So now projects can be submitted until 16.9.2019 - in ten categories:

The ten categories for 2019:

• Mobile Web (new)
• Innovation
• Design
• User Experience & Usabiltiy
• Functionality
• Business Impact
• Campaigns
• Enter prices
• Games
• Mixed, Augmented & Virtual Reality
• FUNCTIONALITY

Some jury presidents have explained the specifics and requirements of their category in more detail via video. You can find the videos here:

Twitter.com/BestOfSwissApps 

The Award Night will take place on November 6, 2019 at Aura, Paradeplatz Zurich.

For 2019, it is clear that the TV will continue to dominate the appliance landscape in German households this year. 95 percent of households are equipped with at least one TV set. In second place is the smartphone, which is present in 88 percent of all households. Furthermore, 84 percent of households own a computer, with a trend from stationary PCs to laptops. The tablet is also growing and is now present in 41 percent of all households.

While the proportion of online users remains stable year-on-year, the distribution of Internet usage among the various device types has changed: The smartphone is now the most popular end device for Internet use, with increasing significance, and is clearly setting itself apart from the PC or laptop.

The TV set is also increasingly becoming a popular screen for Internet use. According to their own statements, 44 percent of households now have a TV set with which they can access the Internet. 31 percent of smart TV sets are actually connected to the Internet.

This development is also reflected in the duration of Internet use: 14- to 69-year-olds use smart TVs for Internet services for almost half an hour a day on average. But 14- to 69-year-olds also surf the web on their smartphones for significantly longer than a year ago: 14- to 69-year-olds spend 109 minutes online with their smartphones, an increase of 20 minutes per day.

In addition to the convergence between television and the Internet, there is another significant development in the German television market: the spread of Ultra HD. 21 percent of German-speaking households now have at least one such Ultra HD-capable TV set. In 2018, it was only 13 percent.

The latest types of internet-enabled devices such as smart speakers as well as smart watches and fitness wristbands are also becoming increasingly popular. Both smart speakers and wearables are growing from the low level of the previous year, with the latter already present in one in ten households.

"Once again this year, the Convergence Monitor provides us with many exciting insights," reflects Petra Dittrich, Senior Director Media Research at Kantar. "While we observe that the number of flat-screen devices and smartphones remains constant at a high level, we see a clear growth trend for Internet usage with the TV set. It is thus becoming increasingly important for Internet use. But other smart devices such as digital voice assistants and smart watches are also becoming more popular. It remains to be seen what role they will play in the future."

These and other findings can be found in the twelfth edition of the Convergence Monitor research series. The representative survey provides an in-depth overview of the spread of convergent technologies for telecommunications, the Internet and media, as well as consumer attitudes and interests.

President Frank Bodin summed up ADC's purpose and added value for clients right in his opening: "Creativity + technology = ROI. Because creativity without technology is like technology without creativity: nothing".

Furthermore, in his remarks he once again underlined the importance of transformation, also in his own cause: "ADC Switzerland improves the quality of commercial communication by judging it, by training and promoting talent, and by creating interdisciplinary platforms, especially also for new technologies. In 2025, ADC Switzerland will celebrate its 50th anniversary and is already taking this as an opportunity to change things supposedly chiseled in marble cubes and to implement visions."

No-Go: Money for dinner, but not for the offspring

The fact that the open letter (signed by ADC, BPRA, ks/cs and Swissfilm Association) to the address of Weischer.Media has remained unanswered to date is incomprehensible for the ADC members. The reactions of ADC members to Weischer.Media's announcement that in future it would only support the Media category were harsh. The fact that Weischer.Media is sending out invitations to a "Cannes Winner Dinner" these days is seen as sheer mockery, a no-go - the dinner will probably take place without a "Winner".

The ADC members are also clearly in favor of ADC Switzerland's offer to take over the representation of Switzerland at Cannes Lions from Weischer.Media. In doing so, ADC can count on great solidarity in the industry. The 2019/2020 annual budget was subsequently approved unanimously, with an additional budget for the representation and the holding of the Cannes Young Lions Competition qualifying competition without Weischer.Media. In all likelihood, the Young Creatives Award will take place in January in the categories Cyber, Film, Outdoor, Direct and perhaps new PR.

23 new ADC members in one fell swoop

The ADC Board of Directors proposed to its members no less than 23 leading minds from a wide variety of fields for inclusion. Something that has never happened in this form before and is a clear sign and commitment for the future. This approach was unanimously supported by the members. ADC Switzerland therefore welcomes 23 new Member Professionals today in one fell swoop:

• Stefan Bircher, Producer/Partner at Shining Pictures
• Yves Bollag, Executive Producer/Partner at Stories
• Tobias Fueter, Director at Stories
• Thorne Mutert, Producer at Czar
• Diego Baldenweg, Composer & Co-Founder at Great Garbo
• Lionel Baldenweg, Co-Composer & Co-Founder, CEO at Great Garbo
• Nora Baldenweg, Co-Composer & Co-Founder at Great Garbo
• Hans Peter Riegel, Creative Director, Author, Journalist and Artist
• Michael Brauchli, Creative Director
• Tyler Brûlé, designer, journalist and media entrepreneur
• Adrian Schräder, Head of Storyline at Wirz
• Dan Cermak, photographer
• Per Kasch, photographer
• Sebastian Magnani, photographer
• Cyrill Matter, photographer
• Caspar Martig, photographer
• Philipp Müller, photographer
• Lucas Conte, Head of Strategy at Publicis
• Peter Felser, Felser Brand Leadership
• Urs Krucker, Executive Strategy Director at Wirz
• Stefan Naef, Chief Consulting Officer at Jung von Matt
• Gordon Nemitz, Managing Director Strategy and Partner at Thjnk Zurich
• Simon Rehsche, Managing Director, Head of Strategy at Heimat Zürich

The proposal to change the statutes for a new, more efficient admission procedure was also unanimously approved by the ADC members. Candidates will now be able to apply throughout the year, because the Admissions Committee will meet several times a year. The admissions committee will also have a leaner structure, consisting of three elected member professionals and three board members. The admissions committee will change on a rotating basis.

ADC Switzerland is also pleased to welcome two new "Friends": Stefan Vetter from Wortspiel and Mohammed Klotz from The Little League.

Inken Rohweder von Trotha new on the ADC Board of Directors

Frank Bodin welcomes Inken Rohweder von Trotha as a new member of the ADC Board, who was unanimously elected by the members. She succeeds Markus Gut, who is stepping down after 18 years on the board and was recognized by Frank Bodin for his great commitment and thanked with a special board cube. Also unanimously confirmed was the ADC Board, which is now composed as follows:

• Frank Bodin, President
• Philipp Skrabal, Training Department Young Creatives Award and Vice President
• Peter Brönnimann, Ad School Department
• Livio Dainese, Members Department
• Dennis Lück, Creative Week and Gala Department
• Inken Rohweder von Trotha, Gallery Department
• Martin Spillmann, ADC Europe Department
• Thomas Wildberger, Public Relations Department

Frank Bodin closed the 44th General Meeting with a big thank you to his colleagues on the Board for their hard work as well as to the office with Gioia Bozzato as Managing Director and Hanna Jackl.

For over forty years, Schober has been a dialog marketing service provider that helps companies implement their cross-media communication, advertising and sales strategies. The company supports its customers with data know-how, e-mail technologies and marketing services in their successful market cultivation.

Schober brings an extensive database of postal and e-mail addresses as well as the Swiss cloud solution XCampaign for e-mail marketing into the marriage of the two companies. The location in Winterthur will be retained.

KünzlerBachmann, which is over one hundred years old, has its roots in the publishing business. Its core competencies lie in address management and mailing production. KünzlerBachmann Directmarketing offers all services in modern offline dialog marketing from a single source. From the address to personalization and dispatch to processing and analysis of the response, including database and CRM solution. Exclusively for Switzerland, the company also offers the Sinus Geo-Milieus and corresponding analytics services.

The alliance of KünzlerBachmann and Schober is now to substantially strengthen the positioning, and customers are to benefit from the now bundled competence and experience in dialog marketing - online and offline. The range of services extends from broad-based DM campaigns to CRM and e-mail marketing to mailing production in digital printing, including lettershop.

Throughout the city, green posters indicate that the Zurich electricity company sells 100 percent natural electricity to the citizens of Zurich. In this way, ewz is making an important contribution to the 2000-watt society. In the long term, Zurich's residents should consume no more than these 2000 watts and reduce their CO₂ emissions to one ton per person per year by 2050.

The natural electricity campaign shows in a reduced way that ewz is making the city greener. Because the demand for natural electricity increases investments in power plants that produce natural electricity. 

The new TV commercial focuses on the closeness of Volg employees to their consumers. The cashier knows the names of the barely separable quads by heart.

Furthermore, about a dozen village stories from all over Switzerland are in use as advertisements, posters, public reports, banners or photo and video stories.

The scalable content of Volg village stories will continue to be seen across all channels.

The financial sector is undergoing far-reaching change. Accordingly, new approaches and innovations are required and the market positioning needs to be sharpened. The Clientis Group has responded to this with a brand relaunch, among other things.

The Clientis umbrella brand brings together 15 independent Swiss regional banks that are characterized by a strong client focus. Regionality, client proximity, rapid local decision-making and agility are key. As a joint competence and service center, Clientis coordinates, among other things, the joint marketing and communication presence.
    
The Clientis banks have had a new image since July 2019, and the first group-wide campaign was launched in August 2019. Partner & Partner developed the positioning and branding, including CI/CD, in a multi-stage process with the project team, marketing management team and steering committee. Partner & Partner then designed the branding campaign and developed the templates for the communication tools. This was the biggest marketing project for Clientis since it entered the market.
 

Already around the campaign for the 2019 federal elections, Keystone-SDA will start with the first live services. Pilot tests on video streams have already taken place successfully. The media conference with the wrestling king Christian Stucki, for example, was followed by almost ten thousand users.

In the moving image area, the video editorial team will focus more on broadcasting live events in the future. The content focus will be on media conferences; several times a week, the country's most important media conferences will be covered in video streams.

The second focus of the news agency's live offensive is the development of multimedia real time services in the text area. For several weeks now, Keystone-SDA's editorial team has also been covering selected topics in the form of live blogs, in parallel to the classic reporting in the basic service. In this new, multimedia format, major topics are covered in a very timely manner, sometimes in real time.

In addition, thematically appropriate social media content - such as tweets, Instagram or Facebook entries - is also integrated into the interface and thus optimally complements the editorial team's own reporting. 

"Live services are being used more and more, not only in Switzerland but also internationally. Real-time services are also at the center of our customers' editorial planning. It is a logical consequence that we respond to this with our services," says Marcus Hebein, Head of Editorial at Keystone-SDA.

As with live video streams, the focus with live blogs is on customer benefits: The blogs can be integrated into customers' digital offerings. In addition, live services are also an ideal tool for journalists to get a split-second overview of the news situation for running stories and complex topics - even on mobile apps and smartphones.

With "innovative tactics to investigate, document and, if necessary, intervene against illegal activities on the high seas", the SSCS has often caused a stir internationally. Especially on the high seas, in duels with illegally operating fishing boats. The aim of the non-profit organization is to sustainably protect and preserve animals and ecosystems in the world's oceans.

Since ecological problems have long had global significance, Sea Shepherd has also been present in Switzerland for some time and is now making its first public appearance with this advertising campaign.

The poster campaign developed by Serviceplan Suisse plays cleverly with the medium. Two F200 posters hanging next to each other should actually depict a maritime idyll - if it weren't for the empty space between the two posters in which an endangered marine animal has "disappeared". This is a very simple way of asking for donations: "Save endangered species from disappearing."

The poster campaign is displayed at selected poster sites in Zurich. The sad and beautiful photos were taken by photographers Richard Barnden and Andy Schmid. As passionate divers and underwater photographers, the preservation of underwater creatures is particularly close to their hearts. They have made their photographs available free of charge for this campaign. In addition, J.E. Wolfensberger kindly offered to print the posters.

The payment is therefore part of a settlement between the companies on the one hand and the FTC and the New York Attorney General's Office on the other.

The two internet companies are accused of using cookies to collect information about users of YouTube children's channels without first obtaining parental consent. The aim was to use the data to distribute targeted advertisements and earn money.

According to the authorities, Google and YouTube were in breach of a 1998 law that prohibits the collection of data from children under the age of 13. 

In 2013, the law was amended to add that this regulation also applies to cookies. These are software tools that allow websites to track what their users are interested in. New York Attorney General Letitia James accused Google and YouTube of abusing their power. (SDA)

Since 2017, UBS has been a partner of the SwissSkills Foundation, promoting vocational training in Switzerland. While last year's campaign featured clueless bankers highlighting the importance of vocational apprenticeships for a well-functioning economy, this year the focus is on the apprentices themselves.

Only those who really know their strengths can choose the right profession and fully develop their potential. The outstanding performance of the SwissSkills team at the WorldSkills 2019 vocational championships in Russia proves that this is the case. The Swiss team brought home a total of 16 medals at the end of August, thus securing third place in the national rankings.

For young people who have not yet recognized their own talents, UBS and SwissSkills offer a so-called strength profile at the SwissSkills Career stand at all major career fairs. After completing a short visual test on a tablet, this provides a detailed evaluation of personal strengths and affinities. A good basis for further career choices.

To promote the commitment and the strength profile, Publicis has once again designed a campaign. Two online spots feature two real professional champions who show that no one is equally good everywhere. Thus, while they excel in their own field, they struggle with other activities.

The campaign ran alongside the World Cup in the summer and will now be played out regionally in the run-up to the career fairs. The online films are flanked by various display and social media ads as well as implementation on UBS's own media.

The 2019 Federal Folk Music Festival will take place in Crans Montana from September 19 to 22 with around 80,000 visitors expected. Familiar sounds will meet new sounds in folk music - just as different generations of musicians and music lovers will come together. 

To promote the major event, Contexta was commissioned by the Swiss Folk Music Association and Valais/Wallis Promotion to launch a music video that addresses precisely this aspect. The hit "079" by Lo & Leduc was reinterpreted for this, played with traditional instruments of the genre.

The clip will be used on various online platforms and in social media until the start of the 2019 Swiss National Folk Music Festival.