The two companies worked together to find ways to bring together the vibrant cinema experience with the need for easy-to-book advertising. 

The result is a booking platform on Galaxus: Contact packages for 19 cities throughout Switzerland, in increments of 5,000 from 5,000 to 55,000 within 5 weeks, can now be purchased on Galaxus like vouchers and redeemed via WerbeWeischer Schweiz. One chooses online how many contacts one would like to reach and books the suitable package in addition. At an all-in price, which also includes the usual provision costs.

The offering is primarily intended to complement the local and regional market. All previous offerings, which include personal advice, will remain in full force. 

"The start-up drive is clearly noticeable".

"In some cases, we had to really turn familiar thoughts and approaches on their head in order to arrive at an offer that could be automated, as the digital world demands," says Christof Kaufmann, CEO of WerbeWeischer Schweiz.

He and his Head of Digital Cinema, Fredi D'Acierno, were correspondingly "tingly": "It was a real start-up feeling. All the more so because we had the impression that our partners at Digitec Galaxus, despite all the success of their company, are as fresh as they were at the very beginning.

Cinema also "a new dimension" for Digitec Galaxus

The enthusiasm is mutual, as Stefan Fraude, Head of Cateqory Management at Digitec Galaxus, confirms: "The fact that the inherently somewhat complex and elaborate purchase of cinema advertising can be made online in a modular and simple way in the shortest possible time for the SME target group was both new and exciting for us as Digitec Galaxus."

The idea grew out of the ongoing exchange, as Digitec Galaxus has been one of the most active cinema advertisers in Switzerland for some time.

In this year's TV commercial, Elfred and two other elves check the Christmas decorations in all the houses when they make a shocking discovery. One of the houses has not been decorated. Apparently the residents have been disturbed while putting up the decorations, because boxes of Christmas baubles and a bare Christmas tree are standing by. Suddenly, the trio encounter a stork, which throws the elves out of the house.

And it's immediately clear why they haven't decorated: The family has a new addition and therefore has its hands full. The stork is the self-appointed protector of the newborn and doesn't make things easy for the elves. They want to save the family's Christmas, which first leads them to the Manor department store.  

The inspiration for the story was last year's Manor Christmas TV ad, which went viral with over six million views and landed at number one in the top 10 YouTube commercials in Switzerland. The 2018 TV ad broke the record set by the 2017 advertising video, which had already achieved 5 million views. Even back then, the Christmas elves proved to be a crowd favorite and Elfred was chosen as the protagonist on this basis. 

40 specialists from various areas of film and numerous animation techniques were used to realize the new 2019 TV commercial. This year, Manor worked with advertising agency BETC Shopper and production company Passion Paris for more than seven months to develop the idea for the plot and the individual characters. 

Elfred and all the Christmas elves were created by Peter de Sève. The award-winning illustrator and character designer for animated films also developed characters for the movies Finding Nemo and Ice Age. The other characters in the film were created by director Kevin Grady.

Since Thursday, the animated film can be seen on TV in a length of 30 and 25 seconds and in Swiss cinemas in a length of two minutes. The uncut version is shown on Manor's social media channels.

Under the slogan "For a strong business community in the canton of Zug", an attractive digital platform is to be created for Zug's business community. The aim of the campaign is to actively reach out to the people of Zug and generate broad awareness throughout the canton. Added value and a modern and interactive image will be developed. 

The campaign starts on Friday and ends in August 2020. Landing page of the trade association new content will be uploaded on an ongoing basis. The campaign will culminate at the beginning of March 2020, when a cantonal poster campaign will be launched.

Content elements will be published on the trade association's social media channels for the entire duration of the campaign. "This will be the first major campaign by a Swiss trade association to be developed over such a period. All communication options will be used, whether online or offline. It is crucial that the people of Zug can interact with the campaign," comments campaign manager Flavio Niederhauser. 

At the center is the key visual, which is derived from a cherry tree. The cherry tree is a universal symbol in the canton of Zug and expresses strength, sustainability and individuality. These attributes are also intended to stand for business in the canton of Zug. In addition, elements from the industry hang on the tree instead of cherries.

The Swiss advertising market is not resting. Now Heimat Zürich has also gone on a buying spree. With the Farmer purchase, the young agency is positioning itself for the changing needs in an increasingly dynamic market. "We have noticed that the hunger in the agency is growing. This is legitimate and only logical if work is done well and a lot." Immediately it was clear: As an agile agency without grain silos, they wanted and would do something about it.

The purchase was preceded by brief but intensive talks (one was hungry, after all), in which alternatives were considered and factors such as time to market (Wengihof or Limmatplatz?) were discussed. The purchase is made in full transparency: "We paid for it, the receipt can be seen at our office, and we charged the funds that flowed as agency expenses."

For the time being, that's a good thing; people at Helvetiaplatz are fed up for today. The future will show everything else. It's quite possible that further purchases will be made soon - you just have to go with your gut.
 

Council of States member Josef Dittli (FDP/UR) inquired. In Germany, Federal Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer wants to give security authorities access to standard end-to-end encrypted chats and phone calls, he said. He wanted to know from the Federal Council whether this was also an issue in Switzerland.

In its response published on Thursday, the Federal Council writes that it is aware of the risks of encryption technologies for internal security and law enforcement. These severely limit the possibilities for surveillance.

However, this does not make it impossible. With the use of special IT programs - also known as state Trojans - programs could be smuggled onto the device to be monitored and data from encrypted messenger services could be made accessible in readable form. IT forensics could also be used to collect data directly from seized devices.

Thanks to these possibilities, it is ensured that the security authorities have access to encrypted communications in the cases provided for by law, writes the Federal Council. The use of special IT programs must be approved by a court.

At the same time, the Federal Council states that citizens and the economy are dependent on efficient protection technologies to protect their data in digital communication. Encryption technologies are also important for law enforcement and intelligence services. (SDA)

After the Farmer takeover by Heimat (Advertising week reported), the next surprise is already coming: PAM is buying Heimat. "We are aware that this acquisition is also more smoke and mirrors and will probably lead to smoking heads," say the new owners Sheik Fareed and Pfister.

Due to the Farmer acquisition, the home purchase price quadrupled within a few hours, an increase usually only seen in Bitcoin scenarios.

Caritas works for people affected by poverty in Switzerland: Single parents, the unemployed, the working poor, families. In this country, too, there are children, for example, who grow up in difficult circumstances and receive too little attention and support.

The reasons for this are manifold and range from a tight family budget to language difficulties and psychological stress on the parents. For these children, Caritas is looking for godparents who regularly spend time with them and accompany them on a stage of their lives, as well as donors who support this project.

Serviceplan draws attention to this concern by placing irritating playground equipment in the parks of community centers in cooperation with Caritas and Aroma. Equipment that can actually only be used with a playmate was cut in half. The idea was to make it possible to experience how a child feels who has to play alone because no one has time for him or her. Those who looked at the half seesaws and ping-pong tables up close could read the resolution on a plaque that links to more background information on the website.

Since Friday, Caritas has been sharing the dramatization of unmet children's needs in short clips on social media as well as in print ads. The campaign already generated attention on the day of installation, and the clips and ads are intended to lead to more sponsorships, donations and happy children.

Daniela Iacono takes over the function as Key Account Manager. The sales focus is on the outstream video and display format inRead, which Teads launched in 2011 and which has since established itself worldwide as the de facto standard for video advertising outside of video streams. Iacono was most recently Key Account Manager at Watson News and previously gathered her expertise at Goldbach Media, among others.

The Ad Operations team is strengthened with Simona Donkova. Donkova took over the role of Campaign Manager at the beginning of November, where she will use her very solid and extensive expertise in the field of ad operations. Most recently, she worked at Adello as Operations Manager, where she was responsible for setting up and optimizing mobile advertising campaigns. 
 

It became very clear in October that the majority of Sunrise shareholders were not behind the capital increase to finance the CHF 6.3 billion acquisition of UPC, said Sunrise CEO Olaf Swantee on Wednesday. For this reason, Sunrise had called off the extraordinary general meeting required to finance the purchase at the last minute on October 22.

And now comes the next step: "Last night we terminated the purchase agreement," said Swantee: "The deal proposed by management to our shareholders is dead. It no longer exists." This means that yet another attempt to form a stronger challenger to industry leader Swisscom in the Swiss telecoms market has failed. Nine years ago, the Swiss Federal Competition Commission (ComCo) prohibited the planned merger of Sunrise and Orange on competition grounds. However, the cartel watchdog had no objections to Sunrise's acquisition of UPC.

Liberty leaves the door open

Liberty Global regretted the termination of the purchase agreement in a statement on Wednesday night. However, the UPC parent company is hoping for a new deal for its Swiss cable network subsidiary. "We look forward to continuing our discussions with the Sunrise Board of Directors or Sunrise's major shareholder Freenet about a potential transaction," said Liberty CEO Mike Fries. Such a takeover would bring considerable added value to shareholders and Swiss consumers. However, the head of the world's largest cable network group would have to convince the major German Sunrise shareholder Freenet, which holds around a quarter of the second-largest Swiss telecoms provider, to do so. Freenet was at the forefront of the opposition to the UPC purchase. Company boss Christoph Vilanek criticized the purchase price and the necessary capital increase of CHF 2.8 billion as being too high. The structure of the deal was also disadvantageous for Sunrise shareholders.

In addition, he no longer saw the strategic sense of the takeover. Because of the new 5G generation of mobile communications, it was not worth buying the UPC cable network for so much money. Spending CHF 6.3 billion on it was "madness", Vilanek explained.

It remains to be seen how Liberty intends to bring about a change of opinion at Freenet. No statements have yet been available from either company. "We are looking at value enhancement opportunities for our shareholders if they come to our table," said Sunrise CFO André Krause: "But at the moment this is hypothetical and speculative."

Sunrise focuses on going it alone

Sunrise's top management is now concentrating on going it alone. "It's all about Sunrise now. We are focusing on our plan for 2020," said CEO Swantee. The results for the third quarter show that Sunrise is making good progress.

But certain adjustments need to be made to the strategy of going it alone. "In an increasingly competitive environment, we need to consider where we need to improve and where we need to invest further," said Swantee.

When asked about the possible departure of Chairman of the Board of Directors Peter Kurer following the failure of the deal with UPC, Swantee said: "Kurer is a very strong Chairman of the Board of Directors. Under his leadership and the leadership of the management, we have managed to position Sunrise extremely strongly in the Swiss market. We are gaining market share quarter after quarter. The management will continue to support Peter Kurer," said Swantee.

Meanwhile, business at Sunrise is running smoothly, even though the management had been busy with the UPC purchase for months. Despite the steep one-off costs of 120 to 125 million Swiss francs for breaking off the deal, the cash registers were ringing in the summer.

In the first nine months, Sunrise was able to increase its operating profit before depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) by a good three percent. Net profit even shot up by more than half. However, only CHF 27 million of the one-off costs are included in the accounts. (SDA/AWP)

The Liechtenstein-based company is regarded as a competent partner for all construction professionals. Rosarot's campaign aimed to have foremen on Swiss construction sites in particular test the reciprocating saw in the Hilti Store and thus convince themselves of its enormous benefits.

Wanted: Swiss reciprocating saw master

The key visual called for people to become Swiss reciprocating saw champions in a competition at the POS. Whoever sawed through all the materials the fastest won a reciprocating saw. For the campaign, Rosarot created both online and offline measures such as social media ads from Stories, animated link ads, and POS posters, as well as flyers and stickers to accompany the orders for the construction sites. In addition, the agency created content for the landing page, on which all important information about the product was shown.

According to the study, stores and online stores in Germany generated 512% more sales during this shopping period last year than in the previous week. This figure is significantly lower in the USA (211%) and the UK (191%). In addition, sales generated in Germany on the corresponding Friday in 2018 were twice as high as on the Cyber Weekend, which was also driven by discounts.

Cell phones are very popular

Germans bought cell phones and other electronic devices by far the most. This product category accounted for almost 62% of all sales in the 2018 Black Friday period. Clothing followed far behind with just under 14%. The situation is much more balanced in the USA and the UK, where both categories accounted for just under 30% each.

Young people in particular jump on Black Friday

In terms of the demographics of the shopper groups, the survey shows that in Germany it was mainly younger people who spent money during the Black Friday sales. Around 85% of shoppers were aged 45 or under and almost a quarter of them were aged between 18 and 24. The ratio between men (approx. 51 percent) and women (approx. 49 percent) was fairly balanced here, while in the UK (65 percent) and the USA (60 percent) more women than men shopped on Black Friday.

Meanwhile, there were no significant peak times or last-minute rushes in any of the three countries surveyed. From 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., i.e. also during the core working hours of many potential customers, the share of total sales was fairly constant at between four and six percent.

Andreas Fruth, Managing Director of the Global Savings Group, explains: "The Black Friday shopping period has quickly become one of the most important shopping events in Germany. The extent to which Germans spend money on this occasion has also surprised us. To prevent customers from feeling overwhelmed by the amount of discounts, it is all the more important for brands and retailers to generate the highest possible reach for their own offers and create a seamless customer experience." 
 

The building services engineering profession in Switzerland suffers from a rather low profile, an image that needs improvement and a resulting shortage of apprentices. For some years now, Suissetec has been making targeted efforts to change this. On the one hand, communication is aimed directly at students looking for apprenticeships and, on the other, at influencers such as the students' teachers and parents.

In the new spot, fast-paced images show how building services engineers use water, energy, heat and air to bring houses to life. In this way, the work of building technicians is meaningfully charged and positioned as promising for the future. At the end of the film, reference is made to the open apprenticeship program. The spot is currently being broadcast as a video ad in a version optimized for online use and will also be shown on TV from 2020.

With these two communication tracks, both target groups should be addressed and picked up optimally in their tonality. The goal of the image film is to enhance the value of building technology on a symbolic level.

Apprentice communications are faster and more direct. The short performance and social media ads serve as feeders for Top-apprenticeships.ch. A competition is intended to generate additional traffic on the apprenticeship portal. Those who are interested in the building services engineering professions in greater depth can find out more from the entertaining professional films and arrange a trial apprenticeship directly.