93% of publishers from Sublime's global network surveyed at the beginning of 2019 stated that they already monetize their mobile inventory. 72 percent use the services of a third-party provider for this, while half of the publishers surveyed even manage their available inventory in-house. One in four publishers uses both methods. At 86%, banners are the most frequently monetized advertising format, followed by advertising in the feed (71%) and video (58%).

The biggest obstacle to monetization is the profit expectation, which is too low or unknown for mobile inventory (45%). 40% of publishers also state that they cannot find a suitable advertising format that meets their advertising needs and a quarter of respondents cannot make any concrete statements about the demand for mobile inventory or are unsure. On the other hand, only a minority (8 percent) are held back by a lack of knowledge about how they can monetize their mobile inventory.

When choosing the right advertising format for their website, publishers put the user experience and readability of the content first (45%), followed by the expected profit (41%). In addition, 36 percent state that the advertising format must not significantly impair loading times and navigation. For around a quarter of publishers, it is particularly important to use formats that can be easily integrated into the website (23%).

At the same time, publishers must choose formats that are attractive to advertisers. The majority of publishers (65%) state that the main decision criterion for advertisers is aesthetics: they want formats that do not negatively impact the brand image. Furthermore, more than one in two publishers (53 percent) state that formats that conform to the standards of the Coalition for Better Ads are important to advertisers. Innovative, unusual formats follow closely behind (50 percent), and exciting formats that users can interact with are also in demand (38 percent). Video formats are only of interest to around a quarter of advertisers.

The time spent using mobile devices has risen sharply in recent years. In 2017, users in Germany spent twice as much time on mobile devices as on desktops. (Comscore, Global Digital Future in Focus 2018). At the same time, advertising expenditure for mobile is rising steadily. Current forecasts by Medianetwork Zenith show that spending in Germany will reach a peak of EUR 1.16 billion in 2019. In 2017, advertisers only invested 438 million euros in mobile advertising.

Assen Sarawainow, Commercial Director at Sublime in Germany, is convinced that the target groups of advertising customers will continue to switch from desktop to mobile and that mobile web traffic will increasingly develop into an important source of income.

"Nevertheless, the advertising industry must take into account the growing expectations of publishers. Formats should not obscure content or impair the user experience, and there are already a large number of available and scalable advertising formats. The future of mobile advertising lies in personalization, which enables relevant content, as well as advertising formats that are ideally adapted to the content with our Creative First approach and are played out programmatically efficiently."

Bewersdorff can already look back on almost two decades of experience in consulting. After studying economics in Berlin, she worked for the international advertising agency network McCann Erickson for six years, where she looked after the client Siemens Mobile Phones worldwide. She then worked for a further seven years as a management supervisor at Scholz & Friends in Hamburg, where she was able to deepen her knowledge of campaign strategy and management in the food and consumer goods sectors. 

Most recently, as Client Service Director at Wirz, she successfully and proactively managed the largest consulting group at Wirz for five years and increased efficiency at Migros thanks to the introduction of a number of standardized processes. 

Petra Dreyfus, Co-CEO and COO of Wirz, said in a press release: "Catrin Bewersdorff has impressively demonstrated at Migros how to manage a major client with intelligence and systemic know-how. With her knowledge of simplifying and automating processes and her overview, she is an asset to our management team. And of course I'm also delighted to have female support!"

The topic is of great importance to the SFOE's SwissEnergy program because it has considerable savings potential. The pilot campaign has been challenging owners in Valais since January. The campaign will then be launched at national level in November 2019. The campaign is broad-based and links the B2B and B2C target groups. Numerous measures, meetings and workshops have been held to ensure that the right messages reach the B2C target group. Their intermediary role is fundamental to the success of the campaign, according to a press release. An easy-to-remember name and a memorable logo, a central information platform MakeHeatSimple.ch, advertising material for B2B and an online and offline campaign for second home owners in Valais are among the basic elements of the initiative.

The tone of the campaign is deliberately kept emotional and non-technical in order to reach a non-sensitized target group in particular. The visual, the animation on all digital channels and the website convey the topic in the simplest possible way using an off- and online media mix. The launch on January 31 at Leuk Castle was a complete success, according to the press release. In the presence of Valais State Councillor Roberto Schmidt and the heads of SwissEnergy, the campaign was acknowledged and the importance of the project for the Confederation's overall energy strategy was underlined. The most important representatives of the B2B audience were also present and expressed their interest in the project in Valais. The next step is the national launch in November 2019.

 "We receive inquiries almost on a weekly basis from companies that want to add voice dialog systems to their chatbots," Spitch's DACH boss said in a statement, explaining his prediction.

Chatbots are "in" because they can provide customers and prospects with information and entertainment around the clock without incurring significant costs for companies. However, their widespread use on smartphones is failing because many users find it too cumbersome to constantly type in text on the small screens. The "typing hurdle" can be overcome with voice dialog systems that engage customers and prospects in human-like conversations while providing information about the company, its products and services. "The combination of voice recognition and natural language processing means that you can talk to a voice chatbot in normal everyday language," explains Spitch CEO Juerg Schleier.

Juerg Schleier explains: "A voicebot is able to provide information in spoken language within seconds, around the clock. This increases customer satisfaction enormously and introduces interested parties to the company's offerings. Since the bot can access huge databases in the background, the majority of all inquiries can be processed completely without human intervention and thus without significant costs for the company. What's more, voicebots are cool - and that alone is an immense marketing advantage at a time when the struggle for attention is probably harder than ever before. Then there's the trend toward social commerce - buying goods through a dialog rather than a traditional online shopping system. Voicebots are ideal as enablers for social commerce."

The Swiss entrepreneur Spitch is one of the technologically leading developers and providers of speech systems for companies and public authorities. Spitch's systems are already in use in all major industries where the use of speech technologies is particularly appropriate. These include call and contact centers, banks and insurance companies, telecommunications firms, the automotive and transportation industries, healthcare, and the public sector. The use of professional speech systems enables cost savings of up to 80 percent and, with ever-improving technology, leads to an increase in customer satisfaction. Spitch's customer list includes, for example, the Swiss Federal Railways SBB, Swisscom, Swisscard and Amag.

The most important figures and measures at a glance:

• 2.3 billion unauthorized ads were removed due to policy violations. These included 58.8 million phishing ads, most of which were blocked before they were displayed. A further 207,000 deleted ads originated from resellers of event tickets.
• Google has removed ads from almost 28 million websites and 1.5 million apps. In addition, 734,000 publishers and app developers were blocked from the ad network.
• With the help of improved machine learning technology, millions of unauthorized advertising accounts were blocked. At the same time, Google has improved the technology for checking violations at page level and added 330 criteria.
• For the 2018 US Midterm Elections, a total of 143,000 election ads were reviewed, a new election advertising policy was introduced and a new transparency report for political ads was published.

The prejudice that boys are better at math than girls persists to this day - although studies have refuted this several times. This is a central cause of the lack of women in engineering, because math is already the crucial link between girls and the engineering profession at primary school age.

To address this problem more broadly for Usic, PAM invented and promoted the Math Dealer service: an online service where girls solve math problems for boys for money. Through the website, girls could register as Math Dealers and boys could register as math problem consumers. Posters in Zurich, Bern, Lausanne and Lugano advertised the fictitious Math Dealer service. In addition, Math Dealer wrote to schools with an enclosed poster and flyers were distributed to students.

As intended, the campaign triggered reactions: in addition to outrage and puzzlement about what and who was behind it, one politician also filed a complaint.

About View, Watson and other media, it was resolved that Usic was behind the campaign. The resolution was also made through the Math Dealer Website. Also, all people who had registered for the "service" received an email educating them about the campaign. 

People like the journalist Hanna Wick, whose Time-The media coverage of the article on girls and mint subjects, which appeared on the same day as the dissolution, was a strong endorsement of the campaign. Likewise, after the resolution, Usic received various letters from math teachers and engineering companies who were pleased with the media placement of the topic of girls and math.

Leandro Curty (Power Esports), 2nd place and Stefan Beer (Borussia Esports), 1st place at the eCup Coca-Cola qualifying tournament in Geneva (Pathé) (from left).

The 15-strong crew at By the Way in Bern's Stadtbach district can roll up their sleeves even further. A total of eight new clients have opted for the agency's services since the start of 2019.

In the Communications division, the company, which operates throughout Switzerland Verit Real Estate marketing measures for the Leuengarten development in Uitikon to By the Way Communications.

The innovative sun and weather protection company Stobag in Muri AG has placed an order with the Bern agency in the area of social media management.

The College of Family Medicine in Freiburg had the 2018 annual report professionally designed and realized.

For MyStromer - the company develops and markets innovative e-bikes - By the Way Communications is allowed to implement various measures as part of its tenth anniversary celebrations.

And the media group Sky commissioned the Bern-based communications agency with a media relations project to promote the streaming portal and its program highlights.

In addition, the agency successfully prevailed against two competitors in a new competition and will produce the printed and digital version of the magazine for a further two years Armafolio of the Federal Armaments Office Armasuisse.
 
The Personality Management unit of By the Way Communications has prevailed against international competition in a selection process and is now responsible for the entire management of Dean Schneider responsible. Dean Schneider left Switzerland at the end of 2017 to devote himself entirely to fulfilling his personal calling in South Africa: The care and protection of wild animals. Dean Schneider uses social media to draw attention to his project, publishing inspiring and educational posts every day that inspire people around the world. Within a few months, his Instagram account @dean.schneider has literally exploded and currently has around 550,000 followers and counting.

In the eSports business unit, By the Way Communications is the only Swiss agency to date to have established a close partnership with the ESL Gamingthe world's largest eSports tournament and league organizer. ESL is relying on the Bern-based agency's knowledge of the Swiss eSports landscape and has commissioned By the Way Communications to create and manage content on the ESL Swiss channels (Swisscom Hero League). The agency is also responsible for talent and production management at the recently established Swiss ESL Studio, which draws mainly from By the Way Communications' eSports talent pool. By the Way Communications acts as co-marketer for the Swisscom Hero League powered by ESL. The cooperation between the Bern-based agency and ESL Gaming lays the foundation for further eSports projects under the ESL flag in Swiss eSports.

Together with its partner agencies, By the Way Communications is also currently organizing the largest FIFA Community Tournament in Switzerland to date, the "eCup Coca-Cola". Well-known sponsors have been acquired for this event. This shows that eSports is also becoming increasingly important in Switzerland in terms of marketing communication. Other promising eSports projects are already in the development phase at By the Way, according to the press release.

According to the latest M&A market reports on the areas of e-commerce and digital marketing from the international technology consultant Hampleton Partners, there was an increase in the published M&A value in 2018 compared to 2017 (Mergers & Acquisitions(i.e. all transactions in the corporate sector such as takeovers, mergers, etc.) in e-commerce by 20 billion US dollars. This was boosted by mega deals such as Walmart's purchase of Flipkart for USD 16 billion and Adobe's acquisition of Marketo for USD 4.75 billion. In digital marketing, the total reported transaction value in the second half of 2018 reached USD 10.91 billion. This is more than twice as much as in the first half of the year.

Private equity firms' appetite for e-commerce has increased since the beginning of 2016, with PE funds now accounting for 15% of transactions. Financial buyers are also increasingly paying more for their acquisitions, as demonstrated by the buyout of Zoopla by Silver Lake Partners for USD 3 billion at 26.4x EBITDA.

The digital marketing industry is currently experiencing a whole series of upheavals and technical changes. The increased emergence of chatbots and AI analytics is forcing retailers to increase their investments and take a closer look at the topics of personalized advice and better customer understanding. At the same time, there is a move away from pre-sales marketing towards post-sales marketing. This is also closing the gap in the customer life cycle.

Amazon Advertising had a significant year and is now estimated to be the third largest advertising marketer in the US after Google and Facebook with a market share of 4 percent. The value of the advertising business exceeded 2 billion US dollars for the first time in the first quarter of 2018, reached 2.8 billion US dollars in the third quarter and continued to record triple-digit growth year-on-year.

Trends in e-commerce and digital marketing

• Personalization and after-sales support: As the number of retail losses and customer acquisition costs continue to rise, brand building and satisfactory post-sales support are becoming critical to customer retention. Personalized messaging is a key part of this support.

In July 2018, advertising agency Interpublic Group (IPG) acquired Acxiom (AMS) for USD 2.3 billion, exceeding its market value of 3.3x EV/S. Acxiom will enable IPG to provide its clients with a base data set covering two thirds of the world's population. Acxiom states that it recognizes 2.2 billion consumers and manages 20 billion customer records.

• Communication and innovation: The introduction of voice recognition, smart home devices and AR/VR is changing the way customers interact with brands and purchase goods and services. Artificial intelligence (AI) is being used in search or filter functions, for data mining and for content creation.

"Both retailers and digital marketers are fighting for consumers in an Amazon world. Amazon is both a huge competitor and a frenemy. Through Amazon advertising and services, thousands of companies can successfully engage in e-commerce commerce," comments Ralph Hübner, Sector Principal at Hampleton Partners, on the current situation.

"In the meantime, the start-up ecosystem in e-commerce is undergoing major changes. On the one hand, the financing value for established e-commerce platforms is increasing. On the other hand, it is becoming increasingly difficult for start-ups to obtain capital at an early stage if they cannot demonstrate the ability to create disruption through a data-driven business model."

Look into the future

"E-commerce will become the largest sales channel in the world by 2021, reaching an estimated value of $3 trillion. We are likely to see more activity from both strategic buyers looking to consolidate their offering and operations with next-generation technologies and marketing software, as well as venture and financing partners looking to capitalize on e-commerce start-ups that have disruptive potential," Ralph Hübner estimates.

Walker AG are cheese professionals who create the best gourmet products with a dedication to detail and a focus on quality and regionality. The mountain cheese dairy was founded in 1996. The company headquarters are located at the foot of the Aletsch Glacier. When developing the new identity, the aim was to create a modern brand image that is based on the existing brand and thus ensures recognition with Walker. The photographs on Vallisdelicia.ch were designed by Silvano Zeiter, while Nicolas Walker was responsible for the project on the client side.

The fourth edition of Food Zurich will take place from May 16 to 26, 2019. During eleven days, the city on the Limmat puts its culinary diversity in the spotlight with a wide range of over 100 events. This time under the motto "Pairing" for the "city dishes" and with a new festival center in the middle of the city, in the Europaallee right next to Zurich Main Station. The festival program will finally be complete in mid-April.

"The new collaboration with Woehrle Pirola offers ideal conditions for our media work thanks to the agency's large existing network and proven festival expertise in the culinary field," says Food-Zurich co-festival director Simon Mouttet, explaining the decision.

According to US media, the technology group has even passed on the data material in question to other companies and research institutions to help them develop their own programs. This has drawn criticism from data protectionists and photographers.

"That's the dirty little secret of datasets like this that are used to train artificial intelligence. A lot of scientists just grab all the photos they can get their hands on for that," NBC News quotes legal expert Jason Schultz of New York University as saying. Hundreds of thousands of images would be needed to develop a well-functioning facial recognition system. "Those photos all come from the Internet and are used without the consent of the people who put them there and sorted by categories like age, gender, skin color and a dozen other factors, and then shared with university and corporate researchers," Schultz explains.

The lack of information for those affected is particularly incomprehensible to photographers. They have to be very careful when taking and using their pictures and clarify the relevant rights in writing with the people photographed. "None of the people I photographed had any idea that their pictures were being used in this way," criticizes Greg Peverill-Conti, a PR consultant from Boston who contributed over 700 photos to the IBM dataset. The fact that these can simply be "misused" in this way, he says, came as a great surprise to him.

"We take the privacy of individuals very seriously and make great efforts to always act in accordance with the applicable data protection regulations," says an initial response from IBM. This also applies to the specific data set with Flickr photos that is the subject of the current discussion. According to the IT giant, this can only be viewed by verified scientists. "Furthermore, it only contains material that is freely accessible to the public. If someone does not want to be included in this data set, they also have the option of having themselves removed from it," the company emphasizes. (pte)

Apple has introduced rules in its App Store that limit consumer choice and slow down innovation, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said Wednesday.

In Apple's App Store - and also on other download platforms such as Google's Play Store for Android devices - it is common for app providers to get 70 percent of the revenue, while 30 percent remains with the operator. This also applies to purchases within apps. For subscription revenues, Apple lowers the levy to 15 percent from the second year on.

Music streaming providers have long expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that they have to hand over a portion of subscription revenues to Apple, while the group gets the entire amount on its rival service. "If we pay this tax, it would force us to artificially make our premium membership significantly more expensive than Apple Music," Ek criticized.

For a while, Spotify offered more expensive subscriptions in the iPhone app than on the web. In the meantime, it is no longer possible to take out a premium subscription on the iPhone. The video streaming service Netflix also stopped offering new customers the option of purchasing a subscription directly in the app at the end of last year.

Apple is making life more difficult for Spotify because the music service doesn't use the iPhone company's payment system, Ek wrote. For example, he said, Apple regularly blocked app updates and kept Spotify out of the company's own products, such as its Siri assistance software, the HomePod connected speaker and the Apple Watch computer watch. It also said it was limiting its ability to communicate with users.

"We don't want special treatment," Ek wrote, pointing out that ride-hailing service Uber or food delivery service Deliveroo, for example, also don't have to pay levies on individual transactions in their respective apps.

Spotify ended the past quarter with 96 million paying subscription customers, 9 million more than three months earlier. Together with the free version, Spotify came to 207 million users. Apple Music, number two in the market, has more than 50 million paying users according to the latest figures - the iPhone company does not have a free version. (SDA)