Banks have to contend with a dusty and conservative image. The Aargauische Kantonalbank is no exception. But what really goes on behind the blue K: No obligation to wear a suit in many departments, a personal "you" culture, flexible working hours and many other aspects that stand for a contemporary and forward-looking corporate culture.

The bank teamed up with Maybaum Film to capture and convey the modern working atmosphere in a genuine, authentic and approachable way. The result is a cinematic change of perspective.

Shot entirely from the "point of view", viewers experience the everyday working life of two protagonists at AKB. From the morning encounter at the status meeting to cross-departmental work processes and meetings, as well as the action-packed lunch field hockey lesson, to the end of the working day with the kids picking up their dad after work.

"The employees were totally unimpressed by the camera and were completely in their element. The filming was great fun - our camera team practically became one with the AKB team," says Flavio Alraun, project manager and responsible person on set.

A working day at AKB

Recruitment videos often fail due to their credibility. In many cases, testimonials - or even actors - are used to convey a distorted, embellished image of the company to jobseekers. The truth is that such statements should be treated with caution. In the end, the reality of hard day-to-day work often looks different from scripted dream scenes.

Prospective job applicants can now gain a varied and genuine insight into what happens at AKB even before they apply. The film is not only designed for customer advisors, but also for a large number of existing job profiles. In addition to using the main film for the website and YouTube channel, cut-downs are used in a user-friendly way, for example in the form of video posts on the social media channels LinkedIn and Instagram. In general, the campaign aims to increase traffic to the job portal.

As companies are in a constant state of change, image films can quickly lose their relevance. Flavio Alraun sees this as an exciting challenge: "The video has a modular structure. This means that scenes can be exchanged, removed or added to as required. The film can also be expanded with additional elements to adapt it to its presentation purpose."

Livesystems is expanding its digital portfolio with Tamoil's petrol station stores. In recent weeks, a total of 48 Tamoil branches throughout Switzerland have been equipped with the digital 75-inch steles in the outdoor area. As of October 1, 2020, customers will receive a mix of product advertising, information and news before visiting the store. The content supplier for the news is the company's own online news portal Nau.ch.

Tamoil and Livesystems have been working together in a proven partnership since 2017 with the sister product Gasstationtv.

Bruno Carizzoni takes over the helm from Mario Bucher. The latter becomes self-employed in another industry together with his wife and, despite his own decision, leaves Hünigen Castle with a very heavy heart.

Despite its proud age, the castle is in excellent condition. This is also thanks to the numerous investments made in 2019. Carizzoni will take over the management of the castle in late summer 2020 - and is delighted: "Despite the crisis at Corona, I will find the best conditions here in Hünigen. For me, this is both a privilege and an obligation; I will take the very best care of the castle and its crew," clarifies the 50-year-old family man.

The long-standing director of the four-star Hotel Restaurant Krone in Thun and current vice-director of the four-star Superior Vital Resort Deltapark in Gwatt near Thun is an experienced doer and affable team player. Since his childhood, Bruno Carizzoni has known how much knowledge, heart and soul and perseverance are required in the hotel business: "My parents ran their own business in Kandersteg. I grew up in the industry together with my siblings," explains Carizzoni with a smile. As vice-director of the Hotel Management School in Thun, he was also simultaneously head of specialist training from 2016 to 2018 and teaches the "Hotel Management" course as an external lecturer.

The castle Hünigen

The "Villa Hünigen" was mentioned as a settlement already in the 12th century in a document of Pope Eugen III in connection with the little monastery Röthenbach. Since 1922, the castle has been run as a hotel. Newly rebuilt and completely renovated, it reopened its doors in 2013 - with a consistent focus on banquets, seminars and events. Mario Bucher has been in charge of operations as director since 2017 and will hand over to Bruno Carizzoni in August 2020. The entrepreneur Walter Inäbnit and the young Bernese businessman Matthias Spycher have been the castle owners since January 2019.

The Corporate Design was developed on the basis of a special status of the HKB department within the Bern University of Applied Sciences BFH. As a regionally anchored, but internationally active art university, the HKB is dependent on an independent and unmistakable appearance.

The need of the HKB to be able to present itself to its stakeholders in a way that is appropriate to the target group is being met with the development of a new corporate design. In recent years, the visual design of the new CD has occupied the BUA intensively. In a participatory process with lecturers and students, the brand identity and its visual implementation were developed. The new logo of the BUA is at the center of this process: it shows the BUA as a design-profiled educational institution through a concise and playfully usable typographic solution.

Homemade design

The design was developed by HKB Atelier in collaboration with HKB Kommunikation. The typeface was created by an alumnus of the university, and the process was strategically supported by staff with many years of experience in branding. The campaign texts were created in a workshop with students and lecturers. And the sound in the digital applications was produced by the Sound Arts program.

The campaign was designed for the cityscape of Bern and Biel. In addition to various print formats, there are animations for public transport, cinema, social media and various online targets. The Zauberküche agency is responsible for media planning in this context.

Before joining the department store chain, which took on a new owner in the spring, Palek was responsible for communications at the Swiss hosiery brand Fogal. Before that, she worked as a journalist, for example at the NZZ on Sunday, at Bolero and Annabelle. "I'm thrilled to be back as a journalist and especially at Monocle. I will enjoy bringing my passion for relevant stories and aesthetics to this position," Palek said.

With Monocle and its sister agency Winkreative sets Monocle-Zurich is ideally located between Paris, Milan and Munich, and the last few months have shown that the DACH market in particular will recover more quickly. Over the last few months Monocle invested heavily in new products, including launching a new digital offering, the company nevertheless remains committed to print: "We continue to believe that there is a market for quality media, and we are investing in print. The feedback from our readership and our advertising customers has proven us right in recent months."

None of the companies surveyed were able to attract attention with above-average performance. Two well-known companies performed best in the ranking.

Traditional industry, digitalized target group

For the more traditional insurance industry, advancing digitalization poses a number of challenges - especially when dealing with younger customer groups who have grown up in the digitalized world. Their needs differ significantly from those of the existing group of policyholders.

An important aspect of this is communication on social networks. With the IFZ Social Media Barometer a research team from the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts shows for the first time how well Swiss insurers are doing on social media platforms. The Social Media Barometer is part of the IFZ Insurance Study 2020, which sheds light on the insurance market in Switzerland.

Various platforms are used

On average, the insurance companies surveyed use four platforms for their social media activities. They are most present on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram. In terms of the number of followers, Facebook and LinkedIn are the most important channels for insurers.

The companies' social media efforts result in an average of 28 posts per month across all platforms, which generate 413 likes and are commented on 1.6 times. The average Swiss insurer has 42,540 followers.

"We were surprised that most companies posted exactly the same content on the different platforms," says Florian Schreiber, author of the study and lecturer at the Institute of Financial Services at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. According to Schreiber, target group-specific communication on the various channels is important in order to appeal to younger customer groups in particular.

Less than half of all insurers present on social media

The evaluation of social media activities has shown that no insurance company has succeeded in achieving above-average performance in all the criteria examined. A total of 29 insurance groups have their own social media profiles - that is less than half of all companies in the sector.

And which insurance companies came out on top in the ranking? The health insurers are in the lead. "Due to their large presence in the retail business, they probably have a stronger focus on younger target groups than life and non-life insurers," says Florian Schreiber.

However, the size of the insurer has no significant influence on its position in the ranking. "Companies with lower premium income tend to be even more successful in achieving comparatively high reach with their posts," says the author of the study.

SWICA and Zurich swing out on top

SWICA performed best among health insurers. Among life and non-life insurers, Zurich achieved the best social media performance in the period under review at the end of 2019.

Top 5 among health insurers:

1. SWICA health organization
2. Helsana Ltd.
3. ÖKK Holding AG
4. Sympany Foundation
5. Groupe Mutuel Holding

Top 5 among life and non-life insurers:

1. Zurich Insurance Group
2. Allianz Suisse
3. SC, Swisscaution SA
4. AXA Switzerland
5. Generali (Switzerland) Holding

The step into new educational worlds is used both in basic communication and in target-group-specific implementations for various departments. The current out-of-home campaign with posters and ePanels, which is accompanied on a digital level by display ads and a social media campaign, is the starting signal for the consistent appearance.

According to investor documents, 11,000 vending machines will be dismantled this year and 60,000 next year - a drop of almost 20 percent. This is how the bosses want to increase the capacity utilization of the machine park in Europe.

Also with regard to personnel, the Handelszeitung according to the company. An investor presentation states: "Restructuring of the workforce in all countries". The "internal perimeters" would be aligned with a 20 percent drop in sales. Among the employees, it is assumed that this could be the paraphrase for a job reduction of up to 15 percent. Selecta employs 10,000 people in 16 European countries.

A ray of hope: Selecta's owner, the US investment firm KKR, decided to inject a further 130 million Swiss francs into the company for restructuring. This means that the Americans have so far invested around 700 million in the Cham-based company. The company does not comment on questions.

Covid-19 put the tourism industry in Switzerland in an exceptional situation: foreign guests stayed away for months, locals were not supposed to travel in the country. At least the latter has been possible again since June, which is why Switzerland invites you to take a vacation.

To give the Swiss population a better understanding of Switzerland as a vacation destination, Switzerland Tourism developed a media concept with the Sir Mary agency: When the national lockdown was over, more than 1,000 subjects with different focus, flexible address and individual KPIs were played out in a multi-stage process.

The fundamental conviction here was: Communication must start quickly, broadly, and energetically; in the next step, it must address typical needs - and finally, it must make personal, concrete offers.

Start with a "big bang

Based on the new communication bracket developed by Wirz, "We need Switzerland." therefore began a national campaign on June 5, 2020, initially focusing on high visibility and strong contact dose. "Switzerland Tourism wanted to send a strong signal for Swiss tourism. We could only achieve this with high advertising pressure," says Fabian Habisreutinger, one of the main people responsible for the media campaign at Sir Mary.

All of the country's relevant news sites were used extensively, and "We need Switzerland" was established as a communication umbrella. The claim was also seen on TV, on posters and in the most important print media, accompanied by impressions from the country's most beautiful regions.

At the same time, innovative solutions were used on the social media platforms: For example, Switzerland Tourism launched the first Swiss TikTok campaign and a Pinterest quiz to familiarize a social media-savvy audience with "We need Switzerland." to a social media-savvy audience.

Eight personas, eight needs

The broad communication of the claim "We need Switzerland." was followed shortly afterwards by concrete inputs that addressed the very different travel needs of the Swiss population. The basis was formed by eight specially designed personas - city travelers or sports enthusiasts were among them, as were people for whom wellness, hygiene and safety or romance are particularly important.

"On the media channels popular with these personas, subjects were shown that perfectly matched their presumed preferences," explains André Hefti, Marketing Director at Switzerland Tourism. The subjects were tested in advance for various parameters using an AI tracking tool from Sir Mary and then created automatically. The content is also made available to Switzerland Tourism's foreign markets in an adapted form.

The aim of all this was to direct people to the "I need Switzerland." platform, the specially designed landing page on Myswitzerland.ch. Here, too, the predefined personas played an important role - and ensured in the background that the different users of the platform were each shown individual content.

Performance marketing: tracking with innovative dashboard

The customer journey of the individual users was mapped by Sir Mary on a specially developed "dashboard": Depending on the phase of the campaign and the focused persona, Switzerland Tourism was able to track in real time how the individual target groups of the campaign behaved, how the core message was received and where what needed to be optimized. In this way, "scatter losses" were minimized, advertising media adapted and content on landing pages optimized; addressing users became more precise with each passing day. Thanks to the flexible architecture of the dashboard, it was also possible to create specific reports for campaign partners on a daily basis.

The dashboard forms the basis for the performance-based final act of the campaign, which is currently running. Based on user behavior, Switzerland Tourism is currently targeting digital offers for vacations in Switzerland. Switzerland Tourism knows which users were inspired by which advertising material - and thus has the perfect basis for a "follow-up".

The result: Very positive interim balance

At Switzerland Tourism, those responsible are very satisfied with the results of the campaign so far: "Within a few days, the campaign was able to achieve a net reach of 4.5 million, and in the following weeks, within this net reach, the frequency was increased to eight OTS, thus ensuring a sustainable advertising impact," says André Hefti of Switzerland Tourism. The campaign is continuously optimized and the findings shared internally. In this way, many other campaigns benefit from the learnings.

André Hefti continues: "The fact that clever media strategies work is also shown, for example, by the first figures on the booking platform Swisshotels.com, where visits are 300 percent above the previous year and the number of bookings significantly exceeds the budgeted volume.

Like its German competitors RTL Group and ProSiebenSat.1, the Italians are feeling the effects of the reluctance of important advertising customers to spend as a result of the recession caused by the coronavirus crisis, despite rising viewer numbers. As a result, Mediaset's revenues fell by 21 percent to EUR 1.17 billion and ultimately led to a decline in operating profit of 83 percent to EUR 32 million.

Hope for a better second half of the year

Mediaset, which is controlled by the family of former Italian head of government Silvio Berlusconi, is counting on better business in the second half of the year. The management justified this with a noticeable increase in advertising sales in July and August. "With the start of the new television season in September, the first signs for advertising in Italy are positive, but the market situation remains extremely fragile." In addition, the company is taking a short-term and medium-term view. The shares of ProSieben's major shareholder were down a good three percent at midday.

Settle dispute with Vivendi

Meanwhile, Mediaset wants to make contact with its major shareholder Vivendi in order to resolve a long-standing dispute. Mediaset CFO Marco Giordani said that the company was prepared to discuss solutions with the French company that would be advantageous for all shareholders. Mediaset boss Pier Silvio Berlusconi wants to talk to Vivendi boss Arnaud de Puyfontaine on the phone in the next few days, insiders said recently. Among other things, Vivendi is skeptical about the merger of Mediaset and the Spanish arm to form the new Mediaset umbrella company Media for Europe (MFE). The dispute is also before the courts. (SDA)

No one had to miss the lifestyle of Saint-Tropez, Ibiza, Amsterdam, Reykjavik and Istanbul this summer. Zürich Tourism provided entertaining proof that the city on the Limmat unites these summer feelings in a special way. The story started with a diverse collection of souvenirs that created a link between the popular vacation destinations and Zürich. An eye-catching branded truck with market criers then caused a stir in Swiss cities with the Züvenirs. Journalists became aware through targeted PR seeding and reported on the Zurich incognito campaign. Individual Züvenirs were sold out after just a few days.

Loud and confident

Digital ads, multipliers matching the destinations and influencers from very different scenes - from gastronomy to music - presented the possible memories and experiences in the Züvenirs on their social media channels. All online activities led to the content hub Zuevenirs.com. There, users could buy the widely advertised Zurich souvenirs and receive suitable suggestions for their next trip to Zurich.

To reach people where they like to be during a Swiss vacation summer, flanking OOH posters were used at Swiss excursion and vacation destinations. Especially where they were least expected, the subjects drew attention to Zurich as a versatile summer destination.

Cüpli flat rate and co-creation

Finally, each order had the chance to win an adventure weekend in Zurich. For example, Zü-Tropez offered a private boat tour including a flat rate for champagne, Zükjavik an outdoor adventure on an island on Lake Zurich, and Züsterdam a mind-expanding art tour.

The experience weekends took place in late August and early September. "We put the cart before the horse: Started with the Züvenirs, we ended up with the on-site experiences. These now form the bridge to an autumn trip to Zurich. And along the way, we couldn't resist a joke on the Big Apples, Hawaiis and Ko Samuis in other Swiss campaigns," says Martin Sturzenegger, director of Zürich Tourism.

After celebrating the opening of the first public library in Kreis 5, the PBZ Schütze, in August 2019, the PBZ Pestalozzi-Bibliothek Zürich and Quade & Zurfluh are continuing the communication concept. Since Thursday, hanging boxes in the streetcars and buses of the city of Zurich have been drawing attention to the wide range of services offered by the PBZ. The core message is: "From A to PBZ" - At the PBZ, everyone finds what they are looking for. The PBZ is the place to be for all bookworms.

The headlines are based on famous books, movies, music bands and games that can be found in the library. The posters immediately make the respective work pop into the mind through striking visual features and matching headlines. For example, the claim "Where legends live. In the PBZ." indicates that the legend of Zorro can be found in the PBZ. For now, the letters P, B, Z, A, B, M and W can be seen. In a further step the alphabet will be completed.