As part of its 100th anniversary celebrations, the orange giant is launching the "Merci Box" collection campaign, which runs from Tuesday until 10 February 2025. For every 20 francs spent, a sticker will be issued that can be affixed to a collection card. With a full card, participants will receive one of nine surprise boxes filled with "high-quality Migros products", according to a Migros statement.

In 100 of these boxes, there is also a gold coin consisting of five grams of gold. The retailer wants to thank its loyal customers with this promotional highlight.

The merger of the two institutions creates a clinic group with 12 inpatient and outpatient locations and over 2,200 employees. With around 10,000 patients a year, the organization places great value on holistic, individually tailored rehabilitation. This claim is also reflected in the future digital brand identity, which is intended to make the offer simple, clear and innovative for patients, referring physicians and specialists to experience.

From brand strategy to digital implementation

Scholtysik was commissioned to develop the brand strategy and visual concept for the clinic group's brand portfolio (Markt-kom.com reported). The Schaan-based agency Digicube will then take over the implementation of the new websites. The focus is on seamlessly translating the strategic guidelines into an intuitive and patient-friendly digital presence. The aim is to make the website informative and functional and also to establish it as a central platform for patients and specialists.

The aim of the campaign was to position the "M-Budget" brand even in times of financial comfort. From August to December 2024, M-Budget and House of Influence showed that saving money and quality can go hand in hand: 15 influencers from Switzerland shared around 50 posts on Instagram and TikTok, showing recipe ideas, money-saving tips and everyday moments - always with a focus on price-conscious living. The individual content ideas were developed in personal brainstorming sessions with the influencers in order to make the collaboration as authentic as possible.

The campaign offered a mix of lifestyle, family and food content that covered the broad target group of budget-conscious family households with children and small households. Influencer Evagaudenz shared insights into her preparations for emigrating to Canada and showed how she is saving up a financial cushion thanks to M-Budget products. Dailydoseofnadja , who lives on the breadline, highlighted how M-Budget helps her to stick to her budget. Juliafandl shared easy-to-make craft ideas for children using only M-Budget products. And Isaline_ackermann provided her community with challenges, such as buying dinner for the whole family for 30 francs.

The campaign reportedly achieved 2 million video views and 27,000 interactions over the five months. Organic distribution was supplemented by targeted advertising of the content. Through authentic content and targeted advertising, M-Budget consolidated its role as a brand for the everyday lives of price-conscious consumers - an important boost in economically challenging times.

Responsible at M-Budget: Christian Keller (Media Manager), Siegrun Krayer (Project Manager Campaigning). Responsible at House of Influence: Leila Schmid (overall responsibility), Tanja Herrmann (strategy).

The Cannes Corporate Media & TV Awards open their doors for the 16th edition: filmmakers, agencies, production companies and students can now submit their work. In addition to established awards such as "Production Company of the Year" and "Agency of the Year", the competition is adding an award for the "TV or Streaming Network of the Year" for the first time to recognize excellence in this area.

The category portfolio has also been expanded: "Best Use of AI", "Best Use of Emotion", "Automotive and Mobility Videos" and "Fashion, Beauty and Lifestyle" are new to the program. Significant new categories have also been added to the documentary section of the festival, including "Human Rights and Activism", "Education" and "Health, Medicine and Life Sciences".

An international jury of over 100 experts will evaluate the submitted corporate films, online productions, documentaries and reports. The winners will be announced in mid-August 2025.

An early bird discount applies until February 11, 2025.

"Hello ChatGPT, can you help me?" - "Of course, how can I help you? 😊" The back and forth between users and chatbots based on artificial intelligence (AI) quickly feels like a conversation with another person.

Dr. Fanny Lalot and Anna-Marie Bertram from the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Basel wanted to find out to what extent people trust AI chatbots and what this trust depends on. The focus was on text-based systems, i.e. not voice assistants such as Siri or Alexa, but platforms such as ChatGPT and Co.

In the study, test subjects were confronted with examples of conversations between users and the fictitious chatbot "Conversea". They then imagined that they themselves were interacting with Conversea. The results are published in the journal Journal of Experimental Psychology: General published.

Chatbot as an independent entity

Whether and how much we trust other people depends on various factors: Our own personality, the behavior of the other person and the respective situation all play a role. "Childhood influences how much we can trust, but it also takes a certain willingness to want to trust in the first place," says social psychologist Fanny Lalot. Characteristics that promote trust are integrity, competence and goodwill.

The study shows: What comes into play in interpersonal relationships also applies to AI systems. Competence and integrity in particular are important criteria as to why people perceive an AI chatbot as trustworthy, whereas benevolence is less important when the other two dimensions are addressed. "Our study shows that respondents attribute these characteristics directly to the AI, not to the company behind it. To a certain extent, they perceive AI as an independent entity," says Lalot.

There are also differences between personalized and impersonal chatbots. For example, if a chatbot addresses us by name and refers to previous conversations, the study participants rated it as particularly benevolent and competent. "They humanized the personalized chatbot. This increased their willingness to use the tool and share personal information with it," says Fanny Lalot. However, the test subjects did not attribute significantly more integrity to the personalized chatbot and overall trust was not significantly higher than in the impersonal chatbot.

Integrity is more important than goodwill

According to the study, integrity is more important for trustworthiness than goodwill. It is therefore important to develop the technology in such a way that integrity is the top priority. Designers should also take into account that personalized AI is perceived as more benevolent, competent and human in order to ensure the proper use of the tools. Lonely, vulnerable people in particular run the risk of becoming dependent on AI-based friendship apps, as other studies show.

Fanny Lalot emphasizes: "With our study, we are not making a statement about whether trust in a chatbot is good or bad." She sees AI chatbots as a tool that we have to learn to use, similar to the opportunities and risks of social media.

However, some recommendations for action can be derived from the results. "We project more into AI systems than is actually there," says Fanny Lalot. This makes trustworthy AI systems all the more important; a chatbot should neither lie to us nor approve of everything we say without any ifs or buts.

If an AI chatbot is too uncritical and confirms all statements, there is no reality check and there is a risk of an echo chamber, which in the worst case scenario could lead to someone isolating themselves from their social environment. "A friend would hopefully intervene at some point if someone develops ideas that are too crazy or immoral," says Lalot.

Betrayal by the AI?

In interpersonal relationships, a breach of trust has serious consequences for future interactions. Is this also conceivable with chatbots? "That's an exciting question. More research is needed to answer it," says Fanny Lalot. "I can certainly imagine that someone could feel betrayed if the advice of an AI had negative consequences."

Guidelines are needed that hold the development companies accountable. For example, an AI could show how it arrives at a result by disclosing the sources it uses, and it could say when it doesn't know something instead of making something up. (Noëmi Kern/University of Basel/yzu/swi)

This article first appeared in Netzwoche.

A reach of 71% corresponds to an absolute number of 5.2 million listeners per day. Over an average week, the figure even rises to 6.9 million. With these figures, Mediapulse shows that radio stations continue to meet with stable demand and that the traditionally high reach of this genre remains intact despite the intensifying competition on the audio market.

Compared with the second half of 2023, radio lost one percentage point in terms of daily reach. This finding applies to Switzerland as a whole as well as to German-speaking Switzerland (from 73% to 72%) and Suisse romande (from 69% to 68%). In Svizzera italiana, this figure rose by one percentage point (from 77% to 78%).

In the same period, the time spent listening to the radio also fell slightly compared to the previous semester. People who use the radio spent 109 minutes a day on it in the past six months, 3 minutes less than in the same period in 2023. However, this decline is more noticeable in the two Latin regions of the country, with minus seven (Suisse romande) and five minutes (Svizzera italiana) respectively. In contrast, radio listeners in German-speaking Switzerland only reduced their consumption slightly by one minute.

This cements German-speaking Switzerland's status as the language region with the most intensive radio usage, with 116 minutes per listener per day. This is followed by the Svizzera italiana with 106 minutes and the Suisse romande with 89 minutes.

Mediapulse radio research records the linear use of radio programs across all analog and digital distribution vectors. For reasons of research economics, linear radio usage via headphones is not taken into account. Further results on radio usage in the second half of 2024 can be found on the Mediapulse website.

From January 2025, Mediapulse will start recording technical access to linear radio offerings provided online by radio providers. The results of the access statistics based on this will be published under the Product name "Radio Streaming Data" are published on the Mediapulse website and are available in addition to the official currency. The publication is made on a quarterly basis and will start in April 2025 with the results for the first quarter of 2025.

After five years at the HWZ, the previous Head of Marketing & Communication Daniela Dunne has decided to take on new challenges. The HWZ has found an internal successor in Sandra Bornand and Laura Oderbolz. The two took over the department as co-heads at the beginning of January. At the same time, the marketing and communications team was reorganized.

The new Head of Marketing, Sandra Bornand, has many years of experience in marketing, digital communication, social media and web project management. Since joining the HWZ team in 2013, she has played a key role in developing the university's website and social media strategy, among other things. Her degree in Chief Digital Officer NDS HF complements her expertise in digital transformation and strategy.

"It is very important to me to further develop the brand and marketing in such a way that we continue to convince students and partners in the digital future," Bornand is quoted as saying in a press release from the HWZ.

Laura Oderbolz, the new Head of Communications, has successfully established and expanded the areas of internal and external communications as well as content marketing at the HWZ in her previous role as Corporate Communications Manager since 2019. With a Bachelor of Arts in Communication with a specialization in Organizational Communication from the ZHAW and a Master of Advanced Studies in Business Communications from the HWZ, she has in-depth expertise in strategic communication, with a particular focus on internal and change communication.

"Over the past five years, I have come to know and appreciate the HWZ as an inspiring place. It is important to me to further strengthen the HWZ's presence and to build and maintain an authentic, trusting relationship with our stakeholders. My focus is on communicating our vision and values clearly and convincingly - both internally and externally," says Oderbolz.

At the beginning of January 2025, Prof. Philipp Bachmann and Prof. Konstantin Michail jointly took over the management of the Institute of Management and Continuing Education. Philipp Bachmann completed a degree in economics with a focus on strategy and entrepreneurship at the University of St. Gallen. He then completed various further training courses in Switzerland and abroad. After several international positions in the private sector, he took over the management of the Service Innovation Lab at the UAS Grisons in October 2016. He is also a lecturer for innovation and entrepreneurship in various courses at the university. Philipp Bachmann is also involved as a start-up coach for Innosuisse.

Konstantin Michail studied business administration with a specialization in business informatics at the University of Bern. After graduating, he also moved into the private sector and worked for a public media company. After obtaining a degree in adult education, he held a teaching position on the subject of design thinking at the University of Applied Sciences Graubünden. Konstantin Michail has been a full-time lecturer in change and transformation management at the university since February 2020. Together with Philipp Bachmann, he is taking over the management of the institute from Prof. Dr. Silvio Anesini, who, after more than eight years in this role, is now focusing on the overall management of some continuing education courses.

Practice-oriented management training for executives

Bachmann is responsible for the ongoing development of the continuing education portfolio and represents the Institute of Management and Continuing Education and its interests externally in dealings with all stakeholders. Michail is responsible for the structural and organizational development of the team and represents the Institute and its interests internally. Both are already familiar with the Institute from their teaching activities in continuing education.

With a daily newsletter that reaches 250,000 people and a community of 450,000 city dwellers, Ron Orp describes itself as one of the most influential urban media in Switzerland.

In collaboration with the Swiss agency Selise the new website with a strong focus on user-friendliness. Thanks to optimized navigation, it is now even easier to discover offers in your own city. Whether events, jobs, real estate, friendship services, love or inspiration for city life - the platform is designed to be user-friendly and makes it easy to find the information you are looking for.

New opportunities for urban SMEs

The redesign of the website also offers urban SMEs new opportunities. With expanded advertising formats such as "Sponsored Stories" and "Native Ads", companies can present their offers to their target groups.

Future features and offers are intended to dynamically develop the platform further and thus meet the changing needs of the "Ronster", it continues.

As part of the study, 1,000 social media users were surveyed for seven product groups - laptops, televisions, cars, refrigerators, credit cards, make-up and movie tickets. 47% are dissatisfied with Google and co. because they cannot find relevant, helpful answers when researching products.

Better recommendations

"As a result, many users are turning to Reddit for better, more context-specific recommendations," writes the provider, who is pleased that 71 percent of respondents say Reddit is the best social media platform to find quick and specific answers to their questions.

The study shows how important Reddit is in the purchasing process, from discovering products to making decisions. Ads on Reddit contribute to more conversations about brands. For every 1,000 ad views on Reddit, advertisers received around two organic posts with an average of 3,500 views.

The study also showed that 23 percent of recommendations on Reddit led to a "redirect". This means that users start to consider brands they hadn't considered before. These redirects usually occur when users ask for help, for example when they want advice on products that better suit their needs.

Expert:inside cut out

It almost goes without saying that Reddit considers the recommendations given on its homepage to be more trustworthy than many other forms of advice. Reportedly, 42 percent of social media users value Reddit recommendations more than other sources, including influencer-sponsored posts, brand advertisements and even some expert reviews.

However, Reddit admits that its recommendations rank behind expert review sites (17 percent) and consumer review sites (15 percent) in terms of influence. As a platform that promotes itself as a solution to consumer frustrations, Reddit is naturally interested in portraying its influence in a positive light. However, experts are of the opinion that Reddit's statements at least tend to be true. (pte/swi)

Carmen Breuss can look back on 27 dedicated years at Österreich Werbung. As market manager for Switzerland, she played a key role in positioning Austria as a tourist destination in the third-largest foreign source market and introducing Swiss guests to Austria's special lifestyle. "Networking, developing strategies, implementing marketing activities - the channels may have changed over the years, but the central task of generating enthusiasm for Austria has always remained the focus," Breuss sums up.

On July 1, 2024, she took over the role of Head of Market Development in the management of Austrian National Tourist Office in order to dedicate herself to the further development of foreign markets.

New era with Egger

The new Head of Market Switzerland, Eva Egger, is taking over the management of the Zurich team with great enthusiasm and clear goals. She is convinced of the continued great potential of the Swiss market: "Switzerland is a key source market for Austria, but faces strong competition from other destinations. Together with our team and partners in the industry, we want to find innovative approaches and make Austria's lifestyle even more present," says Egger.

The 250 or so guests at the Epiphany 2025 conference are all likely to agree with Justice Minister Jans: "Swiss publishers and editorial offices make a key contribution to democracy". However, the event also clearly highlighted the major challenges that the media continue to face and the new challenges that the rise of artificial intelligence brings with it.

In 2024, the VSM celebrated its 125th anniversary and also looked back on a challenging year. President Andrea Masüger particularly regrets the dramatic reduction of around 700 jobs in the media industry. The fact that this step had to be taken at several publishing houses clearly shows: "We are in a crisis in the industry".

Exclusive m&k interviews on the Dreikönigstagung 2025: AI, the advertising market and the future of media

The Epiphany Conference of the Swiss Media Association put key topics such as artificial intelligence, big tech and the future of the media industry on the agenda in 2025. In exclusive interviews, Natali Helberger, Frank Bodin and Andrea Masüger talk to m&k about seismic changes, the responsibility of the advertising industry and the importance of independent media for democracy - complemented by a sweet moment with the winner of the Epiphany crown.

Handover of staff at the VSM office

The Epiphany Conference 2025 also saw the handover of the VSM management team. Stefan Wabel left the association at the end of 2024. Pia Guggenbühl will lead the association as Director from February 2025. Publisher President Masüger took the opportunity to thank Stefan Wabel for his commitment and to wish Pia Guggenbühl every success. In an exclusive interview, Guggenbühl talks about her motives, the focus of her work and the importance of collaboration and dialog in meeting the challenges facing the media industry. Insights from the Dreikönigstagung 2025 included.

"Media publishers must be compensated"

In his speech, Federal Councillor Beat Jans also thanked publishers and editorial offices for their key contribution to democracy. Due to current developments such as the announced abolition of fact-checkers on Facebook in the USA, "we need the media all the more", appealed Jans. Against this backdrop, the Federal Council is convinced that media publishers must be fairly compensated for the use of their content, for example in the form of snippets. The Minister of Justice used his appearance at the Epiphany Conference to emphasize the necessity and support of the Federal Council for an ancillary copyright law. With the rise of artificial intelligence, the debate on the protection of journalistic content is also taking on a new dimension.

Politics must become active on the Internet

"Politicians have waited a long time for regulation, now we have to take a clear stance," confirmed Petra Gössi (FDP.Die Liberalen), member of the Council of States in Schwyz, who took part in the final panel. She recently called on the Federal Council with a motion to clarify that journalistic content is also sufficiently protected against AI applications. Switzerland, with its democratic system, is particularly dependent on adequate protection of the media.

German copyright expert Prof. Dr. Thomas Höppner made it clear even before the panel: "We now need an ancillary copyright, stronger copyright and competition law protection and further regulations" in order to protect the media from the dramatically increasing power of the platforms. He is alarmed that Perplexity AI, for example, has long since ceased to be a search portal and has become a press portal. Traffic for the media continues to decline. "If publishers are dependent on AI chatbots to bring them traffic, their difficulties will be even greater than before," says Höppner.

The big beneficiaries of these developments are the "three kings of online advertising", as Höppner appropriately calls Meta, Google and OpenAI. They function as a network of privileged partners that hardly allow media diversity to survive. According to Höppner, politicians must counter this with swift, clear regulation on the one hand and the media on the other by counteracting the platforms with their key selling points such as topicality, trustworthiness and expertise.

"Commitment, reason, responsibility"

World Publisher President Ladina Heimgartner drives a stake into the ground in the concluding panel. The contribution of the media is of central importance for the provision of information to society. The professional media distinguish themselves from other information providers thanks to three Vs: Professional media have an obligation to society. The rationality of editorial teams is central to the quality of professional media. In addition, the responsibility that professional media take for their content is a decisive factor. With these qualities, the media must confront the tech giants - and also reclaim a share of the advertising market. "There is no financing crisis, but rather a distribution problem," Heimgartner aptly explains: "The journalistic expenses are incurred by the publishers, but the advertising revenue mainly goes to the platforms.

Over the next few days, m&k will be providing in-depth insights from the Epiphany conference.