The industry association of the Swiss sponsorship industry made some important changes at its Annual General Meeting. Sandra Caviezel, Head of Brand Activation, Sponsorship & Events at UBS Switzerland, will take over the presidency of Sponsoring Switzerland. She succeeds Andrea Meier, Head of Corporate Communications at Swisscom, who led the association as President for three years and was a member of the Board for a total of six years.
Focus on the next generation
Caviezel brings with her over 20 years of experience in sponsorship, both at a global and Swiss level. «I would like to contribute these perspectives to the further development of the industry in Switzerland,» explains the new president. Her focus is on the next generation of sponsorship experts, a strong network and further strengthening the relevance of sponsorship. She is looking forward to driving these priorities forward together with her fellow board members.
Marco Greco new to the Board of Directors
Sven Schaefer, Head Group Brand Activation, Sponsorship & Events UBS, who stepped down after three years of service, is also no longer a member of the Board of Directors. Marco Greco, who is Head of Marketing at Ochsner Sport, was elected as his successor.
Sponsoring Switzerland warmly thanked Andrea Meier and Sven Schaefer for their many years of dedicated service on the Board and welcomed Sandra Caviezel and Marco Greco to the Board.
The industry association Sponsoring Switzerland emerged from the IG Sponsoring in 2015. Its aim is to promote the understanding and acceptance of sponsorship and related forms of advertising as important components of modern communication and to increase professionalism and loyalty in the use of sponsorship.
More information: www.sponsoringschweiz.ch
]]>The "Night of Sponsorship" once again proved to be a beacon event for the industry, a rendezvous of creativity and commitment in sponsorship. Right in the middle of it all was the m&k team, which captured the exclusive voices of the protagonists immediately after the award ceremony in order to authentically document the emotions of this special evening in the surroundings of the Zurich Kunsthaus.
Sponsoring Switzerland: Importance and challenges of the award
Markus Simmen, Member of the Board of Sponsoring Switzerlandemphasizes the importance of the Sport Excellence Awardwhich was awarded for the sixth time. It serves as a central communication platform for all players in sponsorship - givers and receivers. Simmen remembers the beginnings shortly before coronavirus, a time that impressively demonstrated the activity and cohesion of the industry. The award makes an important contribution to the internal justification of sponsorship activities and recognizes their value. For Simmen, there are always challenges for both sides in sponsorship, a continuous cycle of give and take. The 2025 vintage shows the immense range of the scene, from sport to health and culture.
Focus on the jury: innovative spirit and the courage to try something new
Oliver Niedermann, CEO of Ticketcorner AG and jury president of the Sponsoring Excellence Award, is extremely satisfied with the 2025 vintage. The diversity of the projects, from large corporations to small companies with exciting activation, reflects the vibrancy of the Swiss sponsorship market. For Niedermann, innovation and the courage to try something new, even with the risk of failure, are the most important success factors. The jury held intensive discussions, but ultimately came to a unanimous decision. For the future, he hopes for a broad range of projects and an earlier dialog in order to be able to present an even more meaningful shortlist.
The main prize winner: Tudor Pro Cycling Team - More than just victories
The "Tudor Pro Cycling Team" was founded in 2022 by two-time Olympic champion Fabian Cancellara. Since making the leap into the professional category of world cycling in 2023, the team has already celebrated a number of successes. In 2025, the Swiss racing team is continuing its attack and now has two potential winning riders on the team, Marc Hirschi and Julian Alaphilippe, who have already won major races. This is primarily possible thanks to the sponsorship of the Geneva watch brand Tudor, for which the team represents a flagship project in its comprehensive marketing initiatives in cycling.
"Tudor Pro Cycling Team" has set itself the goal of becoming one of the world's best cycling teams and inspiring enthusiasm for cycling in Switzerland. The path to the top of the world will be pursued with a clear value structure. "Swiss. Human. Performance." is the framework with which the Swiss team puts people at the center of its actions and drives innovation in all areas.
Jury President Oliver Niedermann honored the winner with the words: "The 'Tudor Pro Cycling Team' absolutely convinced the jury. Thanks to the shared vision and the comprehensive commitment of the sponsor Tudor from the start of the project to the top of the world, a sustainably successful company has been established in Switzerland."
Three special prizes awarded
The seven-member independent jury scrutinized all the projects submitted, paying particular attention to the criteria of innovation, relevance, creativity and impact. The high ratings led to three special prizes being awarded to "Pink Cube Test Your Breast", the "EVZ Women & Girls Program" and "The Flipcode Mystery".
Special Responsibility Award for "Pink Cube Test your Breast"
The Pink Cube brings education about breast cancer to women and men of all ages. Gynecologists show them how they can examine their breasts themselves and which early detection measures are important for them. With its eye-catching pink design and the words "Test Your Breast", the container attracts attention and makes an important topic more accessible.
Special Pioneer Award for "EVZ Women & Girls Program"
EVZ launched a program in 2023 to get girls and women interested in ice hockey and offer them equal opportunities. The Women & Girls program is not a stand-alone project or brand, but an integral part of the club. With the clear vision "Do it right or not at all", EVZ is pursuing ambitious goals for fair and sustainable promotion in women's sport.
Special Activation Award for "The Flipcode Mystery"
As a main partner of the SRF series "Tschugger", Samsung launched the immersive sponsorship multichannel campaign "The Flipcode Mystery" with lead agency Sir Mary in November 2023. Fans became "chuggers" themselves and were able to solve a criminal case involving the then newly launched Samsung Galaxy Z Flip5 mobile phone live on TV. The innovation of this 360-degree case lies in the fact that both the TV sponsorship billboards and the off-air multichannel measures of the Samsung campaign could be realized with the original cast of the series.
Pink Cube also wins the audience award
Of all the projects submitted, the nine nominated for the main prize and the special prizes were presented live to the large audience at the Zurich Kunsthaus. As in 2024, over 275 people from the Swiss sponsorship scene voted online for the Audience Award, which this year went to Pink Cube Test Your Breast.
Changes to the Board of Sponsoring Switzerland
The General Assembly of Sponsoring Switzerland took place in the run-up to the Night of Sponsoring. Fabienne Merlet, Head of Partnerships & CSR at the Locarno Film Festival, was elected to succeed Melanie Schmid and Markus Simmen as Head of Communications. The President also announced that Prisca and Beat Ritschard, who had been on the Board for over 25 years, 15 of which they had spent in charge of the secretariat, would be stepping down from the Board in the middle of the year.
Sabrina Vögeli and Luana Bergamin from Bergamin Conceptions will take over the management of the office.
Further information on the award-winning cases can be found at SponsoringSwitzerland.ch. The next Award Night is expected to take place on March 25, 2026.
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For the fifth time, the Sponsoring Switzerland industry association is honoring relevant, innovative and professionally implemented sponsoring projects with the Sponsoring Excellence Award. Once again, non-members of the industry association also have the opportunity to submit their projects and convince the jury.
In addition to the main prize, the committee around President Urs Wyss also honors the outstanding quality of individual projects with a special prize in each of the four categories "Responsibility", "Activation", "Pioneer" and "Surprise/Jury Prize". In addition, this year for the first time an audience award will be presented at the awards ceremony by means of online voting on site.
Following the record number of projects submitted in the last competition, Urs Wyss is once again hoping for many exciting and innovative entries from sponsorship specialists: "The award makes an important contribution to the status of sponsorship as an effective marketing and communication tool. We are looking forward to numerous outstanding projects!"
For more information on the project entries and the Sponsoring Excellence Award, please visit the Website of Sponsoring Switzerland.
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The "Swisscom Hero League" was founded with the aim of offering Switzerland a professional e-sports league that activates e-sportsmen and inspires gaming fans. Since the beginning of 2022, Swisscom is no longer presenting partner but owner of the league and uses it for an authentic positioning in the gaming sector. Meanwhile, it has grown to become the largest e-sports league in Switzerland. The league sets new viewer records every year and integrates cutting-edge experiences such as NFTs or gaming in Blue Space that set benchmarks.
For the jury of the Sponsoring Excellence Awards, the Swisscom Hero League is an exemplary development of a sponsorship theme strategy - from an original e-sports sponsorship to ownership of a leading platform. In this way, Swisscom secures a sustainable, measurable competitive advantage in the central and difficult-to-tap young target group.
Special prizes for seven projects
The jury was challenged in evaluating the record number of 24 entries, as these were characterized by a particularly high project and presentation quality and a great deal of commitment was noticeable. As a result, many projects received high ratings this year.
The winners at a glance:
Responsibility:
- Green Goal of the 2022 Floorball World Cup / swiss unihockey
- #ChangeTheGame / Credit Suisse (Switzerland) Ltd.
Activation:
- Benno B-Post in action for Swiss Post at the Scouts' national camp / Swiss Post
- #pistefarbe / Swisscom (Switzerland)
Pioneer:
- New Migros festival appearance: sustainability that's fun / Federation of Migros Cooperatives
- Sunrise starzone / Sunrise GmbH & Ticketcorner
Surprise:
- ComedymännerxEmmi / Emmi Switzerland
In the run-up to the Night of Sponsoring, the General Assembly of Sponsoring Switzerland took place. After the resignation of President Björn Wäspe and Board Member Antonia Lepore, the focus was on the election of the new Presidency and new Board Members. The AGM elected Andrea Meier, Head of Partnership & Live Experience at Swisscom (Switzerland), as the new President. She has been part of the board of Sponsoring Switzerland since 2020. Two new corporate representatives, Melanie Schmid and Sven Schäfer, were elected to replace Björn Wäspe and Antonia Lepore on the board. Melanie Schmid is Head of Live Communications at Swiss Post, while Sven Schäfer holds the position of Group Head Brand Activation, Sponsorship & Events at UBS.
18 projects were submitted for the Sponsoring Excellence Award 2022. Now, the sponsoring association Sponsoring Switzerland has given the starting signal for the entry period of the fourth edition. Companies can submit their projects until December 14, 2022. Non-members of the association also have the opportunity to submit their projects and take part in the award night. The jury day will be held on January 24, 2023.
Which project will win the fourth Sponsoring Excellence Award will be announced at the Night of Sponsoring. The sponsoring industry get-together will take place on March 9, 2023 at Theater 11 Zurich.
Previous winners of the Sponsoring Excellence Awards include Formela E by Julius Baer (2019), #myprivatepicasso by Swisscom and the Fondation Beyeler (2020) and Welovesnow by Raiffeisen (2022).
Further information is available on the website of Sponsoring Switzerland.
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Raiffeisen launched Welovesnow.ch in 2017 with the aim of creating year-round digital interaction with snow sports fans and simultaneously initiating sales-oriented measures via the platform. Over the last few years, the platform and content have been continuously developed, a substantial community has been built up, traffic has increased massively, and sales-supporting processes and measures have been established in the background.
The jury around President Urs Wyss, CSO of Ticketcorner, paid tribute to the winning project: "Raiffeisen's snowsports portal has become the core of its long-standing sponsorship commitment. In the advertising-intensive environment of skiing, "welovesnow.ch" has established itself as the leading digital thematic platform and achieves high reach throughout the year. Thanks to the balanced mix of editorial content and communication, Raiffeisen has been able to tap into the snow sports fan community and is achieving measurable benefits for the sale of banking services. Raiffeisen thus generates high added value for the entire company and sustainably strengthens its position in Swiss snow sports."
18 campaigns were in the race
Raiffeisen prevailed against 17 other exciting campaigns submitted by members of Sponsoring Switzerland and, for the first time, non-members of the association. The jury had the difficult task of judging the entries according to the criteria of overall impression, innovation, conception, relevance, implementation and cost-effectiveness, and analyzing their impact and perception.
Special awards for UBS, Swisscom and Axa Switzerland
For the first time, Sponsoring Switzerland honored the quality of individual projects with special awards. The Responsibility special award went to UBS Helpetica, an intermediary platform with which UBS mobilizes a million-strong audience for volunteering in Switzerland. The Activation special prize was awarded to Swisscom for its Swisscom Fan Screen, which brought fans and athletes together at home World Cup ski races in 2020/21 despite a pandemic. And the Pioneer special prize was secured by Axa Switzerland for its commitment to women's football as the first partner of the highest Swiss women's football league, the "AXA Women's Super League (AWSL)".
The Sponsoring Excellence Award recognizes relevant, innovative and professionally implemented sponsoring projects. It has been awarded since 2019. The aim of the award is to underline the importance of sponsoring as a marketing and communication tool and to provide a presentation platform for outstanding projects. The award is announced annually. After the presentation, the jury will determine the project(s) to be awarded based on the evaluation criteria (innovation, conception, implementation, cost-effectiveness, relevance, impact, overall impression and any special features). The jury for the 2022 award ceremony was composed of the following members: Sabine Meier, David Jäger, Michaela Braun, Mike Schwede, Gabriela Buchs, Antje Hembd, Urs Wyss (President).
The industry association Sponsoring Switzerland emerged in 2015 from the association IG Sponsoring. Its purpose is to promote the understanding and acceptance of sponsorship and related forms of advertising as important components of modern communication, as well as to increase professionalism and loyalty in the use of sponsorship, and to represent the interests of sponsorship operators vis-à-vis authorities and third parties.
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Like the rest of the world, the sponsorship and live industry is looking back on challenging times. During the pandemic, many sponsors were unable to make their usual appearance. Creativity was all the more in demand. Numerous exciting initiatives, including digital ones, and excellent projects were launched.
The innovative strength and importance of the industry is also reflected in the submissions for the third edition of the Sponsoring Excellence Award from Sponsoring Switzerland: with 18 projects from the last two years, more projects were submitted than ever before. For the first time, non-members of the association also had the opportunity to submit work. Nine projects nominated by the jury headed by President Urs Wyss presented themselves to the panel, consisting of seven experts from the world of sponsorship, on January 21, 2022.
Guests at the 3rd Night of Sponsoring on Friday at "Das Zelt" on the Kasernenareal in Zurich will find out who wins the Sponoring Excellence Award. Another premiere will be various special awards, with which Sponsoring Switzerland will now also recognize the outstanding qualities of individual projects.
]]>After the last Sponsoring Excellence Awards were presented to the winning projects #myprivatepicasso by Swisscom and the Fondation Beyeler (2020) and to Julius Baer with the Formula E project (2019), the time has come again on 25 March 2022: new masterpieces from the sponsoring and live experience sector will be honored at the Sponsoring Award Night. A top-class jury will honor projects and initiatives that have shaped the sponsoring landscape in the challenging years 2020 and 2021. The deadline for entries is Wednesday, December 15, 2021.
Non-members of the association now also have the opportunity to submit projects. Special awards will be presented. This is so that projects with different budgets can also be recognized - it's worth taking part! The award ceremony will take place during the "Night of Sponsoring" on March 25 at "Das Zelt" in Zurich.
More information and conditions of participation at www.sponsoringschweiz.
Julius Baer is the winner of the first Sponsoring Excellence Award for the members of Sponsoring Switzerland. Angelo Stamera, President of Sponsoring Switzerland, is very satisfied with the premiere: "With the award in the context of the "Great Night of Sponsoring" we want to offer a platform to our members and their employees as well as to the topic of sponsoring. We succeeded excellently and are pleased to congratulate Julius Baer for the excellent campaign."
As a Global Partner of "FIA Formula E", the private bank has been investing in a megatrend that will shape our future since the inception of the all-electric racing series in 2014. The "FIA Formula E" combines motorsport with tests for innovations in technology, mobility and the development of "smart cities". Formula E's forward-looking, innovative approach is in line with Julius Baer's corporate values and its "Next Generation" philosophy. Therefore, the bank also considers the competition an ideal sponsorship platform to increase brand awareness around the globe.
In June 2018, Formula E made a stop in Zurich. As title sponsor, Julius Baer used the platform to outline its visions for the future with a broad mix of communication measures, while at the same time demonstrating the private bank's expertise.
Antje Hembd, Director Global Sponsoring & Partnerships at Julius Baer: "We are enormously pleased to receive this award for our pioneering commitment to a new sport. We are proud to have been a supporter of Formula E since the very beginning and to have helped build the racing series worldwide to what it is today. The fact that we were able to make history last year as title sponsor in our home market with the Julius Baer Zurich E-Prix was a highlight of our sponsorship and a huge success. It has been shown that the combination of future technology and competition emotions moves wide circles and that Switzerland, as an innovative research and business location, can do its best self-promotion by hosting the race. In this sense, our slogan proves true in every respect: As we invest today, so we live tomorrow."
Jury president Urs Wyss, CSO Ticketcorner, is full of praise: "The ten projects submitted offered a colorful cross-section of the Swiss sponsorship landscape, and all received consistently good ratings. However, Julius Baer's E-Prix project stood out, standing out from the well-known competitors in many respects: Innovation, conception, impact and relevance - the overall impression was simply excellent."
This was decided by the members at the recent General Assembly. With the repositioning as the most important national professional association in the field of sponsoring, Sponsoring Switzerland also expands the circle for new members, for example important implementation and marketing companies.
Sponsoring Switzerland aims to promote the understanding and acceptance of sponsoring and related forms of communication as important components of modern brand communication, as well as to improve professionalism and loyalty in the use of sponsoring. The association also represents the interests of sponsorship drivers vis-à-vis authorities and third parties. "The step from a community of interests to the Association of the Swiss Sponsoring Industry underlines our claim to be the most important national professional association in the field of sponsoring. What we have never been and will not be in the future is an intermediary platform for sponsoring providers and recipients," association president Daniel Gundelfinger explained the background to the repositioning in a statement. Sponsoring Switzerland is intended to contribute to the networking of the industry and to bring together the most important players in Swiss sponsoring under one roof. For this reason, the criteria for the admission of new members from the sponsoring business have also been adapted. In the future, Sponsoring Switzerland will also be open to companies and agencies from the areas of implementation and marketing.