BSW: Looking back on a successful year

President Geri Aebi opened the 80th general meeting of BSW Leading Swiss Agencies with a review of a successful year. Things are going well for Switzerland's leading agencies. They continued to be on the upswing in 2014. It is not yet clear whether the trend will continue this year. That depends primarily on how advertising clients can adjust to the new exchange rate. However, Aebi continues, he is optimistic that companies will want to focus on safe values, especially in difficult times. These safe values are offered by the BSW agencies.

The association, which unites the leading agencies in Switzerland and regularly monitors the performance of its member agencies, only accepts new members after a thorough examination. In this way, the association aims to ensure a high standard of quality and guarantee investment security for advertising clients. To ensure that this remains the case, BSW Leading Swiss Agencies again held a series of training seminars and workshops for its members last year. In addition to the normal statutory business, the General Meeting approved:

Name change to "Leading Swiss Agencies

The communications industry, which is changing at breakneck speed, is also having an impact on the agency landscape. Agencies from non-classical communications disciplines are now operating in the traditional area of BSW agencies. Such agencies, which do not see themselves primarily as advertisers but as communications service providers, depend on being able to orient their activities to generally applicable rules or standards in order to run their business profitably. Such standards are usually developed by industry associations and anchored in the market. BSW Leading Swiss Agencies has agreed to develop and implement such standards also for agencies from non-classical disciplines and to represent the interests of all communication agencies. BSW Leading Swiss Agencies therefore changes from being an association of advertising and media agencies to an association of all leading communication agencies in Switzerland from a wide range of disciplines and changes its name to "Leading Swiss Agencies".

New structure in the Executive Board

With the opening of the association, the board of directors will also be reconstituted. In addition to eight representatives of advertising agencies and one representative of a media agency, two representatives of digital agencies and one representative of a corporate agency will be on the board.

Three new personalities on the board

Lars Holthusen, Partner and Business Unit Manager at Namics 13, and Maurizio Rugghia, Managing Director and Partner at Serranetga, were elected to the Board as representatives of the digital agencies. Holthusen has been a business unit manager at Namics 13 since 2008, while Rugghia has been a managing director at Serranetga since 2001. Martin Kessler, founder and co-owner of the branding and design agency Process, was elected to the board as a representative of the corporate agencies.

Andreas Widmer, CEO of Y&R Group Switzerland, has stepped down from the Board. He was awarded the gold pin of honor for his great services.

Catherine Purgly succeeds Peter Leutenegger

The announced change in the management of the BSW will be completed as of the date of the General Meeting: Catherine Purgly will take over the responsibility for the management with immediate effect and will replace Peter Leutenegger, who had been in charge of the bsw office since 2011.

In her new role as Managing Director, Catherine Purgly intends to further advance the work of her predecessor, the qualitative profiling of BSW and its members. Training, profiling and a clear stance in the market are to help further expand the already existing lead of BSW members over their competitors.