The Toyota Prius was one of the "it cars" of the 00s: half of Hollywood adorned itself with the car. With so much glamor, it didn't matter that the Toyota Prius itself didn't look glamorous at all. This was to change with the current model.

As part of the latest activation for the "No More Boring Cars" campaign, which Ringier Brand Studio implemented for Toyota Switzerland, the Toyota Prius shows how a successful facelift works on the red carpet. Ringier Advertising's creative team has translated its Hollywood past into snappy claims and a visual generated with Midjourney. The campaign is being played out in selected print titles, online and on social media.

Responsible at Brand Studio: Fabian Zürcher (Director), Jana Leonhard (Head of Creative Concepts), Elgee David Wee (Art Director), Valentina Ehrat (Head of Account Management), Hauke Broschat (Senior Media Consultant). Responsible at Toyota Switzerland: Anita Gerber (Head of Marketing Toyota Switzerland).

Jung von Matt Limmat accompanied the launch of crypto trading at PostFinance with a campaign. The first communicative scent mark was set a week ago with the specially created "Le Crypt Eau de Parfum".

"Crypto for every nose"

With its mission to inform the whole of Switzerland about the new crypto offering as a bank for everyone, PostFinance reached its communication limits. Meta and Google prevent advertising for the purchase of cryptos on social media, where the broad mass of interested parties are currently active. The idea for "Le Crypt Eau de Parfum" was born from the insight that the target group online was highly interested in perfumes. After being asked via artificial intelligence what Krypto might smell like as a fragrance, perfumer Uwe Manasse was commissioned to transform the answers into a perfume. This made it possible to advertise "Krypto for every nose" on social media. Interested parties then clicked on the landing page via social ads, where the perfume and the link to the crypto offer could be found.

Successful perfume

PostFinance's crypto perfume met with great interest: According to information, "only a few of the 1,000 flacons are still available free of charge in selected PostFinance branches". Several of the limited-edition flacons are now being offered for auction on Ricardo.

"What convinced us about the perfume idea was that it makes a supposedly complex topic easily accessible. This makes Le Crypt Eau the perfect discussion starter for all PostFinance customers and new customers, regardless of whether they have been dealing with crypto for a long time or have only recently become interested in digital currencies," says Cynthia Hofmann, campaign manager at PostFinance.

Dominique Magnusson, Creative Director at Jung von Matt Limmat, adds: "It is a great stroke of luck for a creative team when clients opt for unconventional ideas and thus break new ground in communication. In this case, the development of a perfume also made sense in terms of content. Because a fragrance manages to pack the most diverse facets of a complex topic into one experience."

Main campaign to build trust capital

The campaign for the crypto launch has also been running on traditional formats - OOH, DOOH and programmatics - since the beginning of the week. The main focus is on reducing reservations and building trust capital. Headlines such as "Finally crypto without nerd talk", "Finally crypto for the mainstream" and "Finally crypto without the darknet" emphasize that crypto trading really is secure and uncomplicated for everyone with the help of PostFinance.

The campaign has been on display throughout Switzerland since Monday. "Le Crypt Eau de Parfum" was launched a week earlier.

Responsible at PostFinance: Cynthia Hofmann (Marketing Management), Francisco Moreno (Head of Marketing Communications Retail Banking), Philipp Merkt (Head of Asset Management Solutions), Dennis Lengacher (Head of Marketing Communications Co-Lead), Yves Ekmann (Head of Marketing Communications Co-Lead), Alexander Thoma (Head of Digital Assets). Responsible at Jung von Matt Limmat: Dominique Magnusson, Jacqueline Rufener (Creative Direction), Georg Scharl, Jessica Gözoglu, Sophie Güntensperger (Text), Luigi Vitiello, Natalie Friedrich (Art Direction), Clara Stindl, Lenard (Graphics), Sandro Schmocker (Video Art Direction), Sarah Schmidt, Natascha Imfeld (Agency Producing), Christian Omlin (Strategy), Marco Meroni (Creative Direction PR), Alina Holst, Joëlle Mayenzet, Fiona Wishart (Account Management), Dennis Hofmann (Managing Strategy Director), Vera Riemeier (Managing Director), Wolfgang Bark (Managing Creative Director). External partners: Responsible at Blish: Fabrizio Rutishauser (image editing), Chiara Killer, Roman Aebi, Jessica Kottmeyer, Rebecca Gerritsen (media realization), Jana Weber (project management), Jlona Kopf (managing director). Responsible at Duftwerk: Uwe Manasse (perfumer), Miriam Schmidt (owner). Responsible at Rocket Film: Marko Strihic (Edit), Jürgen Kupka (Grading), Vera Matta (Production), Jean Krause (Director/Photographer). Responsible at Retouched Studios: Leo Krumbacher and Daniel Steinbrück (management). Responsible at Madcom Productions: Ivo Amarilli (director/producer). Responsible at ABRA (Analog Digital): Tomasz Kosinski (Partner/Exec. Producer) and Julia Grzeszczak (Creative Producer/Roof). Responsible at Dub Dub Studios: Sandro Palomba (Owner/Producer), Gregor Rosenberger (Owner/Audio Engineer). Responsible at Witwinkel: Sara Hirner (production), Niko Messerli (director). Responsible at Webrepublic: Vanessa Pinter (Account Manager), David Rubeli (Consultant Programmatic Advertising), Marlon Bär (Campaign Manager Social Media Marketing), Kevin Haab (Senior Specialist Media Strategy), Daniel Amrein (Team Manager Media Buying). Responsible at Havas Media Switzerland: Claudia Gantenbein (Account Manager), Adrian van Velsen (Head of Strategy).

This recommendation to the Federal Council was unanimously adopted by the National Council's Committee for Transport and Telecommunications (KVF-N), as reported by the parliamentary services on Tuesday. The level of the radio and TV licence fee should therefore only be discussed following an evaluation of the future of the SRG.

The Federal Council wants to reduce fees with a partial revision of the Radio and Television Ordinance (RTVO) - and thus take the wind out of the sails of an initiative from SVP circles. The popular initiative "200 francs is enough! (SRG initiative)", known as the halving initiative, wants to reduce the media fee to CHF 200.

However, even the SVP members of the KVF-N are critical of this. The tenor is that the scope and content of the public service must be discussed before the financial resources are quantified.

Broad rejection in the consultation process

In the consultation on the Federal Council's amendment to the ordinance, which ended at the beginning of February, the SP, Greens, GLP, trade unions and sports, culture and media associations also opposed the planned reduction in fees for the SRG. They warned of drastic consequences for the media landscape and the public service.

SRG assumes that the reduction in fees will lead to a drop in revenue of around CHF 240 million and a reduction of around 900 SRG jobs in all regions. According to SRG, the measure would also have an impact on sports coverage at major events. The number of Swiss series and films supported and the broadcasting of cultural events would have to be reduced.

In the consultation, the center "considered" a medium-term reduction in household fees to CHF 300 and an increase in the number of companies exempt from the fee obligation.

The FDP and some business associations, on the other hand, felt that the cuts did not go far enough. The SVP feared that this revision would "sweep under the carpet" the discussions on the fee reduction initiative and the SRG's universal service mandate.

Fundamental discussion required

At the beginning of February, the Federal Media Commission (Emek) also described the halving initiative and the Federal Council's counter-concept as "not sensible". It called for a fundamental rethink of the basic media service.

According to the Emek, the reduced fee would involve "drastic cuts to the program in some cases". This would happen "just at a time of major challenges for the media in Switzerland". (SDA)

Andrea Bison, founder and co-CEO of Thjnk Zurich, beat fellow nominees Jan Kempter, Creative Director at Wirz, and Gabriel Mauron, CCO at Havas Switzerland, in the race for the title of "Advertiser:in of the Year" 2024.

After four nominations, this year the German-born advertising expert receives the most important personal award in the Swiss communications industry. As her predecessor André Hefti, CMO of Switzerland Tourism, aptly put it in his laudatory speech: "The question was never whether you would be Advertiser of the Year, but only when."

In 2016, Andrea Bison and her business partner Alexander Jaggy, who was named "Advertiser of the Year" in 2014, founded the Thjnk Zurich agency. Their vision: "To create a place where people enjoy working". Just a few years later, Thjnk Zurich has become a relevant player on the Swiss agency scene: Campaigns for well-known companies such as Migros, Denner, Ochsner Sport and Sunrise have repeatedly won awards both nationally and internationally, which has propelled the agency to the top of the Swiss Creative Ranking 2022, among others.

The newly crowned "Advertiser of the Year" received her "Egon" statue on March 26 as part of the award night at the Razzia in Zurich to great applause from her predecessor André Hefti. Her mentor Michael Trautmann, who co-founded Thjnk Hamburg almost twelve years ago, provided a big surprise.

Andrea Bison grew up in Kassel and was fascinated by the world of advertising from an early age. She studied business administration with a focus on advertising and communication and has worked in the advertising industry her entire professional life. Before moving to Switzerland, she worked for various well-known German agencies. She now lives in Zurich with her husband and two sons.

Also nominated were ...

Jan Kempter

As Creative Director at Wirz since 2021, Jan Kempter was nominated for "Advertiser of the Year" for the first time this year. At Wirz, he led the successful "The Migros Beer" campaign and the viral Swiss tourism story "The Ride of a Lifetime", among others. Jan Kempter's career in advertising began more by chance through a copywriting competition for toothpaste: before Wirz, the Graubünden native worked as a copywriter at Jung von Matt Limmat and Publicis Zurich before being promoted to Creative Director in 2018.

Read the interview with Jan Kempter here.

Gabriel Mauron

Gabriel Mauron, the creative director of Havas Switzerland and the only ADC member in French-speaking Switzerland, was also on the ticket for the title of "Advertiser:in of the Year" in 2024. Over the course of his career, he has worked for agencies such as Saatchi & Saatchi, M&C Saatchi and Leo Burnett. Mauron lives in Geneva, is married and has two teenage daughters.

Read the interview with Gabriel Mauron here.

More on this year's "Advertiser:in of the Year" award

• The article about this year's nominees can be found at here.
• The Hall of Fame of all previous "Advertisers of the Year" can be found at here.

About the award

Werbewoche has been awarding the title "Advertiser of the Year" since 1977. Since 2001, the winner has received the "Egon" designed by Zurich artist Max Grüter. The three nominees were put forward by the Werbewoche.ch community and selected by the expert jury. The final decision on who would win the title was then made 50 percent by Werbewoche.ch readers via online voting and 50 percent by the jury. Each jury member had one vote. m&k Werbewoche.ch as the organizer abstained from voting.

The jury of experts

The "Advertiser:in of the Year" expert jury is made up of former "Advertisers:in of the Year". The jury members 2024 (in alphabetical order):

• Alexander Jaggy (Thjnk Zurich)
• André Hefti (Switzerland Tourism)
• Curdin Janett (entrepreneur, formerly Content and Form)
• David Schärer (Breitling, formerly Farner/Rod)
• Dennis Lück (Brinkertlück Creatives, formerly Jung von Matt Limmat)
• Livio Dainese (Wirz)
• Martin Walthert (Digitec Galaxus)
• Peter Brönnimann (self-employed, formerly Publicis)
• Petra Dreyfus (Wirz)
• Regula Bührer Fecker (Rod/Team Farner)
• Thomas Wildberger (Prophet, formerly Publicis)

Together with Creative Director and Republica Partner Stefanie Berchtold, Florian Birkner will lead the 15-strong creative team at the agency on the River Aare. Bala Trachsel, founder and CEO, is delighted with the new addition: "In Florian, we have gained a top creative with international experience who knows what it takes to move people and brands. I am convinced that he will give the agency new creative clout with his keen sense for tailor-made creation and his enthusiasm for big ideas." For Stefanie Berchtold, Birkner has come at the right time: "We have a lot planned this year, so I'm super happy that Florian is finally here. Together we will take the creative output for our clients to the next level".

Born in Aachen, he is not a new face in Switzerland. In 2007, he moved from Scholz and Friends Berlin to Advico Young and Rubicam. This was followed by positions at Publicis, DraftFCB/Lowe, BBDO Düsseldorf, Havas, Ruf Lanz, Serviceplan and Sir Mary. In between, he spent three years with his family in Santa Fe, USA, where he worked as a freelancer. In the course of his career, Birkner has developed numerous campaigns for brands such as Yallo, Sunrise, BMW, Mini, ABB, Ragusa, Credit Suisse, Pepsi, Postbank and the South German Newspaper. He has won over 100 national and international awards, including four Cannes Lions, and is a Professional Member of ADC Switzerland.

"It's a great pleasure for me to be at Republica," says Birkner. "A super team with lots of expertise from all disciplines under one roof and the coolest studio I've ever worked in, right on the River Aare - the perfect conditions for making a big difference."

Under the brand name Aloo Bikes, Diavelo Switzerland develops, produces and distributes cargo e-bikes, which are developed in Zurich and assembled in Europe. Aloo's vision is to help shape mobility in urban areas through the development of innovative cargo e-bikes. In concrete terms, this means making everyday life easier through sustainable and safe transportation solutions. In this ambitious project, Aloo was supported by the Zurich-based consultancy Accelerom in market development from conception to concrete implementation.

The project began with a comprehensive market and brand analysis, followed by a systematic development process to work out the brand and its positioning and create the basis for purpose and content. In close collaboration with Accelerom, a stringent strategy was developed around the brand essence "easier and safer on the road". In several workshops, the "Aloo" brand was created in a very short time with clear implementation principles to ensure a consistent brand presence in communication and sales.

After successful registration using a QR code, the WhatsApp chatbot interactively guides users in Jumbo stores through the gamification competition. This approach guarantees a user-friendly and understandable introduction. During the game, the chatbot asks participants a variety of questions about Jumbo, Easter and the product range, with correct answers rewarded with points that increase the chances of winning the competition. Dreifive developed the bot architecture together with Memacon.

In terms of communication, a specific social media performance strategy was developed in order to push the campaign using ads and lead directly to the chatbot. In addition, display ads designed to match the message are also used to achieve the objectives. With this mix, Dreifive aims to ensure an optimal blend of offline and online experience.

Because Meta is increasingly relying on business messaging in 2024, the DIY store wants to position itself as a first mover with this engaging customer experience on WhatsApp and ensure creative, efficient customer loyalty and interaction with a broad target group. "The campaign is a new, innovative opportunity for us and we are excited to see how it will be received by our customers," says Zorica Jurkovic, Head of Advertising at Jumbo.

For Marleen Albert, Head of Social Media at Dreifive, business messaging is the next era of customer engagement: "We are delighted to be able to implement this gamification campaign with our client Jumbo and thus lay the foundation for next-level marketing."

Responsible at Jumbo: Zorica Jurkovic (Head of Advertising), Cécile Imhof (Junior Project Manager). Veresponsible for Dreifive: Cheryl Schlatter (Teamlead Social Media), Irene Klammer (Digital Arts Designer), Marleen Albert (Head of Social Media). Responsible at Memacon: Moritz Beck (Managing Director).

In the other national languages, there are already offers for authors who want to learn and deepen their literary writing skills, according to a press release from Lia Rumantscha. Now the umbrella organization of Romansh language associations wants to offer a corresponding and comprehensive program for Rhaeto-Romanic authors.

The Workshop "Scriver litterar" is designed to enable participants to find their literary voice and to work on and with it. The course is aimed at Rhaeto-Romanic writers who already have some experience with literary writing and would like to deepen it. The workshop is also suitable for people who are active as writers in other fields and would like to develop their literary writing further. Literary enthusiasts looking for new writing experiences are also welcome, regardless of age, previous education or idiom.

Five thematic modules

Five thematic modules are planned, which offer an overview of the canon of Romansh literature and deal with the job description. After attending this thematic part, the participants deepen their individual literary projects with the support of the group and mentors.

The workshop was conceived by Gianna Olinda Cadonau, head of the Lia Rumantscha's culture department, in collaboration with the author Flurina Badel. The Lia Rumantscha is supported conceptually and financially by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.

Interested parties can register for the four-semester workshop from September 2024. More detailed information on the workshop will also follow during this period. The course will start in January 2025.

"Sounds! Headquarters" follows the podcast "Sounds! Story & Talk". Two minds from the "Sounds!" universe will be involved: 27-year-old presenter Lea Inderbitzin and 39-year-old music journalist Claudio Landolt will join music journalists Gisela Feuz, Dominic Dillier, Andi Rohrer, Luca Bruno and Gregi Sigrist to discuss current pop phenomena, trends and stories from the world of rock and pop and classify milestones in pop history.

The first episode of the music podcast is all about the band shirt. Merchandising items are still very much in demand and are bought and worn by millions of people across all generations. They also raise various questions. Questions of style, questions of handling or even legal issues. Who earns money when you buy an off-the-peg band shirt from a fashion chain? This much can be revealed: It's not always the bands who make the big money.

The music podcast is published every two weeks. The first episode will be available from April 4, 2024, 4 p.m., on SRF Audio and all common podcast portals.

According to the survey, around half of respondents do not use some services because they use too many cookies, while 58% regularly delete the cookies in their browser. The cookie and tracking settings are important to a third of respondents, although around a third also say they do not understand the settings.

"The legal requirements force providers to provide information and setting options that the majority of users obviously do not want. Politics, business and science should work together to develop solutions so that people can use websites quickly, easily and conveniently according to their wishes," says Susanne Dehmel, member of the Bitkom-management.

Only a fifth reject everything

Currently, 24% of users agree to all cookie and tracking requirements because they do not want to deal with them. 21 percent basically agree to all of them because they want to use the functions available as a result. One fifth reject everything. And a third specifically choose which cookies or tracking they allow.

Among these people, so-called functionality cookies, which enable certain services of the online offer, such as language settings, are primarily permitted: 70 percent agree to these. 47 percent allow cookies for the technical improvement of the product and ten percent explicitly allow advertising cookies so that personalized advertising can be displayed. (pte/swi)

Bitkom Research conducted the survey on behalf of the digital association Bitkom at the beginning of January 2024 with 1013 internet users aged 16 and over.

Mark Henley (Le Temps) won first prize in the "Topicality" category for a black-and-white series of images on the demise of Credit Suisse. The second prize in this category went to Reuters photographer Denis Balibouse for photos of a forest fire in Bitsch VS, while the third prize went to Michael Buholzer of the Keystone-SDA news agency for his series on the rockfall in Brienz GR.

The winner of the Sport category is Jonathan Labusch (Sunday newspaper). He photographed the sport "Hobby Horsing", a kind of obstacle course with hobby horses. Second place went to Pascal Mora (Swiss Illustrated), the third Gian Ehrenzeller from Keystone-SDA for a photo series on the death of cyclist Gino Mäder.

In the everyday life category, Guillaume Perret (Arcinfo) with pictures of residents of the campsite on the outskirts of Lausanne. Second place went to Karin Bauzin (L'Illustré) and the third Boris Mueller (Observer).

Matthieu Zellweger won in the Swiss Stories category with a series of pictures about sex assistants who are used by people with disabilities. Second place went to Joël Hunn (Observer), third place went to Annick Ramp (New Zurich Newspaper).

Three prizes for one photographer

The winner in the foreign category was Dominic Nahr (New Zurich Newspaper) with his documentary about the earthquake in Morocco. Nahr also won second prize in the foreign category. The third prize in the category went to Mario Heller (Switzerland at the weekend).

In addition to his two prizes in the foreign category, Nahr also took first place in the portrait category with pictures of ten men and women from Ukraine. Second place in the portrait category went to Nik Egger (Bieler Tagblatt), the third to Le-Temps-Photographer Nicolas Brodard.

The prize will be presented at the Swiss Press Award ceremony on April 26 in Bern. This is also when the main winner, the press photographer of the year, will be chosen. This prize is endowed with CHF 25,000. (SDA)

To clarify this question, let's start with the technological aspect. Server-side tagging is a method of shifting data collection and processing from the end device, i.e. the browser or mobile app, to the backend, the server. This approach offers advantages in terms of quality, quantity and data security.

The first advantage comes into play as soon as the website is accessed. As the data is collected on the server, less code needs to be loaded in the browser. This enables the browser to display content faster, which contributes to a positive user experience. The bounce rate is reduced.

There is also a qualitative aspect to server-side processing. The browser is no longer involved in the process of creating and storing the data records; control lies 100% with the software manufacturer or the operator. Data quality is increased.

With regard to data protection: Is GDPR compliance automatically achieved and can consent be dispensed with? The answer: No. Server-side tagging can neither circumvent legal requirements nor circumvent data protection laws.

Nevertheless, there is a reason to consider server-side tagging. Since data is processed entirely without the browser context, it can be protected accordingly. If you want to prevent sensitive information from being made accessible to third parties, the browser should be avoided. For example, customer numbers or policy information are not sent to an endpoint by the browser, which can read any code on the website, but are aggregated on the server in a secure context for matching at the endpoint.

Finally, qualitative and quantitative aspects are examined. With the increasing elimination of data sets such as cookies and the spread of tracking protection mechanisms in browsers, the quality and quantity of client-side tagging is decreasing. Data gaps are widening and the expansion of digital target group segments is becoming less and less successful. Server-side tagging cannot solve every problem in this context, but it can solve some of them. As the method also works without cookies, it is gaining in importance simply in terms of ITP and the abolition of third party cookies. Taking into account the browser's withdrawal from the main part of the process, the method currently looks the most promising.

fusedeck® opens the door to these benefits with its in-house plugin store, which is constantly being expanded and automates the setup of server-side tagging. With just a few clicks, an event can be inserted into the data flow as a micro-conversion or interest indicator in order to contribute to the development of high-quality target group segments in the advertising network or to enrich the database in your own warehouse.

* Written by: Mia Kirchhofer, Head of Product at Capture Media / fusedeck®