Marketing the World Cup is like a Herculean task. How do you reach and excite 1.5 billion soccer fans on all channels and around the world? Webrepublic orchestrated the marketing for the biggest sporting event in Moscow in 2018 and in Qatar in 2022 and implemented a performance marketing approach for sponsorship. (Werbewoche.ch reported).

In addition, the final round of the Women's World Cup in Australia is coming up in July 2023 - and the Zurich agency can again show how it's done. Are there differences in the marketing of women's soccer? In the podcast "Off The Record" by Anna Kohler, Tom Hanan, founder and CEO of Webrepublic, reveals this and other secrets.

With 3.4 million spectators on site and millions more around the globe, the World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world. The final match between Argentina and France in December 2022 alone was watched by around 1.5 billion people. The tournament thus offers sponsors a unique opportunity to present themselves.

For the second time, Webrepublic orchestrated Fifa's communication initiatives in collaboration with the ten largest sponsors around the international tournament in Qatar. Two dozen marketing specialists and sports enthusiasts from Webrepublic launched and managed 60 global campaigns during the hot five weeks. Around 2.5 billion impressions and 700 million commercial video views were generated. By comparison, during Super Bowl week 2022, the NFL generated 1.8 billion impressions and just over 600 million video views on its social media channels.

"Our team developed the campaigns and played them out and optimized them globally in 'real time' - these are key success factors for brands," says Tom Hanan, founder and CEO of Webrepublic. "This was only possible because we employ specialists in-house for all digital marketing disciplines who have in-depth technical know-how and speak ten languages."

New era in sponsorship with performance marketing approach

The Webrepublic team "Rawr", specialized in sponsorship and sports marketing is convinced that a new era has begun in sponsorship. Brands have become more demanding, they want to get closer to the fans - traditional logo exposure and awareness during the event alone are neither sufficient nor up to date.

That's why Webrepublic has chosen a new approach that combines sponsorship and performance marketing. What is needed are holistic communication strategies that are independent of time and place, and that work across all channels. "It's no longer about generating as many impressions as possible. Our task is to optimize all campaigns for more complex goals such as engagements, website visits or conversions and to combine them with exciting storytelling," says Alexander Riggers, Head of Growth & Innovation at Rawr.

Campaign highlights around the Fifa World Cup 2022

Three campaigns will be used to illustrate what the integrated approach of sponsorship and performance marketing looks like in practice. Hyundai used the attention of the World Cup to make a contribution to sustainability. For this, Webrepublic developed a gamified application to educate fans about their environmental impact, encourage direct action and interact with the brand. The campaign achieved seven times higher exposure than expected. It also generated great engagement from fans, who shared videos and photos of their sustainable pledges in action on social media, demonstrating their support for the message.

For Crypto.com, Webrepublic activated football fans via sponsored content: In the first step, footage from the Fifa archive generated brand awareness. Subsequently, fans could cash out their earned winnings in Bitcoin in the Crypto Playzone. The performance campaign for a sweepstake simultaneously increased the download of the Crypto app.

In addition to gamification, another trend around events like the World Cup is festivalization: To promote the Fifa Fan Festivals in the host cities and drive traffic to the registration and ticket pages, Webrepublic activated over 90 creative elements in the Fifa+ inventory, on social media and in Google search ads. The result: festivals in eight cities worldwide, with over 1.8 million visitors in Doha alone.

With Claudia Jenni, an experienced communications expert strengthens the board, with Eckhard Baschek a journalist is represented for the first time, and with Roger Huber, the founding president makes a comeback. For the coming months, the VKK board has resolved to strengthen the exchange among members and to debate current incidents, to increase the footprint in social media and to enter into further partnerships such as with the Leadership Campus of the Swiss Armed Forces last year. "As a center of excellence for crisis communication and reputation management, we promote exchange, networking and training. The new board members will make an important contribution to this," says VKK President Markus Baumgartner.

Claudia Jenni worked for Credit Suisse from 1994 to 2011 as PR/Media Officer and Project Manager in sports sponsoring, then for around four years as Public Relations Officer for Urban Development in the City of Winterthur and for three years as Media Spokesperson for Sanitas Health Insurance. Since 2017, she has been running the agency Kommunikationsatelier in Zurich with her business partner Christina Lamprecht, with crisis communication forming a large part of her strategic and operational work. Claudia Jenni holds a Master's degree in Communication Management & Leadership from ZHAW, is a Certified PR & Communication Expert SAQ and a certified board member.

Eckhard Baschek started his career in 1984 at the business editorial department of the Eastern Switzerland. From 1986 to 1994, he was media spokesman for the Swiss Red Cross in St. Gallen. He then worked as a freelance journalist for Finance and economy, St. Galler Tagblatt and Weltwochebefore working as an editor for Swiss Insurance and Swiss Bank. From 1994 to 2008, he became editor at the Handelszeitungto which he returned in 2016 as Co-Head of the Inserts Department. In between, he worked for CSC Switzerland, Infel, K-Money and Autentio. Eckhard Baschek studied international relations at HSG St. Gallen and completed his diploma professional training as a journalist at the St. Gallen School of Journalism. He was a founding member of VKK in 2009.

After completing his commercial training, Roger Huber worked for the St. Galler Tagblatt and as business editor for the daily newspaper Eastern Switzerland active. He then worked for Switzerland's first private television station "European Business Channel" as a producer, and after its bankruptcy he moved to the Finance and economy. From 1992 to 1997 he was a journalist at Cash/ Cash-TV and Development Manager for Ringier in Eastern Europe. He then founded Huber Media Consulting. In 2009, he was the founding president of the VKK. In 2021, together with two other people, he additionally founded the journalism platform Inside-justiz.ch, of which he is editor-in-chief.

Anyone who thinks anything of themselves in the creative industry currently comments on the unusual and daring with an admiringly breathy "edgy. The pronunciation alone exudes wicked glam. And that's exactly what we all want, according to a celebrity fighting for ratings. But let's start at the beginning.

The official translation into German is "sharp-edged," "nervous," or "irritable. What is meant, however, is a dimension of meaning that is more common in English: "daring," "provocative," or "trendy. To pronounce the latter, however, immediately disqualifies one as a boomer. Because "trends" were yesterday, "trendy" even the day before yesterday. "Trend researchers study how the new comes into the world," said Karin Frick, head of research at GDI, in a recent interview. And that may be exactly the point: trends are about passive anticipation. "Edgy," on the other hand, suggests that something new is just emerging here. That's perhaps why "edges" are in demand today, corners and edges that move away from the mainstream, because that's where nobody wants to be spotted, especially in the creative industry. It's no wonder, then, that even gray-haired marketing executives are now mouthing the word so as not to appear eternally stale. But where does this word come from?

Social media instead of linear television

It was launched by the casting show "Germany's Next Topmodel," i.e. in mainstream high culture. While the market share of Heidi Klum's casting box has drifted from mainstream to irrelevant, despite her claims to the contrary, the term has taken on a life of its own. But not thanks to linear television, but thanks to social media, which gives Heidi's disciples of yesteryear, who have long since grown up, far greater leverage than published ratings would suggest.

Social media is the new mainstream and "edgy" content still stands out there at the moment with doomscrolling. But for how long? Edges and corners are considered edgy until they become mainstream. Or to put it another way: what was once really edgy is only "edgy" afterwards.

* Benno Maggi is co-founder and CEO of Partner & Partner. He has been eavesdropping on the industry for over 30 years, discovering words and terms for us that can either be used for small talk, pomposity, excitement, playing Scrabble, or just because.

"The Invisible Man", "Lucky Lady", "Infinity Hero" or "Jack Pots" - in the booming field of online casinos, characters are omnipresent. In close cooperation with the Grand Casino Bern, Republica has developed a fantasy figure for "7 Melons" that represents the sender formally and in terms of content. In doing so, "Melvis" becomes the prominent face and storyteller of the 7 Melons brand and has prominent appearances in all communication measures as well as on the game platform itself.

"Sing My Song" with "Melvis"

For the first time, "Melvis" appears on the latest season of "Sing meinen Song," which 7 Melons sponsors. In the process, the character skillfully dances his way through the sponsorship formats during the breaks or the cut-ins during the show.

Republica is responsible for character design, animation, naming and storytelling. The idea for "Melvis" was developed together with the team of 7 Melons.

Responsible at Grand Casino Bern, 7 Melons: Ludwig Nehls, Gerald Fineder, Bruno Peake, Laura Wälchli.

As their final project, the students developed a campaign for a product of the briefing company Kägi Söhne. The teams, consisting of creatives and strategists and consultants, presented their final projects to the jury of the Ad-School Board and representatives of Kägi. The students received their certificates at the certificate ceremony on March 2 in the ADC Gallery. In addition, three winning teams were awarded the ADC cubes in bronze, silver and gold.

The graduates of the Ad School 2022

Course with specialization in strategy:

Agatha Golab, Alain Stocker, Alexia Siegwart, Elena Neff, Fabienne Schmid, Fabienne Wich, Julia Schmutz, Katharina Binder, Laura Schädler, Maria Schwery, Michelle Hauri, Sylvana Ulrich.

Course with specialization in creation

Adrian Busse, Alba Rau, Andreas Güntensperger, Anna-Fiona Geller, Carina Kienzle, Caroline Minar, Elif Soysal, Evelyn Schellenberg, Gianni Peng, Jan Theus, Jasmin Giger, Manuel Täuber, Pierina Laube, Silvan Maximilian Hohl, Silvio Britschgi, Urs Breitenmoser, Vanessa Niklaus.

With 125 independent pharmacies, Toppharm Apotheken und Drogerien Genossenschaft is the largest independent pharmacy grouping in German-speaking Switzerland. Historically founded as a purchasing association, Toppharm has today grown into a comprehensive service provider in the healthcare sector. "To ensure that this development is also visible to the outside world, the brand identity was to be revised to reflect the broad service portfolio and modern corporate attitude," says Kevin Eggli, Head of Marketing and Campaigns at Toppharm.

Fastr was commissioned by Toppharm to revise its brand identity. The agency in Zurich's Kreis 5 has been serving Toppharm for several years in many communication matters and knows the requirements and challenges for a service brand in the healthcare sector.

To ensure continued recognizability, the previous logo and the main color red were retained - but their applications were completely redefined. Thus, the development of the company from the past years was anchored in the new corporate design. With the new elements, colors and applications, the expanded range of services should be able to be communicated in a versatile and at the same time consistent manner.

Fastr was responsible for the definition of the new corporate design as well as the implementation of the guidelines on all communication materials such as letters, brochures, advertising campaigns, training materials and POS materials. Fastr also redesigned the front end of the Toppharm website.

Client: Toppharm Pharmacies and Drugstores Cooperative. Responsible agency: Fastr.

Digge Zetterberg Odh joined the Frontify team in 2020. She started her career at the Swiss SaaS scale-up as Partnership Manager. Just three months after her last promotion to Head of Communications in October 2022, her second promotion to Director of Content and Communications now comes early this year, as part of a restructuring of the marketing team.

Zetterberg Odh is to drive collaboration between the two teams in order to send consistent messages and create more charisma for joint activities. The new position also means new challenges for her: "Leading a larger team means more project management and organization. It's a task that doesn't come particularly easily to me, but it's a great challenge for myself."

Throughout her career, Digge has championed diversity and inclusion issues, served on the board of the NGO Equalisters and mentored for the NGO All of Us. Her drive - both personally and professionally - is to make a difference.

Kathrin Winzenried joined "Kassensturz" in 2009. The 49-year-old Bernese regularly hosted the show. In 2022, she increased her workload and has since been presenting the background magazine for consumers together with Bettina Ramseier. Now Winzenried has decided to hand over the moderation.

In addition to her work at "Kassensturz," Kathrin Winzenried realizes and produces documentaries for "SRF Dok" and "Reporter. She will continue to work as an author and producer for these formats and will thus remain with SRF.

"It was a great 15 years at 'Kassensturz'. With an incredibly motivated team, I was able to do fair and advocacy journalism. That was unique," Winzenried is quoted as saying in a statement. "Now I'm looking forward to being outside the studio more again to make films and reports."

"Kassensturz" editorial director Christian Dütschler regrets the move: "As a tenacious journalist, Kathrin Winzenried questioned and challenged her interview guests in the studio. In 'Kassensturz', she has shown great commitment to consumers and thus strengthened the show's advocacy profile."

The successor to Kathrin Winzenried has not yet been determined. SRF will advertise the position.

At Zürcher Kantonalbank, great importance is attached to dealing with customers in a human manner and addressing them at eye level. More than 100 specialists take a lot of time for their private banking customers - even when it is not important.

Under the motto "That's what counts with us," the current campaign is designed to appeal to the target group in a deliberately calm and particularly aesthetic way.

In addition to the classic campaign measures and subjects, various content marketing measures are implemented and used online and offline with the stories of real private banking customers.

The result of the collaboration can be seen online, in print, OOH, on social media and on the comprehensive private banking content hub since Monday.

"ZKB's private banking campaign uniquely combines the best of three worlds: the expertise and individualized approach of a private bank, the breadth of offerings of a universal bank, and the accountability of one of the world's most secure banks," explains Jan-Hendrik Völker-Albert, Chief Marketing & Branding Officer at ZKB. "With our new private banking campaign, we are demonstrating a clear attitude and a unique type of people-centered customer service that is only lived at ZKB in this form."

Responsible at Zürcher Kantonalbank: Alexandra Rahm, Dominik Streich, Meike Bell, Colin Bollier, Alice Rohrer. Overall responsibility for conception, creation and realization: Rod Communication. Production: All in Ltd. Photography & Direction: ApricotBerlin. DoP: Patrick Jaworek. Music: Department of Noise. Completion: Blish. Lithography: Nc ag. Media: Webrepublic, The House Agency.

The decision to take time off as of Monday was made by the management of the Ringier Group in agreement with Dorer. There are allegations of preferential treatment of a certain group of employees and insufficiently clear differentiation between private and business, according to the statement.

Ringier will investigate the reports and observations, clarify them completely and work them up. "My absence will simplify the clarification, therefore this time out is also in my sense - although the step is enormously difficult for me," Dorer is quoted as saying. Should he have harmed the well-being of the group or individuals through his actions without intention, he regrets this beyond all measure.

During his sabbatical, Steffi Buchli, Editor-in-Chief, will take over View Sports, and Andreas Dietrich, Editor-in-Chief View, will assume journalistic responsibility. All other management responsibilities will be handed over to Ladina Heimgartner as CEO and Roman Sigrist as COO of the Blick Group on an interim basis.

Now, with the help of external experts, a detailed analysis of the corporate culture within the Blick Group is to be carried out. According to Heimgartner, the topic of "corporate culture" will be "an absolute focus topic" in the coming weeks and months.

Media groups under fire

Already at the beginning of the month, the media company Ringier Axel Springer had taken over from Werner de Schepper, Co-Editor-in-Chief of the magazine Interview by Ringier, separated because of "differences" and "different views (Werbewoche.ch reported).

In 2017, the Tages-Anzeiger published an article about alleged sexual harassment of de Schepper at the workplace. The media office of Ringier Axel Springer Switzerland stated at the time that it had no knowledge of such incidents. De Schepper did not comment publicly on the matter. The allegations did not have any criminal consequences.

At the beginning of January, Ringier's Board of Directors had announced that it would set up a working group to draw up a "journalistic mission statement". Earlier, the alleged direct line from the spokesman for Health Minister Alain Berset to Ringier CEO Marc Walder had made headlines, referring to the reporting of the Blicks is said to have had an impact.

The Tamedia Group is also facing criticism. A former employee had given the former MagazineThe company's editor-in-chief Finn Canonica was accused of abuse of power, bullying and sexism. Canonica defended himself against the accusations, but also admitted mistakes in part (Werbewoche.ch reported). Tamedia also admitted to omissions. The investigation of the case had taken too long. (SDA)

The Swiss Cyber Security Days will focus on current and future cyber security solutions from September 20-21, 2023. National and international opinion leaders will build a bridge between technology and society. For the event, Bernexpo Groupe is cooperating with Dreamlab Technologies, a Bern-based company that has been developing security solutions for IT infrastructures for 20 years.

"Bernexpo Groupe aims to become the leading platform for the very topical subject of cyber security in the coming years. Our cooperation with Dreamlab, a pioneer in information security, is an important step towards this goal," explains Tom Winter, CEO of Bernexpo Groupe. "Thanks to numerous international projects and continuous research, Dreamlab Technologies has broad expertise in defending against cyber threats. Together with Bernexpo Groupe, we are now incorporating this know-how into a unique congress," adds Nicolas Mayencourt, Founder and Global CEO of Dreamlab Technologies.

Platform for megatrend smart city

From June 6 to 9, 2023, Suisse Public Smart will revolve around the topic of smart cities: As a subsection of the established Suisse Public, the Swiss trade fair for the public sector, the aim of Suisse Public Smart is to support municipalities and cities in the further development and safeguarding of municipal infrastructures and with the help of digitalization.

In addition, Bernexpo Groupe, in cooperation with Hinte Expo & Conference, is creating an offshoot of the hybrid format Last Mile City Logistics, which premiered in Berlin in 2022 and will be staged again in the German capital in 2023. The first Swiss edition will take place on November 15, 2023 at the Bernexpo site.

Strengthening the Congress Hub Bern

"With the Swiss Cyber Security Days, Last Mile City Logistics and Suisse Public Smart, we have three congress and event formats in our portfolio in 2023 that have great relevance for politics and business and further strengthen the vision of the Congress Hub Bern," explains Tom Winter. The goal of the Congress Hub Bern, which Bernexpo Groupe launched in January together with Bern Welcome and Kursaal, is to bring existing and new congress formats to Bern and thus generate sustainable value creation for the entire region in every respect.