Vice Germany, Austria and Switzerland launch Vice DACH

The management board is completed by Benjamin Ruth as Chief Strategy Officer, Karin Helfer as Chief Operations Officer and Karin Brandstätter as Chief Finance Officer. Together, Germany, Austria and Switzerland form the largest and strongest region within the Vice Group in Europe.

With the new Vice DACH holding company, the offices in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Vienna and Zurich will grow together to form a large media and agency powerhouse, which will now also establish TV as a fixed business segment. As a region, Vice DACH will immediately focus on the consistent further development of editorial, creative and strategic products. The three steadily growing offices guarantee a new and more agile form of cooperation and will symbiotically complement each other and form the basis for further development. For this purpose, Centers of Service and Centers of Excellence will be created at the respective locations for a quick exchange of know-how as well as for specialization in individual areas. In the new corporate structure, Vice is no longer divided according to locations, but the more than 300 employees operate in the three regionally organized divisions Vice, Virtue and TV.

Expansion of editorial offices

The goal of Vice DACH is to further expand its position as the most influential media brand for young people in German-speaking countries. To achieve this, Vice is consistently focusing on expanding its editorial platforms in the region. Especially in times of fake news and hate speech, Vice is committed to high-quality content in the German-speaking countries and stands for reliable premium advertising environments. That's why Vice DACH is also breaking new ground in sales and adapting its structures. The "Brand Solutions" unit, which is already successfully established in Austria and Switzerland as the Vice Brand Studio, is being set up in the Berlin office. This unit specializes in offering non-traditional communication solutions for brands within Vice's digital offering. This allows Vice to more appropriately pick up customers who are exclusively interested in being hosted by Vice.

At Virtue, Vice's creative agency, the course is also set for progress: As the defining agency of a new era, Virtue is stepping out of Vice Media's slipstream in 2018 to further establish itself in the German-speaking region as a strong business partner and relevant player in the creative solutions sector. To this end, Virtue is relying entirely on the competencies of the respective offices in the DACH region: In the future, Virtue will structure its agency business in such a way that Vienna will act as a Social, Digital & Data Hub and Berlin as a Creative & Production Hub. Zurich will use its location advantage to build up global premium clients. In Austria, Virtue is already one of the most successful and largest agencies in the country, and now the expansion in Germany is starting.

Stefan Häckel, CEO Vice DACH, in a statement: "In the rapidly developing media and agency market, we are sending a strong signal with Vice DACH. We expect high-quality offers to play a more important role again, as reach KPIs are questioned and social media has to reposition itself. In addition, we are constantly noticing that target groups are moving very dynamically and expect a disruption of previous generic business models due to the current developments in the e-privacy area. With Virtue, we have already caused a sensation in Austria and Switzerland with big budget wins as well as multiple awards and are building on a broad expertise and profound know-how at the interface between Craft, Creative and Culture, which we will now also strengthen in Germany. With Vice DACH and our great team, we are ready for the future and continue to build our position as the most influential media brand for young people, as well as a creative solutions agency ready to act as a business partner to achieve more than just communication goals, in the German-speaking region."

Patrick Viert, Managing Director Vice Switzerland: "In the future, we will make even more focused use of the location advantage at our Swiss site. Our goal is to win premium customers and global key accounts, and to do so we can draw on the input and expertise of our German and Austrian colleagues. We are already benefiting from the cooperation and thus increasing our impact in the market."

In addition to Vice and the creative agency Virtue, a new division is created with TV. Vice has already produced TV formats in German-speaking countries for ZDF, ProSieben, Spiegel TV Wissen, Arte, RTL 2 and SRF. Benjamin Ruth will be responsible for the expansion of the TV business as Chief Strategy Officer: "We are focusing on a multi-platform licensing strategy. That means we want to be present linear, OTT and mobile. In addition, we have established an offshoot of Vice Studio in Berlin to further expand the TV and film production business in DACH. Here we are working closely with our international colleagues," says Benjamin Ruth, CSO at Vice DACH.

Following Benjamin Ruth's move to the Management Board, Stefan Häckel also takes on the role of General Manager for Vice Germany, as well as heading the Virtue creative agency in Germany. For the editorial teams in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, Tom Littlewood takes on the position of Head of Content and thus overall editorial management.

The local management will remain in place in Austria with Konstantin Jakabb and Bernhard Schmidt (both Managing Partners Vice/Virtue), as well as in Switzerland with Patrick Viert (Managing Director), Raffael Leu (Managing Partner Virtue) and Florian Sonderegger (Managing Partner Vice).