The Skills Group, its digital subsidiary Datenwerk and the marketing agency All Channels Communication Austria join "Team Farner". According to its own information, the growing European agency alliance thus represents the largest communications group in Austria after the merger last November with the Kobza Media Group, also based in Austria, and its agencies KTHE, Alpha_z, Massgeschneidert, Diego5 and Darwin's Lab. The move is intended to underpin Team Farner's ambition to build national champions in key European markets.

The Skills Group specializes in sensitive and complex topics and accompanies large companies, public bodies, institutions, start-ups and NGOs. According to its own information, the owner-managed full-service provider is one of the top 5 in Austria. Through its subsidiary Datenwerk, it also offers its customers all digital competencies from a single source. All Channels Communication Austria specializes in high-reach, target group-oriented and channel-independent marketing campaigns. With the merger, a team of 40 communications consultants, digital and marketing experts joins Team Farner.

Step towards market leadership in Austria

"We started less than a year ago with great ambitions. Of course, we are immensely pleased to deliver such rapid and strong results, especially in our German-speaking markets. Our idea of building and networking national champions to provide fully integrated communications solutions to our customers across Europe is being very well received in the market," Roman Geiser, Executive Chairman Farner International, is quoted as saying in a statement.

The previous Skills shareholders Jürgen Gangoly, Stefan Sengl, Jörg Wollmann and Helmut Stögerer join the Farner International partnership. Skills Managing Director Jürgen Gangoly will set up the "Farner Academy" at European level and manage this group-internal training and development institution.

In addition to Farner Consulting in Switzerland, Team Farner currently includes the Austrian communications and marketing group Kobza Media Group, the Vim Group in the Netherlands, Komm.passion and Kirchhoff Consult in Germany, Yoveo, Blueglass, Jim&Jim and Affective Advisory.

With 16 partner agencies and more than 600 employees, Team Farner currently has an agency fee volume of around 100 million euros per year. Further expansion steps are in preparation.

The original co-founder of Carpe Media Andy Waldis takes over the management of the agency unit "Storyhub". The two owners of Carpe Media, Johannes Hummel and Urs Flückiger, are delighted with the decision of the returnee: "Together with Alex Schmid, Andy Waldis played a key role in the successful development and establishment of Storyhub, one of the first content marketing agencies in Switzerland. We are delighted that he will once again focus his passion for content marketing on serving Storyhub," Johannes Hummel is quoted as saying in a statement.

The new position of Storyhub's founding partner also shows that the signs are pointing to growth: "Another stroke of luck is that Alex Schmid will remain with the company with his many years of experience, his knowledge of the market and his extensive network," explains Urs Flückiger. "Alex Schmid will drive new customer business for both Storyhub and Carpe Media. We want to continue to grow with both units over the next few years, and with the new appointments to these two key positions, we are ideally equipped to do so."

Four years after the first study "eGames I" and the entry into force of the Federal Law on Money Games (BGS), Addiction Switzerland and the Groupement romand d'études des addiction (GREA) published the follow-up study on the online gambling behavior of the Swiss population at a media conference in Bern on Thursday.

The results showed that the frequency of participation in online games has increased: in 2018, a quarter of the 1395 respondents played weekly, rising to 30 percent in 2021. Most importantly, the proportion of problem gamblers has doubled, from 2.3 percent in 2018 to 5.2 percent in 2021.

Young people between the ages of 18 and 29 are the most affected: 18.8 percent of them exhibit moderately risky or problematic gaming behavior. Young people also spend more money on online games: an average of 162 Swiss francs per month compared with 105 Swiss francs in the sample as a whole.

More offers and pandemic

A large majority of survey participants pointed out that the sharp increase in Swiss online gaming offerings combined with the Covid 19 pandemic and the resulting restrictions had a major impact on the development of their behavior. After all, the casinos had to temporarily close their doors from March 2020, and only the online offerings were accessible.

The multiplication of online gaming, intensive marketing, unlimited access to games and bonuses were important factors in the intensification of gaming practices, players confirmed. The study also shows that one third of the respondents are not aware of the help and support available to those suffering from addiction.

In view of the increasing problems that particularly affect young people, all cantons are joining forces for the first time in a national prevention campaign. This is to run for four weeks via social networks. The Bernese agency Feinheit is responsible for the conception and implementation of the campaign.

The heart of the campaign is the website Gambling-check.chwhich is available in German, French and Italian. Animated videos show different motivations for gambling and are intended to make online gamblers think. In a second step, they are made aware of the risks and the help available throughout Switzerland.

Campaign relies on Human Centered Design

There are good reasons why the campaign initially stimulates self-reflection at a low level and does not immediately rely on conventional prevention messages. In order to understand what goes on in the minds of gamers and how they can be sensitized, Feinheit worked with the Human Centered Design approach.

Before the campaign was designed, research was conducted with those affected. This showed that people who suffer from gambling addiction do not want to acknowledge their problematic behavior. On the other hand, they are happy to describe their motivation for gambling. That's why the first national campaign on the subject starts here. (SDA/pd/swi)

Responsible for Fineness: Simon Hugi (project management & consulting), Stephanie Auderset (concept & content), Sophie Fauser (HCD research), Christian Perez (design), Wesllen Gschwind (animation), Kristina Roder (web project coordination), York Schickl (programming), Martin Schweizer (online marketing). Prevention programs of the cantons: Dörte Petit, Hannah Wettstein, Martin Müller, Matthias Weber (Playing without Addiction - Northwest/Central Swiss Cantons, Eastern Swiss Cantons and Principality of Liechtenstein), Domenic Schnoz & Britta Thelitz (Center for Gambling Addiction - Canton of Zurich), Boris Simic (VJPS - Canton of Schaffhausen), Camille Robert & Leonard Dinkel (PILDJ - Western Swiss Cantons), Sara Palazzo (GATP - Canton of Ticino).

The Tamedia editorial team's national cover sections will go to press in the new Tages-Anzeiger-editorial team, as Tamedia announced on Wednesday. The structures are to be simplified and responsibilities sharpened. The Tages-Anzeiger is to be strengthened as a leading national brand.

Birrer most recently headed the central domestic department. Thanks to her experience at Newsnet, she has a strong understanding of digital journalism, Tamedia CEO Andreas Schaffner is quoted as saying in the release. She stands for the digital future of the Tages-Anzeiger.

Further personnel changes

The new organization is associated with a number of other personnel changes. Raphaela Birrer's deputy will be Adrian Zurbriggen. Matthias Chapman and Kerstin Hasse are also part of the new editorial team.

Arthur Rutishauser, who previously headed the editorial department of Tamedia and the Sunday newspaper in personnel union, will in future concentrate on the further development of the Sunday newspaper. There can be no question of a downgrade, writes a media spokesman in response to a query from the Keystone-SDA news agency. Rutishauser remains editor-in-chief.

New tasks for previous employees

The previous co-chief editor of the Tages-Anzeiger is being given new tasks: Mario Stäuble becomes head of domestic operations, Priska Amstutz is earmarked for a new project "of high strategic importance", according to the press release.

Michael Marti and Iwan Städler, who have been members of the editorial board up to now, will both become authors, as the media spokesman announced upon request. The reorganization has nothing to do with the "Roshani case". The organization presented on Wednesday is part of a process initiated some time ago, the statement continues.

The former Magazine-editor Anuschka Roshani had in a guest article in the German magazine The mirror made serious accusations of bullying against her former supervisor Finn Canonica, accusing him of sexism. Tamedia had admitted negligence after the allegations came to light earlier this month. The investigation of the case had taken too long.

No change in the local

The local department of the Tages-Anzeiger remains part of the Zurich newspaper group of Tamedia, which also includes the Country Messenger, the Zürcher Unterländer and the Zurichsee-Zeitung belong to. Benjamin Geiger continues to be in charge.

The Tamedia media company employs around 1400 people in German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland. Tamedia is a company of the TX Group. (SDA)

Dept/AI comprises a multidisciplinary team of more than 400 specialists worldwide. The agency group expects 10 percent of its revenue to come from custom AI solutions and 80 percent from AI-enabled work by 2025.

"AI opens up limitless possibilities and potential for brands," said Isabel Perry, VP of Emerging Technology at Dept. "Our customers are eager to leverage AI, but are often held back by complex issues around design, ethics and use in everyday life. We stand with them as an experienced AI transformation partner that helps them leverage today's opportunities in ways that go beyond the hype and make sense for their business."

Accordingly, Dept has appointed former Managing Director Lukas Stuber as Digital Ethics Ambassador. This is to guarantee that AI applications for customers are not only business-oriented, but also meet ethical standards.

The agency observes developments in technology and marketing and aims to make them understandable and usable for clients. Dept/AI therefore not only explores the increasing influence of generative AI on the competition between search engines and its own core business of organic and paid search, but also focuses on using AI in an ethical and progressive way for innovative projects. For example, for a machine hand tracking system to learn the American Sign Language Alphabet or a unique AI experience with personalized AI trading cards for eBay's MCM Comic Con campaign.

"With this new radio feature, we are turning the familiar system on its head and encouraging users to create their own radio stations from scratch by combining key musical building blocks such as artists and general music descriptions," citing TechCrunch from an email statement from YouTube. This would give users more control over their music enjoyment. "Now they can compile their music in many different ways that were not previously available," the company said.

The tool can be selected in the "Your music tuner" section on the corresponding website and via iOS or Android app and is supposed to be ready for use from anywhere YouTube Music can be reached. It's aimed primarily at music lovers:inside who want more freedom and control over what content the algorithm plays them. "YouTube Music already had a whole range of stations and mixes put together by algorithms. The fact that you can now control these yourself is a great option," said Google spokesman Paul Pennington.

Genre and mood filters

With the help of the tool, users can select up to 30 different artists for their radio station. They also decide how often these artists appear in the playlists. Specific filter settings are used to narrow down the musical genre or mood of the tracks played. Another setting can be used to define whether only the initially selected artists or also similar artists from a broader music spectrum are to be played. (pte/swi)

When it comes to buying their food, consumers in Switzerland no longer want to compromise. They are no longer satisfied with good quality at a reasonable price, but also demand fair treatment of employees and the environment.

Aldi Suisse wants to show that consumers with these needs are in good hands with the retailer. In the current campaign, consumers express their needs without mincing their words. The campaign starts with a consumer who has something to say about fair working conditions. Further needs of other consumers will follow throughout the year.

From now on, the consumer will have her say in the form of TV and online ads, billboards, DOOH, and social media and display ads throughout Switzerland.

Responsible at Aldi Suisse: David Biernath (Director Customer Interaction), Sarah Thalmann (Manager Customer Interaction);), Michèle Bürgi (Project Manager Customer Interaction). Responsible for content and form: Dominik Stibal (CEO), Karin Estermann (Executive Creative Director), David Hugentobler (Creative Director), Lukas Tauss (Senior Art Director), Caroline Minar (Junior Art Director), Yannick Lippuner (Musical Advisor), Manuela Marty (Head of Consulting/Strategist), Melanie Möckli (Project Manager). Film production: Soha Film, Maximilian Speidel (director), Julien Bourdeille (cinematographer), Rudi Haller (executive producer), Reto Trösch (set designer), Arianna Pianca (styling), B77 (music), Dennis Gnoni Visconti (editor), Das Alte Lager (VFX), Arthur Paux (grading), Jingle Jungle (sound studio). Photography: Micha Freutel (Photographer / Image Editing), Tina Aich Production AG (Producer), Jenny Tschugmell (Styling), Daniela Koller (Hair & Make Up).

In collaboration with Impact+, a solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the digital advertising industry, Teads wants to offer marketers and agencies in Switzerland the opportunity to advertise sustainably and to measure and reduce the carbon footprint of their digital advertising campaign. The Impact+ solution is directly embedded in the "Attention" area of the Teads solution, which also includes topics such as creative and contextual targeting.

Specifically, Teads and Impact+ give the digital advertising industry the ability to combine environmental and marketing KPIs. In this way, advertisers should be able to quickly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions without compromising media KPIs. Among other things, the electricity used to host the ad when it is delivered and to display it on the viewer's device is measured.

"By sharpening our understanding of how digital advertising impacts the environment, we ensure that business growth and environmental responsibility go hand in hand," said Claudio Lumbiarres, Managing Director Sales CH/AT/Nordics at Teads.

Important "Attention Rate

In addition, Teads' newly developed "Attention Rate" is designed to bring a new perspective to the advertising ecosystem. The metric evaluates both the quality of media exposure and the functionality of the advertising medium in terms of consumer attention. According to Lumen Research, the Attention Rate predicts the impact of a campaign three to seven times better than the old metric Viewability.

With consideration and a sense of responsibility

Attention is based on the user's experience. For example, ads that cannot be skipped and are too long or misleading achieve less attention and impact. In contrast, ads that are well integrated into their advertising environment and thus interact with that of the user are more successful.

Journalistic-editorial platforms offer very attractive advertising spaces in this context. A video ad on a news site achieves an attention rate three times higher than the same format on a social network. Companies that invest in ad inventory in this environment see much better campaign performance and support quality journalism.

Responding more strongly to consumer wishes 

Consumers are demanding more commitment and initiative for climate protection from their favorite brands. This can be achieved through more creative ads that attract greater attention. New methods of performance measurement and more sustainable, optimized booking and playout channels for digital advertising campaigns help companies save CO2 and secure a competitive advantage at the same time.

Microsoft is bringing the AI chatbot of its revamped Bing search engine to the Android and iOS smartphone platforms. The company announced this in a blog entry on Wednesday. In addition, the world's largest software company also wants to equip its Edge browser for smartphones and its Skype video telephony software with artificial intelligence functions.

Microsoft announced the first steps of its comprehensive AI offensive in cooperation with the start-up OpenAI two weeks ago. Microsoft promises that Bing will aggregate reliable sources from the web to give users a single answer instead of a long list of links.

Spontaneous expressions of love and other mistakes

Similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT text robot, the Bing chatbot impressed primarily with eloquent responses during the trial phase. However, it also sometimes provided incorrect or made-up facts. In some cases, the Bing chatbot caused a stir with spontaneous declarations of love and snotty answers. Afterwards, Microsoft restricted the use of the chat tool for lengthy dialogs, which had proven to be particularly prone to errors.

Microsoft did not completely open access to the new Bing during the test phase, but put many interested parties on a waiting list. However, they have now welcomed more than one million people from 169 countries from the waiting list, Microsoft manager Yusuf Mehdi wrote. "We are adding more people to the preview every day."

Feedback on the new features has been positive, he said, with "71 percent of test participants giving the new Bing a 'thumbs up' for the new search and response features."

"Co-pilot for the Internet"

Bing search queries on the smartphone do not have to be typed in, but can be dictated. At the same time, the new Bing mobile app can not only display the answers as written text, but also read them aloud.

The new Bing and Edge browser for cell phones could "serve as a co-pilot for the Internet" even if you're not sitting at a desktop computer, Mehdi explained. The AI features in Skype will be used to improve social communication with friends and family.

With its AI initiative, Microsoft is not only making an attempt to become more relevant again in Internet searches, but also in web browsers. According to the calculations of the market research company Statcounter, Google currently has a share of just under 93 percent in Internet searches, while Microsoft with Bing is only at 3 percent. The situation is similarly bad for browsers: Google Chrome leads here with 65.4 percent, ahead of Safari (Apple) with 18.7 percent. Microsoft's Edge has a market share of 4.5 percent. (SDA)

After the busy business year 2022, the team around Echowerk founder Manuel Schaub was looking for reinforcement to support event organizers even better. 35-year-old Dominik Langloh holds a master's degree in Visual Communication from the Royal College of Art in London, taught at the ZHdK and joins Echowerk as Art Director.

37-year-old Lea Cortesi holds a Master of Arts in Language from the University of Zurich and complements Echowerk as a copywriter. Cortesi brings experience from a wide range of industries and has already worked for companies such as Fairtiq and Namuk.

20-year-old Selina Bucher joins Echowerk as a PR Creation trainee. She recently successfully completed her Matura exams and analyzed the impact of social media in her final thesis.

"The event industry is constantly changing. The demands on event communication are changing rapidly and becoming more and more diverse due to digitalization. We are taking this into account with the team expansion. Thanks to flexible working models, Echowerk is also able to attract people with a strong profile and a wealth of experience to our agile agency. This means we are well positioned for the future with the necessary creative resources," says Sarina Langloh, Head of Events & Operations at Echowerk.

Mass media have a central role in times of crisis. This was evident at Covid-19, when they were tasked with providing the public with the latest information and assessments of the current situation in an appropriate manner - based on the communication of the health authorities and also on their own research.

At present, possible indiscretions between politicians and media professionals are dominating the public debate. This calls into question the balance and independence of some of the media coverage. However, if all articles published in Swiss media on the Corona pandemic are considered, a different picture emerges.

Dr. Alexander Ort, a lecturer and researcher in health communication at the University of Lucerne, and co-author Tobias Rohrbach have published a comprehensive study on this topic in the "International Journal of Public Health" entitled "Covering the Crisis" performed.

The study is part of a research project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and led by Prof. Dr. Sara Rubinelli and Dr. Nicola Diviani, which aims to provide important insights for communication in future health crises.

To this end, the research team used an automated process to scrutinize all articles published in newspapers in German- and French-speaking Switzerland between the beginning of 2020 and mid-2021, i.e. during the "hot" phase of Corona. A total of 1,171,114 articles were analyzed, i.e. more than a thousand articles per day with a more or less significant connection to the pandemic.

Competent experts taken into account

This sheer volume of articles illustrates the challenges faced by media professionals in the face of the massive health crisis: on the one hand, it was necessary to satisfy the increased need for information, and on the other, not to neglect other relevant news and prevent information fatigue.

As the analysis shows, the Covid coverage took place in all departments: The journalists addressed the effects on all areas of society and accurately depicted the "multi-system character" of the crisis. Another finding is a "solid" correspondence between topics and actors: Media professionals quote experts in those specific fields in which they are competent. "In contrast to previous research in the U.S., there are few empirical grounds for criticism to accuse the [local] media of providing a platform for the wrong voices on the wrong issues," the study says.

With regard to the communication of health authorities, the researchers conclude that it should definitely be "clear and consistent" in times of crisis, as the media must also first develop strategies and routines to deal with the new situation. "If this can be done, health authorities and institutions can rely on the news media to disseminate relevant information in a balanced way."

Another key to successful communication is to provide the media with experts from various fields - in addition to epidemiologists and health experts, for example, from business or law - as respondents, so that they can be quoted in the appropriate contexts.

Berz Schulzki's previous roles include Mobile.de, where as Director Engineering he drove the company's technological redesign. Also as Director Engineering, Schulzki built a team of over one hundred at Ebay classifieds Group to develop a new marketplace platform.

"In his previous roles, Bert Schulzki has proven his ability to build high-performing teams to create great products and scalable platforms," said Nick Brambring, CEO of Zattoo. "Together we will work on our mission to free television from broadcast restrictions."

Lietsch and Siciliano go

According to Zattoo, the previous Chief Technology Officer Stefan Lietsch is leaving to focus more on sustainability in his work in the future. The previous Chief Product Officer Peter Siciliano, who joined Zattoo's management team in 2020, will also realign his professional career in the coming months. Until then, he will work as a senior consultant for Zattoo in an advisory capacity.