As part of its growth strategy, Farner is expanding its own range of behavioral science and evidence-based consulting services throughout Switzerland and Europe. After the video agency Yoveo, the NextGen marketing agency Jim & Jim and the digital agency BlueGlass, the consulting firm Affective Advisory now joins Farner within a year.

"We communication specialists want one thing above all: to successfully address and motivate the behavior of our recipients. Whether in marketing communications or in public campaigns. To do this, we need to understand what makes people tick - consciously and subconsciously," explains Daniel Jörg, Chief Innovation Officer at Farner. "Thanks to the targeted addressing of human behavioral drivers, we can raise the impact of measures to a new level with even the smallest adjustments."

In addition, various societal challenges call for rapid and effective behavioral change. Innovative strategy and communication programs based on Behavioral Design can make a decisive contribution to this. "Torben Emmerling and his team at Affective Advisory not only have an impressive scientific background and treasure trove of methods from behavioral and social research, but are also opinion leaders on issues surrounding the responsible use of behavioral science in practice," classifies Michel Grunder, Co-CEO of Farner.

Affective Advisory's Founder and Managing Partner Torben Emmerling will take on the role as Farner's Chief Behavioral Officer and will be responsible for expanding Farner's evidence-based strategy consulting offering across agencies in Switzerland and internationally. "We transform scientific evidence and methodologies into impactful strategies and interventions for businesses, public organizations and political actors to achieve positive behavior change. Our unique expertise in sound practice-relevant experiments further enables us to understand which measures are truly effective. At Farner, we can now bring this expertise in an integrated way across the entire agency," explains Torben Emmerling. He also becomes a partner in Team Farner and a member of the senior management team.

Marc Challandes, previously a member of the Executive Board of 20 Minuten, will join CH Media as Head of Digital Sales Revenue & Strategy as of June 1, 2023. Challandes is to expand the digital marketing of CH Media's media brands. His responsibilities will include in particular the development of a data-driven sales revenue office.

"With Marc Challandes, we want to integrate all media offerings and genres of CH Media into digital marketing. His track record and empathetic leadership make him the ideal choice for this newly created area of expertise," says Tarkan Özküp, designated Chief Commercial Officer at CH Media.

In addition, CH Media is appointing Stefan Beitz as its new Head of Strategic Sales & Business Development Marketing, also effective June 1, 2023. Beitz is tasked with implementing an all-media marketing strategy for CH Media in all sales units and developing new commercial offers. He joins from the Omnicom agency, where he was most recently Managing Partner Commercial Management.

"With his know-how and his great experience on the media side, Stefan will be of decisive help to us in ensuring that in the future we will be able to tailor marketing concepts and also implement them in a way that is suitable for the channels and measure their success," Özküp continues.

Like many others, the fire followed at the new web presence the goal of achieving a significantly improved user experience, with long-lasting technologies to increase customer satisfaction as well as an increase in conversion rates.

That's why Nordic Spirits' new online presence was developed based on a Progressive Web App, or PWA for short: A hybrid website that shares many features of a mobile app, but is accessed through the browser. The biggest advantage of the PWA architecture is to simplify complex interactions and create a modern e-commerce experience from the needs of the user.

The Wunderman Thompson team is responsible for the conception, UX/UI design, content creation and content management. Everything was implemented in close collaboration with the client and implementation partner - from cross-site technical consulting from business analysis to user research to go-live.

The intuitive, user:inside-centric website can be saved to the home screen of a mobile device like an app. The story highlights on the homepage offer space for information on promotions, events, edutainment and snackable content from the Nordic Spirit brand world.

In the newly developed flavor generator, users discover the different tastes and strengths of Nordic Spirit in a playful way and are thus supposed to find the right product for them. This personalization is continued throughout the entire shopping experience up to the checkout process - including product configurator, cross- and up-selling. After the payment process, customers can track the status of their order in their dashboard all the way to their destination and directly reorder. *

The site has been live since the beginning of December 2022. According to the agency, it is being optimized step by step on the basis of initial findings and expanded to include new functions, such as a loyalty program.

Responsible at JT International: Charlotte Buchholz-Schreyer (Customer Experience & Digital Manager), Olivier Embarek (CX & Digital Lead), Borja Marin (Marketing Director). Responsible at Wunderman Thompson: Marc Scheifele, Nadine Treier, Corina Carabelli, Nick-Patrick Herrmann (Consulting), Besiana Lauper Bandilli, Noah Nachtrab, Noah Ortner, Simon Häusler (UX/UI) Noemi Campanile, Sally Trümpler (Content Management), Julia Fuchs, Lea Scherz, Alisa Lomovceva (Graphic Design), David Trüb, Michael Lüthy (Copywriting), Benjamin Franken (Creative Direction), Yassin Wafa, Minh Tam Huynh, Dominik Dürst, Michael Meier (Technology), Joëlle Seiler (Strategy), Curdin Montalta, Kim Prinzing, Kathrina Seiler (Desktop Publishing).

* The Nordic Spirit website is only intended for consumers of nicotine products over the age of 18 who are resident in Switzerland. To ensure responsible customer loyalty, a comprehensive age verification of the customers is ensured before registration on the platform.

The Federal Data Protection Act (FADP) has been revised in recent years. The revised text of the law (revDSG) together with its revised ordinance (revDSV) will now, after lengthy discussions in Parliament and the public, be definitively published on
come into force on September 1, 2023. These provisions have far-reaching implications for companies in the Swiss advertising industry.

Swiss companies that already comply with the provisions of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will be able to implement the revDSG with manageable effort. However, if a company is now dealing with these provisions for the first time, it will mainly be the implementation of the new compliance obligations and the review of contracts with service providers, customers and other third parties that will take up some financial, time and human resources.

In addition to the revision, however, there have been other developments in data protection in recent years that present companies with quite a few thorny legal issues and practical problems. The IAB Switzerland Association IAB, the Swiss Media Publishers Association VSM, Leading Swiss Agencies LSA and the Swiss Advertisers Association SWA have jointly developed an industry recommendation to help their members answer questions that frequently arise in the implementation of the revised data protection law.

The guide was written by the Vischer data protection team under the leadership of David Rosenthal and Rolf Auf der Maur, Head of the Legal Working Group at IAB Switzerland.

"For the associations involved and their members, data protection is a constant, complex core issue. Accordingly, there was a great need for a recommendation for the industry that not only illuminates the extensive implications, but also highlights typical problems and provides practical solutions to them," says Urs Flückiger , Managing Director of IAB Switzerland. "With the new guide, developed by proven experts, a profound assistance with concrete recommendations for action has been created."

Benjamin Gütt brings more than 15 years of experience in the digital industry and business development. As Managing Partner at Ginetta, he takes over the leadership of the business team, which consists of Marketing and Sales.

Yet his background for his new role is anything but usual: Gütt started his career in the hotel industry at the age of 14 and worked for several years as a chef in restaurants in various countries. "During this time, I acquired important qualities such as commitment, perseverance and creativity," says Gütt. In addition, the hotel industry taught him the importance of attention to detail and customer service, which he believes are essential qualities for success in the digital world.

After graduating in Business Administration from Les Roches Crans-Montana Global Hospitality management school, he moved to Berlin for a few years where he scaled various startups. Most recently, Benjamin was Vice President of Sales at Orderfox, a digital platform for buyers and manufacturers in the CNC industry.

The Metaverse arouses the interest of most Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) surveyed - and this despite the fact that around one fifth of them say they do not fully understand it. The Metaverse is a network of interoperable virtual worlds where users can work, play, meet or shop using virtual or augmented reality technologies.

Metaverse begins without Switzerland

In Switzerland, however, this interest is less pronounced. Only 7 percent of Swiss respondents say their company is already active in the metaverse - compared to 17 percent globally. Swiss CMOs are more likely to observe the metaverse than to become active: While their international colleagues are either already active in the metaverse or plan to do so within the next 12 months, nearly half (42%) of the Swiss marketing executives surveyed will only do so within the next 12 to 24 months, and 12 percent have not yet engaged with it at all.

Swiss CMOs cite the complexity of technology implementation (55%) as the main reason for their non-participation in the Metaverse, followed by skepticism about long-term relevance (35%) and insufficient talent to implement such a strategy (32%). "Swiss companies are not doing themselves any favors with their wait-and-see attitude toward new Web 3.0 technologies and the metaverse," Roger Lay, head of marketing, commerce and design at Deloitte Switzerland, is convinced. "It's not yet clear, for example, how significant the metaverse will be for individual companies and industries in five or ten years. But if marketers don't take their first steps very soon, they will miss the trend."

Sustainability has come to stay

Sustainability is also increasingly seen as a growth driver and new market. Swiss CMOs have recognized this earlier than their colleagues worldwide: Swiss marketing managers give higher priority to building up competencies and offerings around sustainability (31%) than their international colleagues (21%). They also find this easier in a global comparison.

"Most chief marketing officers in this country have recognized the opportunities of sustainability when it comes to their company's reputation and as an opportunity for growth," says Liza Engel, chief sustainability officer at Deloitte Switzerland. With demographic trends and increased awareness of the impact of a purchasing decision, sustainability is taking center stage, she adds. "If companies want to be successful in their sustainability efforts, they need to be honest and transparent about concrete sustainability measures, communicate them authentically, bring their clientele along on this journey, and understand that sustainability is crucial to a company's longevity," Engel is convinced.

Creativity as a growth driver - not in Switzerland

The study continues to paint a rather conservative picture of Swiss marketing departments. Only about one-third (35%) of respondents believe that the long-term success of their company depends on developing creative ideas. This conviction is more pronounced among their colleagues worldwide: 48 percent of them believe that creativity is a growth driver. By contrast, the majority in this country (51%) believe that problem-solving and decision-making will be the most relevant attributes for the success of their company - internationally, the figure is only 35 percent.

"Swiss companies still too rarely allow mistakes to be made and show too little willingness to take risks and be creative in order to encourage innovation," says Roger Lay. Only 28 percent of Swiss marketing executives (worldwide: 37%) believe that encouraging risk-taking and "failure" fosters creative thinking. "This is possibly related to the fact that a rather traditional corporate culture still prevails in Switzerland, characterized by risk avoidance and perfectionism. Many marketing managers in Switzerland complain that creativity ekes out a niche existence in their companies and is not seen as a strategic imperative," Lay continues.

It's no surprise, then, that Swiss companies also lag behind when it comes to working with external creatives and influencers. Currently, only 23 percent of Swiss marketers work with such - compared to 33 percent worldwide. "If Swiss companies don't want to lose out to their global competitors, they should encourage creativity and risk-taking, be more open to new technologies and use them more consistently," concludes Lay.

For the study Global Marketing Trends 2023 by Deloitte in 2022, a total of 1015 marketing executives from global companies across a variety of industries were surveyed in the US, UK, Switzerland, Japan, the Middle East and Australia - 100 of them in Switzerland. Respondents expressed their views on a range of topics related to the future of marketing over the next one to two years. In addition, ten in-depth interviews were conducted between July and September 2022 with executives from Switzerland who currently hold senior marketing positions. Their responses have been incorporated into the study's findings.

The hunger for information in marketing is far from satisfied. The journey toward data-driven marketing will continue unabated in 2023. The primary goal is to identify the best possible sales potential, including risk analysis and the creation of a 360-degree view. The topic of third-party cookies and their stop in Chrome is also still on the table. Google has postponed the deadline again, this time to 2024.

Marketing Trend #0: Data Drivenness on the Rise

Data Drivenness is our "Trend Zero". This is where it all begins in marketing: the appetite for data and insights, and even more so the ravenous appetite for performance and conversion. Data driven, however, is not an end in itself, but has become the panacea on the road to efficiency. Tell me how data-driven you are, and I'll tell you how successful you are.

Data Drivenness will continue to increase this year. The number of MarTech tools is increasing, as is the amount of data. The methods of gaining insights from it are also getting better and better. Data Drivenness has the task of increasing the efficiency of marketing, the ROI. It does this on two levels. On the one hand, data makes it possible to address the right target persons and groups in a relevant and personal way; on the other hand, it makes it possible to automate and digitize. Where processes run automatically, the degree of manual work decreases. But there is no other way to manage complex marketing machinery.

Marketing Trend #1: Third Party Cookies

The discussion about third party cookies is a perennial topic within the marketing community. Or as Ralf Strauss, editor of the Marketing Tech Monitors, expresses it: "Google is shooing us away". Again and again, the date is postponed. From the second half of 2024, Chrome will probably definitely no longer allow the use of third-party cookies. "Assume that third party cookies are gone," Strauss continued. For companies, it will be important to build their own audiences and populate them with content.

Marketing Trend #2: Content Marketing

If content marketing was ever dead, it's experiencing a revival in 2024. This comes in part as a result of the "third party cookie" issue and building your own reach. If I have my own audience - people who give me permission to share content with them on a marketing basis - then I have to think about which story to play to which target person.

Relevance instead of mass is the basic principle here. It makes zero sense to play everything out to everyone. It's more effective to send the relevant content to the right target person. Keyword data-driven.

Marketing Trend #3: Data Analysis

In order to get relevance into content marketing or campaigns in general, it is imperative that I analyze my data. Which brings us to the next trend: data analysis of your own first party data. It's all about identifying the valuable companies in the CRM data set. This helps me to drive growth within the existing customer base, but also to create the basis for attracting ideal new customers.

So it's all about quality instead of quantity. Today, no one can afford to spend sales resources and time on the wrong prospects. This leads to idle time and frustration - and at the end of the day to a poor result.

Marketing trend #4: Golden Record and 360-degree view

A core aspect of Data Drivenness is the creation of a 360-degree view of customers and interested parties. It is therefore about the "golden record" and the consolidation of data. This includes duplicate management as well as breaking down data silos by using a unique identifier. Consolidate all data to the one and right company is the motto of data management. If employees have no knowledge of a customer interaction in channel XY, then that's a problem.

Master data governance is becoming increasingly important in this context to consolidate data and map the 360-degree view of business partners. SAP's governance tool is an example of this. It helps to set guidelines within organizations as to which criteria data must meet and ensures implementation.

Marketing Trend #5: Risk Management

Even Sun Tzu knew: "He who knows when to fight and when not to fight will be victorious." This leads us directly to the fifth marketing trend, risk management. Successful marketing and sales teams engage exclusively with leads that they know - or have a high probability of believing - will result in a deal. In practice, these are companies with a current interest and short sales cycle.

But successful sales teams only deal with companies that are solvent and adhere to compliance requirements. A deal with a business partner who does not pay or who turns out to be acting unethically quickly turns out to be a defeat. They sort out high-risk leads before sending them on to sales. Potential business partners are screened manually using data and information or in an automated onboarding process. Here, too, the keyword is data-driven.

Marketing Trend #6: AI and Machine Learning

Artificial intelligence and machine learning have now established themselves as lead generation methods. The whole thing is called smart data analytics and promises to generate leads with an accuracy of up to 90 percent in the B2B sector. Which do you prefer? Searching for a needle in a haystack or endlessly phoning lists in the hope that someone won't turn you away? Or working a list where three quarters of the contacts or more have an interest?

Smart Data Analytics is based on AI and Machine Learning. In an iterative process, an algorithm searches for companies with specific interests and criteria. Feedback on accuracy is fed back into the process, improving the quality of the leads with each iteration. Data-driven, that is.

Marketing Trend #7: Automation and Data Integration

As trivial as it sounds, automating processes is and will remain one of the main tasks of data-driven marketing. A core aspect of this is data integration. Björn Gerster, Director Marketing Consulting DACH at Dun & Bradstreet, sums it up as follows: "The companies that come to us have understood that further external data will take them further." It's all about making the right decisions and identifying the most promising sales potential.

For each use case, companies need very specific external data. Once they have been identified, the next step is to integrate them into the systems and processes. Very often, IT resources are very scarce. That's why the plug-and-play principle in the form of standard connectors is becoming increasingly popular. They enable quick and easy integration to the most common marketing tools such as Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, Hubspot, Marketo and many more. The end result is an automated process based on valid and correct data. Data-driven, that is.

Marketing Trend #8: The Battle for the Marketing Budget

In crises, or when things are not going well, the marketing budget is usually the first to be cut. CEOs are usually reluctant to spend money even in "normal" times. What they hate is flying blind. This makes it all the more important as a CMO to present the right arguments and airtight evidence in the discussions.

When it comes to budget negotiations, those marketing leaders who have implemented clean attribution models have the best cards in their hands. They can prove in black and white that their measures are successful. Even better: which campaign results in which business transaction. Data-driven, that is.

* Matthias Schneider has been a content marketer at Dun & Bradstreet in Zurich for six years and writes articles on marketing, sales and data management.

"We are extremely pleased to receive the Best Employer award for the second time in a row," CEO Christoph Zweifel told the Handelszeitung. "It makes me personally enormously proud to be able to run this company."

Behind Zweifel, the Schindler elevator company ranks ahead of the two watch brands Rolex and Breitling. They are all well-known favorites as best employers. However, a castling took place in the subsequent ranks: Newly represented in the top ten are the Swiss Southeast Railway, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne EPFL and the sanitary company Geberit.

The Handelszeitung and Statista select the 250 best employers in Switzerland every year. The ranking is based on an independent survey of Swiss employees via online access panels as well as via the website of the Handelszeitung. More than 1500 employers employing at least 200 people in Switzerland were identified for the survey.

Beat Bongni was previously Sales Director at Swisscom, responsible for strategic key account management. According to Chairman Christoph Glauser, the Board of Directors is well prepared for the future challenges in the area of digital impact and prototyping, as well as for the requirements of new digital projects and in Market Research 4.0.

According to ArgYou, it is the leading platform for digital impact measurement in all digital channels. Demand is measured on all relevant searches.

Numerous media professionals have taken part in the fact-checking workshops launched in 2022, deepening their knowledge and exchanging views on topical issues, according to a statement on Wednesday.

The need remains great: Political propaganda and disinformation are unsettling many citizens, and fakes are becoming more sophisticated. More than ever, it is the task of the media to provide orientation - nationally, regionally and locally.

In close cooperation with the German Press Agency DPA and the Google News Initiative, Keystone-SDA is again offering fact-checking trainings. The trainings will take place in spring, with exact dates to follow soon. The trainings are again free of charge for editorial offices of Swiss media.

Catherine Gilbert, Verification Officer at Keystone-SDA, and Jan Ludwig, fact checkers and social media trainers at DPA, teach indispensable basics of digital research such as photo reverse search or video verification in basic training courses. In shorter in-depth units that can be easily integrated into everyday journalistic work, they explain research on Instagram and Tiktok. This time, the training team focuses on recognizing artificially generated media content such as deepfake videos, voices and texts.

"Credible information is of vital interest to our democratic society. That's why we are delighted to continue the digital verification training program for media professionals this year," says Jann Jenatsch, COO of Keystone-SDA. "Technological dynamics such as the use of artificial intelligence are making it increasingly difficult to unmask fakes. The planned in-depth training courses address such developments and aim to impart know-how and competence. The demand for this is very high."

1. better creation targeting

By analyzing data from within the company, AI-powered sources, online behavior, and engagement metrics, the targeted audience can be better understood. Based on this, content can be created that is more relevant to the audience's interests and needs.

2. improved measurement

By tracking the performance of your own content in real time and measuring its impact on the target audience, the optimization process can be accelerated. This also helps to make data-driven decisions.

3. efficiency increase

With data-driven prioritization of resources, content creation activities can be focused on the most impactful channels and content, and the best results can be achieved with the least effort.

4. improved reputation management$

Data-driven communications can help monitor and develop one's online reputation by providing insights into how the target audience perceives one's brand and indicating potential roadblocks that would require a response.

Data-driven creation methods can create more effective and impactful content, build stronger relationships with target audiences, and more easily achieve personal and corporate communication goals.

The Maz School of Journalism in Lucerne teaches in the Compact course on data-driven communication  Methods and tools to continuously develop one's own content and tap into new potential. 

For 21 years, the Xaver Award has been presented by Expo Event Swiss LiveCom Association for the LiveCom industry to experts from the event sector. Now the submission phase for the 2023 edition has started. "The Xaver Award is much more than an award for individual projects. It honors the beacons that put the entire industry in a positive light in terms of creativity and innovation, and thus has a far-reaching effect throughout the LiveCom sector," says jury president Dany Waldner.

LiveCom professionals staff the jury

The concepts submitted will be evaluated and selected by a jury of six, consisting of jury president Waldner, Norbert Egli, Maximilian Souchay, Andrea Meier, Mauro Testerini and Nadine Imboden.

This is the second time that the jury has acted in this constellation: "In last year's edition, we noticed that this composition of professionals from a wide range of specialist areas in the LiveCom industry offers real added value for the assessment of the projects submitted," explains Waldner.

Public application phase until May 31

Applications for the Xaver Award are open to the public and will run from Wednesday until May 31, 2023, when LiveCom projects implemented between Feb. 1, 2022, and May 31, 2023, can be submitted at Xaver-award.ch be entered. Submitters who enter their projects before April 1 will benefit from the reduced Early Bird submission fee.

The project presentation days will take place on June 28 and 29, 2023, and the Xaver Award ceremony will be held on September 5 at Zurich's JED - Innovation Campus.