Empty alleyways, closed stores and distance, distance, distance! It's been a year since the Swiss population realized that the pandemic would also hit Switzerland hard. What has remained since then is the great uncertainty and an incredible sense of powerlessness.

When will it be real life again? A life as it used to be... with enjoyment and hospitality? With a short film, Confiserie Bachmann, which has been hit hard by the crisis itself, wants to encourage all gourmets and remind them: "You'll never walk alone."

Small movie, big impact

In the first three days since the video was published, the confectionery has received a lot of feedback. People sent in their own coronavirus stories and shared their emotions. What began as a small film has grown into a community, the family business writes in a press release.

Lena Jaggi, Daniel Steffen, Roman Schmid, Kilian Sonnentrücker, Iwan Negro and David Lüscher have 2015 Hinderling Volkart Bern founded and built up. In 2020, Hinderling Volkart became part of Dept. (Werbewoche.ch reported). As a result, the six decided to start their own business together.

Mutoco's six-person team jointly creates websites, develops applications and creates digital experiences - from strategy and consulting to conception and design to technical implementation. Among other things, they are responsible for the new Business Platform of the Swiss Commercial Association and the Tourist portal of the Jura and Three Lakes Region.

The claim of the new agency? New Digital Grounds. Technology is the foundation for projects, creativity and design are the drivers, the agency writes in a statement. Unexpected, surprising, sometimes playful concepts arouse curiosity and open doors to new ideas. "Only this makes it possible to explore and reshape the digital space," says co-founder David Lüscher.

Another principle of the agency, she says, is to question itself just as much and again and again as the products, such as standards and briefings. This self-imposed openness, says co-founder Lena Jaggi, should help to resist the temptation to rest on one's laurels and become sluggish because of what has been achieved. At least as important, she says, is for Mutoco to learn lessons from mistakes it has made. Or as David Lüscher puts it, "We see mistakes, and especially dealing with mistakes, as an integral part of an innovative process."

Integration of Hinderling Volkart into Dept was crucial

The word Mutoco is composed of "muto", Latin for change, and co - collaboration, cooperation. Even though the agency carries the change in its name, it was initiated from the outside, according to the statement. With the takeover of Hinderling Volkart - and thus also of Hinderling Volkart Bern - by the agency network Dept at the beginning of 2020, the Bern location suddenly became part of a large international conglomerate with more than 1,500 employees, it said. An environment that did not fully coincide with the vision of the Bern location, as the agency writes. However, even though Mutoco is not part of Hinderling Volkart, the two agencies will remain in partnership.

Since November, listings for restaurants, hotels, bars and cafes have skyrocketed. In January, they were a whole 70 percent above the previous year's value, as the real estate platform Immoscout24 announced on Monday. Thus, the advertisements of gastro-restaurants have reached a new high.

According to the announcement, the advertised pubs are almost exclusively rental properties. Because the rent is a significant part of the fixed costs, many restaurateurs are currently forced to give up their rented premises, Immoscout24 CEO Martin Waeber is quoted in the statement.

Rental prices likely to fall

At least there is a small consolation for the restaurateurs who have now given up their premises: When they reopen, rents are likely to be lower than before. This is because, on the one hand, more and more pubs are standing empty and, on the other, demand for rental properties from the restaurant trade has also been falling since the start of the second lockdown.

And that is likely to influence prices, according to the real estate experts at Immoscout24: "If supply continues to rise and demand for these properties declines at the same time, this could put pressure on rents in the medium term," says Waeber.

No influence on purchase prices

The picture is different for restaurants that are for sale: Property owners, unlike tenants, are much less likely to want to part with their properties. In any case, according to Immoscout24, the number of listings for properties for sale is still at the pre-crisis level.

"Due to the lower interest rates, owners have the advantage that they have lower costs than tenants," Waeber is quoted as saying. Moreover, such properties often consist not only of restaurant space, but also of rental apartments, for example, which are hardly affected by the crisis. (SDA)

From May 1, 2021, Marc Eberhart will strengthen Key Account Management at the Zurich site. He succeeds Karima Ennebbali and worked for more than ten years in various media agencies, where he was also responsible in particular for buying out-of-home media. For the last two years, the graduate marketing manager HF worked at Omnicom Media Group, where he was Director Out of Home Media and Radio.

With Vincenzo Meo, APG|SGA has been able to win back another sales professional. He succeeds Benjamin Grandjean and has several years of experience in sales, which he acquired at BAZ, FC Basel, SBB, APG|SGA, and most recently at Livesystems, among others. Meo took up his position at the Bern site on January 4, 2021, and is responsible within Key Account Management for the regions of Bern and the entire French-speaking part of Switzerland.

The clock is ticking and the end of the third-party cookie is imminent. However, a recent survey commissioned by the advertising management platform Adform shows that marketing decision-makers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland are still inadequately prepared for the approaching deadline.

In the study, 91% of marketing decision-makers in Austria and 88% in Switzerland stated that they did not yet have a solution for the time after cookie death. For the DACH region as a whole, the figure is 82 percent. Two thirds of respondents in Austria and Switzerland expect the end of third-party cookies to have a direct impact on their own business.

With the end of the third-party cookie, the topic of identity is gaining momentum. And as many as 60 percent of DACH respondents are currently looking for a solution for creating first-party identities. Only 29 percent already have a corresponding solution. "The fact that one in ten marketers have not even considered the topic of identity is alarming," says Andreas Grasel, Country Manager Austria & Switzerland at Adform. "The announcement that third-party cookies and thus the familiar model would be phased out came as no surprise to industry insiders at the time. Even then, it was clear that anyone just starting to deal with this now has a lot of work ahead of them. The time for action on the part of decision-makers has long since arrived; and the pressure is mounting!"

Control, transparency and flexibility

According to the survey, marketing decision-makers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland also generally lack control over their marketing data. According to the survey, 39% of respondents state that they have no control over their marketing data or at least wish they had significantly more control.

Respondents also identified several problems in the supply chain: Advertising euros seeping into the process, too many providers involved, too little control and too little transparency - overall, 91 percent of respondents criticized the loss of valuable time and money in the process. The solution to this problem and thus cost- and time-efficient work seems to be seen by the majority of respondents (63 percent) in working with just one provider instead of relying on a best-of-breed approach.

Above all, modern marketers need to be flexible in order to hold their own in the fast-moving advertising business. 23% believe that success depends above all on the ability to adapt quickly to changing market conditions. For 15 percent each, a broad specialist knowledge of marketing platforms and knowledge of all marketing sub-processes are among the core competencies.

60% of DACH marketers have a positive attitude towards brand gardens - i.e. the activation of their own first-party data in a protected environment. Flexibility and control are the most prominent advantages of such brand gardens for 82 percent. However, trust and transparency are also important plus points in the eyes of two thirds of the experts.

Current challenges

When asked about the biggest challenges currently facing the management of marketing campaigns, the experts named not only less budget and team strength due to Covid-19 (37%), but also not being able to make real-time adjustments and having to wait too long for results (14% each) and the lack of integration of individual elements into the big picture (also 14%). Almost three quarters (76%) would like to have a single dashboard for the efficient management of their campaigns. Respondents see particular advantages in data optimization, greater control over campaigns, cost efficiency and flexibility.

The Digital Congress 360° Entertainment is aimed at event organizers, sponsors, advertising companies, event service providers, artist managers, media, marketing and consulting agencies and event venues. This year, Ticketcorner and ESB Marketing Network are not organizing it with industry professionals physically present, as is usually the case in Interlaken, but as a hybrid congress with live broadcasts from NEP Studios in Volketswil.

This year, the organizers want to take stock of the entertainment industry in Switzerland and internationally, which is struggling to survive due to the coronavirus pandemic. This is because it is not considered systemically relevant, which leads to uncertainty, standstill and anger. The end of the ban on events is uncertain. New regulations, collaborations and event models have emerged and are challenging the industry. What will remain and what will disappear?

Corona learning and challenges

The congress will take an in-depth look at medium and long-term prospects for event organizers, sponsors, media and service providers. 40 top speakers will provide insights into the following key topics in six forums: Future opportunities, technology, sponsoring, security and venues.

Co-President Mattea Meyer of the SP Switzerland and SMPA President Christoph Bill will be among the speakers. Futurologist Dietmar Dahmen will give an outlook in these unusual times. On the economic and political consequences of the corona crisis. Paperless event access, new digital solutions for arenas and the face as an admission ticket are just a few examples of how digitalization is establishing itself in the event sector.

The Bonn-based company Placeit will be demonstrating how event organizers can use tracking methods for themselves even after corona. The concept of live monitoring for several thousand people will be presented at the congress. Felix Frei, President of the Swiss Stadium and Arena Operators Association (VSSA), as well as representatives from the Zurich Film Festival, Samsung Hall, Placeit, several well-known artists and many other decision-makers on the sponsor side will also be present on stage.

The streams will also be available to participants after the event on March 16, 2021.

The Vogel Communications Group is taking over the trade journal at - current technology from Galledia. With this acquisition, the media company is further expanding its market position in the industrial sector.

With over 100 specialist media in 14 sectors, the Vogel Communications Group is one of the most important German-language specialist publishers. The takeover of at - current technology represents a genuine addition to the company's portfolio, which will further strengthen its positioning as a specialist in the industrial sector, as was reported in a press release. The enlarged target group opens up new perspectives in the advertising market as well as great opportunities in the joint development of innovative information offerings.

Vogel Communications Group will continue to rely on the many years of experience and journalistic expertise of the existing team and is looking forward to working with them. The existing organization will remain unchanged. As Publishing Director at Vogel Communications Group, Matthias Böhm will take over operational responsibility from at - current technology. He has been responsible for the operational management of the trade journal since 2011 Swiss machinery market.

Lilo Pulver was born in Bern in 1929, attended the acting school in Bern and soon became a popular actress in Switzerland and Germany. Her leading role in the film "Time to Live and Time to Die" by Douglas Sirk launched her international film career.

Pulver left her mark on film history with her play full of humor and with her subtly revolting interpretations, and received great critical acclaim. In 1964, she was nominated for the Golden Globes. In 1980, she received the Honorary Award of the German Film Prize. With the Honorary Prize of the Swiss Film Award, endowed with 30,000 Swiss francs, the Federal Office of Culture FOC now also honors Lilo Pulver's contribution to international film history from the 1950s to the present day.

Nominees week

From March 22 to 28, 2021, the films nominated for the Swiss Film Awards will be screened online as part of the "Week of the Nominees" program organized by the Association "Quartz" Genève Zurich. www.quartz.ch.

Award ceremony in livestream

The Swiss Film Awards ceremony will take place via livestream on Friday, March 26, 2021. The event will be recorded in the studios of RTS in Geneva and broadcast via Quartz.ch sent.

This tribute to Swiss filmmaking is organized by the BAK in partnership with SRG SSR and the Association "Quartz" Genève Zürich and in collaboration with Swiss Films, the Swiss Film Academy and the Solothurn Film Festival.

As of January 2021, Livesystems has taken over the exclusive marketing of the former CanalPoste network of Swiss Post (Werbewoche.ch reported). By the end of 2020, more than 550 large-format screens had been installed at over 300 Swiss Post branches across Switzerland, according to a statement from Livesystems. The screens are located in the waiting area and at the point of sale and would thus achieve a high level of attention, according to Livesystems.

"We can offer the advertising market an attractive and stable product despite the Corona year," explains Dragan Dojcinovic, CEO of Livesystems. "The first campaigns were already successfully broadcast at the beginning of January." All bookings with broadcasting until the end of March would also benefit from special introductory discounts.

"The launch of Swipe Studio gives us the opportunity to expand the digital offering in our Zurich hub and serve our clients excellently from ideation to implementation of new digital products, services and ecosystems under one Accenture Interactive DACH in St. Annagasse," Benjamin Tück (pictured left), Lead Accenture Interactive Switzerland, was quoted as saying in a statement Tuesday.

With Wim Roelfs, Swipe in Zurich has gained another experienced creative in the areas of digital, communication and brand. Roelfs was most recently Digital Creative Director at MetaDesign. Previously, he worked at Publicis, Jung von Matt Limmat and Futurecom Interactive. He is a member of ADC Switzerland and has already won several national and international awards.

In the vacation region of Heidiland, the destination management organization DMO is working together with the blockchain specialists from "Rell.io" and other technology and tourism partners on the world's first tourism blockchain, as Heidiland writes in a release. As part of the "HeidiCHain" project, a fully functional private blockchain environment is being created that is specifically tailored to the needs of a tourism region.

How does a tourism blockchain work?

The term "blockchain" is now often associated with speculative cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. However, this has nothing to do with the work currently being done in Heidi's home, the statement continues. The "HeidiCHain" uses within the consortium affiliated partners for a decentralized and anonymous data storage of all transactions. Data is therefore not collected centrally by a partner. This means that customer data cannot be viewed and is completely secure. In addition, the "HeidiCHain" would in future allow the various players within the region to share the data in a decentralized and anonymous manner and to carry out transactions of all kinds.

Digitized tourist tax administration as the first application

Accommodation, gastronomy, mountain railroads, thermal baths, sporting goods rental, guided tours: today, the overall experience for the guest in a typical destination is often made up of numerous individual providers and individual services that function completely in isolation from one another and are not infrequently even (yet) bookable online. On the supply side, individual tourism service providers would have customer data available, but this could not be anonymized, shared and thus used in a meaningful way by all service providers within a destination - for analyses of visitor flows or for needs-based product developments, for example. The "HeidiCHain" is intended to create the technological basis here so that completely new applications will be possible in the future, both on the demand side and on the supply side.

In the project phase, after the blockchain and the corresponding service provider consortium have been set up, the first concrete use case to be implemented will be a system for automated, digital visitor tax billing for the guest and the service provider. Today, visitor tax administration in the Heidiland vacation region by the DMO is very personnel-intensive, difficult to control and time-delayed, and entails a high administrative effort for all parties involved, as Heidiland writes. With the digitalization of the reporting system on the basis of the Heidiland Blockchain, the quality of the reported tourism data for the overnight stay statistics is to be improved at the same time as the reduction of the administrative effort on the part of the hotel industry, the guest, the destinations and the public authorities involved.

Tourist ID as a "digital key" to the region

Also part of the project phase is the introduction of a digital tourist ID with a corresponding mobile application, according to the statement. In the future, guests will be able to buy this ID once from the destination and thus receive a personal "digital key" to the region on their smartphone. In this way, payments in the restaurant, access to the mountain railroad or the opening of the vacation apartment door will be possible in the future - quite simply with the smartphone and without additional effort. Further expansion steps based on the "HeidCHain" include the establishment of a digital marketplace and the development of dashboards for real-time data analysis, for example for the development of new tourism products.

The project is being implemented jointly by blockchain experts from "Rell.io", Heidiland Tourism, the economic partners TSO, from Tourist-Data Shop and other external partners as well as the regional service providers. The new solution with the first applications should be available to guests for the first time in the winter season 21/22.

"Video games play an important role in many people's lives in these difficult times, especially for children. They are a way to connect, talk to others and make new friends from the comfort of their own homes. Gaming brings people together even when they are apart," said Dayna Sinclair, manager at HyperX.

The analysts conducted the survey among British teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18 and their parents. More than half of the teens stay connected with their friends via video games in the lockdown. Gaming is a more important social communication tool for them than social media or call apps, they said.

Parents still skeptical

Of the parents surveyed, 77 percent see video games as important to their children's mental well-being. However, gaming is still considered a waste of time by most. Only one-third of parents perceive their children's hobby as a productive activity. (pte)