Marco Beccarelli joined AZ Media's digital unit in 2015 and played a key role in building it up. He is responsible for a large part of CH Media's online marketing, which today provides a growing and important share of sales for CH Media's digital business. The marketing strategy and organization of CH Media's portals is largely based on his know-how and expertise. With the founding of the CH Media joint venture, national marketing as well as large parts of the back office and the technical infrastructure were outsourced to NZZ Audienzz.

"I would like to thank Marco wholeheartedly for the collaboration over the past almost 5 years and the great development and expansion work he has done at AZ Medien and CH Media. We will work with him until his departure to develop a new structure for future digital sales so that we are also successfully positioned in this area in the future," says Peter Neumann, Chief Digital Officer of CH Media.

According to this narrow majority, the Bernese government should "assess" measures to promote the two regional offices in Bern and Biel of the Keystone-SDA news agency, as stated in a communication from the Bernese Grand Council. The same applies to the promotion of media skills in schools and education.

In addition, the cantonal government should investigate ways of strengthening independent quality journalism. And, if necessary, it should consider support measures for the written press in the French-speaking part of the canton.

In addition, the Commission is calling for the Government Council to continue and intensify its active information policy, particularly via online channels. The Commission has formulated corresponding planning declarations.

Via Keystone-SDA Strengthen editorial offices

The SAK made these decisions during the preliminary consultation on the report on the possibilities of media promotion by the Canton of Bern, which the cantonal government presented in August. The report analyzes the changes in the media landscape and their impact on the canton of Berne.

The cantonal government writes that support for the news agency could strengthen regional reporting by those newspaper, radio, TV and online editorial offices in the canton of Bern that rely on Keystone-SDA for their reporting.

The cantonal government rejects direct media funding - for example in the form of financial contributions to online media. The Grand Council will consider the paper in the winter session at the end of November/beginning of December. The SAK will ask the Grand Council to take note of this report.

Also in agreement with digital strategy

The SAK will also recommend the "Digital Administration Strategy" report to the Grand Council for approval. According to the press release, the Government Council intends to use the digital strategy to drive forward the e-government activities of the entire cantonal administration in a coordinated and targeted manner.

The SAK agrees with the thrust of the strategy. However, it demands that the canton clarify whether existing solutions from other cantons could be adopted. It also demands that the implementation of the strategy must not lead to an increase in administrative jobs. (SDA)

Lisa Miczaika, Head of Zalando Switzerland, said in an interview with the Handelszeitung newspaper: "The aim is to launch online and offline. Ideally, we will start with various pop-up stores in Switzerland, which will then be open for several weeks in several cities." Zalando also wants to make its presence felt at Swiss Christmas markets.

In the interview, Miczaika, who manages the German, Austrian, Polish and Czech markets in addition to Switzerland, also talks about the same-day delivery test in Zurich, the possibilities of the new Zalando Wardrobe app, and the difficulty of recruiting Swiss staff for the headquarters in Berlin: "We can recruit Austrians relatively easily, but there's a problem with the Swiss. For example, it took almost a year before we were able to fill a Swiss-specific marketing position. The fact is: we would like to have more Swiss people here at Zalando headquarters." 

Miczaika describes the typical Swiss customer base, which she says differs "considerably" from other DACH customers: slightly younger (20 to 29 years old), more female and more fashion-oriented than in other countries. In this country, they often look for brands that are not yet on the radar of the traditional German customer. 

Zalando also wants to become more sustainable: As part of a sustainability initiative. Customers can place climate-neutral orders, select products according to sustainability criteria and reduce potential returns with a new, precise tool for determining the right size. However, these will remain free of charge. 
 

Coca-Cola has a long history in Germany. The first bottle was bottled as early as 1929. The division of the country into East and West suddenly meant that only one half of the country had access to the liquid sugar bomb. When the Wall fell in 1989, the brand became a symbol of freedom overnight. Coca-Cola is therefore celebrating the upcoming 30th anniversary with an out-of-home campaign in Berlin. The subjects of "Together One" each consist of two lines of text, which are placed on different posters and together produce meaningful messages. 

"The world doesn't need walls" becomes "The world needs more people who don't want walls". "Joy can be shared" turns into "Joy can be shared longer than countries" and "East and West, Berlin" results in "Before, here was East and West, now here is Berlin".

The five motifs have been on display in Berlin since November 4 - including as giant posters on Warschauer Strasse and at the main train station. The posters are also being used on projection screens in the city.

While the company reaffirmed its guidance for fiscal 2019, it already had to shrug off a significantly weaker TV advertising business in the third quarter. "We don't want to paint a doomsday scenario," Conze stressed. But the predictability for the TV advertising business is extremely low, sometimes only one to two weeks, he said.

The warning for the end of the year did not go down well on the financial market. The shares fell by around nine percent at their peak to a three-week low of 12.82 euros and were still down around five percent at midday. The shares of competitor RTL lost just under two percent.

ProSieben CFO Rainer Beaujean spoke of rising macroeconomic uncertainties. "That's why it's part of our responsibility to point out the financial impact of a possible negative scenario." According to the report, adjusted earnings (Ebitda) in the current fourth quarter would be reduced by up to 60 million euros if total TV advertising revenues were to decline by a high single-digit percentage. In this case, earnings for the full year would fall more sharply than planned, to as much as EUR 850 million. In the third quarter, TV advertising revenues already fell by six percent and adjusted profit slumped by a quarter to EUR 131 million - also due to investments in the e-commerce unit.

The fourth quarter is traditionally the most important for ProSiebenSat.1, because viewers sit in front of the TV more around the holidays. According to Conze, that's when the Group makes about a third of its annual revenues and almost 40 percent of its profits.

So far, the station group from Unterföhring is planning for a mid-single-digit percentage increase in revenues in 2019 and an adjusted profit that is a mid-double-digit million amount below the previous year's figure of just over one billion euros. Between July and September, ProSiebenSat.1 increased revenues by four percent to EUR 926 million, benefiting from its digital and production business. "Now 56 percent of our revenues come from the non-TV advertising business - and this area grew 13 percent in the third quarter," Conze said. (SDA)

"The Ice Queen 2", the sequel to the 2013 Disney film, will be released in cinemas in November. To coincide with this, Coop is launching the "Disney Winter Magic" promotion on November 8, 2019, with winter-themed collectible rewards for young and old. The plush versions of the film characters Elsa, Anna, Olaf and Sven in mugs are aimed at children. There is also a cuddly blanket held together by Olaf the snowman. A larger cuddly blanket and a thermos flask in a neutral design are aimed more at adults.

Valencia Kommunikation designed the visuals and various advertising measures for the promotion, from mega posters to collector's stamps, and was responsible for the naming. The moving image was created in collaboration with WirzFraefelPaal Productions and the Swiss animation company Cloudscapes. A combination of clips from the movie and a premium production was used to unite the best of both worlds.

The rewards were digitally recreated as 3D models and could therefore be placed and animated as desired. "The Disney characters are the focus of this promotion. That's why we wanted to ensure maximum attention for the rewards," says Valencia CD Tommy Schilling. Various versions of the commercial were produced for TV and online use.

The promotion runs from November 8 to December 24, 2019 in Coop retail stores and at Coop City, Coop Bau+Hobby, coop@home and in Coop restaurants.

Why wait until politicians have finally decided how and to what extent the VAT is to be repaid when it is presumably much easier to simply offset the mutual claims?

At least two loyal fee payers have done so, as shown in two rulings published by the Federal Administrative Court on Thursday. They deducted the VAT they paid on reception fees from 2010 onwards from the amount invoiced to them by Billag.

Billag insisted on its demands and initiated debt collection proceedings. The appeal to the Federal Administrative Court was also unsuccessful for the two complainants. As the judges in St. Gallen explained, the offsetting is not permitted under the Swiss Code of Obligations.

The Federal Administrative Court therefore dismissed both appeals and set procedural costs of CHF 500 for each case. The rulings are not yet legally binding and can be appealed to the Federal Supreme Court. (SDA)

Top-class guests in the Zurich cosmos: Thomas Middelhoff, P. Klaus Mertes SJ and Alexander Haldemann.

No one prepares you for the really big crises - people who get into them privately know this, as do brand managers whose companies are affected by negative developments. Once the initial shock has subsided, the question in both cases is usually: What next? The fourth marketing talk by MK and Advertising Week is dedicated to this very question and has invited top-class guests to Kosmos on Zurich's Europaallee. 

MetaDesign CEO: How brands build and regain trust

The professional input is provided by the CEO of MetaDesign, Alexander Haldemann. The brand agency has been helping clients such as Apple, VW and Swiss Life to present themselves to the outside world since 1979. It's clear that this also includes dealing with crises: "Today, customers are no longer just recipients of brand messages, but also transmitters and multipliers - on all channels," says Haldemann.

Mature customers mean a lot of work for brands - because their feedback, expressed publicly, can cause a lot of damage. In his input presentation, Alexander Haldemann will outline how brands build trust, regain lost trust, what serves as an "anchor" and how they prevent crises from arising in the first place.

Mega-CEO and abuse educator: openness, humility and communication

The fireside chat will then bring together two men who themselves have had to live through the most serious crises in recent years: Former mega-CEO Thomas Middelhoff and Fr. Klaus Mertes SJ, the rector of the Jesuit College of St. Blasien and Germany's most prominent abuse investigator. 

Thomas Middelhoff had a life most people only dream of: As CEO of Bertelsmann and KarstadtQuelle (later Arcandor), he earned millions, dined with heads of state and flew around the globe in a private jet. But then "Big T," as the media and colleagues called him, took a nosedive: Arcandor's bankruptcy was followed by court proceedings and finally a three-year prison sentence for embezzlement and tax evasion. Released from prison in 2017, he radically turned his life around. In his bestsellers "A115 - Der Sturz" and "Schuldig: Vom Scheitern und Wiederaufstehen," Middelhoff takes a hard look at himself and also blames his failure on the arrogance and greed that held him in check for many years. 

P. Klaus Mertes SJ is the rector of the renowned Jesuit college and boarding school in St. Blasien in the Black Forest. But he gained notoriety for the post he held before: as rector of Canisius College in Berlin, where in 2010 he triggered the first major wave of revelations of sexual and physical abuse of young people at church (and later non-church) educational institutions in Germany. While civil society and German politics hold Mertes in the highest esteem, he is - even today, ten years later - discredited and shunned by conservative circles within the Catholic Church as a "fouler of the nest".

Together, Middelhoff and Mertes will discuss how they dealt with the personal and institutional crises, respectively, at the center of which they found themselves, through openness, humility, and a great deal of communicative work.

Live music and networking aperitif

As always, the Marketing Talks offer inspiring content as well as an attractive supporting program: live music provides an opportunity to pause between the stage presentations; the cozy networking aperitif ensures a comfortable and relaxed end to the event.

Registrations for the Marketing Talk on 26.11. are now possible via Xing.

Never before has the consumption of meat been so critically scrutinized as it is today. People in Switzerland are eating more consciously and are more concerned about what they eat, where it comes from and how it was produced - this is especially true for meat and meat products. Animal welfare and feeding as well as food safety are among the most important purchasing criteria.

The image campaign shows that the fine difference between Swiss meat and imported meat can be seen in the value chain. In a total of twelve spots and webisodes, farmers and butchers show their farms. In their own words, they talk about their work, their philosophy and their commitment to animal welfare and quality - or, in other words, about their subtle difference. 

First the shoot, then the script

The films should reflect the authenticity and honesty of the protagonists. In order to maintain the documentary character of the spots and to portray the people as authentically as possible, neither a line was scripted in advance, nor was a shot predefined.

After a casting, a small film team visited the individual companies for a day and accompanied the people in their daily work. The TV and cinema spots were then edited from this material; in addition, there are somewhat longer online videos and detailed webisodes. 

Commitment promotes trust

The result is an unvarnished but emotional look behind the scenes of Swiss meat production. The films are intended to show that people are at work here who carry out their work with passion, responsibility and great respect for animals and the environment. This should not only promote consumer confidence in Swiss meat, but ultimately also their willingness to pay a little more for meat from Swiss production. 

The films run on TV, online and in various Swiss cinemas. They are accompanied by OOH measures, advertisements and social media activities. The collected "subtle differences" can also be found on Swissmeat.ch.

Instead of pitching against each other, the three agencies joined forces and each focused on their core competencies: Republica took care of communications, media relations and social media, Maxomedia handled the digital presence and crowdfunding, and Kargo designed the branding and naming of the new airline. 

It all started when Bern Airport invited the three agencies to pitch the new airline. After budget and assignment were known, Republica CEO Bala Trachsel had the idea to dare something new. After the phone call with Simon Muster, CEO Maxomedia, and Christoph Balsiger, owner of Kargo, it was clear that they would do the job together.

Flight from Bern

From May 2020, daily summer holiday flights are again scheduled to take off from Bern-Belp - with an attractive and varied offering to Menorca, Jerez, Olbia, Palma, Preveza, Rhodes, Kos and Crete. The aim is also to connect to a hub - Munich, Amsterdam or London are in the foreground. The routes are to be flown by flyBAIR - the new airline for which Republica, Maxomedia and Kargo now want to drum up a lot of publicity.

With each other instead of against each other 

From the agencies' point of view, the cooperation was an enrichment: "The collaboration among professionals was inspiring and the joint brainstorming was a benefit for the project in every respect," says Republica CEO Bala Trachsel. Christoph Balsiger, Creative Director and owner of Kargo, is also enthusiastic about the new experience: "A designer's dream came true - I always wanted to brand an airplane. The challenge was huge, but working as a team with my colleagues made it all easier." Simon Muster, CEO of Maxomedia, says: "Bern-Belp is by far the coolest airport in the world. In order for it to continue to exist and to send me out into the world, we have bundled all our core competencies and put our backs into it. But the story will only be a success if the people of Bern also actively participate in the airline's crowdfunding." 

Crowdfunding

After the communicative launch of the new airline was announced at a media conference in the departure hall of Bern Airport on November 1, the task now is to raise enough capital from the public and various investors.

Financing is to be provided via crowdfunding. Bern Airport endowed flyBAIR AG with CHF 250,000 when it was founded. The capital requirement is around CHF 2.5 million. If demand is sufficiently high, the company should close with a black zero after two years and subsequently achieve a positive cash flow.

The first works that draw attention to flyBAIR are Republica's active press and social media work, a new Landing page for crowdfunding from Maxomedia, a branded airplane from Kargo, and posters from a later date.

In the job description of the head of product management, only senior managers with a job in a group with more than 1,000 employees make it above 200,000 Swiss francs.

Things look better for a company's head of marketing. Once he has reached the senior level, he can easily jump over 200,000 francs, even in relatively small companies with 100 or 500 employees. 

A marketing specialist without a management position but with specialized knowledge can reach up to 139,000 francs. The ordinary product manager without a management function receives just under 100,000 francs as a junior. 

"Seventy-eight percent of the marketing and sales candidates surveyed expect a salary increase in the next year," Christian Atkinson, director of Robert Walters Switzerland, a recruiting firm, told the Handelszeitung. The expectation of a bonus is even higher: "81 percent expect a bonus payment," Atkinson said.

However, these expectations are unlikely to be fulfilled for the most part. Atkinson predicts that wages will remain stable in 2020. Only one line of business could look forward to significantly higher pay: these are specialized and digital marketing positions such as the e-commerce manager and the digital marketing manager.  
 

Sales in the first three quarters of 2019 increased by 2.8 percent to 4.6 billion euros, the media group announced. Information on profit was not provided. Growth was driven by digital businesses, which include the German streaming service "TV Now" and the Dutch "Videoland" - the number of paying subscribers rose by 50 percent to 1.4 million.

With "TV Now," RTL wants to establish a mainstay separate from traditional TV: People want to watch more and more shows on demand online instead of following the TV schedule.

Compared to the U.S. giants Netflix and Amazon Prime, the German streaming platform is still small, but the trend is upward. In-house productions include not only reality formats like the dating show "Prince Charming," but the channel is also trying its hand at dramas, such as "M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder" based on the classic 1931 Fritz Lang film.

Including its Dutch counterpart "Videoland" as well as other services in other countries, video-on-demand revenue in the first nine months of 2019 rose by 24 percent year-on-year to EUR 183 million - so with a share of 4 percent of Group revenue, it is still a niche.

Series flourish - TV shrinks

Another mainstay is the production company Fremantle, whose business also grew strongly - by 16 percent to 1.23 billion euros. The company produces series that are also sold to competitors - for example, "American Gods" can be seen on "Amazon Prime.

With this business, RTL also wants to become less dependent on the traditional television business. The latter's revenues - i.e., the RTL Group's channel businesses - reportedly fell by 2 percent to around EUR 3.2 billion.

The decline was due to portfolio changes - for example, rights holder Universum Film was sold - and to falling advertising revenues. The extent to which advertising revenues shrank was not communicated. According to RTL's presentation, these revenues at least performed less poorly than the market, which RTL estimates was down 3 to 4 percent.

RTL Group is based in Luxembourg. The subsidiary RTL Deutschland, with a total of about 4,200 employees, has its headquarters in Cologne. (SDA)