"Decathlon plans to strengthen its presence throughout Switzerland," said Adrien Lagache, who is responsible for the development of the Swiss market, when asked. Currently, Decathlon operates 24 stores in Switzerland. In order to meet the increasing demand, the logistics site in Onnens has also been expanded with an additional hall, according to a Decathlon statement on Monday.

It is not yet known exactly where new branches are planned. But: "Our level of awareness in Switzerland is still low, especially in the German-speaking part," says Lagache. That's why further development in German-speaking Switzerland is currently a priority.

How the NZZ on Sunday writes, further stores are likely to be planned in the Zurich and Lucerne areas and also in Ticino. In addition, the company will rely on the franchise model in mountain regions and is expected to open its first such store in Valais next winter, the article continues.

Lagache confirms that the franchise model is coming to Switzerland: "We are not limiting ourselves to our own stores, but also opening up other channels such as franchising or B-to-B," he said.

Recruiting via TV and social media

As previously communicated, the company wants to exceed the one-thousand employee mark in the long term. With a campaign running on social networks, the internet and as TV commercials, the aim is to find around 200 new colleagues in all areas - from sales to logistics to IT - for the current workforce of around 850 employees by the end of 2022, the communiqué continues.

According to the statement, it is important that employees can live out their passion for sports. "Depending on the position and skills of our employees, there are different options for working hours in order to optimize their professional and private lives," said Sylvain Pelletier, human resources manager for German-speaking Switzerland.

Decathlon started in Switzerland in 2017 with around 40 employees and in 2018 took over the Athleticum sporting goods chain from Manor owner Maus Frères with around 400 employees. Since then, the company has already more than doubled its headcount to 850 employees. "And we are maintaining this momentum with the planned hiring drive of 200 new employees," Pelletier said. (SDA)

AT&T is to benefit from this with 43 billion dollars - currently 35.4 billion euros - in cash, shares and in the form of debt takeovers, as the companies announced on Monday. AT&T shareholders are also to receive a 71 percent majority stake in the new company.

With the deal, AT&T is largely abandoning its ambitions to be a major player in the media business after spending billions of dollars on it in recent years. AT&T paid more than 80 billion dollars for WarnerMedia in 2018 - and took on huge debts to do so.

The new company is to be led by Discovery boss David Zaslav. This had already been announced by the Wall Street Journal reported - and emphasized that it was unclear whether the head of WarnerMedia, Jason Kilar, would remain on board. Kilar's name did not appear in Monday's announcement.

WarnerMedia includes HBO, CNN and Warner Bros. as well as other channels such as TNT. Discovery has so far focused on documentary formats with channels such as Animal Planet and Food Network.

The TV and film business is currently undergoing a profound change with the advance of streaming services, which has been accelerated once again by the coronavirus pandemic. WarnerMedia is currently trying to jump on the bandwagon with its streaming service HBO Max, which also features Warner films. Rivals Netflix and Disney are currently particularly strong in the streaming business.

In the US, streaming is also eroding revenues in the long-lucrative cable TV business. The Warner news channel CNN, which can be seen on cable TV in the US, experienced an upswing last year with the election campaign for the White House. Recently, however, viewer numbers have fallen again. (SDA)

The MarTech agency Think11 has locations in Osnabrück, Bielefeld, Münster, Berlin and Garrel and combines integrated digital marketing with in-depth business intelligence, competent experts and innovative technologies.

Somedia is founding a joint venture with Think11 in response to the sharp rise in demand for data-related marketing services. Think11 Switzerland positions itself as a compass for companies that want to holistically align their marketing and sales activities in the jungle of digital transformation, according to a statement from Somedia. For the media company, the foundation is a further step in its growth and digitization strategy.

For the construction of Think11 Switzerland is the responsibility of digital marketing specialist Christian Vuithier. "Think11's data-driven approach to digital performance marketing, combined with Somedia's anchored business models, is the perfect approach to provide clients with the right digital services to successfully digitize them," said Vuithier on the launch of the new agency.

According to Somedia, the new agency's service offering includes applications in the following areas: Artificial Intelligence in the delivery of digital programmatic advertising, Paid Media, Earned Media and Owned Media, Data Analytics, Video Marketing and Digital Consulting.

The AIHK represents the interests of Aargau companies in politics and society. It offers various services to its approximately 2000 member companies. In 2020, an economic survey showed a positive mood among Aargau companies despite Corona.

The agency Basel West has won the AIHK as a new client and designed a brochure for the publication of the survey as well as the annual report of the AIHK. The appearance for publications was thereby sharpened and the reader-friendliness optimized. In September, a "Night of the Aargau Economy" is planned under the auspices of the AIHK, where companies can present themselves to the population. The event and communication are currently being prepared.

Responsible at Aargau Chamber of Commerce and Industry AIHK: Beat Bechtold (Director); Jelena Teuscher (Head of Communications). Responsible at Basel West Corporate Communications: Thomas Aerni (consulting, conception); Cora Beck (design, realization); Stephan Lehmann-Maldonado (editing); Beni Basler (photography); Andreas Güntensperger (illustration).

23 subjects have been on display in western and German-speaking Switzerland since Monday. The products on display are all about summer, such as fishing lures, ice spoons, ketchup bottles and binoculars. "With the selected products, which are not commonplace, we want to show our range of products and inspire summer activities," indicates Jill Wanner, project manager of the campaign. As usual, the number of articles from the respective category is visible on the posters

Responsible at Digitec Galaxus: Martin Walthert (Chief Marketing Officer), Flurin Spring (Creative Director), Alessandro Thüler (Art Director), Ursina Grimm (Head of Brand Management), Jill Wanner (Project Management & Brand Management), Sven Mathis (Graphic Design), Severin Keller (Digital Media Design), Luca Giugliano (Digital Marketing), Gesine Hauder (Media Planning), Anne Chapuis (French Translation). Responsible at Focus Product Photography: Cathrin Schön (Photography).

The 37-year-old Marc Leuenberger comes from Informatique-MTF SA, a provider of software applications, where he was most recently Head of Marketing. Previously, he worked for four years for the Swiss software company IMS Informatik und Management Service. There, as a member of the management team, he was in charge of marketing and sales. His focus was on innovative business applications and individual software solutions. From 2015 to 2016, he managed international customer projects at Goldbach Interactive and gained initial experience in the agency environment.

At Nexum, Marc Leuenberger is responsible for user and customer experience topics and will support companies from the retail and consumer goods segment in the realization and optimization of their e-commerce and platform projects. As a member of the international 14-person sales team, he will also lead international digital projects to success together with his colleagues from Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. This also includes the realignment of digital sales and marketing processes, such as the increasing direct-to-consumer activities of international brands.

Six videos and six key visuals are at the heart of the motivational communication. The aim is to promote the life and health skills of young people. The "Be all kinds of strong" campaign will be played out as part of the "cool and clean" prevention program and is expected to be repeated over several years. The campaign is backed by Swiss Olympic as the umbrella organization of Swiss sports and Migros Fitness as the official partner. Through this cooperation, the out-of-home campaign will soon be seen in all Migros Fitness stores.

After a selection process, the agency Freundliche Grüsse was commissioned with the implementation. The Zurich-based agency enlisted the help of young director and photographer Burak Erinmez. His visual language is intended to authentically reflect the target group's attitude to life and reach young people at eye level. The campaign will also be played out on the Facebook and Instagram channels of "cool and clean" and Migros. Links are provided to the landing page Coolandclean.chwhich presents ten life skills based on concrete examples from the lives of young people and suggests tips for strengthening them. A competition at the beginning of the campaign is intended to ensure further involvement.

Responsible at Swiss Olympic/ "cool and clean": Marc Schumacher, Franziska Wehrle, Adrian von Allmen (overall responsibility); Daria Bohli, Dunja Anken (project management); Nina Heyder, Annina Krähenbühl, Colin Cuvit (website); Cristina Cinieri (translations); Gian-Carlo Schmid (partner). Responsible at Migros Fitness: Marcus Schwedhelm (overall responsibility), Andreas Cadisch (project management), Jennifer Rathgeb (website & translations). Responsible at Friendly regards: Pascal Deville, Samuel Textor (overall responsibility), Norihito Iida, Mara Schwegler (art direction), Remo Wyss (graphics), Phillip Gloyer (text/concept), Bernhard Brungs (text), Jasmine Segginger, Sarah Winker (consulting). Film and photo production: Tasty Pictures; Lea Fee (Producer), Burak Erinmez (Director and Photographer), Moritz Reinhart (Cinematographer).

The largest vaccination campaign in Switzerland is entering its second phase. Following the first priority groups, the general population can now be vaccinated almost everywhere. In this phase, the FOPH is launching a new mass media information campaign on the Covid 19 vaccination. The focus is on the message "A heart for us all": anyone who gets vaccinated is making an important contribution to coping with the pandemic and is thereby also showing a heart for their fellow human beings.

The campaign reminds the public that now is a good time to inquire about vaccination dates. People in Switzerland should make their vaccination decision in a self-determined and informed manner.

With access to vaccination for the general population, the prospects for a return to normality increase. This can only be achieved by working together. This is why the FOPH is counting on the support of actors from all sectors of society and is launching the "Together for Vaccination" initiative.

Numerous actors, institutions, associations, clubs and individuals are involved. Everyone is invited to share their personal vaccination statement on social media under the campaign hashtag #ichlassemichimpfen or to create and share their own campaign poster. The campaign poster can be individualized.

Various information materials such as the new TV commercial, all poster sujets and the aforementioned poster tool will be available on the Covid 19 vaccination information portal www.bag-coronavirus.ch/impfung from May 17, 2021. There, in addition to various fact sheets and further information on vaccination, the cantonal websites can also be found, which provide information on possible vaccination dates.

Responsible at the Federal Office of Public Health FOPH: Adrian Kammer (FOPH campaign manager); Raphaela Brühlmeier, Marina Frei, Mirjam Läderach, Lars Bo Müller, Cinzia Pastore Ferrari, Caroline Ronzani, Lukas Schmid (FOPH campaign project management); Sabine Gassmann, Nora Grunder, Rahel Tobler (FOPH publications). Responsible at Rod Communication: Serge Baumeler, Tiffany Bottlang, Romaine Brunner, Rainer Bühler, Regula Bührer, Amina Elmallawnay, Maude Federspiel, Pablo Koerfer, Ondrej Maczko, Marco Meroni, Alessandro Reintges, Adriana Rubin, David Schärer, Lukas Wietlisbach, Laura Zimmermann, Barbara Zingg, Dennis Zoller. Film production: Czar Film, Production: Sandy Blum, Director: Kai Schonrath. Music: Great Garbo. Sound: Jingle Jungle. Postproduction: SLGH. Lithography: Blue Horizon.

PostFinance online banking protects customers' money around the clock: with secure logins, automatic encryption, online purchases only with digital approval and immediate notification of every transaction. In addition, in the event of an emergency, the PostFinance security guarantee covers damage up to 100,000 Swiss francs.

To ensure that these arguments dispel even the last doubts, the new security campaign does not feature an impersonal authority, but Sandra Lienhart, Head of Retail Banking. She ties off the campaign with a sentence that broke with marketing conventions many years ago with great success, created trust, and is still effective today: That's what I stand for with my name.

The cross-media campaign has been on air since Monday on TV/Web-TV and DOOH throughout Switzerland.

Responsible at PostFinance: Dennis Lengacher, Sabrina Lüthi. Responsible agency: Contexta. Film production: Shining Film, Micha Freute (director), Valentin Bärlocher (camera), David Müller (production manager), Bigna Tomschin, Martin Luchsinger (editor). Recording studio: UKO.

Autosense, the digital service provider for everything to do with cars, has been relying on the creative expertise of Inhalt und Form for some time. This collaboration has become even closer since the beginning of the year with the acquisition of Autosense's media business by Iundf Media Impact. By the end of March, the first result of this collaboration was already a cross-media and strategically cleverly planned campaign that reached the target group not only via social media, but also directly at the POS via Gas Station TV.

In a performance-oriented always-on campaign, drivers are specifically addressed via programmatic advertising using clever data targeting. In a test-and-learn approach, messages and formats are continuously tested, analyzed, revised and expanded in close coordination between creative and media. According to the Iundf family, further projects are already in the pipeline.

Responsible at Autosense: Nicolas Noth (CMO); Betül Cam (Digital Marketing Manager). Responsible for Iandf Media Impact: Sandra Fehr (Managing Partner); Larissa Mörgeli (Senior Media Consultant). Responsible for content and form: Dominik Stibal (CEO); Karin Estermann (Executive Creative Director); Manuela Marty (Strategist); Nicolas Krönert (Digital Consultant); Mato Bilic (Motion Designer); Yannick Lippuner (Junior Copywriter).

PostFinance, with 2.9 million customers one of the leading Swiss financial institutions, has not only been working with SAS since yesterday - and has now taken an important step towards data-based market processing on the technological basis of SAS. What began with the has now reached the intelligent and efficient control of all sales processes. With SAS Customer Intelligence the financial services provider can tailor the customer interaction at each step in the customer journey to the exact situation, the customer's requirements, and the communication channel.

New signs in sales

The basis for this is optimized lead playout, which fundamentally changes the approach to customer targeting. Previously, the campaign manager would look at his customer portfolio in the morning and identify the contacts that promised the greatest potential for a credit card purchase, for example. Meanwhile, physical sales has moved to intelligent customer interaction. All sales channels are connected to SAS (including e-mail, SMS, customer center, branch, letter), and personalized content can be played out accordingly across channels.

The customer intelligence suite from SAS bundles the information from all channels and plays out leads according to clearly defined rules. The criteria that flow into the prioritization include, above all, the affinity of the customer to the respective product and the strategic importance of a product for the bank. The intelligence behind this gives the consultant the "hot leads" and immediately provides a package of "next best offers" for cross-selling, in the order of their relevance. In order not to overwhelm the customer with offers, an overarching contact strategy regulates how many contacts are played out over which channels within which period of time.

"SAS was an important piece of the puzzle in moving our sales force from a portfolio-based way of working to a lead- and data-based way of working," says Dennis Lengacher, Head of Customer Cycle Management & Campaign Design. "Market and campaign managers can play out their leads based on daily affinities and respond to customer needs accordingly."

Focus on the leads that are worth it

One result: The "scatter effect" in the customer approach is significantly reduced because the salesperson can concentrate on the leads that are actually relevant. Here is an example: The PostFinance credit card is used by a very large number of customers. When it comes to addressing potential new users, SAS Customer Intelligence helps to define the target group more precisely - and to focus on the 100,000 most promising candidates.

And the SAS solution helps to implement the defined product channel matrix. After all, fairly simple products such as a credit card can be sold cost-effectively online or via the customer center. More complex services, on the other hand, require the expertise of a consultant.

Adapted to the life situation

Another keyword is event-based cross-selling. This can be, for example, the start of a career after graduation, when the customer has a regular income for the first time and reduces his banking relationships to two or three institutions (the so-called consolidation moment). Recommendations from the system then take into account whether he has a credit card, whether he has set up some kind of pension plan, or whether he might have credit balances that he could invest - in order to make him the best possible offer and keep him as a customer.

3.7 million leads daily

Every day, PostFinance generates around 3.7 million leads from SAS and plays them out into the channels, 1.7 million of which are suggestions for cross-selling that the customer center employee can introduce when the customer makes contact. These suggestions are updated daily.

In addition to cross-selling and direct sales leads, customer relationship management is also simplified. Whereas in the past, measures for the further development of customers had to be played out manually, customer dialog can now be continued automatically after successful acquisition.

Last but not least, there are regulatory leads that must be served - regardless of the contact strategy. This ensures that regulatory requirements such as the GDPR are implemented.

"SAS supports us in the efficiency of our entire sales activities," says Sonja Homberger, Team Leader Marketing Automation at PostFinance.

Only with rethinking modern technology makes sense

What sounds like a brave new (marketing) world, however, cannot be implemented without friction - because handing over responsibility as far as possible requires a change in attitude that should not be underestimated. "In the beginning, our marketing experts already had problems with leaving the decision to a machine," Lengacher recalls. "What actually convinced them were the numbers: With SAS Customer Intelligence, we simply achieve a higher conversion rate - in selected cases such as the credit card area, it has even doubled - and the marketing franc is better spent."

Win-win situation

It is also important to break down silo thinking and make employees aware of which option is better for the overall success of the company - instead of selling one's own product at all costs. The bottom line is that everyone benefits from passing on cross-selling recommendations to colleagues if this promises a higher probability of closing a deal.

Homberger sums up the paradigm shift: "Goodbye gut feeling, hello data-driven marketing! SAS Customer Intelligence makes it possible to enter into dialog with the really relevant customers - at the right time, in the decisive context, via the right channel with the appropriate message."

* Andreas Heiz is Director of Customer Intelligence Solutions EMEA at SAS.

How can a heterogeneous editorial system landscape with the use of different software solutions be efficiently and future-oriented converted to a uniform system? This was the challenge Galledia faced recently. Stefan Zimmermann, Head of Trade Media & Digital at Galledia, explains in an interview why the editorial system "WoodWing Studio" and the implementation partner a&f systems were chosen.

Stefan Zimmermann, why did a&f systems offer the ideal solution for you with WoodWing Studio?

Stefan Zimmermann: One of the three existing editorial systems was already provided by a&f. Thus, not only the contact but also an in-depth know-how about the existing system landscape and the production processes was available. Among other things, WoodWing Studio was evaluated as the optimal editorial system because it could connect all the peripheral systems in use at Galledia and optimally support the strategy defined in advance with the channel-neutral "content preparation". A part of the readership wants all articles not only in printed form, but also as an online edition. The publication in multiple output channels is optimally supported by WoodWing Studio. The Digital Editor also offers ideal conditions for our editorial team: With an active Internet connection, it can be accessed at any time and from anywhere. There is no client installation, no need for Adobe InCopy licenses, and no need to connect via VPN or Citrix. This noticeably reduces the load on IT resources.

How did the collaboration with a&f go?

SZ: We were supported by an experienced and competent project team from a&f during the project implementation. With additional resources, so that the migration of over 100 publications could take place promptly. The technical know-how transfer also went smoothly. In addition, it is good to know that a&f can help at any time with its support department if needed.

In July, the first issue of m&k will be produced with Studio - how is the experience with the new editorial system?

SZ: The long-term conclusion can probably only be answered in a subsequent interview [laughs]. As of today, it can certainly be stated that the agreed service was provided by a&f to our complete satisfaction and that the "WoodWing Studio" editorial system fully meets the requirements set.

The next Issue 06/07 from m&k Marketing & Communication is produced entirely with WoodWing Studio. This is based on a channel-neutral workflow for content creation. This makes content simple to create, quick to output digitally, and yet easy to use for printed publications.

"We would like to thank Galledia for the great cooperation. This shows us that WoodWing Studio offers the ideal solution for digital and future-oriented demands," says Stefan Schärer, Head of Sales & Marketing and Co-Owner a&f systems ag.

Here is more about the project.