20 Minuten and Goldbach Media are the winners

The number of media companies surveyed for the Media Trend Award hardly changed from the previous year. There were 42 applicants in the media provider category, and 20 in the media marketer category (see box). Broken down into media categories, this means: 25 print media companies, 9 poster providers and 28 electronic media companies. And thus, for the first time, more electronic than print media companies entered the race. If you want to win the Media Trend Award today, you have to make a good overall impression on the top 750 advertising clients and the biggest advertising agencies, and convince all the media agencies of your good performance in planning and handling media orders.

This year, 347 clients and 50 advertising agencies expressed their overall impression of at least one of the media companies surveyed. 15 media agencies scrutinized and evaluated the performance of the media companies. When querying the individual media companies, each respondent can decide for him/herself which company he/she wants to assess and which not. He/she is therefore not forced by the survey system to give an answer that he/she cannot or does not want to give. This leads to the fact that the individual companies receive a different number of assessments. Naturally, larger companies or those that have been on the market for a long time receive more assessments than smaller ones.

APG - most frequently rated media company

Not only large and small media companies are assessed with different frequencies, but the media genre also has a major influence on the frequency of incoming assessments. Print media companies are judged most frequently. Thus, all print media companies from German-speaking Switzerland receive 100 judgments and more. 20 Minuten with 236 and Ringier Blick Group with 196 judgments receive the most, while St. Galler Tagblatt and Südostschweiz receive the least with 100 judgments. In the other media categories, the differences between the most and least rated media are much greater. Among the billboard providers, for example, APG receives 260 ratings and CCO 188; Swissplakat (WWP Plakatwerbung), however, only 39. The situation is similar among the TV marketers. Here, Goldbach Media receives the most judgments with 167, followed by Publisuisse with 140. The newcomer to the market, WerbeWeischer, was judged least often. Just 31 judgments are on the books. Online providers and marketers are judged even less frequently. Google came out on top with 111 ratings. It is followed by 20min.ch with 96 judgments. The fewest judgments were received for Adwebster with 35 and Adello with 26.

Online providers with significantly higher share of voice in the media market

Even more interesting is the change in these values compared to the previous year. Although significantly more clients assessed the media companies overall (2013: 347; 2012: 286), fewer assessments were received for almost all media. This is primarily due to the fact that the vast majority of respondents now only assess those media they know from their communications work. This results in fewer, but harsher judgments for the individual media companies.

But not all media companies are affected by this development to the same extent. One category can stand out: the online providers, not all of them, but some of them particularly well. Compared to 2012, 20min.ch has gained 29 additional viewers, Blick.ch 19 and Newsnetz 12. Google has also made gains (+6). These online providers have thus significantly increased their share of voice in the media market. Not only in comparison with the other online providers and the online marketers, none of whom made any gains. They also made gains compared with all the others, especially the print media companies and billboard providers, all of which suffered losses (fewer ratings received). Among the print media, the Tages-Anzeiger lost 15 reviewers, the Ringier Blick Group 13 and the NZZ 8. 20 Minuten (-1) and AZ Medien (-2) got off almost unscathed. Among the billboard providers, APG lost 18 and E-Advertising as many as 20 evaluators. The losses among TV marketers were only slightly lower: Tele Züri -15, Publicitas Cinecom -13, Publisuisse -8, and Goldbach Media -3. We will keep a close eye on this development in the coming years, as this is the key to success, not only in the award but also in business. Let's leave here the consideration of the number of assessments received and thus the level of awareness and turn to the assessment itself.

20 minutes to the seventh, but with new pursuers

20 Minuten remains the best media provider in the Swiss media market for another year. 20 Minuten takes the overall victory thanks to consistently high performance in all assessment criteria. Overall, its 2013 score of 7.92 is only 0.07 points below that of 2012. In detail, this looks as follows: The clients gave 20 Minuten exactly the same grade as in the previous year (7.88). 20 Minuten gained points with the advertising agencies (+0.39) and with awareness (+0.11). 20 Minuten suffered a setback in the assessment of its services by the media agencies (services -0.24, consulting competence -0.22 and price/performance ratio -0.43).

APG now in 2nd place and CCO only a hair's breadth away in 3rd place

In contrast to 20 Minuten, APG was able to improve its overall score by 0.1 points to 7.71 compared to the previous year. The gap to 20 Minuten has been reduced by 0.17 points and is now 0.21. The development of APG's individual scores is exactly the opposite of that of 20 Minuten. Where 20 Minuten has gained, APG has lost and vice versa. APG has therefore lost ground in the advertising agencies (-0.16) and in awareness (-0.1), but gained ground in the media agencies (services +0.28, consulting competence +0.42 and price/performance ratio +0.2). Clear Channel Outdoor can be described as the unlucky one. Already knocked off the podium by APG last year by 0.02 points, this year it is again pushed down to third place by APG by even less (0.01 points).

And where is the NZZ?

Four times in a row in second place, previously multiple winner of the award, the NZZ does not make it to the podium this time. Worse still. It also has to admit defeat by a New Comer and thus falls back to fifth place in 2013. Its overall score is 0.16 points lower. Only among advertising agencies did it gain (+0.22), while among clients it lost slightly (-0.08). The losses in individual performance (service -0.16, consulting competence -0.43 and price/performance ratio -0.37) were more significant.

20min.ch - new shooting star

And now for the surprise of this year's award, 20min.ch. Last year, the top-rated online provider was still in 15th place with a score below seven (6.96). 2013 saw a big leap forward. With an increase of 0.71 points, it is now in fourth place, just 0.04 behind second place. This means that for the first time, the best online provider is also ahead of the best TV marketer. How did this come about? As we saw above, 20min.ch has the most additional ratings to its name. This has improved their score for awareness by 1.66. On the other hand, the rating by the clients has become worse (-0.11), but the rating by the advertising agencies has improved (+0.4). The media agencies are downright enthusiastic. The service performance is rated the highest of all media companies with 8.29 and the consulting competence even with 8.59. The price/performance ratio is sufficient. In terms of price/performance ratio, a 7.86 is enough for third place.

Goldbach Media best media marketer thanks to good performance

Goldbach Media repeated its victory from the previous year and at the same time increased its lead over Publisuisse by 0.19 points. On the one hand, Goldbach Media gained 0.12 points, while Publisuisse lost 0.07 points. Goldbach Media receives the most ratings of all media marketers. This gives it the best score in terms of awareness. Goldbach Media also has the best price/performance ratio of all media marketers. The decisive factor for winning the award, however, is that Goldbach Media has improved even more in other areas than in price/performance ratio (+0.29): services (+0.64) and consulting competence (+0.47). The ratings for clients (-0.06) and advertising agencies (-0.09) declined slightly.

Publisuisse in second place with mixed scores

Publisuisse dropped to second place last year after winning the award four times. And that is where it has remained this year. It also has to make do with a slightly lower overall score (-0.07). It has lost a lot in terms of name recognition. Compared to Goldbach Media, Publisuisse received significantly fewer ratings (-27). On the other hand, Publisuisse continues to shine with the best score of all marketers among clients (7.82). Publisuisse made the strongest gains among advertising agencies (+0.32). Although this is only enough for third place, Publisuisse is still clearly ahead of Goldbach Media. The situation is exactly the same for services and consulting expertise. In terms of price/performance ratio, on the other hand, almost the entire improvement in scores from the previous year was lost in 2013. In third place, we again find Mediabox. Unlike last year, when it received the highest score from the media agencies for all three individual services, this time it is only good enough for two 2nd places. Like Publisuisse, it has also lost the price/performance ratio gain it made last year. On the other hand, it received the best score of all marketers in the advertising agency category, and also a healthy increase of 0.49 points in the client category. As last year, Publicitas Cinecom was ranked fourth. This was possible thanks to a very balanced score and, above all, the second-best score among clients. However, Publicitas Cinecom is hard pressed by Ringier romandie, marketer of TF1, which has entered this category for the first time. Publicitas Cinecom is only 0.02 points ahead of Ringier romandie.

Online marketers are not getting off the ground

Goldbach Audience, which already lost 0.26 points in 2012, lost another 0.18 points in 2013 and thus three more places in the rankings. It even has to admit defeat to Adello, which was surveyed for the first time. The latter achieved two top scores: In service performance (8.5) and in advisory skills (9.0). But even this only puts them in 9th place among all marketers. Many (too many) online marketers are found at the bottom of the rankings. This somehow does not fit in with the upswing that online marketers have brought about this year.
 
AUTHOR : WALTER WEDER

Dr. Walter Weder is co-owner of the Media.Research.Group and initiator of the advertising market study.

You can find the method description here in PDF format.