The platforms are among the most visited and most popular online websites in Switzerland. The Tamedia Marketplaces Advertising department employs 14 online marketing experts and is located directly within the Classifieds & Marketplaces division.

Thomas Kirchesch (pictured above), Head of Tamedia Marketplaces Advertising: "With the direct connection to the marketplaces and classifieds platforms division, we can react agilely to changes in the individual platforms and always offer our advertising customers suitable and innovative advertising offers." 

The 2019 Delegates Assembly at the KKL Lucerne was attended by 37 delegates from 14 clubs and approved the agenda items presented. A motion by the Mittelland club to immediately abolish direct membership was rejected. On the other hand, the countermotion of the Board to develop suitable membership models until the Delegates Assembly 2020 was accepted.

The annual financial statements presented for 2018 show a picture that gives cause for optimism. After several financially strained years, it has been possible to achieve a clearly positive business result. This development is all the more positive as it was achieved against a background of stagnating membership figures. However, the umbrella organization as well as the regional and supra-regional clubs still have a lot of work ahead of them, explained Andreas Balazs, President of the Central Board of Swiss Marketing. He sees priorities in the expansion of services and activities, the strengthening of the network and the intensification of communication with members.

"The turnaround has been initiated, and the task now is to follow the chosen path together and consistently," Balazs said. "The competence, commitment and will of the central board and the administrative office are there to develop the association further together with the clubs." In this way, he said, Swiss Marketing will continue to be the leading Swiss professional association for marketing and sales in the future.

Andreas Balazs, President of the Central Board of Swiss Marketing Association, opens the 2019 Delegates Meeting at the KKL Luzern (Photos: Facebook.com/swissmarketingassociation).

British singer/songwriter Ed Sheeran makes no secret of the fact that he loves Heinz Ketchup. So much so that the superstar had the Heinz Ketchup logo tattooed on his arm. And so much so that he wrote the company a direct message, describing a story from a "fancy" restaurant.

Heinz didn't have to be asked twice and made a film of the haute cuisine anecdote without further ado. And launched a limited "Edchup" edition. Every company would love to have a brand ambassador like Ed Sheeran.

The Swiss retail sector is showing initial signs of stabilization: the year-on-year decline in sales in the Swiss retail sector in 2018 stagnated for the first time since 2014, the downward trend has clearly weakened and the underlying conditions are showing positive signs.

The top 10 list of Swiss retailers has remained unchanged since the previous year. It can be seen that the discounters posted the greatest sales growth of all providers. All three - Denner, Aldi Suisse and Lidl - increased their sales significantly compared with the previous year.

Within the top 10 published companies are seven Swiss companies. More and more international companies want to conquer the Swiss market. The international influence is becoming stronger. In addition, ongoing digitization is one of the biggest challenges in retail. In distance selling - online and mail-order retailing - sales of 9.5 billion Swiss francs were already achieved in 2018 - around 1 billion more than in the previous year. One thing is clear: online volumes are continuing to grow at the expense of bricks-and-mortar retail. Those market players who can efficiently link online and offline, respond quickly to changing customer needs, and successfully master the ever-increasing demands on logistics will prevail.

Shopping is becoming an experience. Stationary retail in particular can benefit from this and take it up accordingly. New approaches to the presentation of goods are already visible in isolated cases. On the other hand, various retailers are already appearing on the market with exciting new omnichannel concepts. The boundaries between brick-and-mortar and online retail are becoming increasingly blurred.

The technological change with its possibilities offers the retail trade completely new ways to interact with consumers and to further simplify their shopping. The desire of consumers for greater involvement is clearly given.

As of October 1, the first level support of the media group's Customer Care Center is to be outsourced to an external service provider. The decision is based on the reduced capacity utilization due to declining print circulations and the discontinuation of the Central Switzerland on Sunday at the end of June. "Examination of various options over the past few months has shown that this is the only economically viable solution. We very much regret that we will no longer be able to offer first level support ourselves in future," says Felix Graf, CEO of the NZZ Media Group.

Twelve team members from the Customer Care Center, who share eight full-time positions, are affected by the outsourcing of first level support. They will be offered the opportunity to switch to the external service provider in the fall. Corresponding offers are being prepared. Severance payments are planned for all employees.

Second level support, which includes complex advisory discussions, will continue to be provided by the Customer Care Center of the NZZ Media Group.

Shortly before the Formula E race on June 22, numerous learner drivers in Bern were picked up by the official Formula E safety car driver Bruno Correia instead of their driving instructor, as expected. The unsuspecting students were astonished when the 374 horsepower safety car drove up. For one day, "Formula E" became "Formula L" accordingly.

Sir Mary implemented this campaign to make Allianz's long-standing commitment to the future of mobility accessible and tangible to a broad audience, following on from last year's successful Safety Car campaign. Back then, Bruno Correia spent a day chauffeuring surprised Uber customers around in the Safety Car at the Zurich venue.

The campaign was developed in close cooperation with Allianz Suisse and Allianz Global. Sir Mary's range of services included idea generation and implementation, PR support, campaign and content production around Formula E as well as media buying and handling.

The most important Swiss online opinion leaders were honored in nine categories such as lifestyle, travel, sports or music. There was also an award for the best up-and-coming talent. The winners include stars who became known primarily through social media. For example, Zoë Pastelle ("Lifestyle"), beauty influencer Raffaela Zollo from "Raffa`s Plastic Life," comedian Zeki, or travel influencer Martina Bisaz, who most Instagram users probably know more by the name @kitkat_ch. On the other hand, in addition to the classic social media stars, there are also award winners who started their careers outside of social media, but who have also been able to build up a large fan community on Instagram, Facebook and the like. Like ski world champion Wendy Holdener, musician Bligg, or ESC hero Luca Hänni.

The winners of the star influencer categories were determined by the audience (with likes on the nominees' picture in the Instagram feed @swissinfluenceraward) to one third and by a professional jury to two thirds. The expert jury consisted of five people who deal professionally with influencer marketing on a daily basis. And from a client, agency or academic perspective.

Since the end of April, the free-to-air TV channel Teleclub Zoom has been broadcasting the "Zoom Swiss Influencer Award Magazine". Every week, viewers were able to follow the search for the best influencer talent and also see which stars secured a nomination for the Swiss Influencer Award. The award show was broadcast live by Teleclub Zoom and hosted by Annina Frey and Claudia Lässer. Show act highlights were the performance of Loco Escrito, who performed his song "Punto," and a medley of self-penned songs by three former talents in the "Music" category: Arina Luisa, Young Fuego and Anna Smith. The latter even went home as the overall winner with the title of "Swiss Influencer Talent 2019".

Three months ago, 700 up-and-coming influencers set their sights on being crowned "Swiss Influencer Talent 2019." She prevailed: Anna Smith, the music influencer from Fehraltorf (pictured below at the handover). After eight weekly pre-selection shows on Teleclub Zoom with a variety of challenges, the 21-year-old convinced the expert jury the most and was chosen tonight as the best young talent. Fabian Plüss, jury president, on the winner: "Anna Smith has a varied feed, always creatively implemented the challenges and subtly and sympathetically integrated the given brands in the posts. She has charisma and also the ambition to withstand the stressful everyday life of an influencer. The jury sees a lot of potential in her." On her Instagram channel @annasmith_official, Anna Smith unites around 9,500 followers who follow her on her journey to becoming a musician/songwriter. Second place went to body positivity influencer Fabienne Wernli (26, Zurich) and third place to sports influencer Marco Heiniger (21, Rümlang).

With this campaign, SodaStream is standing up for people regardless of their origin, religion, gender or sexual identity. The topic should be addressed using a gentle and emotional campaign that everyone can identify with. The aim is to show a world in which no one ever has to hide.

At the center of the campaign is transgender woman Lila Blilat, who has made a long journey from a traditional, nomadic Muslim community to a liberated woman. Blilat is the face of Tel Aviv Pride 2019 and comes from the traditional Bedouin town of Rahat in Israel, where the SodaStream factory is located.
 

The Pro Patria Foundation is committed to the preservation, maintenance and future of our cultural heritage and to the promotion of cultural life.

Schläfle Trittibach deliberately focused on the reduction to the essentials in the Swiss graphic language when creating the overall appearance: A clear, reduced language of form that dispenses with superfluous gimmicks. The look of the new imagery is colorfully oriented to the warm mood of the summer months. August 1, with the sale of the badges and the birthday of Switzerland, always represents the annual highlight of the foundation.

On this basis, the corporate design, the website with an e-shop, direct mailings and various sales measures for the Pro Patria stamps and the 1st August badge were developed. The advertising materials are used by the sales staff of the Pro Patria volunteer network and at various points of sale in Switzerland.

The bank is using the occasion to launch a communications offensive in its home market. To this end, the internationally launched campaign based on the promise "How we invest today is how we live tomorrow" is being significantly expanded for national broadcast.

An eight-minute interview with Formula E racing driver Jérôme D'Ambrosio, "recorded" in the year 2040, is delivered via social ads and Julius Baer's Content Hub. The latter also plays a central role in this year's campaign and will be provided with specific content in view of the race in Bern.

Another digital highlight will be the Julius Baer Messenger Bot. In the days leading up to the car race, interested parties will be able to address the key issues of the immediate future and our society via Facebook Messenger. There is a corresponding content piece for each topic area. The campaign is rounded off with TV spots and billboards as well as digital and analog posters that highlight upcoming megatrends. In addition, the NZZ and the Bernese Newspaper provide insights into the world of tomorrow as part of a futuristic Branding Day.

In addition, an event will take place at the Swiss E-Prix in the Hospitality Pavilion with Rainer Maria Salzgeber as host, where one or the other view through Julius Baer's "Window2TheFuture" will also be made possible.

As part of the "One Brand" strategy implemented as of June 1, 2019, the sales activities of the former segment brands were integrated into the new "Advertising Market" division headed by Andy Bürki.

As a result, advertisers will now benefit from holistic consulting, planning and execution of all analog, digital and interactive advertising formats as well as campaigns in all communication spaces.

Reinforcement in Key Account Management (KAM)

Beat Sulzer now heads the agency team, Urs Ramsauer the direct client team, and Marcel Baumann the cross solutions team. Tony Mandingorra is in charge of international customer relations. Sandra Stocker heads the media planning team, which is responsible for internal support and the back office.

Expansion of the Analysis and Services divisions

Thomas Macho heads the Market Intelligence team and supports both KAM and the regions with decision-relevant market information, analyses, and research data to underpin customer advice. Reto Pensa and his Sales Service team manage the customer-focused service and support offerings in the background.

More customer proximity in the regions at a total of 17 locations

To strengthen customer and market proximity, the number of sales territories was expanded from four to eight regions. Andreas Steltzlen (Berne Central), Ostelio Schifano (Switzerland Central and North), Roger Keller (Zurich East), Massimo Bonotto (Zurich Southeast) and, as before, Beat Nievergelt (Zurich), Pierre-Alain Mettraux (French-speaking Switzerland) and Renato Belotti (South) are now responsible for the sales teams in these regions. In this configuration, local and regional partners can be served in an even more focused and solution-oriented manner.

"Within the framework of this agile sales organization with a total of more than 120 employees, advertising customers receive competent contact persons and a professional full service for all analog, digital and interactive out-of-home as well as mobile media solutions across the entire APG|SGA portfolio," says Andy Bürki, Head of Advertising Market and member of the Executive Board, in a statement.

Swiss management salaries remain at a stable high level. A Swiss head of marketing can earn up to CHF 235,000, the head of IT at a large company up to CHF 219,000 and a head of auditing up to CHF 220,000. These are the results of the 2019 management salary study by the consulting firm Kienbaum and the Handelszeitungfor which 16,104 Swiss executive salaries were analyzed.  
 
However, the rates of increase in management salaries are also modest this year, amounting to a maximum of 1%. Increases have remained at this level since 2014. The energy sector paid slightly better than in the previous year, while wages in the banking sector were slightly lower.

Annual variable remuneration is widespread at all management levels. This is most common among top management (96%) and less common among lower management (74%). The median amount of variable remuneration is CHF 89,000 for top management and CHF 12,000 for managers in lower management.

In the coming years, representatives of professions that require little specialized know-how will have to prepare for lower wages. In general, this applies to activities that can be easily automated, such as accounting, and to some extent also controlling and auditing. An audit manager in Switzerland currently earns CHF 220,000.