Nadia Jost, Katrin Ming, Dominik Schefer, Moana Bischof (l.t.r.)

For seven years, the agency has been active in the field of brand design on the square in Bern - and the demand for know-how in the areas of brand management, corporate design, editorial and web design seems to be unbrokenly high. This is because the agency has had to turn down several potential clients in the recent past, as it was not possible to expand capacities quickly enough to meet the desired quality, and the projects of existing clients already ensured full capacity utilization. A desirable problem, which nevertheless needs initiative, and on the one hand was solved with the move to a larger office at Bern station.

New office, new employees

A larger office offers room for personnel growth. No less than four new additions strengthen the Noord team. Nadia Jost joins Noord from Crafft Zurich, and Katrin Ming worked at Eclat and KJUS before deciding to join the Bern-based agency. With Moana Bischof and Dominik Schefer, two young creatives could be engaged.

The team increase has already enabled the agency to win several new business projects that are scheduled for release this fall.

The planned takeover aroused the interest of the Weko, which decided in June to examine the transaction in greater depth (Werbewoche.ch reported). Now this potential stumbling block has been removed. The Weko approves the takeover without conditions or requirements.

Sunrise sees this decision as confirmation of its own view that the transaction will give the company significant competitive advantages and make it an even stronger competitor. In addition to major cost savings, the transaction is expected to result in significant cross-selling potential, especially in the wholesale area. As a result, the transaction is also expected to create substantial value for its shareholders and secure Sunrise's long-term profitability.
 
"With the approval by the Weko, we have reached an important milestone on the way to New Sunrise. With the acquisition of UPC Switzerland by Sunrise, Switzerland gets the definitive challenger in the telecom market and a strong partner for business," says Olaf Swantee, CEO of Sunrise.
 
The regulatory hurdles for the closing of the transaction have thus been removed. The next step is now to pass a resolution on the required capital increase at the Annual General Meeting, which is expected to take place on October 23, 2019. However, various shareholders, including the largest Sunrise single shareholder Freenet, have spoken out against the UPC takeover (Werbewoche.ch reported). So not all hurdles have been cleared out of the way yet.

How the Handelszeitung writes in its current issue, Sunrise's main shareholder Freenet has once again spoken out against a reworking of the billion-dollar deal shortly before the Weko's decision. In addition, the German telecom provider says it no longer sees any industrial logic in the takeover of UPC. 

Freenet CEO and Sunrise board member Christoph Vilanek on the announcement by Sunrise CEO Olaf Swantee to change the capital structure of the deal: "We are disappointed by the timid approach; this is not a commitment to a fundamental change in strategy, but merely a fig leaf. The approach shows how nervous management is in view of the extraordinary general meeting." A higher debt ratio of up to four times the Ebitda of UPC-Sunrise, as reported among institutional investors, is certainly in line with Freenet's original demand. 

But the situation is no longer the same as when negotiations were formally concluded at the beginning of the year, says Vilanek: "The industrial logic for the UPC transaction no longer exists today. 5G is now a serious cable network replacement." At the time, he said, people simply underestimated the huge potential of fast mobile communications in indoor Internet use. "So Sunrise would be investing in an already obsolete technology if it took over UPC Switzerland." This would massively reduce the payback time of a planned ten years for the UPC network. "The deal is simply no longer profitable." (swi/pd)

As an advertising combination, the TRC brings together the six leading regional TV stations in German-speaking Switzerland: TeleZüri, Tele M1, TeleBärn, Tele 1, Telebasel and TVO. With an average net reach of 682,000 people, the TRC ranks fourth among the largest daily TV reach in German-speaking Switzerland. 

Roger Elsener, Managing Director TV, Radio and Film Sales and member of the CH Media Executive Board: "Since winning the mandate in December 2018, Admeira has made a significant contribution to the success and growth of TRC. With product understanding and passion paired with intelligent combinations of offers, for example with the SRF channels, Admeira's sales team has performed outstandingly in recent months. They have pitched just as convincingly. We look forward to continuing our collaboration.

"We are extremely pleased about the continued collaboration with CH Media. TRC impresses with its versatile programs close to the viewer and is therefore the perfect advertising environment for our clients to place their campaigns effectively and anchor them regionally," says Bertrand Jungo, CEO of Admeira.

CH Media announced on Monday that Goldbach would take over the marketing of the S1 channel (Werbewoche.ch reported). As a result, all of CH Media's national channels are now marketed by Goldbach. Admeira will continue to be responsible for marketing the regional channels. (pd/swi)

The small store "Blumen Jakob" in Zurich-Höngg steadfastly refuses to accept the end of summer. There is still a large quantity of brightly colored flowers for sale. The small poster campaign by the Adliswil agency Voima is intended to announce the extension of summer, at least locally.

The striking motif shows a summer bouquet stuck in a Cornetto. The posters are available in all Gelato colors - from Amarena to Limone to Pistacchio.

In spring 2017, after winning two pitches, the Pfeffermint agency was able to tackle the implementation of the corporate design, posters, website, menu cards and new packaging design. The agency also won the pitch for the new restaurant and its restaurant group in its second core business - interior design and scenography.

The new look of Desperado draws on traditional, folkloric Mexican motifs and atmospheres - but remains fresh and contemporary at the same time.

Interior design kit

The agency also created a "design kit" for the restaurant that can be used for any new or existing restaurant. This systematic grid enables a coherent and stringent concept for the conversion, whereby existing elements can be used.

Stringent corporate identity 

This systematic interior grid was also applied to the entire corporate identity and the associated areas such as print applications from stationery to flyers, posters, packaging, various merchandising products to the menu card, advertisements, website and various communication measures on the web and in social media. Pfeffermint has also developed its own Desperado font. The color scheme was kept typical of Mexican culture.

The flagship restaurant in Spreitenbach also features many traditional elements of Mexican culture.

MyCommerce is designed to provide a low-cost entry into the world of online commerce and give small businesses direct access to high-reach online marketplaces such as Amazon, Google Shopping and eBay.

The online store can be customized and has a direct link to the online marketplaces Amazon, Google Shopping and eBay. In addition, it requires only minimal IT knowledge, which should make it easier for small retailers without technical expertise to enter this business field.

Marketing functions such as online ads, retargeting and newsletter distribution are also integrated into the new product. 

Cross-media launch campaign

To actively promote the new e-commerce product to Swiss retailers and manufacturers, Localsearch is relying on a cross-media campaign with a tongue-in-cheek effect.

In collaboration with Equipe, the agency produced a video in which two girls sell their homemade syrup throughout Switzerland through their online store. As a sales promotion measure, those buyers who order online immediately get the little brother for free.

With this storytelling, Localsearch wants to show how easy and also inexpensive it is to enter the world of online shopping. "MyCOMMERCE is a do-it-yourself product. For the launch campaign, we therefore deliberately chose a storyline that emphasizes the product character in an unconventional way. With the light-heartedness of the kids playing the characters, we also specifically allude to the ease of use aspects," says Vanessa Marr, Head of E-Commerce at localsearch. 

The commercial will be used cross-medially in German-speaking Switzerland from the beginning of September 2019. The focus is on TV and social media.

Advertising for cat food? You thought wrong. This time, the two spots in the current Galaxus campaign parody cat food ads with an elegant cat and a beautiful woman - only the outcome is a little bit different: Either the woman trips over the cat, or the cat refuses to eat the food.

The spots were realized in collaboration with Plan B Film and have been broadcast on TV in German and French since Monday; they can also be seen on various online channels. The campaign will run until mid-October 2019. 

The most important results at a glance:

• Spotify is growing the fastest of all platforms. Around 1.6 million people in Switzerland now use Spotify (26 percent). But 5.6 million people listen to the radio (88 percent).
• Netflix is no longer growing as fast. Just under 1.8 million watch Netflix (28 percent) and 4.2 million use YouTube from time to time (67 percent). But 5.9 million watch traditional TV (94 percent) and 3.4 million went to the movies in the last six months (53 percent). 
• Facebook is slumping among young people: in 2019, only 36 percent of young Swiss people are still on Facebook. Thanks to WhatsApp and Instagram, the Facebook group nevertheless counts 80 percent of the Swiss population among its users.
• Voice-controlled speakers such as Amazon Echo are well known, but the smart speakers are still hardly used in Switzerland.

Young Swiss people between the ages of 15 and 24 are turning their backs on Facebook. While 82 percent of young people used Facebook at least occasionally in 2014, only 36 percent still do so in 2019. On the other hand, the music streaming service Spotify is growing strongly. Spotify has gained 325,000 new users in the space of a year. 1.6 million people now listen to music at least occasionally via Spotify, which corresponds to a quarter of the total population. Among younger people aged 15 to 24, the proportion of Spotify and Netflix users is more than twice as large: around 60 percent of young Swiss people listen to music on Spotify or watch Netflix from time to time. Spotify is used more intensively than Netflix: one in six Swiss people aged 15 and over listens to Spotify every day. But only one in ten tunes in to Netflix every day.

In 2015, only 5 percent of the population aged 15 and over watched Netflix from time to time. By 2019, more than one in four (28 percent) do so. However, Netflix's growth has slowed significantly. Netflix now has just under 1.8 million users in Switzerland. You have to be able to afford a Netflix subscription: Netflix usage increases as income rises. 

Instagram continues to grow. 27 percent of the population is occasionally on Instagram. Instagram is particularly popular with the young: 80 percent of 15 to 24-year-olds use Instagram, the majority of them even several times a day. The average age of Instagram users is 32. Only the users of Snapchat and Twitch are significantly younger, at around 25. The youngest users are those of the Chinese video portal Tik Tok: They are not yet 16 years old. E-sports on the gaming platform Twitch, which belongs to Amazon, is practically a purely male topic: just under 90 percent of the 260,000 users are male.

Women also have a much smaller presence than men on the short message service Twitter and the career platforms Linkedin and Xing. By contrast, Pinterest has almost only female users. Of the 1.1 million occasional users on Pinterest, over 800,000 are women.

Despite the many new digital offerings, TV, radio and cinema remain popular in Switzerland. With 5.6 million listeners, radio far outstrips the 1.6 million Spotify users. Younger people also still listen to the radio widely. More than three-quarters of people under 25 listen to the radio, and not quite half even do so daily.

Cinemas also continue to be visited despite Netflix and the like. More than half of the population has been to the cinema at least once in the last 6 months. Cinema is even more popular among younger people: More than 80 percent of people under the age of 25 go to the movies at least once every six months, a large proportion of them several times.

The 5.9 million TV viewers outweigh the just under 1.8 million Netflix users by more than three times. Compared to YouTube, traditional TV also has just under 1.7 million more viewers. With 94 percent of the population aged 15 and over, the broad masses watch TV. Two-thirds of the Swiss switch on the TV on an average day. Almost 40 percent of 15- to 24-year-olds also watch TV every day. Thanks to smartphones and computers, people are also increasingly watching TV on the move and on the move. However, the majority of TV use still takes place at home in front of the classic TV set with a large screen. For the younger Swiss in particular, TV is a "social medium" and is watched more often than average when visiting friends, acquaintances or relatives. The classic TV set remains by far the most popular device for watching TV in all age groups. 

Despite the decline at Facebook, the user base for the introduction of the planned digital currency "Libra" is large. Mark Zuckerberg's company reaches 80 percent of the Swiss population aged 15 and over with its Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp services. Among those under 40, almost all (95 percent) use at least one platform from the Facebook universe. The messaging service Whatsapp accounts for the largest share. More than three-quarters of the population (77 percent) use Whatsapp alone. Instagram and Facebook hardly bring the Facebook Group any additional reach. 

Voice-controlled speakers such as Amazon Echo, Google Home or Apple HomePod are familiar to the Swiss: Just under 40 percent know what such smart speakers are. However, only an absolute minority actually use them. Less than 3 percent of the population talk to a smart speaker at least occasionally. That's not even 170,000 people.

CKW has been supplying the population of the canton of Lucerne with electricity for 125 years. However, the company's expertise also includes products and services in the areas of smart energy, building technology, energy optimization and fiber optic networks. However, a large part of CKW's target group still perceives the company exclusively as an electricity supplier.

Under the motto "More than electricity", the Zurich agency Notch Interactive has therefore created a campaign that artfully dramatizes the product variety and the different services. Cable artworks, which Notch Interactive realized in collaboration with London CGI artist Simon Danaher, serve as eye-catchers. 

The starting point of the four visuals is always a socket with a power cable. The power cable symbolically represents the CKW products and services "e-charging stations", "solar systems", "alarm systems" and "heat pumps" and ends in a light source. In this way, a bridge is built from the origins of the energy company to its new products and services.

From the end of August, the campaign subjects will be played out on various online and offline channels in both the B2C and B2B sectors in line with the target groups.

The fast food chain's limited-time offer consists of burgers with Bündnerfleisch, Rösti Fries and Valser water.

Freundliche Grüsse and Monami were commissioned by Burger King with the communication strategy and campaign, including naming and package design. The "Älpler Box" with the "Alp King Beef" and "Alp King Chicken" is available from July to the end of August - i.e. at the time of the Swiss Federal Wrestling and Alpine Festival.
 
This momentum also flows into Burger King's campaign. For example, in an online clip, a Burger King restaurant is briefly renamed "Schwinger King. The communicative bracket "Eat like a king" summarizes all elements of the campaign on all relevant online and offline channels.

In addition to posters and in-store promotions, an extensive social media campaign on Instagram and Facebook accompanies the new offer.

Pension provision is boring. Especially when you're young and have a thousand other things on your mind than securing your own financial future. But for the younger generations in particular, the pension situation in Switzerland is becoming increasingly complicated. The annual Credit Suisse Youth Barometer shows that 50% of young people are already worried about their retirement provision.

"As an insurer, it is our duty to do something for young adults," says Claudia Staub, Head Digital Experience and Ecosystem at Allianz Suisse. That's why the insurance company is launching "Flex Saving", its latest pension product that adapts simply and flexibly to the needs of young people. "But before you get to grips with the product, you first have to start talking about pensions," explains Claudia Staub.

The result is a rap video entitled "Scheiss auf morgen!", or in dialect "Schiis uf morn!" - abbreviated S-U-M-O - which reflects the basic attitude of many young adults when it comes to retirement planning: living carefree in the here and now instead of worrying about tomorrow.

For the video, Sir Mary was looking for musicians who live their lives true to the motto "Schiss uf morn!". This resulted in a collaboration between the Swiss rap crew Möchtegang and Dominik Richter, who would rather raise money on crowdfunding platforms for a demo video for his one-man digeridoo techno band than finish his studies.

The musicians had complete artistic freedom when developing the song. Only the motto was specified and it was agreed to produce a music video that would be flashy and play its way into the hearts of the target group through pointed statements and gestures. Sir Mary brought the German director Shan Blume on board, who has long since made a name for himself as the director of McFitti videos with a corresponding aesthetic. Doity was awarded the contract as the production company. The Berliners were able to impress with their long list of clients including names such as Sido, Marteria, Nena and Silbermond.

The music video, which is bursting with self-irony, was featured in both the View as well as on Radio Energy. Particular attention was paid to the topic of how insurance companies need to advertise today in order to attract the attention of younger target groups.

In addition to the video and the media strategy, Sir Mary also designed the landing page and various paid measures. Particular attention was paid to the online advertising media. These are visually based on the music video, but were intentionally produced using cell phones and have channel-specific content for Instagram Stories and Facebook Ads. The campaign is extended with native stories in high-reach media. The data points generated in this way are used to divide the target group into different segments. Finally, they are addressed individually again via cross-channel retargeting with messages tailored to their needs.

The campaign will run until the end of August and has got off to a successful start, not least because of the music video, which is atypical for an insurance company. The fact that the song is also quite controversial was a calculated move: "We want young adults to talk about pensions. That's why we allowed the musicians to address topics that are not of concern to us at Allianz, but to young adults," says Claudia Staub, adding: "Of course this polarizes people and also explains the odd negative reaction." But it's not for nothing that Allianz's brand promise is: courage means making.

Together with Bio Suisse, the three agencies designed a suitable media strategy and implemented digital measures. For this purpose, trilingual sitebar response ads were created with five subjects each - for yogurt, butter, cheese, cream and milk. The ads present the Bio Suisse Knospe dairy products, and the recipient could also take part in a competition.

After clicking on the product that matched the question, the customer could then enter their contact details in the site bar. The main prize was one of eight KitchenAids.

The branding campaign achieved a 100 percent visibility rate and achieved excellent click rates. Targeted values were also exceeded in terms of performance. Numerous addresses and new subscribers were acquired for the Bio Suisse newsletter, which shows that the advertising format is an exciting measure for a strong presence on the web due to the interaction with the user.

Konnex is satisfied: "With TheIndustry, we can constantly develop new ideas and push the further development of advertising formats. The first HTML5 implementations (sitebar ad) with direct interaction in the advertising material were successfully implemented together around 3 years ago. The Bio Suisse campaign was very well suited for such an implementation due to the defined goals. Thanks to the good and professional cooperation with the team of TheIndustry, this format could be further developed. Both the client and all involved are pleased with the good results."