With 48% in favour, the young target group (18 to 29 years) shows a significantly higher affinity for personalized offers and forms of advertising compared to the average (35.3%). 74% of respondents from Generation Z (born after 1995) participating in a loyalty program would be more likely to remain loyal to the program with this type of communication, and 35% would even actively recommend it to others. These are the highest rates of all participants.

When asked about the popularity of touchpoints for personalized offers, the retailer website is clearly in the lead for the young participants with 45.2%. By contrast, email newsletters (29.9%) and flyers (17.5%) are less relevant compared to all participants. Mobile retailer apps (29.9%) and social media platforms (23.7%) are much more attractive to the young age group. Looking at the average of all participant groups, these channels are only preferred by 17.1% (mobile app) and 8.5% (social media).

Generation Z is also consistently the most open to alternative touchpoints. For 11.3%, digital signage is a relevant medium for personalized offers (average: 4.6%). Check-in and check-out couponing are further channels that are desired by the young target group to an above-average extent (approval at 7.9%).

"The survey proves that personalization is a must. Young participants in loyalty programs in particular experience a significant boost in loyalty as a result. Openness to touchpoints opens up additional potential for retailers to reach Generation Z. Creativity and experimentation in communicating offers will pay off," explains Jochen Freese, Managing Director of Ingenico Marketing Solutions.

As already announced in June, Tamedia will create a new decentralized organisational structure with four independent business divisions as of 1 January 2020. The aim is to create optimal conditions for transparency and growth, including in the context of possible partnerships in the business divisions with their different opportunities and cultures. In this context, Christoph Brand will ensure a smooth transition from Classifieds & Marketplaces to an independent unit.

Christoph Brand joined Tamedia in the fall of 2012 as head of the digital division. At that time, EBITDA generated from digital products amounted to around 6 per cent. In 2018, the Classifieds & Marketplaces division already generated half of Tamedia's EBITDA under his leadership. Christoph Brand has successfully implemented a digital growth strategy since joining the company. He has also made numerous contributions to Tamedia's digital and cultural development. Thanks to his network, he was able to bring other key personalities on board the company. Before joining Tamedia, Christoph Brand worked for four years at the head of Sunrise. He was also CEO of Bluewin and held various management positions at Swisscom.  
 
Pietro Supino, publisher and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Tamedia: "We greatly appreciate the commitment and achievements of Christoph Brand within the Group. Under his leadership, our marketplaces and classifieds platforms have grown at an above-average rate and have developed a strong corporate culture. These activities will therefore be managed as an independent business segment in the new holding-like organizational structure."

In concrete terms, various strategic options, including a sale, are being examined for the time being for the "Live Marketing Solutions" division, as the company announced on Thursday. This is the company's service subsidiary, which offers, among other things, strategy consulting and the construction of trade fair pavilions. The division contributed nearly 40 percent of the entire group's revenue in fiscal 2018 and currently employs about 500 people, about half of the workforce, according to a company spokesperson.

"Concentration necessary"

"We've done a great job with our own trade shows and our Live Marketing Solutions two business areas with great development potential, but have to concentrate on one of them due to limited investment funds," Chairman of the Board of Directors Ulrich Vischer explained the step in the press release. However, the division that could be sold is very well positioned, it was emphasized.
The modalities of the possible sale are still open, according to the company spokesman. It is possible to sell the division as a whole or piece by piece, he told the AWP news agency.

New ideas in demand

In future, the MCH Group will therefore be focusing on "the organization of future-oriented, leading national and international platforms such as exhibitions, events and congresses". In the next few years, it intends to invest in the further development of existing events and the creation of new formats.

Live events will continue to gain in importance, the reasoning goes. "However, new ideas are needed because the needs of customers are changing fundamentally," CEO Bernd Stadlwieser was quoted as saying. "We therefore need to invest in innovation, digitalization and internationalization."

According to the information provided, the funds for this are to be made available through cost-cutting measures. Primarily, savings are to be made in procurement, but to a lesser extent also in personnel.

Open future of the exhibition center

The company's own exhibition infrastructure at the two locations in Basel and Zurich will also be put up for sale, the statement added. In the medium term, "the most suitable ownership and operating structure" is to be found in this regard. A private owner is possible, the company spokesman said. However, a stronger commitment by the public sector is also conceivable.

These are huge areas. For example, MCH owns exhibition space of 140,000 square meters in Basel and 30,000 square meters in Zurich. This corresponds to the area of around two dozen soccer fields.

MCH, which was in the headlines among other things because of cancellations by prominent brands at the Baselworld watch fair, had initiated a transformation process in summer 2018. The aim of the measures now announced is to return to an appropriate level of profitability and to secure this in the long term. The details of the new strategy should be known by the end of the year so that implementation can begin in 2020, MCH further announced. (SDA)

Designers, agencies and companies from 54 countries submitted 8697 brands and communication design works to the competition this year. When registering, they were able to choose between the "Communication Design" and "Brands" sections for the first time.

Compared to the previous year, the Red Dot Award: Brands & Communication Design saw a noticeable increase in the quality of submissions. The jury praised many of the submitted works and brands and pointed out their high design level several times during the evaluation process, which lasted several days. In addition, the submissions became more international: the field of participants in the 2019 competition came from 54 nations, nine more than in 2018.

Only 8.9 percent of the submissions awarded

In a critical exchange with each other, the jurors reached their verdict and only awarded the coveted Red Dot seal to the best submissions. This was awarded to only 8.9 percent of the registered brands and works.

The Red Dot went to 696 projects this year. With the Red Dot: Best of the Best, the jurors also recognized the very high design quality and creative achievement of 72 entries. This award consequently went to only 0.8 percent of all entries.

All award winners who have been awarded the Red Dot: Best of the Best in the "Communication Design" category can hope to additionally receive the Red Dot: Grand Prix. This is the highest award in the field of communication design and can, but does not have to, be awarded once in each of the 17 categories.

In 2019, the Red Dot: Grand Prix will go to just seven works - the best in their respective fields. The winners will be announced at the awards ceremony on November 1 in Berlin. From that day on, the online exhibition on the Red Dot website will show all the winners from 2019.

Results of the competition at a glance

• Submissions: 8697
• Participating nations: 54
• Awards:
  • Red Dot: 696
  • Red Dot: Best of the Best: 72
  • Red Dot: Brand of the Year: 3
  • Red Dot: Grand Prix: 7
  • Red Dot: Junior Prize: 1

The partners: Thomas Huber, Philipp Thesen, Jan-Erik Baars (from left)

Thomas Huber, a long-time PR consultant and founder of the Berlin-based strategy agency Semanticom, and Jan-Erik Baars, Professor of Design Management at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU), became partners in the Swiss consulting agency Prenew, previously founded by Philipp Thesen, on July 1, 2019. Philipp Thesen is a professor of human-system interaction at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences and was previously head of design at Deutsche Telekom. All three shareholders hold equal shares in the GmbH, which is headquartered in Schindellegi, Switzerland. The managing director is Tim O. Weber. In addition to the office in Schindellegi and the representative office in Zurich, further representative offices are planned soon in Berlin and Tel Aviv.

Prenew is a strategy consultancy for digital transformation. The focus is on companies undergoing the digital transformation of their company, business model, brands and products.

Prenew focuses on four consulting areas:

• Narrative: a new narrative for business strategy.
• Transformation: mobilizing the organization for change.
• Customer Experience: Increasing value for the customer.
• Design Leadership: Anchoring and leading design strategically.

For several years and despite great efforts by the industry in production, the market share of Swiss wines has been falling steadily. Today, it still accounts for around 35 percent of total wine consumption in Switzerland, the four wine cantons of western Switzerland wrote in a communiqué on Thursday.

This is not enough to ensure balanced sales of domestic production. In addition, there is a risk to the profitability of the businesses and the continued existence of the Swiss wine-growing region.

According to a letter to the head of the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (EAER), the difficult situation in which the Swiss wine industry finds itself requires strong measures on the part of the public sector.

Money demanded from the federal government

The advertising campaign is to be run by the Swiss Vine and Wine Association (BSRW) and financially supported by the federal government. The aim of the campaign over two to three years is to significantly increase the market share of Swiss wines and to be able to stand up to the fierce competition from foreign wines.

Around three quarters of Switzerland's vineyards are located in French-speaking Switzerland, with wine-growing areas in the cantons of Valais, Vaud, Geneva and the Three Lakes region. (SDA)

The campaign is a further development of the basic idea that already gave the brand and the designers a uniform and valuable communication platform in the previous year. This year, Die Werbekanzlei took the central theme a step further and made the concept more modular. The focus was specifically placed on digital media in order to create exciting and lively communication.

The visual language remains reduced in the mood images and product videos, but uses close-ups to focus even more closely on the products and their properties. Swiss design and top quality are increasingly coming to the fore, allowing customers to immerse themselves in the Atelier Pfister world.

In addition to the theme "This is Switzerland", this time the focus will be on the designers whose products Alfredo Häberli has curated since the beginning. Inspirations and private insights into their ideas not only bring the products to life, but also create a platform for identification and closeness.

The campaign kicked off with the press and influencer event directly on the Sihl, in line with the new care line from Atelier Pfister in collaboration with Soeder. The new young designer, Dimitri Bähler, impressed with his Swiss Made dining table "Malleray", as did This Weber with the side table "Sengi" and Andreas Bechtiger with his new bed "Ragaz", to name but a few.

Accepting the awards at the SIX Convention Point Tihana: Ibrahimpasic, Geberit, Hans-Peter Nehmer, Chairman of the Final Jury, Cyrill Sele, Liechtensteinische Landesbank, and Natalie Hertig, Swisscom (from left).

The winners were presented with their certificates on Wednesday evening, September 18 in Zurich. The Swiss Annual Report Rating is carried out annually by the HarbourClub - Chief Communications Officers.

The Swiss Annual Report Rating includes the annual reports of all listed companies represented in the SPI. The list is supplemented with the 50 companies with the highest turnover, the 15 insurance companies with the highest premium volume and the 25 banks with the highest balance sheet total and comprises 238 companies in 2019.

This sample was evaluated by three juries in succession. Firstly, by the jury of the Institute for Banking and Finance (Value Reporting) of the University of Zurich under the direction of Prof. Dr. Alexander F. Wagner, secondly by a design jury under the direction of Jonas Voegeli and Jiri Chmelik from the Zurich University of the Arts. Then a final jury headed by Hans-Peter Nehmer, HarbourClub board member and Head of Corporate Communications at Allianz Suisse, evaluated the twelve best annual reports - print and online - of the year selected by the preliminary juries.
 
Hans-Peter Nehmer: "The Liechtensteinische Landesbank is a company that has always been among the top twelve in its class over the past ten years. This consistency in quality has now been rewarded with this year's top position. The Liechtensteinische Landesbank is listed on the Swiss stock exchange and is therefore part of our rating."

 
Overall winner business reports of the final jury

• 1st place: Liechtensteinische Landesbank
• 2nd place: Geberit
• 3rd place: Swisscom

Design category (online and print)

• 1st place: Zur Rose
• 2nd place: Hiag Real Estate
• 3rd place: Clariant

Category Value Reporting (Online and Print)

• 1st place: Clariant
• 2nd place: LafargeHolcim
• 3rd place: Swisscom

Rising star of the year

• Design: Novartis
• Value Reporting: DKSH

Switzerland's leading meat and convenience processor invited bids this summer for the Barbecue Campaign 2020. "TBWA\Zurich was convincing in the competition presentation with both the strategy and the creation," Davide Elia, Head of Corporate Marketing/Communication Bell Food Group, said in a statement. 

After years of work in gastronomy/food service and various food campaigns for retail, as well as currently winning the pitch from Bell, TBWA\ is thus further expanding its food expertise. The new campaign can be seen in the next barbecue season in TV, print, OOH, online and at POS.

Previously, Contexta was responsible for Bell's creative fortunes for several years. Under the direction of the (then) Bern agency, the epic barbecue spot "Das BBQ für Macher" was created, among other things. (Werbewoche.ch reported). (hae)

How do you bring explosive topics closer to a broad audience? How do you feed the associated debates on social media? How do you engage readers with more technical content? These are precisely the questions the agency asks itself for each magazine issue.

Just before summer, the 2/19 issue discussed the topic of genetic engineering with its benefits, risks and effects. For this broad topic, Franz&René took the readers into a world on the border between digital and analog, showing how quickly our senses can be deceived by simple manipulation. The cut-out and photographed vector subjects speak to, evoke and question. They give the print version of the magazine its rhythm and can be seen animated on FOEN's social media.

Issue 3/19, which has just been printed, highlights the benefits that the environment can derive from digitization. Only benefits or are there also risks? Every technological innovation brings extraordinary opportunities, but paradoxically also risks if not used thoughtfully. The agency illustrates the most important articles in the print magazine and posts on social media with playful three-dimensional pixels.

Responsible at the FOEN: Jean-Luc Brühlhart (Editorial Director "The Environment/l'Environnement"). Responsible at Franz&René: Valérie Pecalvel (Strategic Direction), Luciano Gerber (Client Service Direction), Cristina Mollard (Senior Campaign Manager), Yoann Cosson (Creative Direction), Gregory Collavini (Visual Designer).

Pascal Scherrer (pictured above) will take over as head of Tele1 and TVO on November 1. As Head of TV Regional, he will be responsible for TeleZüri, Tele M1, TeleBärn, TVO and Tele1. The licensed TV stations will remain editorially independent and with the respective holdings of AZ Medien and NZZ. CH Media provides technical, production, marketing and management services for the regional TV stations.

Florian Wanner and André Moesch (from left).

André Moesch, previously responsible for radio and TV in the regions of eastern and central Switzerland, is taking on new responsibilities within the TV, Radio and Film Sales division management: for example, he heads the Events division, which was newly created in April, with the aim of significantly expanding the Group's event portfolio. He also takes on projects in the areas of development and convergence and, as Head of Public Affairs, is responsible for all media policy issues and relations with the authorities.

As already announced in March 2019, Florian Wanner, Head of Radio Argovia, Radio 24 and Virgin Radio Switzerland, will take over the overall management of CH Media's radio stations as of November 1, 2019. As Head of Radio, he will then also be responsible for the stations Radio Pilatus, Radio FM1 and Radio Melody.

The TV, Radio & Film Sales division, headed by Roger Elsener, Managing Director TV, Radio & Film Sales and member of the Executive Board, consists of two other business units in addition to TV Regional, Radio and Events: TV National is headed by Ute von Moers, while Film Distribution is managed by brothers Peter and Patrick Schaumlechner.

Strongly fluctuating volumes, increasing demands due to digitalization and changing customer behavior had required a strategic realignment of subscription support. This was announced on Wednesday by CH Media, a joint venture between AZ Medien and NZZ Regional Media.

As early as the beginning of October, the company ASMIQ AG in Olten SO will be the first point of contact for subscribers to titles such as St. Galler Tagblatt and Lucerne Newspaper be. As of the beginning of 2020, this Swiss Post subsidiary will also take over all subscription services for CH Media in the area of advertisements and magazines.

In a third phase, all subscription services for CH Media's daily newspapers are also to be sourced from the NZZ Media Group over the course of the next year. The group is also outsourcing the simple business cases to ASMIQ AG.

All affected employees will receive an offer from ASMIQ AG or the NZZ Media Group for a follow-up solution, as CH Media states. This will ensure continuity and the retention of know-how. (SDA/hae)