"A castle straight out of a fairytale" was the headline in the Blick newspaper on Wednesday. And indeed, The Alpina Gstaad is set to set new standards with an investment of 300 million Swiss francs, according to Matter & Gretener. Until the opening of the 5-star hotel on December 1, 2012, the agency will realize a comprehensive communication presence for The Alpina Gstaad as lead agency.

The first implementations should be on show soon.
 

This was decided by the SBB Board of Directors. The areas of communications and IT have become central pillars for the further development of SBB in recent years, as the railroad company announced on Thursday. As a result, the Management Board will now comprise nine people.

At the same time, SBB announced the departure of the current Head of Communications and Public Affairs. Stefan Nünlist, 50, will leave SBB in mid-September and work in the financial sector in the future.. Bernhard Meier, currently Delegate for Public Affairs, will take over as interim head of the department. Nünlist has systematically developed SBB's corporate communications over the past two and a half years and, among other things, built up SBB's social media channels, according to the communiqué.

SBB also announced that from September, SBB's external communications will be headed on an interim basis by Christoph Rytz, Head of Communications at SBB Cargo. Rytz replaces the previous head Daniel Bach, who is moving to the Federal Office of Public Health. (sda)
 

The UK's Press Complaints Commission was inundated with complaints over the weekend regarding The Sun's front page story on Friday. This writes Guardian.co.uk on Tuesday. Most of the complaints were lodged on Tuesday afternoon. Until then, however, Harry's representatives had not complained. This is despite the British tabloid The Sun publishing cell phone photos of the prince after they appeared on the US gossip site TMZ last week. Some members of parliament are also said to have said that the newspaper had crossed the line.

Rupert Murdoch himself supported the campaign. According to Guardina.co.uk, the publication of the images was important in order to highlight the lack of a free press in England. Charlotte Church - who has had her own show on British television, The Charlotte Church Show, since September 2006 - did not agree with him. As the pictures were taken in Harry's private hotel room, the publication was an invasion of his privacy. However, it is difficult to determine how private the pictures are after they have been circulating online for a long time. Besides, honestly, no pictures of naked people in print? And that as a demand to The Sun. I wonder what Blick would say?

Anyone who has an opinion on this can now let off steam on Facebook in the open group "Support Prince Harry with a naked salute!". https://www.facebook.com/groups/336283586466687/
 

In the first half of the year, the media company generated sales of CHF 524 million (previous year: CHF 554.2 million). This corresponds to a decline of 5.4 percent. EBIT fell by 31.6 percent to CHF 60.3 million (previous year: CHF 88.1 million), while the result amounted to CHF 73.7 million (previous year: CHF 87.7 million). The decline in sales reflects the mixed development of the Swiss advertising market, Tamedia said in a statement on Thursday. In its advertising statistics for daily newspapers, the Swiss Media Association reports an overall decline in net advertising revenues of 10 percent.

Job advertisements in particular suffered a slump. A drop of 23 percent was reported here. Sales of the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper with the Alpha and Stellen-Anzeiger job supplements as well as 24heures and Tribune de Genève fell particularly sharply, according to the press release.

Two thirds of the decline in sales is attributable to the Print Regional business division, the press release continues. It is crucial for the Group that measures to improve results in the Print Regional division are implemented on an ongoing basis. This was stated by Tamedia CEO Martin Kall during a telephone conference on Thursday, according to SDA.

The sales performance of the Digital business division also fell short of expectations. The business division contributed 12.1 percent (previous year: 11.1 percent) to total sales, while the Print Regional business division accounted for 47.2 percent (previous year: 48.7 percent). The investments in the editorial offices and the expansion of the classifieds and service portals have not yet paid off to the extent hoped for. The main problem in this context is advertising revenue from mobile users. "More than half of the hits on 20 Minuten Online, for example, come from mobile devices," Kall continued, according to SDA. "So we have a lot of users who bring us nothing commercially." The big challenge is therefore the question of how to commercialize mobile use. According to Kall, one possibility would be paid content on the news portals. However, this so-called paywall is ruled out for the online portal 20 Minuten. "If at all, it would only exist on the news network," says Kall according to SDA. A decision will be made by the end of the year.

The Print National business division contributed 40.8 percent (previous year 40.2 percent) to sales. According to SDA, the Group CEO expressed his satisfaction with the National Print Media division during the conference call. The aim is to expand further in this area.
 

The Audience Award has been presented since 2003 as an additional special award as part of the Swiss Star packaging competition. The winner is decided by the consumers and not the jury. Anyone can vote for their favorite packaging on the Svi-verpackung.ch website. The annual vote, organized by the Swiss Packaging Institute SVI, runs until 22 September 2012. 16 packages are up for selection.

Swiss Star - the competition for the best packaging

The Swiss Star packaging award will be presented again this year for the 43rd time. This year the competition reached a new record with 60 entries. The Swiss Star is awarded by the Swiss Packaging Institute SVI in recognition of outstanding achievements in the packaging industry. The aim of the competition is to highlight the creativity and innovative strength of the Swiss packaging industry.

The award ceremony will take place on Thursday, October 18, 2012, at the St. Jakobs Stadium in Basel.
 

Werbeweischer also works closely with Werbe+Verlags AG, also based in Zurich, on cinema marketing in Switzerland. Thomas Berner, Managing Director of Werbe+Verlags AG, has been President of the Zurich Cinema Association (ZKV) since 1999.

Werbewoche reported on the expansion into Switzerland back in July. Read more about this: Florian Weischer, personally liable partner of the Weischer Media Group, and Nils Schilling, Managing Director of WerbeWeischer, in conversation with Werbewoche Editor-in-Chief Pierre C. Meier.

As part of its expansion, Werbeweischer has developed a new cinema advertising model. In future, advertising customers will be able to use the "Werbeweischer Cinema Reloaded" model to address target groups in cinemas without wastage, the cinema marketer said in a press release on Thursday. With this model, only the contacts actually reached are paid for on a "cost per visit" basis.

In addition to the ambient communication, the campaign also includes the "Pentathlon" promotion. Stamp cards are distributed for this, which must be filled with five purchases in various RailCity stores. The immediate prize is a BigBag full of surprises. You are also automatically entered into a main prize draw.

Responsible at RailCity Basel: Roland Lüdi (Advertising Committee), Andreas Lehr (Advertising Committee), Daniela Jaeger (Center Manager RailCity Basel). Responsible at Crome: Bernhard Wenger (Creative Director), Salome Wiesli (Consulting), Steffen Pejas (Text), Helge Dilger (Art Director), Patrizia Stalder (Graphics, Image Composing), Jan Oser (Desktop Publishing). Photography: Tobias Dürring.
 

Hummler resigned from the NZZ presidency at the beginning of February due to the involvement of his bank Wegelin in the US tax dispute. At the time, the NZZ officially stated that Hummler had only stepped down "temporarily" and that Steinegger would take over "until further notice".

However, the former FDP National Councillor Steinegger will now lead the NZZ media group until the next Annual General Meeting (AGM) on April 13, 2013. He will then step down due to his age, NZZ spokeswoman Bettina Schibli confirmed on Thursday at the request of SDA. The newly elected Board of Directors will decide who will then take over the chairmanship. It is certain that Hummler will remain a simple member of the Board of Directors of the NZZ Media Group at least until the next AGM. (sda)
 

In a public tender, Aperto and its branch in Switzerland won the canton of Basel-Stadt as a client. Now, the communications agency with a digital focus will handle the relaunch of the main websites of the canton of Basel-Stadt. This includes Basel.ch and the other websites of various departments, offices and services of the canton.

The canton's goal is a modern Internet presence that reflects Basel-Stadt's service orientation, the agency said in a statement Thursday. It should be easy to use as well as barrier-free and favor future eGovernment projects. The canton is also striving for a simple and efficient editorial approach.

Aperto is responsible for the technical realization of the new content management infrastructure, barrier-free implementation in accordance with Swiss guidelines, content migration and technical as well as editorial support. Editorial services, consulting and support are provided by the Aperto Switzerland branch in Basel. The Magnolia content management system from Aperto's partner of the same name is being used for the project. Magnolia has already implemented more than 30 projects with Aperto in the past, including for the Swiss retail company Migros. The project partner Abel-Systems, which manages the canton's previous CMS platform, will assist Aperto with the transfer of content and applications as well as subsequent technical support.
 

The cooperation between Ottmar Hitzfeld and Ringier includes communicative and representative appearances for the media house as well as an editorial cooperation, this also for the Blick Group. In addition, Hitzfeld will advise Ringier on sports and soccer matters, Ringier wrote in a statement on Thursday.

The cooperation agreed with Ottmar Hitzfeld is of a long-term nature. The plan is for the current national team coach to remain available to the media company as a senior advisor and ambassador for all aspects of sports and soccer after his coaching career. Ottmar Hitzfeld stands for competence, credibility and integrity, said Marc Walder, CEO of Ringier. "He will support our commitments in the sports sector in general and in football in particular."
 

An article about the Internet comparison service Comparis.ch was decisive for the court-ordered measure. In connection with comparisons of health insurance premiums apparently tried to hack the website of the Federal Office of Public Health FOPH, as the SDA writes on Thursday. The instruction by mail arrived only on Wednesday afternoon, while L'Hebdo was already printed in the night to Wednesday. Daniel Pillard, director for French-speaking Switzerland at media company Ringier, said this, according to SDA. He thus confirmed information from the French-speaking Swiss television station RTS.

According to Pillard, the article was then deleted from the magazine's website. L'Hebdo is relaxed about the further legal disputes.

Comparis vehemently rejects accusations

According to SDA, the Internet comparison service Comparis.ch on Thursday rejected all accusations of piracy and disreputable behavior on the Internet. Because Ringier had disregarded a decision of the Vaud cantonal court, Comparis.ch will consider further legal steps. The accusations are about the procurement of health insurance premiums about a year ago. In today's edition, the weekly magazine L'Hebdo accuses Comparis.ch of unlawfully using this data on the website of the Federal Office of Public Health FOPH.

Comparis.ch vehemently rejects these accusations, according to SDA. The company had used the publicly accessible data of the FOPH with a common and, according to the Federal Court, legal method, the so-called crawling. The FOPH is also not accusing Comparis.ch of any criminal activity. This technique is used in every search engine. The aim was to provide consumers with a comprehensive overview as quickly as possible. Therefore, Comparis.ch also wanted to prevent the publication of the L'Hebdo issue in question with a super provisional injunction.

Now Comparis.ch wants to examine further legal steps, after Ringier had disregarded the super provisional injunction and had not stopped the publication.

Stefan Nünlist will succeed Peter Hartmeier, who had communicated earlier his intention to retire in the first quarter of 2013. Stefan Nünlist is currently Head of Communications & Public Affairs at SBB. From 2001 to 2010, he was Chief Communications Officer and a member of the Group Executive Board of Swisscom. Prior to that, the advocate and notary public underwent diplomatic training at the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs Eda. He was a personal assistant to the two then Federal Councillors Delamuraz and Couchepin in the Federal Department of Economic Affairs FDEA, as well as Head of Communications at the electricity company Aare Ticino.

Stefan Nünlist will become a member of the UBS Switzerland Executive Committee, headed by Lukas Gähwiler, and of the global Executive Committee Communications and Branding, reporting to Chief Communications Officer Michael Willi.