The portfolio of the Swisscom subsidiary "Swisscom Broadcast" includes digital live communication for events, crisis-proof communication infrastructure and drone defense. Swisscom Broadcast attaches particular importance to the high availability of its services: if one or more individual components fail, the entire system remains functional, which is essential in crises or at major events, for example.

Now an online campaign aims to raise awareness of Swisscom Broadcast's offering throughout Switzerland - using simple language: the advertising material shows representatives of different target groups. But not at work or in a portrait, but sleeping in bed. The idea: those who use the diverse and highly available security and communication solutions from Swisscom Broadcast can "sleep soundly".

Social media video and static ads were developed for use on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

Responsible at Swisscom Broadcast: Barbara Biesuz. Responsible agency: New Creative Agency.

Augenweide worked closely with the town of Grenchen to develop and launch a marketing campaign for the town. It builds on the new branding of the town of Grenchen, also developed by Augenweide, and consists of a Landing pagesocial media content and ads, OOH and traditional print advertisements. The aim of this campaign is to position Grenchen as an attractive place to live and work and to attract new residents to Grenchen.

According to the campaign, there are many reasons to choose Grenchen. Under the slogan "1000 good reasons for Grenchen", offers relating to culture & leisure, learning & working and living & housing are summarized and highlighted. Actors from the theater group led by Iris Minder volunteered as models for the campaign to lend additional credibility to the 1000 reasons.

Responsible at the City of Grenchen: Susanne Sahli (Economic Development Manager), Mike Brotschi (Coordinator Culture, Sport and Leisure/Location Promotion). Responsible at Augenweide: Jonas Moser (AD), Gerald Barth (text), Daniela Geiser (web), Catarina Silva (project management), Nathalie Stephani (project management). Web programming: I-web - Innovative Web. Photography: Samuel Müller.

Matthias Wandel has been promoted to Senior Director Client Leadership at Mindshare Switzerland as of March 1, 2024. He started his professional career at Leo Burnett in Germany and subsequently worked for Starcom, Mediaedge:cia - now Wavemaker - and Vizeum. There he worked as Director Communication Consultancy and moved to Mindshare Switzerland in 2012 as Director Client Leadership.

In his position, Matthias Wandel is responsible for the professional and personnel management of the entire client consultancy with three teams and therefore for all clients. As a member of the Mindshare management team, he is involved in all important decisions and the strategic direction of the agency. His other tasks include the expansion of new client business, networking and communication with our international headquarters and the onboarding of the agency's new clients.

Insurance companies and health insurers are regularly present in the media and on social media. Topics and the way they are reported and commented on influence how these companies are perceived. In a comprehensive study, 13 insurance companies and 13 health insurance companies have now been analyzed with regard to their reputation in Swiss media sources. The results show how the companies perform in the areas of product & service, innovation, profitability, sustainability, management and employer.

Helvetia, Baloise and Swiss Re occupy the top positions in the insurance sector

Those who manage to be present in reputation-relevant topics and at the same time do so in a positive context strengthen their good reputation. Among insurers, Helvetia is clearly the best at this, as the study shows. The company is convincing in all areas, with some minor compromises in terms of employer.

Second-placed Baloise, on the other hand, is significantly less present in the Swiss media, but is able to compensate for this with very good tonality values. Swiss Re achieved third place thanks to its outstanding visibility. In the other places are Die Mobiliar, Zurich, Axa, Swiss Life, Vaudoise, Pax and Suva. Allianz, Generali and Emmental Versicherung did not make it into the top 10.

Overall, the study gives the insurance industry a good report card in terms of its media reputation. Almost all of the top 10 insurers have a sufficient presence in all six reputation dimensions, with only a few companies scoring below average. With over 44,000 articles analyzed, the industry has very good visibility in the media, even if the figures for the individual companies vary greatly.

Swica, Sanitas and Visana make up the podium of health insurers

When it comes to visibility in the media, health insurers cannot keep up with the insurance companies. With just over 12,000 articles evaluated, health insurers are far less present.

Swica achieved the best reputation among the health insurance companies. It combines media visibility with good tonality and thus achieves very good scores in practically all six reputation dimensions, according to the study. Second-placed Sanitas is only just behind with an equally almost flawless profile. Visana in third place scored very well in terms of profitability, sustainability and management.

KPT, Aquilana, Groupe Mutuel and Helsana in fourth to seventh place are close to each other with an overall reputation at a similar level. Atupri, ÖKK and CSS complete the top 10. Assura, Concordia and Sympany remained outside the top ten.

Sustainability issues have so far fallen by the wayside

As part of the study, the subject areas in which the evaluated companies are present in the media were examined in more detail. Driven by the SMI companies Swiss Life, Swiss Re and Zurich, 41% of all articles by the insurers are assigned to the topic of "profitability". "Product & service" topics account for 28 percent and topics relating to management almost 20 percent. Sustainability, innovation and employer topics together account for just under 12 percent of all statements.

In the case of health insurance companies, topics relating to product & service (42.5%) lead ahead of profitability (22%) and management (21%). Here too, only 14% remain for the other three reputation dimensions.

The study concludes from this that both sectors are rather poorly represented, particularly in terms of sustainability communication (share for insurance companies 7.8%, for health insurance companies 8.4%).

For the Study by the Swissreputation.group and the IMWF all reputation-relevant statements of the selected companies in publicly accessible Swiss news, articles, posts, comments from journalistic news media, discussion pages, social media such as Twitter/X, Facebook, Instagram, blogs and forums were evaluated in the period from January 1, 2023 to December 31, 2023. More than 56,000 media contributions were analyzed.

An AI-supported text analysis was used for this purpose. After pre-filtering all media contributions from the selected companies, the specially trained algorithm evaluates the statements semantically and assigns them to the thematic reputation categories.dimensions. To calculate the reputation values, the visibility (number of statements) and tonality are taken into account for each dimension. Finally, these results are statistically weighted and the overall ranking is calculated.

The Iundf Group unites the four agencies Inhalt und Form, Iundf Marketing Technology, Iundf Media and Iundf Neo under one roof. In 2024, the media unit's service portfolio for strategic media planning and consulting is to be further expanded and strengthened. To this end, the Group has brought Andreas Bartneck on board as Head of Media. The media professional has over 20 years of experience in the media industry and has already worked for companies such as Omnicom and Mediacom.

"With Andreas, we are gaining an experienced media expert who, with his passion for digital media and his open-minded approach, will strengthen and further develop the Iundf Group's media expertise together with his team," said Iundf CEO Dominik Stibal in a press release issued on Tuesday.

In his role as Head of Media, Andreas Bartneck will work closely with the other Iundf agencies and use innovative media strategies to help offer clients holistic communication solutions.

"The combination of creativity, technology and strategic media planning offers enormous opportunities for advertising clients to pursue their communication and campaign goals. I am very much looking forward to being able to fully exploit this potential together with the team," says Bartneck, who has headed Iundf Media since the end of February 2024.

The focus of the stereotype analysis is on the presence and portrayal of female and male characters. The ten stereotypes identified by the Gisler protocol, which are most frequently used in advertising, serve as a grid. In addition, in 2023, it was determined how often non-white people were depicted and people who are read as genderqueer.

Frequency of representation of different groups of people

The analysis is based on all moving image advertisements communicated in the specialist media in 2023 - both TVC and digital - that featured at least one person. The analysis included 243 advertisements. Female characters appear in 210 of these advertisements, and in 33 percent of cases they also speak. Male readers appear in 218 of the advertisements, and in 37 percent of cases they also speak. From this, the association concludes that the proportion of female and male readers in the advertisements analyzed is balanced, and that the frequency with which these people speak is similarly distributed for both genders.

A genderqueer person appears in 13 of the advertisements analyzed. This corresponds to around 5 percent of the advertisements, a rather small proportion. The advertisements in which genderqueer people appear often focus on young people or are aimed at this target group.

According to the analysis, the proportion of non-white people is higher: 63 of the advertisements feature a non-white person. This corresponds to around 25 percent of the advertisements. However, in the majority of cases, these people do not play the main role in the analyzed commercials, but are part of a background cast. When non-white characters have leading roles, they are often prominent.

Heterosexual couple situations were shown in 49 of the analyzed commercials, i.e. couple situations with clearly male and female characters. Eight times homosexual couple situations or couple situations with gender-queer people were shown. This means that the majority of the couple situations depicted in the advertisements analyzed take place in a heteronormative context.

Frequency of stereotypes

Female stereotypes appear in 56 of the advertisements analyzed and male stereotypes in 84. Measured in terms of the total number of characters, female characters are portrayed stereotypically in 26 percent of cases and male characters in 38 percent of cases. Thus, as in previous years, male readers are stereotyped more often than female readers. As a limitation, the association notes that the stereotypes identified by the Gisler protocol for male readers include a large number of active, heroic and confident roles.

As in previous years, the most popular male stereotype is "That One Funny Guy" (27 times). In second place, unlike in previous years, is the "master at work" (16 times), i.e. the expert who exudes great expertise without using many words.

Among women, the top ranks are unchanged: "Die Kümmerin" ranks first (22 times) and "Die stille Geniesserin" second (15 times).

Conversely, it was also analyzed how many funny female readers, female experts and caring male readers are depicted. According to the Gisler protocol, there was a slightly positive trend here: A total of 14 times female read characters are funny, 43 times they appear as experts and 15 times male read characters take care of children, the household or fellow human beings - although this figure corresponds to previous years.

No stereotyped depictions were used in 123 of the advertisements analyzed. This corresponds to around half of the commercials. One stereotype was used in 74 of the commercials and two or more stereotypes in 46. This means that around half of the commercials analyzed still contain stereotypical representations of the genders.

In addition, the "potted plant test" introduced by the Gisler protocol applied to 30 advertisements. This means that a female character or a minority appears in a purely decorative role and has no relevance to the storyline. This proportion of commercials has fallen significantly compared to the previous year: in 2022, the test beat in 70 of the analyzed advertisements.

Clichés are still strongly represented

The stereotype analysis also revealed in 2023 that a large proportion of people depicted in Swiss advertising are still portrayed in gender-stereotypical roles. There are positive developments, such as the more frequent adoption of roles that are otherwise assigned to the opposite sex. However, according to the Gisler Protocol, these cases are still in the minority.

In particular, advertising aimed at a younger target group plays more with gender norms and generally shows more diversity in the casting of roles. It remains to be seen whether this trend will be maintained when a now young target group reaches middle to older age. From the association's point of view, the results are further confirmation that an active and conscious confrontation with stereotypical representations is still needed and that the Swiss advertising landscape still has a long way to go.

Becoming aware of the power - and power - that lies in images and that advertisers have accordingly is a first, important step towards a more conscious approach to stereotypes and clichés. In the experience of the Gisler Protocol and its members, the use of stereotypes is often not a conscious act, but rather the result of internalized ideas and thought patterns that are not actively reflected upon. If this reflection does not take place, the advertising industry cannot play its part in the further development of society - even if it is a small one.

At the heart of the campaign is a film in which a father and his daughter are accompanied through the years. Situations are shown in which the father empathizes with the girl's painful experiences. Because this is also part of being a parent: The love you feel for your child makes you unexpectedly vulnerable. That is why it is most important to always be there for them. However, this is often not possible in the case of serious illnesses - because many parents do not have the opportunity to make the often very long journey between home and hospital on a regular basis.

The Ronald McDonald Children's Foundation has six houses throughout Switzerland in the immediate vicinity of hospitals where parents of seriously ill children can stay overnight - even for longer periods and for a symbolic amount. In the houses, parents can continue their everyday lives as if they were at home: Being together, cooking, washing, relaxing and, above all, always being close to their sick children.

The foundation is largely financed by McDonalds. But customers can also make their contribution, for example by rounding up the amount of their order the next time they buy a burger.

The campaign's insight that parenthood also brings with it an unprecedented emotional vulnerability is musically supported by a cover version of the Platters classic "Only You". The light-hearted, cheerful love song is radically reinterpreted as a piece about emotional vulnerability.

The commercial can be seen in various lengths on TV, in cinemas and online and is supplemented on posters, banners and at the POS by a visual that implements the campaign sentence "Parents must be able to be with their sick children" in a striking way using only typography. The campaign has been on display throughout Switzerland since the end of February.

Responsible at the Ronald McDonald Children's Foundation/McDonalds Switzerland: Severine Caspard (Marketing Manager), Yvonne Mauer (Ronald McDonald Children's Foundation Switzerland). Responsible at TBWA\Zurich: Manuel Wenzel, Reto Clement, Martin Stulz, Katharina Binder (creation), Maryna Pavlichkova-Meier(consulting). Responsible at Czar Films: Marit Weerheijm (director), Martijn Melis (cinematographer), Florian Nussbaumer, Vincent Taeger (producers), Mokoh Music GmbH (music), DubDub Studios (sound design).

m&k Werbewoche.ch: On Friday, the Text Academy Foundation invites you to a Panel discussion on the topic of "Job enrichment through artificial intelligence" one. Do you think that artificial intelligence will actually enrich our work?

Christoph Soltmannowski: Above all, it will free us from simple routine tasks. Those who previously only had to perform simple tasks at work will benefit most from AI. This will lower the barrier to taking on a more demanding job.

Is that already the case today?

In fact, the Jung von Matt agency is already using chatbots to create ideas for new slogans, as its managing director Roman Hirsbrunner recently told the NZZ revealed. Other junior tasks and routine work will soon be taken over by AI. This means that when you start your career, you will already be doing what was previously the task of the first management level. And AI will not stop there either. It will also support creative processes. Risks such as job loss will be offset by opportunities: Those who have mastered the use of these AI tools will be able to achieve more more quickly - and may also rise up the career ladder faster.

In the announcement of your panel discussion, it is mentioned that the Federal Examination for Copywriters will not take place in 2024 - a consequence of writing robots like ChatGPT?

In fact, this is also about a revision of the job description. It's not just ChatGPT & Co. that have changed everyday working life. In addition, copywriters will probably also have to be graphic designers in the future.

Apparently, a lot will change fundamentally in the age of artificial intelligence. Is there any cause for concern?

Don't worry, but we need to be open to change - and fit to deal with AI. Completely new professions are also emerging. And work is becoming more creative. Brand designer Daniel Allemann comes to mind: he completed the CAS Digital Publisher - AI Writer / Prompter with us. As he says, artificial intelligence inspires him in his daily work - and that's fun. In fact, completely new professions are emerging, such as the "Prompt Engineer".

To this end, the Text Academy Foundation launched the "Prompt Engineering Academy" at the end of 2023. Who is your offer aimed at?

In fact, to anyone who wants to survive in the rapidly changing communications and marketing industry in the future, including in new professions such as "AI Writer", as a "Prompt Creative Director" or as a "Prompt Engineer". We offer this and more - in combination with our existing CAS courses and in partnership with the HWZ, Zurich University of Applied Sciences. The course is divided into eight modules and can be completed with the Masterclass title "Prompt Engineer".

Will the communication, marketing and media professionals of the future be more technicians than creatives?

In our training programs, we also go into the theoretical and technical basics of artificial intelligence - simply to explain the background. However, the focus is on practical application: textual and creative in image and video form, as well as strategy and conception. Our lecturers come from different fields: From experts in science and computer science to creative minds with practical experience in the communications industry.

Within the framework of the Talk round "Job enrichment through AI: when copywriters will soon also have to be graphic designers" The panelists are Lisa Steger, sponsor of the Swiss Text Academy Foundation's Swiss Federal Certificate for Copywriters, occupational psychologist Eva Fankhauser, Christian Reiter, ETH computer scientist and entrepreneur, and Prof. Dr. Ivo Hajnal, AI lecturer at the Text Academy Foundation. The moderator is Sarah Andrina Schütz.

The lunch event with free sandwiches will take place on Friday, March 22, from 12:00 to 12:45 at Technopark Zurich in the Cobol room. Registration is not required.

With "Homeless Cardboards", the Salvation Army wanted to make visible in an unconventional way what is often overlooked or does not want to be noticed - homelessness in wealthy Switzerland. A duo consisting of an artist and an artist turned old cardboard, which had previously been collected from the streets and squares, into oversized sculptures. These sculptures depicted homeless people who often use packaging material such as cardboard as a place to sleep. The campaign was documented in a film in order to draw attention to the problem audiovisually.

Waste cardboard locations became a stage

The sculptures were placed in locations where the usual waste cardboard was located. They were intended to attract the attention of passers-by and draw attention to the challenges surrounding the issue. A sign on the side explained the campaign and called for donations to help homeless people.

Simon Bucher, media spokesman for the Salvation Army, emphasizes that combating homelessness in Switzerland is a key concern for the Salvation Army. "We are prepared to take an unconventional approach to this important issue." He emphasizes that the Salvation Army's transit and residential facilities have seen a strong and sustained increase in the number of people taking advantage of their services. Aware of this, the Salvation Army decided to carry out the "Homeless Cardboards" campaign together with Thjnk.

With its exclusive online course, the Swiss Creator Academy is aimed at content creators, influencers and anyone who wants to become successful in the social media game or take their skills to a new level. Under the motto "Content is King", participants will be able to learn everything they need to know to be successful content creators in two comprehensive online courses.

The relevance of social media is undisputed, and the ability to create high-quality content in different formats and on different platforms is becoming increasingly important. Be it for personal feeds or company profiles - in order to operate successfully in today's social media, numerous and above all high-quality content is required on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

The aim of the Swiss Creator Academy's two online courses is to raise the social media landscape in Switzerland to a new level. Access to this knowledge should be easy and affordable and the know-how acquired should be practical and quickly applicable. To this end, creators and experts are joining forces to share their expertise and knowledge. The lecturers include creators such as Wemmse, T-Ronimo, Mimoza, Eric, Ardiana, Der Praktikant, Mirlinda, Sebirion and Simobonito. The main lecturers include experts such as Prof. Dr. Andreas U. Lanz, Hamza Ayub and Stefan Krenn.

The course starts in April 2024. For those interested, please visit the Website of the Swiss Creator Academy Further information on the courses. The courses are certified by the HWZ Hochschule für Wirtschaft Zürich.

The Chatbot of the Observer-The AI advice team is now available to all interested users. The AI provides "quick and easy" answers to questions about married couples living together, divorce law and other relevant topics in family law and inheritance law. If users ask questions from other areas of law, they receive a corresponding message. However, there are already plans to expand the service into a comprehensive legal advice chatbot, according to the statement.

The chatbot's answers are based on data from the observer's comprehensive legal database (Guider), which contains over 4,000 continuously updated legal contents.

OneLog registration is required to use the chatbot. The chatbot was realized in collaboration with the conversational AI provider Aaibot and Ringier Media Switzerland Product & Tech.

"We haven't decided yet," said Swisscom CEO Christoph Aeschlimann in an interview with the news agency AWP on Friday. "We have enough time to look at the issue in detail and decide how to proceed afterwards."

Brand matters must be approached very carefully, said Aeschlimann: "It also takes a very long time to establish a brand. I assume that the decision on the brand will be slower rather than faster."

Swisscom does not necessarily have to establish a new brand. With the takeover of Vodafone Italy, the company also acquired the secondary brand Ho, which is already anchored in the market. This will continue to exist, said Aeschlimann: "We also have the Fastweb brand, which is very well known. In this sense, we don't necessarily need a new brand if we can no longer use Vodafone."

Competition remains tough

When asked whether he expects further margin erosion in the Italian telecoms market, Aeschlimann said: "We assume that the market will remain very competitive. There are very many market players in both mobile telephony and the fixed network. The situation will not change even after the merger. It is therefore very important that we own the networks ourselves and can achieve economies of scale in order to remain competitive."

When asked whether he still expected resistance to the takeover, Aeschlimann said that the deal was highly complementary in terms of the infrastructure and capabilities of the two companies. "In this sense, the deal is very value-adding. For this reason, we assume that we will be able to implement the deal as planned," said the Swisscom CEO in response to criticism from Swiss politicians.

Both companies complement each other

According to the information provided, Fastweb and Vodafone complement each other very well. While Fastweb generates 87% of its revenue from the broadband network and only 13% from mobile telephony, Vodafone Italy does the opposite. The latter generates a good two-thirds of its revenue from the mobile network and just under a third from the fixed network.

Together, Fastweb and Vodafone have a market share of 31% in the fixed network and 26% in mobile communications in Italy. There is still room for improvement in the latest mobile technology 5G, where Vodafone has achieved coverage of 68%. "We want to continue the expansion of 5G," said Aeschlimann.

In terms of turnover, the two companies together are the clear number two behind top dog TIM with 7.3 billion euros, which is expected to generate 9.2 billion in the Italian business following the planned spin-off of the network division. In terms of operating profit before depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) after leasing, Vodafone and Fastweb would even be ahead of TIM (1.8 billion) with 2.4 billion. (SDA)