one of the posters. Some of the posters even had pens dangling from them for this purpose. 

Courage to help shape the community

The poster motifs already contained printed comments in handwriting (tags), which was intended to lower the inhibition threshold for "scribbling". Aware that there was a risk that young "scribblers" in particular would see this as an invitation, the campaign began - and the graffiti was limited.

The editorial team pulled the strings in the background and activated its creative network to fuel the campaign and avoid having to rely on social content. Artists from the region used the posters as canvases for free design.

An unusual advertising campaign with the aim of gaining subscribers was created with targeted staging, implemented by creatives from the lifestyle magazine's network.

Tenfold increase in subscriptions

The aim of the cross-media campaign was both to promote the new issue and to gain subscribers. In the campaign period of 14 days alone, the number of subscribers increased tenfold. Because Mis Magazine wants to achieve the turnaround from a free to a paid medium: Since 2013, the company has Mis Magazine distributed free of charge to up to 113,000 households from Berne to Thun.

From the current winter edition onwards, this will change: "We have sharpened our content profile - and Mis Magazine into a Swiss lifestyle magazine for design lovers and connoisseurs. It is simply too high quality to reach an unspecific target group for free," explains editor-in-chief Daniela Dambach. 

The five-member editorial team is convinced that existing readers are willing to pay CHF 42 for an annual subscription. Furthermore Mis Magazine on exclusive partnerships and a strong supporter network.

According to the information provided, the major shareholder is demanding in particular that the initiation of a special audit on strategy be put on the agenda. It is also concerned with the disclosure of accounts and the amendment of the Articles of Association.

The group represented by AMG fulfills the requirements to be able to request an extraordinary general meeting, the statement continued. According to the official information, the fund itself most recently held 9.91 percent of the shares.

The Board of Directors of the MCH Group is now examining the requests and will provide information on how to proceed before Christmas.

"Not at all in agreement"

The move comes as no surprise. At the weekend, AMG owner Erhard Lee said in an interview with The Market announced such a request. This is because he "does not agree at all" with the new strategy.

The trade fair operator announced in September that it was examining the sale of its service business. Specifically, this relates to the "Live Marketing Solutions" division, which offers strategy consulting and the construction of trade fair pavilions, among other things.

"On the contrary, we are of the opinion that MCH Group needs to expand the 'Live Marketing Solutions' division," explained AMG CEO Lee in an interview. "This business has simply not been managed properly so far."

In the interview, Lee described the new strategy as a "purely political decision". Political representatives, who made up the majority of the MCH Board of Directors, had decided that the use of the exhibition halls should be secured first and foremost. "Otherwise, the city of Basel in particular would have a problem," said Lee. (SDA)
 

Users who have not used their accounts for more than six months have been receiving emails since Tuesday evening asking them to log in with their profile data by December 11. Otherwise, their account names (such as @Twitter) will become available to others again. It is not necessary to actively tweet - a registration is sufficient.

But that doesn't mean you can go hunting for freed-up account names anytime soon. Deleting the profiles will take some time, a Twitter spokesperson told technology blog The Verge. It is unclear what will happen to profiles of users who have died. Twitter does not have a function to memorialize accounts of people who have died, as is the case with Facebook, for example. However, a solution for this is being considered, the spokesperson said.

The cleanup could also make attempts to manipulate public opinion with the help of fake profiles more difficult. According to IT security experts, one approach taken by the Russian-directed campaigns in the course of the 2016 US presidential election was to reactivate large numbers of accounts set up years ago. (SDA)

The current TV spot a happy couple with vital charisma on a sunny autumn day. "It was important to us that the couple fulfilled the client's desired criteria in a fitting environment," said Remo Civatti, Managing Director of Silverspot, and Nicolas Vonlanthen, Creative Director of Silverspot.

The spot will be broadcast for the first time on TeleZüri at the beginning of December.

The #MachEmolEnPunkt campaign has two objectives: On the one hand, it is intended to provide targeted help to people who use drugs and their relatives, and on the other, to draw attention to the work of the St. Gallen Addiction Aid Foundation. The central idea behind #MachEmolEnPunkt is to encourage self-reflection. The provocative questions and statements are formulated in dialect and address those affected and their immediate environment at eye level. The campaign, which has been running in the city and region of St. Gallen since Tuesday, draws attention to cocaine addiction and the associated consequences in several waves. It will conclude in April at OFFA 2020, the spring trade fair in St. Gallen, in the form of a special exhibition.

To achieve these goals, all of the typeface elements for the purely typographic and black and white campaign were composed of photographed cocaine. This suggests the consumption of the white powder and leaves the impression of authenticity. The uninterrupted flow of speech typical of cocaine consumption is simulated in the messages by means of closely spaced spaces without punctuation.

The campaign uses a series of posters and advertisements with seven different questions and statements, involving the foundation's networking partners such as schools. In addition to the animation for cinemas, online banners, the foundation's own website and giveaways such as postcards and beer mats are also used.

Jürg Niggli, Managing Director of Stiftung Suchthilfe St. Gallen: "We are convinced that we have found the right appearance with the right, target-oriented methods for the campaign. The Brandkitchen team impressed us right from the start with their creative and fresh ideas. It was important to us to address not only people who consume, but also their immediate environment. It was great to see how Brandkitchen understood this and put their heart and soul into not only the concept but also the implementation. We now hope that our phones are ringing off the hook and would like to thank Brandkitchen for the great collaboration."