For reasons of legal certainty and proportionality, however, the current tariff will remain applicable until the next amendment to the ordinance, as the judges announced on Friday. The contributions for the 2021 corporate tax set out in the contested rulings therefore remain due.

However, the Federal Council is advised by the court to consider a progressive or partially linear structure of the corporate tax in the next review.

Four companies had lodged an appeal against the fees charged by Serafe. For the Federal Administrative Court, the degressive tariff structure means that smaller companies are subject to a higher tax burden than companies with high turnover.

The decision can be appealed to the Federal Supreme Court.

Tariffs already criticized in 2019

According to the Value Added Tax Act, the tax for companies is based on the total worldwide turnover declared to the Federal Tax Administration. Companies with a turnover of up to half a million francs are exempt from the tax.

For the other companies, the Federal Council introduced an 18-tier tariff on January 1, 2021, after the previous tariff was deemed unconstitutional by the Federal Administrative Court in 2019. In addition, under current law, companies can join together and pay only one levy, provided the group consists of at least thirty companies and they are under uniform management.

According to the ruling of the Federal Administrative Court, the formation of tax groups is also unlawful and unconstitutional. Firstly, there is no legal basis for this and secondly, the lower limit of thirty companies is arbitrary and only benefits a small number of companies.

Debate about cutting broadcasting fees

A week ago, the Federal Council and Media Minister Albert Rösti announced a possible reduction in radio and TV fees. The federal government wants to gradually reduce media fees from CHF 365 to CHF 300 per year by 2029.

In addition, more than 60,000 companies will no longer be asked to pay from 2027. Companies with an annual turnover of CHF 1.2 billion or more will now only be subject to the levy. This would exempt around eighty percent of companies from the levy.

The Federal Council's proposal is a counter to the popular initiative "200 francs is enough! (SRG initiative or halving initiative)", which it recommends be rejected. In its petition for a referendum, the initiative committee calls for a reduction in radio and TV fees to CHF 200 per household per year. Current Media Minister Rösti was also a member of the committee at the time of the launch.

The Federal Council's proposal does not take into account the ruling of the Federal Administrative Court, as the Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM) announced on request. OFCOM now wants to analyze the ruling together with the Federal Tax Administration before determining how to proceed. (SDA)

ST includes the markets of Greater China (mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan), Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand), Korea, India, Japan and Australia/New Zealand under the Asia-Pacific region. In 2019, the last "normal" year before the Covid-19 pandemic, these markets accounted for 11.3% of all hotel overnight stays registered in Switzerland, according to the FSO. ST estimates that this market share is not expected to rise to a similar level again until the end of 2024 or 2025.

Significant industry and international marketing experience

Sandra Babey has been selected as the new Head of Market Unit Asia-Pacific from several applicants as part of a regular selection process. The tourism specialist has many years of global expertise in ST marketing.

As a qualified hotelier-restauratrice and graduate of the Swiss Hotel Management School in Lucerne, she worked as Marketing & Sales Manager at the Hotel Wilden Mann in Lucerne. In 2009, she joined ST in international tourism promotion as Marketing Manager for ST in Spain, where she took over the overall management of the Iberian market (Spain and Portugal) in 2013.

"Sandra Babey will take on the new role of Market Group Head Asia Pacific in addition to her responsibilities for Australia and New Zealand and is now also part of the extended management", explains Simon Bosshart, Head of Markets East and member of the ST Executive Board. "Her main task is to support and guide the store managers from this region in planning their activities and implementing the ST strategy. As a member of the Market Group Management team and the extended Executive Board, she also has a strong voice in ST's strategic market orientation."

Babey will take up her additional role and seat on the EMT on January 1, 2024. Her predecessor Sara Roloff will leave ST at the end of 2023.

The Ilgenhalde Foundation offers education, housing and therapy to people with cognitive and multiple disabilities from childhood to adulthood at three locations. In order to make its services and values tangible in all communication measures, it has given itself a new image. The foundation now presents itself to its stakeholders as a professional, committed and contemporary player.

The refreshed design retains the four basic colors in a less garish form and strengthens the foundation brand as a modern umbrella brand. To this end, a claim was developed: "Enabling development". The website, which has been completely restructured and rewritten, serves as the new main means of communication. Stakeholder groups are now addressed with fresh images and videos. For example, short films provide insights into the various job profiles. This strengthens HR marketing and positions the foundation as an attractive employer.

The Zurich agency Art.i.schock defined the key strategic principles of communication for the foundation's new image. Based on the new communication concept and the overall redesign, the agency implemented not only the website but also image and advisory flyers with insert cards, created a social media concept and initiated an adaptation of the LinkedIn channel.

Responsible at the Ilgenhalde Foundation: Marco Camus (Executive Board), Stephie Smith (Marketing), Christiane Roth (President of the Board of Trustees). Responsible at Art.i.schock: Nadine van den Berg (consulting, project management), Sylvia Brüggemann (concept), Lukas Koller (graphics).

40-year-old Tobias Kober took up the position of Head of Partner Marketing & Retail Media at Media Markt Switzerland in mid-November 2023. In this role, he will reshape the planning and coordination of advertising services and revenues for Media Markt Switzerland's numerous industry partners. In addition, he will increasingly develop and expand the department as an agency within Media Markt Switzerland.

Before joining MediaMarkt, Tobias Kober worked as Principal Agency Development at Amazon Online in Germany from 2021. Other positions in his career include CDO at Mediacom Zurich, Director Media Consulting at Carat and Director Digital Strategy and Account Group Head at Wavemaker in Düsseldorf.

47-year-old Michael Gemeiner has held the position of Head of Digital & Media since August 2023. In this new role, he is responsible for the further development of the various customer and marketing channels. Thanks to his extensive industry experience, he is also responsible for MediaMarkt Switzerland's media planning, which is now carried out in-house.

Gemeiner has over 16 years of experience in the media business, including more than eleven years on the agency side, mostly in management positions. He has worked at Omnicom Media Group and GroupM, among others, as well as on the client side at Tui.com in Berlin. Before joining MediaMarkt, he was Client Service Director at Wavemaker / GroupM, where he was responsible for client consulting in Zurich.

Yannick Federer, 31, has been responsible for the Loyalty & Direct Marketing division as Lead CRM since August 2023. In this role, he is working in particular on redesigning the customer loyalty strategy and driving forward the expansion of an individualized customer journey.

Before joining MediaMarkt, he worked in various management positions at Manor. He gained further professional experience in marketing at Coop and in the strategy department of Swiss International Air Lines.

34-year-old Dagmar Cyrklaff has been Brand & Campaigning Lead at MediaMarkt Switzerland since July 2023. In her position, she is responsible for the realignment of the MediaMarkt brand in Switzerland as well as the strategic planning and creative design of external advertising measures. Advertising material is now produced internally.

Before joining MediaMarkt, Cyrklaff was most recently head of marketing at a management consultancy in Berlin, while also running her own company. Her professional career also includes positions at Immobilienscout24, IMG and Esome Advertising.

There are around 280 advertising media on public land in the city of Thun. These are currently managed by APGǀSGA. As the existing contract expires at the end of 2023, the city of Thun put the contract for commercial billposting on public land out to public tender this year for 2024. APGǀSGA was once again awarded the contract: the new contract comes into force on January 1, 2024 and will run for a further five years.

Billposting concept defines framework conditions

The billposting concept, which sets out the framework conditions, serves as the basis for billposting on public land. In this concept, the city is generally open to additional digital advertising media. As in the past, 30 free F4-format posters are available for cultural events. The City of Thun's culture department coordinates the posters.

In the interests of equal treatment, the city will continue to offer all Thun event organizers advertising in the F4 format at a 50% discount. APGǀSGA guarantees these discounted conditions in the new contract. It maintains 20 free poster sites in F4 format distributed across the entire city area for association poster advertising.

Salaries and other personnel expenses currently cost around 50 full-time employees 19 million dollars. The bandwidth required for data transmission alone costs 2.8 million dollars a year.

Signal consistently relies on end-to-end encryption, in which the content of the communication is only visible to the parties involved in plain text. Messages are therefore only stored temporarily on the company's servers for transmission. This also costs 1.3 million dollars a year.

Signal's encryption technology is used by chat service WhatsApp, among others. Signal is a non-profit organization and is run by a foundation. The service wants to finance itself in the long term with the help of a broad base of donors, wrote foundation chair Meredith Whittaker in the blog post. So far, Signal has been helped by a million-dollar donation from WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton. He had received part of the more than 20 billion dollars that Facebook paid for WhatsApp and was subsequently one of the co-founders of the Signal Foundation. (SDA)

According to Media Focus, the difference can be explained primarily by the Search media group. Google has made an unusually high number of adjustments this year, which severely impairs comparability with data from 2022. However, TV, print, cinema and display also recorded significant declines compared to the previous year.

The advertising market for the year as a whole (YTD) was also down significantly by 8.1 percent at CHF 5,089.7 million gross.

The decline hit the online-affine fashion & sports sector the hardest (-46.1%). On the other hand, the cleaning industry significantly increased advertising pressure by 40.2%.

The development of advertising pressure as at October 2023 in millions of gross francs

Only 6 sectors increase in October

In October, only six sectors recorded an increase in their advertising pressure compared to the previous year. The cleaning industry stood out in particular, as it recorded a considerable increase in its gross advertising pressure of 40.2%, which is the highest increase of all industries.

Initiatives & Campaigns also experienced growth of 12.7% in October, driven by the elections.

The transportation sector continued its trend of significant growth, increasing by 12.1% compared to the same month last year.

The cosmetics & personal care sector (+9.7%), the media sector (+3.2%) and events (+1.5%) also recorded slight increases.

Four sectors reduce by over 40 percent

In October, the advertising market recorded a further increase compared to the previous month, although it remains significantly below the previous year's level. A total of 15 sectors reduced their advertising activities, with 14 of them recording a double-digit decline.

The Fashion & Sports sector recorded the largest reduction in October (-46.1%), followed by Services (-44.7%).

The energy sector also significantly reduced its advertising activities by 44.4% compared to the same period of the previous year.

The leisure, gastronomy and tourism sector also experienced a sharp decline in advertising pressure of 44.2% compared to the previous year.

The top advertisers and most advertised products and services (excluding product range, image advertising and collective categories) in October

Media Mix for the month of October

There are few things more magical for children in the run-up to Christmas than writing their Christmas Eve wish list. In a 48-second film, Brack.ch shows the logistics center in Willisau during the pre-Christmas period. The voice of nine-year-old Uma guides viewers through the film, which transforms the logistics center into a childlike illusion of a Christmas parcel factory in the very first seconds.

It is only in the final moments of the movie that it becomes clear who the girl is telling the story to. In the living room at home, the little brother listens to the magical story with wide eyes and full of anticipation, while both children are busy making their wish lists.

The film and its media-specific cut-downs are the focus of the broad-based Christmas campaign, which was once again developed this year by Compresso and Zimmermann Communications.

The campaign was filmed last Advent in order to tell the authentic story of the Brack.ch logistics center during the Christmas season, the agencies explain in a joint press release. "Despite all the childlike illusion and Christmas magic with which the campaign aims to inspire, it is nevertheless real and authentic. From the filming location to the employees who can be seen. Admittedly, the alpaca is cast," explains Sandrine Knechtli, Head of Marketing Communications at Brack.ch, with a grin.

An OOH campaign, in which the two children Uma and Luis write their wish lists, as well as numerous online and social media content round off the Christmas campaign.

Responsible at Brack.ch: Simon Thoma (Head of Marketing), Sandrine Knechtli (Head of Marketing Communications), Olivier Pasche (Head of Marketing Creation). Responsible at Compresso: Fridolin Stauffacher (overall responsibility), Michelle Müller (project management), Luisa Villiger (consulting). Responsible at Zimmermann Communications: Rolf Zimmermann (Strategy/Art Buying), Christoff Strukamp (Creative Direction), Julia Hofmann (Art Direction), Sonja Zimmerli (Digital Art Direction). Film production: Markenfilm Schweiz, Joel Scheidegger (Executive Producer), Simon Nagel (Director), Simon Drescher (Cinematographer), Atelier Lomann (Art Department), Spacetrain (Music). Photo production: Lena Hogekamp (photographer), Anatol Lauschke (assistant).

How do I find access to my creativity? How do people express their creativity? Zurich-based Käthy Känzig addresses these questions in her podcast "Modern Creativity". In over 30 episodes, she talks about topics such as entrepreneurship, personal development, mindfulness and spirituality to inspire people on their path to creative expression.

In conversations with guests such as process facilitators Marisa Burn and Raphaela Pichler, tech start-up founder Nicolas Egger and comedian Anaïs Decasper, Känzig hopes to gain an insight into their creative processes and life paths.

In the latest video episode, Anaïs Decasper explains how she developed from a receptionist at Radio Energy to a comedian. She also explains why this path was not always easy and what authenticity means to her.

In addition to conversations, Käthy Känzig shares knowledge from her systemic coaching training in solo episodes or gives listeners insights into her personal story.

The podcast "Modern Creativity" was launched in 2022. Interested parties can listen to the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast and YouTube listen.

Many organizations are desperately looking for skilled personnel. In this situation, new solutions are needed to make the search and recruitment process more efficient and increase the length of time employees stay with the company. Sozjobs.ch offers such solutions.

More attractive self-presentation

With the newly introduced benefits function organizations should be able to present their benefits in detail and at length. From additional vacations and reduced workloads to an in-house daycare center, every benefit offered can be recorded, described and illustrated with a meaningful icon. Different benefit packages can be defined for different locations or different job categories.

With the benefits function, jobseekers can now also search specifically for benefits. According to Sozjobs.ch, this function is "unique in Switzerland and a real innovation" in the field of online job markets.

"Jobseekers no longer have to limit their search to traditional characteristics such as function, workload or place of work. They now have the opportunity to search specifically for the benefits that are most important to them. This is our response to jobseekers' need to find exactly the job that really suits them," explains Felix Glanzmann, Managing Director of Sozjobs.ch.

According to a survey conducted by GfK on behalf of Blackfriday.ch, customers are more likely to hold back this year. In 2022, 48% of respondents spent an average of 289 francs on Black Friday. This year, only 41% of survey participants intend to spend money on the discount day and are planning an average budget of CHF 261.

According to the shopping platform, clothing, PCs or laptops and household appliances such as vacuum cleaners are very popular. According to the survey, consoles and video games as well as TV sets and toys are less likely to be purchased. In previous years, these categories were more popular, according to the report.

Retailers risk credibility

According to a survey by Demoscope, the retail trade is also facing further challenges. According to the survey, around two thirds of consumers believe that retailers are losing credibility due to high discounts.

Excessive discounts lead potential customers to assume that the regular prices are too high. Retailers are therefore forced to perform a balancing act, according to the survey published on Thursday by the shopping portal Blackfridaydeals.ch.

During the summer and winter sales, it is clearer what the discounts are for. With Black Friday, however, the discounts are sometimes less easy to understand: "Retailers are therefore increasingly responsible for communicating a plausible reason for the high discounts to consumers," says Julian Zrotz from Blackfridaydeals.ch.

Origin of Black Friday

Black Friday has its origins - like so many things - in the USA. There, the bargain day takes place on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Many Americans tend to start their Christmas shopping on the long weekend after the holiday.

In the USA, people wait outside the closed doors on Friday night to be the first to benefit from the limited discounts. However, Black Friday has not always been the best-selling day of the year in the USA. It only took its first place on the podium in 2005.

In Switzerland, the bargain day only became better known and more important for retailers ten years later. In 2015, Manor was the first major retailer to offer its customers its first discount campaigns on Black Friday. (Simon Stahl/AWP/swi)

Exact Two years after "Stop Black Friday" Solidar Suisse is launching a new campaign to mark the Day of Overconsumption and International Worker Exploitation. The background to the campaign is the current Solidar Suisse report on working conditions in Asia's electronics mega-factories. The Tages-Anzeiger reported.

How can the general public be made aware of this serious issue? This year, Solidar Suisse and Spina's Civil Voices are focusing on a charm offensive instead of a declaration of war. To this end, they are bringing comedian Dominic Deville in front of the camera.

In the long spot and three shorter clips, Deville welcomes Switzerland to the "***ck Friday Show". In the improvised studio, he presents meaningful and fun alternatives to the day of overconsumption. The message: anything is smarter than participating in Black Friday. A trip to the countryside, for example (Blöök Friday), going offline (Blackout Friday) or slowing down on Friday (Schnägg Friday).

The commercials are complemented by social media ads, an e-mail journey and the Landing page. Solidar Suisse offers the public a concrete opportunity to take action: sign the "***ck Friday" petition. It starts with the electronics retailers, but ultimately aims for transparency and fairness in the entire supply chain. After less than a week, several thousand signatures have already been collected.

Responsible at Solidar Suisse: Benjamin Gross (Head of Marketing and Communication), Susanne Rudolf (Campaigns), Sylvie Kipfer (Communication and Media French-speaking Switzerland), Melanie Wirz (Communication and Media German-speaking Switzerland), Pascal Krucker (Digital Fundraising), Christian von Allmen (Digital Fundraising). Responsible at Spina's Civil Voices: Nicolas Stark, Beat Egger (creation), Lorenz Spinas (CD), Janine Frei (consulting), Gaby Füchslin and Lorenz Spinas (strategy), Eric Schwegler (SoMe application). Film production: Markus Etter (producer, director, editor), Jean-Christophe Dupasquier (DoP), Srdjan Kovacevic (camera assistant/sound/lighting), Kathrin Tollas (styling/make-up). Sound: Hastings Zurich.