The last dance

On November 23, the curtain goes up at Zurich Opera House for the premiere of "La belle vie", one of Heinz Spoerli's great works set to the music of Jacques Offenbach. La belle vie" is about economic decline, revolution and love. It tells the story of a rich family at the time of the French Revolution. Ruined by the stock market crash, the family loses everything, even their daughters, who hire themselves out to suitors and dance the cancan for them. The historical parallel to the present day inspired Frank Bodin and the creative team at Euro RSCG to create a poster that uses a unique, even historical photograph: Dancing brokers are shown in the old Zurich Stock Exchange when it was closed in 1995. Lion against bear. In the final phase of the championship preliminary round, Zurich Football Club faced Young Boys from Bern at the beginning of December. In order to attract as many fans as possible to the Letzigrund despite an unfortunate season, FCZ is now advertising this crucial match with a poster. At least this poster can be seen as a beautifully scored goal. The creative minds at Hesskiss quickly turned the fight into the animals that adorn the coats of arms of the two cities - the Zurich lion and the Bernese bear. The fact that these beasts could never clash in the wild adds to the appeal of André Willimann's Dürer-style visual. The poster is said to have already achieved cult status among FCZ fans - which is hardly surprising: The bear seems to have already been defeated.
The spoken word counts. Headlines are the newspaper's bread and butter. So it is only logical that newspapers also give preference to the word in advertising. This has already been proven in various campaigns for print products. In a rather cheeky way, Weltwoche is currently doing the same. "After your daily must-read, you deserve the free program", is written in large blue letters on a half-cardboard box enclosed with the Neue Zürcher Zeitung as a "cuckoo ad". The same A4 sheet with the claim "All the facts speak for Weltwoche" has also been inserted into the pockets of Swiss subscribers to the news magazine Der Spiegel. Originally, the mailing was only intended to advertise in Facts for readers willing to switch. "But we thought the text would also work with Der Spiegel," Weltwoche publishing director Uli Rubner told WerbeWoche. I wonder if she wanted to pay a hidden compliment to the Facts editorial team with the synchronization.
Tonhalle is pandering. The Zurich cultural institution Tonhalle wants to become more attractive to a target group that is diffusely understood as "young". Zurich poster artist Ivar Breitenmoser was hired to implement appropriate measures. The result is posters that combine superficial wordplay and outdated techno vocabulary ("rave" was already mega-in in 1992) with provincial flyer graphics. Instead of communicating the cultural offering "live music played by exciting artists", which is perfectly compatible with urban avant-gardists, the posters put the Tonhalle on the same level as the nightlife in noisy large clubs, which is dominated by commerce and tear-up.
Cinecomback. RMB Switzerland and RMB Austria are renamed Cinecom as of January 1, 2003. Even before the name change, the company is launching various initiatives in the areas of strategy, innovation and market presence. Having strengthened the sales and marketing departments in recent months and simplified the corporate structures, CEO Matthias Luchsinger promises "new products and services". The new logo, which was developed by the Zurich design agency Trend World/TBS, will be supplemented with the claim "Advertising in first place", depending on the application.
IGMA joins the BSW collectively. The extraordinary general meeting of the BSW has accepted the ten members of the Interessengemeinschaft Mediaagenturen (IGMA) into the association in corpore after intensive discussions about a merger (see WW 32/02). As BSW board member Christof Kaufmann explained, the ten media agencies will jointly represent their interests under the name "IGMA - Interessengemeinschaft Mediaagenturen im BSW". The IGMA unites the ten leading media agencies in Switzerland with annual billings totaling around 1.2 billion Swiss francs.
A funny nod to the Christ Child. The business press is making a point of being optimistic. If you study the figures closely, you have to ask yourself whether the refrain "The bells never ring sweeter" can really be sung for this year's Christmas business. Experience shows that department stores generate around 30 percent of their sales in the run-up to Christmas. Wyler Werbung translated this idea into a motif for Shoppi & Tivoli. Thanks to its space for lots of presents, the decorated little fir tree gives hope for brightly jingling tills. An advertising style from Wyler that is gaining increasing international recognition. Even at the largest retail trade congress in the USA, his advertisements were reportedly praised this year.
Editorial

Woe betide anyone who is forgottenMassive attempts to put pressure on editorial offices and publishers from politics and business have become less frequent, according to the Swiss Press Council. Nevertheless
subtle forms of influence still exist. The greatest danger to editorial independence lies in the increasing intertwining of media companies and the advertising industry, under the otherwise positive connotation of cross-media. This was the conclusion of three studies commissioned by the Press Council and presented on the occasion of its 25th anniversary.
In his study, Christian Mensch comes to the conclusion (see page 12) that the risk of losing advertisements is lower today than most editors believe. Very few "would-be boycotters" could afford a boycott, because it would cost them twice as much. Those who want to chastise the media by means of illegitimate attempts to exert pressure risk damaging their image if the whole thing becomes public. There is also an economic price to pay if the target audience is reached less effectively. After all, advertising is never an end in itself, it has to sell. And no successful company voluntarily reduces advertising pressure or its media presence with impunity.
Today, ideologically motivated advertising sanctions have become rarer. As a rule, boycotts have a campaign character and are often personally or politically tinged by character heads - such as Karl Schweri or Walter Frey. Pragmatically oriented companies, on the other hand, do not tie their advertising to editorial good behavior. They place their ads in the media where circulation, reach, price and target audience promise an optimal return on the invested funds. In a media society fixated on permanent communication, it is important to maintain a constant presence in order not to be forgotten. And be it, as Fiat recently did, with a four-color car advertisement in an advertising medium that
has hardly had a good word to say about our automotive society like the weekly newspaper WoZ.
Samuel Helbling, Editor-in-Chief