Cut off and expand

 
SO-Publicitas Südostschweiz Publicitas is getting serious about going it alone. On September 4, Südostschweiz Publicitas, a joint venture between P and the Chur publishing group, opened a branch office at Förrlibuckstrasse 150 in Zurich. "The aim is to give our title Südostschweiz a greater presence in the national market. Because the distance between Chur and Zurich is sometimes just too long," says Susanne Lebrument. The daughter of SO publisher Hanspeter Lebrument has been managing director of SO Publicitas for a year and has also been a board delegate since the end of August. The office in Zurich will be staffed with 3.5 positions and will be managed by Roberto Blank, who has been responsible for the SO complete edition and national sales at SO Publicitas as a member of the Executive Board since mid-June. The 46-year-old succeeded P-woman Karin Waltenspühl, who has since opened her own placement agency. Another P-man, advertising and sales manager Jörg Lütscher, has also left SO Publicitas in the meantime. "At an operational level, this is a further step towards independence: We are now doing all the ad placement ourselves, both nationally and regionally," says SO publisher Hanspeter Lebrument.
Lebrument already spoke of "de facto self-management" after April 1, 2007. At that time, SO Publicitas left the building shared with Publicitas Chur, relocated to SO-Verlag and P Chur was dissolved. In addition, SO Publicitas separated itself from the P booking tool Pub 2000 in terms of IT. With the takeover of national SO marketing, the Chur publishing house has thus taken the step towards true autonomy.
Almost. Because P is still represented by two people on the Board of Directors of the Chur-based advertising agency - Max Bühlmann and Publipresse General Director Otto Meier. However, Meier is leaving PubliGroupe and with it SO Publicitas, and Bühlmann is retiring at the end of the year. Will PubliGroupe therefore withdraw from SO Publicitas? "That could be the case, but I hope not. I'll be talking to PubliGroupe CEO Hanspeter Rohner about it soon," says Hanspeter Lebrument.
The publisher from Chur had previously emphasized that although he wanted to separate the operational business from P, he wanted to keep it on the Board of Directors - because of its expertise. He is now reiterating this wish. "The new PubliGroup Media Sales division and its management make a good impression on me and seem trustworthy," he praises.
 
Markus Knöpfli