Complainant Alex Bauert confirmed on Sunday on request of the news agency Keystone-SDA a corresponding report of the Sunday newspaper and of the Nebelspalter. He dragged the judgment on because he was being discriminated against in an unacceptable way as a single person in the radio and television fee. He does not want to pay the same as couples, families or flat-sharing communities.

Bauert believes that his chances in Strasbourg are not bad. The Federal Court did not deny discrimination, but decided that it was objectively justified to collect the levy per household for the sake of simplicity. In Bauert's opinion, the small additional expense involved in invoicing does not justify this discrimination. Serafe receives the information on the composition of the household on a monthly basis.

The Serafe fee of 365 francs - or 335 francs since January 1, 2021 - must be paid per household, regardless of the number of people living there, regardless of the number of adults.

"Flimsy arguments"

Bauert criticizes that single households are thus subsidizing multi-person households. He had unsuccessfully appealed against an order by Serafe, the radio and television tax collection agency, to pay the radio and television taxes. The Federal Office of Communications and subsequently also the Federal Administrative Court rejected his request.

Sylvia Locher, President of Pro Single Switzerland, also expressed her disappointment with the Federal Court's decision to the Keystone-SDA news agency. She said the Federal Supreme Court had argued in a very sophistical way and "brought out flimsy arguments". "Singles do not experience justice with it". Around 1.3 million single-person households in Switzerland would have to pay the full Serafe contribution, he said, which is a cross-subsidization that is not legal.

According to the Federal Court, discrimination against singles is not evident. The levy is not linked to the status of being single. A person living in a relationship can also live in a single-person household, the federal court noted. Conversely, there are also people who are not in a relationship but live in a multi-person household. Also, the annual amount of the household tax was not disproportionately high. (SDA)

There will be "a higher-priced subscription that does not allow advertising," Musk wrote on his Twitter account

After his purchase of Twitter last October, the multi-billionaire Musk immediately fired the top management. A week later, he laid off about half of the 7500 employees, including many involved in combating misinformation. Musk said at the time that he wanted to expand the company's revenue streams beyond advertising and develop new paid services.

The online network has been struggling with massive economic difficulties since its takeover by Musk. To compensate for the exodus of advertising customers, the multi-billionaire is relying on subscriptions - starting with Twitter Blue, which includes verification of the authenticity of the user account and costs between eight and eleven dollars per month, and extending to the now announced ad-free offer. (SDA)

The EU Commission has threatened the head of the video app Tiktok, Shou Zi Chew, with far-reaching sanctions. This should his company not comply with European rules in the future.

It is unacceptable that users can access dangerous content within a few seconds via seemingly harmless features. This was announced by EU Commissioner Thierry Breton after a conversation with Chew. He was also concerned about allegations that journalists were being spied on and that personal data was being transferred to places outside Europe.

EU digital services law

"I have signaled very clearly to Shou Zi Chew that it is necessary to take care of compliance with EU legislation." He said this is especially true for the new EU digital services law, which will apply to large platforms from Sept. 1, 2023.

"We will not hesitate to adopt all possible sanctions if audits do not show full compliance," he added. The new EU law also allows for a ban on services in the EU in the event of repeated serious violations that endanger the lives or safety of people.

The Internet platform Tiktok has long been criticized for, among other things, inadequate data security and a lack of protection for young users. It is feared, for example, that the Chinese state could have access to Tiktok data. Tiktok rejects this.

Google parent Alphabet has become the next tech industry heavyweight to cut thousands of jobs. Around 12,000 jobs will be eliminated worldwide, as company CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a blog post on Friday.

This corresponds to around six percent of the workforce. Employees in the U.S. have already been notified of the termination. "In other countries, this process will take longer due to local laws and practices," Pichai writes further.

Google was unable to say whether and how many jobs in Switzerland will be affected by the cuts when asked by news agency AWP. Google has had several offices in Zurich since 2004. According to its own information, the technology group employs more than 5,000 people from more than 85 nations in the city on the Limmat.

Other tech giants also cut jobs on a massive scale

Just this week, Microsoft also announced the elimination of 10,000 jobs. Before that, Amazon announced the elimination of 18,000 jobs and the Facebook group Meta of 11,000 jobs.

Recently, the business development of the tech giants slowed down, among other things because of the economic worries and high inflation. Google and Meta earn their money almost exclusively from online advertising - and felt the effects of the thriftiness of large and small companies. Amazon was hit by rising logistics costs as well as consumers' reduced willingness to buy.

Adjustment to the cooling economy

The decision to downsize weighed heavily on him, Pichai wrote. "And I take full responsibility for the decisions that got us here." After the "dramatic growth" in the pandemic, he said, they built up the workforce "in a different economic reality than today."

In terms of the extent of the cuts, Alphabet is roughly on a par with Microsoft, where just under five percent of jobs are being eliminated. Meta even cut 13 percent of its jobs. At Amazon, with its 1.5 million employees, mainly in logistics centers, 18,000 jobs make up only a small proportion, but hit office jobs hard. Twitter stands alone, where tech billionaire Elon Musk, as the new owner, immediately laid off about half of the approximately 7,000 employees.

Core business less affected

Pichai indicated that areas outside the core business at Alphabet will be more strongly affected: The company wants to adapt its workforce to the central priorities of the group. This includes, above all, the focus on the development of artificial intelligence that was decided a few years ago.

A special feature of Alphabet is that Google generates practically all of its revenues and uses them to help finance future projects such as Waymo's robot cabs and delivery drones. These areas cost Alphabet billions, but it has been trying to control spending for some time. (SDA)

The era of company founder Reed Hastings is coming to an end at streaming giant Netflix. After more than two decades, the 62-year-old retired from top management. The move followed a surprisingly strong final quarter. Not least thanks to the documentary series "Harry & Meghan," Netflix grew much faster than expected with an increase of 7.7 million users. The service is in a state of flux: A cheaper subscription rate with advertising was recently launched, and action will soon be taken against password sharing.

"Even founders need to evolve," Hastings wrote on the company blog Thursday. He had promoted longtime content chief Ted Sarandos to a dual leadership role in 2020. Now Greg Peters, who was previously in charge of day-to-day operations, is moving up to co-chief executive. "Frankly, the two of them have been running the company more and more," Hastings said in an interview. He is likely to retain great influence as executive chairman of the board.

Hastings rebuilt Netflix into a streaming service

Netflix's first business model was DVD rentals by mail. Hastings, however, recognized the potential of streaming early on and bet on it. The next strategic step was to produce its own content: First, to save on licensing costs. On the other, because Hastings foresaw that studios would keep their programming for their own services during the streaming boom.

At the same time, it opposed advertising on the service, tolerated password sharing, and stayed strictly away from expensive sports rights. Netflix is currently breaking with the first two principles.

The introduction of the cheaper subscription with advertising in November, including in Germany, was a reaction to the increasing competition with more and more streaming services. The big rival Disney+ now also offers a version with ads. Peters emphasized that the advertising subscription has so far mainly attracted new customers, with little switching from more expensive tariffs.

Passwords are made more difficult to share

If Netflix finds that passwords are being shared beyond one household, the service plans to charge extra in the future. "It's not going to be a universally popular move," Peters acknowledged. He said the company is preparing for some users to leave Netflix, at least temporarily.

At the same time, the service is bracing itself for additional revenue from the move. And Sarandos is hoping above all for the program's appeal: "If the content works, the business works."

Significantly more users gained

After a disappointing year for Netflix over long stretches, the end of the year was much better than expected. In the three months to the end of December, the streaming service added 7.66 million new customers - instead of the expected 4.5 million.

Netflix had a total of 230.75 million user accounts at the end of the year. In addition to "Harry & Meghan," the video service also scored with the series "Wednesday" and the films "Troll" and "Glass Onion.

"2022 was a difficult year with a bumpy start but a shinier finish," the annual report said, referring to the weak first half of the year. Netflix had experienced a rush of customers at the start of the pandemic, but then ran into rough waters with customer attrition in between.

Business figures surprise analysts positively

Competition from financially strong rivals such as Disney and Amazon was compounded by the fact that customers' money was no longer so loose due to inflation. Now things are looking up again: fourth-quarter revenues grew by around two percent year-on-year to 7.9 billion US dollars.

Net profit slumped from $607 million to $55 million due to unfavorable exchange rate developments, but Netflix announced an increase to $1.3 billion for the current quarter. In terms of revenue, the company expects an increase to 8.2 billion dollars. Overall, the quarterly report was well above the forecasts of Wall Street experts. Netflix shares started Friday's pre-market trading with strong gains. (SDA)

Benedikt Lüthi took over the CEO role at Link in November 2017, having previously served as a member of the company's Board of Directors. Under his leadership, Link went through a transformation process characterized by strong digitization and modernization of the company. In addition to implementing a site concept, Link also renewed the logo and external image during this time. With the sale to YouGov, in which Lüthi had played a key role, a succession solution was also found for the long-time Link owners in 2021. In the future, Lüthi will remain Chairman of the Board of Directors of Link, but will focus more on the expansion of the German business and other tasks within the YouGov Group.

"As an industry newcomer to market research, I have always been very impressed by the specific know-how, the wealth of ideas and the close client relationship of Link employees," says Lüthi. "I have learned a lot from the Link team in general as well as my colleagues in management over the past five years."

Effective February 1, 2023, Lukas Theiler, who has served in the role of COO/CFO since August 2018, will assume leadership of Link as CEO. Theiler holds a Master of Science in Computer Science and Psychology from the Université de Fribourg and started his professional career in research on "Artificial Intelligence And Computer Vision". In various roles in IT engineering, consulting and management in large national and international companies, his focus has always been on customers, leadership, innovation, digital transformation and operational excellence. At Link, Lukas Theiler was previously responsible for the Services business unit, which covers IT, data protection, field services, operations, finance, HR and marketing.

Lukas Theiler had been Deputy CEO of Link since February 2021 and had already assumed management responsibility in numerous areas. Now he is to accompany and steer the company in the next phase of its integration into the YouGov Group. "I am looking forward to leading Link in its integration into YouGov Group," Theiler said of his new role. "It will enable us to even better support our clients in the transformation of market research with new methods and approaches, also globally."

 

Werbewoche m&k: Maximilian Weigel, today we're talking about Yahoo's adtech platform. What can you say about it in principle?

Maximilian Weigel: With almost 900 million users per month, Yahoo is still the third most visited platform on the Internet today. In addition to the Consumer Business, we have also expanded our Adtech Business in recent years - where we offer both our customers and advertisers the opportunity to play out advertising campaigns "inventory-agnostically" via the emerging channels. This means that although we still have our strong consumer brands, we are agnostic in our campaign management on behalf of our customers.

 

Can you explain that in more detail?

We don't artificially try to push any campaigns onto our inventory, but take a holistic approach and try to ensure the best possible KPIs on behalf of the clients. We are completely agnostic when it comes to inventory and connected to almost all relevant inventory sources in the respective markets. Be it once directly on our supply side platform or by directly integrating our demand side platform on the SSPs that are common globally or locally. It's a very open approach. The linchpin is our omnichannel platform in the middle.

 

What are the concrete advantages of using your services?

We are able to fully manage our clients' comprehensive media mixes end-to-end. In doing so, customers can implement their advertising design themselves or we can do it completely for them. This means that the customer can set up his campaigns in our DSP and access various exchange platforms. He is independent of the inventory and also free to choose the format. This means that they can run classic display campaigns, video campaigns and native campaigns, or use emerging channels such as audio, connected TV or digital out-of-home. With the advantage that we can offer everything from a single source: Targeting and measurement also take place entirely within our company. So there is no need for external vendors to take additional measurements or validate various targeting criteria.

 

Which channels are preferred is also relevant to the advertiser's goals. Do you also offer advice on this?

This is one of our biggest advantages compared to our global competitors. We also receive feedback from direct and agency customers that we are very strong in consulting. Of course, if the customer has the know-how and his media marketing mix has already been defined, he can approach this completely autonomously from us in the testing process. But we can also take over the complete campaign handling and recommend to the customer, for example, that he perhaps also test other target groups - or use our platform, which also gives them various audience insights and works with look-alike modeling, among other things. We can draw on the 900 million monthly users I mentioned earlier, so we have a very large and solid data set.

 

900 million users worldwide ...what about the DACH market or Switzerland?

At Yahoo Germany, we decided several years ago to look at and approach Switzerland completely in isolation - not in the DACH mix. We are active individually in the respective markets below the DACH region. With Netgrowth, we are very well positioned locally in Switzerland. In Switzerland alone, we have 3.5 million active users a year.

 

But could it be that Switzerland is lagging behind a bit when it comes to programmatic advertising?

Talks with Netgrowth and our customers show me that Switzerland has caught up very quickly here and is actually in no way inferior to the European markets. For example, we are seeing increased interest in DOOH in the Swiss market in particular. Last year, we successfully implemented campaigns in Switzerland because we are also well connected with the local players in the Swiss market and can offer our advertisers a relevant reach there.

 

How does it actually work on the publisher side? Do they approach you or do you approach the publishers?

That's quite a differentiated approach. On the one hand, of course, we look at it from the perspective of the classic market KPIs, where the big sources of inventory are in the respective areas. In addition, we have our own supply team that manages our inventory of advertising inventory and handles the direct approach. In this way, we ensure that we also have appropriate reach behind the formats in all relevant core markets. One thing we've learned over the last few years is that if something is offered in too small and too fragmented a way, it doesn't scale - especially in emerging channels. That's why it's essential that even the big players are connected locally. As mentioned at the beginning, one option here is for our supply team to talk to the inventory owners - the ad owners in each market - and express interest in their inventory. We offer to make their inventory available on our SSP or connect their own SSP to our DSP.

 

At what size is the topic of programmatic advertising interesting for customers?

There is no barrier to entry. That's the beauty of programmatic supply and demand: you provide your inventory - either on our exchange, or you're already connected to an exchange and then let us connect our DSP.

 

How can advertisers who have never been involved with the topic get in touch with you?

My advice for onboarding inventory is to always talk to the supply team first. It's often the case that you put a lot of work and effort into your inventory, which also creates a certain expectation. So the quality requirements should be coordinated with us - or, for example, whether there are customer exclusions. Simply to know where we meet on both sides and what the best possible outcome will be. In Switzerland, it is best to contact our colleagues at Netgrowth. One advantage of our global structure is that we have specialists for each area who then accompany the first steps.

 

This all sounds very complicated.

In principle, we only talk about digital advertising. One peculiarity of our industry is that many anglicisms and proprietary terms are used. Basically, it's about transporting classic media into the digital world and setting up seamless campaigns there. Step by step, you can move from the old, classic world into the various channels of the new, programmatic world.

 

How do you see the future development?

The biggest challenges we will face in the coming months and years will be around identity and privacy - what happens to cookies. There will be a lot of movement on third-party data. Various platform operators will start to rebuild their first-party data trove. The following questions will have to be asked in the new world: How much do you need to invest? Do you even need first-party data? In this regard, we at Yahoo already have a very valuable treasure trove with our users. We will continue to do everything in our power to generate data transparently and in agreement with our users, and to deal with it in a trustworthy manner.

 

How do you see future developments in Switzerland?

We see a lot of potential in Switzerland - double-digit growth. We are aware of the special features of Switzerland and will therefore not try - as other large American companies like to do - to somehow adapt a German go-to-market strategy to the Swiss market. We operate here in a very individualized and localized way.

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Maximilian Weigel has been Managing Director Germany at Yahoo since 2019. He began his career in 2012 at the Verizon Group and held various management roles. In previous years, Weigel worked for companies such as Ecircle, PeterPays and Interone Worldwide.

Despite many challenges, 2022 was a successful year for OOH media overall, the association writes in a statement. In addition, it is very optimistic about the future of the genre. Analog and digital outdoor advertising is the last true mass medium with an advantageous price/performance ratio in an intermedia comparison. In addition, the advertising medium enjoys a high level of acceptance and has a comparatively positive CO2 balance.

Furthermore, the association wants to focus on the joint fight against unnecessary bans and restrictions on advertising, transparent and provider-independent media research, and highlighting the economic importance of outdoor advertising. In addition, there is an intensified, joint marketing of the genre. This includes, among other things, the industry event "Woohw!", which will take place on September 13, 2023. The fresh concept includes a specialist conference and the presentation of the newly created "Swiss Out of Home Award".

At Thursday's AGM, Neo-Advertising CEO Christian Vaglio-Giors was elected to the association's board. In addition, due to the intensified association activities, which would have put increasing demands on the AWS office, the previous managing director Corinne Truttmann has decided to hand over the office to Nadja Mühlemann. Mühlemann is a journalist and has headed the PR and media office of APG|SGA since 2014 and will continue to do so in the future. Previously, she represented the interests of the Swiss Druggists' Association (SDV) in various functions as journalistic manager for ten years.

Raffaele Keller will support Matthias Stalder as deputy editorial director, as Centralplus announced on Thursday. The 32-year-old Keller pushes from Pilate Today at Centralplus.

The previous editorial director, Lena Berger, is moving to the Observerwhere she becomes deputy editor-in-chief, as already announced last November (Werbewoche.ch reported).

The online medium focuses on the regions of Lucerne and Zug. It celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. According to its own information, it employs twelve people. (SDA/swi)

With Adrian Huwyler and Joël Ott, Iundf aims to strengthen and further expand the digital expertise of the agency group, according to a statement issued on Thursday.

Adrian Huwyler brings many years of experience in the Swiss advertising world as well as a passion for driving digital solutions with creative excellence. The former head of the Xlab Unit of the Wirz Group has extensive knowledge in the areas of business development, marketing and management. As Client Relations Director, he will take over the management of the consulting team of Inhalt und Form with immediate effect and is expected to further drive the strategic direction of the agency in the areas of creation, media, technology and Web3.

Joël Ott previously worked at the agency Xeit and is now moving to the consultancy Inhalt und Form, where as a digital consultant he is to strengthen the digital expertise of the agency group in the operational business as well.

"With their know-how and many years of experience, Joël Ott and Adrian Huwyler will play an important role in the further development of Inhalt und Form and the agency group, and will further strengthen our competencies in the areas of digital and consulting," Dominik Stibal, CEO of Inhalt und Form, is convinced.

The Conforama brand and locations will be retained, a XXXLutz spokesman said Thursday in response to an inquiry from news agency AWP. The takeover would also have no impact on jobs. These would also be retained.

Conforama Suisse AG currently operates 20 stores in German-speaking Switzerland, French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino and employs 850 people. The sale was first reported in the French-speaking Swiss business magazine Bilan reported. Subsequently, Conforama confirmed the deal in a communiqué.

Market position expanded

With this deal, XXXLutz is expanding its market position in Switzerland. The Austrians had only entered the Swiss market in September 2018 with their own furniture store. The first location was a 15,000-square-meter store in Rothrist, Aargau.

Following the acquisition of Möbel Pfister in 2019, XXXLutz also bought six Interio stores from Migros in 2020 and converted them into Mömax stores. A year ago, the company further expanded its Swiss presence with the acquisition of Lipo.

Mamane goes

The previous owner of Conforama was the entrepreneur Dan Mamane. He had bought the furniture store from the South African Steinhoff Group two and a half years ago. At the end of 2021 - as has now become known - he had already ceded 50 percent of the share capital to a company belonging to the XXXLutz Group.

Now he is also parting with the remaining 50 percent. According to the XXXLutz spokesman, no contract details are being communicated. The parties have agreed not to disclose the sale price. (SDA)

Media Partners Holding, owned by Christian Schwander and Dario Caprarese, will further increase its stake in Linkgroup as of July 1, 2023, as part of its succession planning as planned and will become the majority shareholder, Linkgroup wrote in a statement on Thursday. The current majority shareholder Marc Lehmann and Othmar Krienbühl will continue to hold substantial stakes in the company. The four-member management team will jointly lead the company as managing partners.

Media Partners Holding increases its financial commitment to the company with the acquisition of a further block of shares from Marc Lehmann. Lehmann, who led the group of companies as Managing Director for more than 20 years, remains Managing Partner and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the company.

According to the statement, Linkgroup's new ownership structure creates the "conditions for the continuation of its business activities, which have been successful for many years".