Woe betide when a person with an immigrant background suddenly becomes a foreigner and a young person with little education becomes an uneducated lad. Then the howls of the political correctness adepts can be heard.
When Frank A. Meyer castigates the excesses of Islam, there is immediately a criminal complaint. The fundamentalists (is it even allowed to say that anymore?) feel "massively denigrated" by statements in his column "In the name of freedom". The Islamic Central Council of Switzerland (ICCS) has therefore filed a criminal complaint against Frank A. Meyer with the Examining Magistrate's Office Bern-Mittelland - for possible violation of the "criminal norm on racism".
Sarrazin, the social-democratic former German senator from Berlin and current member of the board of the Deutsche Bundesbank, has long shunned political correctness and spoken plainly. Even in his Berlin days, he was regarded as a provocateur who often offended with statements that were true in essence but undiplomatically formulated. His interview in the cultural magazine Lettre International last September just went one better. The culmination of the provocation was then reached with the publication of his book "Deutschland schafft sich ab.
Reproaches hailed from the left and the right. The German Chancellor felt obliged to make public her negative judgment of his book. The chairman of the Bundesbank asked the German president to dismiss the unpopular lateral thinker. The political exponents were outraged, the presenters in the various talk shows indignant, only the dumb people accepted his theses. This immediately led to another outcry, because it meant that the evil intellectual could also be called a populist.
All the outraged reactions are not exactly evidence of intelligence. Instead of justified criticism of certain statements, the author is condemned, and one feels transported back to the times of censorship and book indexes. In any liberal country, freedom of expression is an important asset that must be respected. Even when the tone does not fit into the feel-good atmosphere that is common today.
Thank God, there are still people who are not afraid to tell uncomfortable truths in an unvarnished way.
Pierre C. Meier, Editor-in-Chief
[email protected]

The campaign aims to wake up young people between 18 and 25 years, writes 20 Minuten on Wednesday. The action is part of the Ambient campaign "Respect". It has been launched as part of the city's alcohol concept.

See the hope of a whole generation of skateboarders and take this opportunity to find out where the sore spots are for men.
The advertising week on Star TV every Thursday at 19:45 or streamed at any time on Startv.ch.

Before that, silent films were only shown in business premises that were also used for other purposes. Since then, the later Razzia has been repeatedly sold off to new owners. A cinematic drama that is still not quite over. There are firm agreements that a barbecue restaurant is to be installed at this cultural venue from summer 2011. Until then, however, the restaurant will be restyled and used as a setting for films, parties and fashion shows. The Razzia will also be rented out as an event venue. Eventagentur.ch and Kuss magazine invited guests to the opening under the new management on September 2. "A fantastically beautiful location that would do credit to any cosmopolitan city," said the guests in amazement. They were particularly captivated by the walls. These were completely covered by the creatives of Kuss magazine with selected information and anecdotes from the history of the Razzia - except for a few holes where you can still discover the remaining paintings from the "good old days". A bijou. More at www.seefeld-razzia.ch. pan

When asked "Do you have good contacts in the media?", he always asks back: "Do you have a good story?". This is what a PR consultant said during the networking breaks at the 4th Swissprinters Time-Out. After last year's topic of "Ideas", this time it was all about "Stories". Do stories still have a future as a dramaturgical form in marketing, communication and journalism? For the more than 200 visitors in Zurich's Technoparkt, the answer was a clear "yes".
"Stories give us distance from ourselves - and therefore always the opportunity to relax," said Alfred Wälti from the inviting association in his welcome address. "A company's vision and mission cannot be communicated via a mission statement. It needs a story," said Norbert Bolz at the beginning of his presentation "Storytelling - How to communicate spiritual added value." If you want to say who you are, you have to tell a story. This is also the case with every CV in an application. In this case, however, the story "can always be adapted depending on the job description".
Another realization: we suffer from information overload. That's why we need a good story to reach our audience. People who are constantly bombarded with new information feel like they are being pushed into chaos. An overkill of information leaves us at a loss. In contrast, we can identify with a comprehensible story - and gratefully accept the solution. One reason: nothing interests people more than other people.
A story that can be told again and again becomes a myth. This is where time-out was found to be a useful recipe for advertising. Unlike information, which loses value with every repetition, our target audience craves a myth that they "want to hear again and again". The TV series "Tatort" works according to this pattern. But successful brands are also those that tell the same story over and over again in their advertising. You can't fascinate people with information. But you can with stories. To prove these theories, Pius Walker was then able to show a few of his commercials that fascinate exclusively with engaging stories. The Mammut brand has also built its best advertising on stories, from Mary Woodbridge from the SFLB agency to today's events, which are processed into "narrative images" by Erdmannpeisker.
Peter Rothenbühler talked about how he used to put his children to sleep with stories. Of course, he wants to achieve a completely different effect with his stories in the media today. Just like the storyteller from traditional Africa, who entertained us brilliantly at the end, even though we understood almost nothing.
Andreas Panzeri

In addition, potential customers can test themselves on the Status.symptome.ch website to see what type of car they are and whether they actually suffer from status symptoms. The core message of the campaign is that in future Dacia should not be the car for everyone who cannot afford a more expensive car, but for everyone who does not want to afford a more expensive car. The other way round, you could also ask: "Can you afford to drive a Dacia?", because that's exactly where the communication comes in - you want to grab the potential Dacia buyer by their self-confidence. This is the type of person who has already achieved something in their life and no longer needs to prove anything to anyone. They don't go with the flow and don't follow every fashion trend just to fit in. He is extremely well informed and therefore does not need to be guided by what others do, but forms his own opinion - in short, he can afford to drive a Dacia.
The aim is to get Dacia out of the corner of the "low-cost alternative", out of its wallflower existence, and position it as the choice of the clever. The character test tells the participant whether he or she is one of those self-confident people who can afford to drive a Dacia.

At the end of last year, we predicted that 2010 would be the year of the eReader (see WW 44/45 2009, p. 28f). With the hype surrounding the iPad, this prediction has come true, although another related phenomenon is actually more significant for the media world: apps. These small customized programs are omnipresent on smartphones and tablet PCs. This apps fever represents a new development on the Internet: Unlike on the free web, where content is financed by advertising wherever possible, the reader market is the main focus here.
Apps are available in different levels of maturity, whereby roughly speaking these categories can be distinguished:
Web freebies
Existing web portals are optimized for use on smartphones or tablet PCs, but offer hardly anything new in terms of content. Without significant additional services, they can only be provided free of charge, which at least increases their reach. Since the iPhone came onto the market in summer 2008, such apps have become commonplace not only for media offerings, but also in retail, for example: Swisscom alone has sold around 600,000 iPhones since then, and SBB has recorded almost as many downloads of its apps (530,000). And other companies, such as Coop and Migros, the online bank Swissquote or the book reviewer getAb-
stract report more than 100,000 downloads of their apps. The boom is only now really getting going: Almost every second mobile device sold by Swisscom in the first half of 2010 was a smartphone, and so apps are increasingly becoming a matter of course: as a sales channel, for advertising and for brand management.
Print-Paid
Since the market launch of the iPad, screens in particular have become larger, the content of print products can now be published on them. Readers appreciate the additional ease of use and global availability. And publishers are happy to have finally found access to the reader market in the online world. At present, hardly a week goes by without a publisher announcing that its print title is now also available as an iPad app. So, driven in equal measure by providers of corresponding software solutions and by revenue prospects, the last Landpostille will soon be available on Apple's latest miracle device and the upcoming tablet PCs from other manufacturers. Because "there is already very strong demand from our readers for the iPad", the NZZ is preparing a paid e-paper app, as Peter Hogenkamp, Head of Digital Media NZZ Group, explains on request. At Tamedia, both 20 Minuten and Newsnetz have free news apps for the iPad, which are rounded off with TV applications for a fee. A paid app was launched for the SonntagsZeitung at the end of August, which will be followed by an app for Das Magazin. A paid iPad version is being planned for the Tages-Anzeiger, "which will offer additional content to the news app closer to the newspaper", as company spokesman Christoph Zimmer explains. Ringier is currently clarifying whether there is money to be made in the reader market with news apps. A new version of the Blick app was launched at the end of July, which costs CHF 4.40 to download (once) and includes the newspaper as a PDF and a free monthly subscription. Since August 23, the people magazine Schweizer Illustrierte has been available on the iPad for CHF 4.40 each. In addition to the content of the magazine, there are additional picture galleries, background information, 360-degree views and videos for selected topics. The Blick TV application and a simple solution for Il Caffè have already been available for some time. Apps for "other titles in German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland will follow shortly," reports Thomas Huwiler, Head of Digital Media Ringier Switzerland.
Huwiler adds that advertisers are interested in "appearing in the applications as sponsors or advertisers and trying out new forms of advertising". For example, Schweizer Illustrierte offers full-screen ads that can contain multimedia elements for a fixed introductory price of CHF 4,500. iPad technology opens up further attractive forms of design, such as location-based information, device position recognition, interaction with the user, etc.," says Huwiler. Huwiler is therefore certain that "hybrid and possibly also performance-oriented models will follow" as the advertising market and technical possibilities develop.
Eye candy premium
Simply displaying conventional print products more or less elegantly on mobile screens is reminiscent of the time of the first automobiles, which for a long time still looked like horse-drawn carriages. Smartphones and flat computers are independent media genres that are characterized by a special user behavior and therefore only come into their own with products that are designed appropriately for the media and are consistently accepted by consumers in the long term. In this supreme discipline, which exploits the potential of the tablet PC, text, image and video, illustration and animation are orchestrated into a multimedia firework display. According to Huwiler, this is where Ringier is heading: "When deciding between speed and quality, we decided to pay special attention to the aspect of innovation." Ringier has clearly spoken out in favor of a leading role in the entertainment business (concerts, radio, television, ticketing, etc.) and in the digital business in general, and it is "to be expected that we will have corresponding offers ready here", with which we will "also open up new markets". This assessment is shared by Christoph Zimmer at Tamedia: "We expect that not only the existing brands will appear on the iPad, but that new content will also emerge thanks to this innovative platform." And at NZZ, Peter Hogenkamp reveals that a second iPad app with additional functions is planned for the end of the year, "but I can't say anything about it yet". Meanwhile in the USA, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, head of News Corp, is planning a national digital daily newspaper, which could launch as early as the end of the year according to media reports. The paid-for service is aimed at users of tablet computers such as Apple's iPad and aims to attract a younger audience in particular for paid content with short, brash articles. And in order to be better equipped for the emerging competition for the news business on cell phones and tablets, USA Today announced a far-reaching reorganization at the end of August, shifting resources away from print and towards digital products.
Will paid apps on smartphones and tablet PCs become the long-awaited savior of the publishing industry in the online world? According to the participants in the WW Online survey on this topic, it will take two to three years before apps on mobile devices can generate profits in the German-speaking Swiss reader market. The following theses show that the path to this goal will be quite bumpy.
Cannibalization
Anyone who reads a newspaper or magazine on the iPad will soon discontinue their print subscription. Publishers are aware of this, as Tamedia-Zimmer confirms: "Strong growth in paid iApps will have a negative impact on newspaper subscriptions." However, the most important goal remains "that we reach our readers and that they are perhaps prepared to pay for particularly good content in a next step". Huwiler expresses a similar view: "We will play our brands on all relevant channels and do not see this as a cannibalization of our own titles."
Cut-throat competition
Apple's App Store, Google's Android Market, but also Nokia's Ovi portal, BlackBerry App World, Palm and Windows Marketplace as well as independent, cross-platform sales sites for apps: they are all virtually endless kiosks on the Internet. This increases freedom of choice: consumers can stock up on reading and entertainment material anytime and anywhere - and often spontaneously - rather than having to go to a physical kiosk. The (finite) attention of customers is vied for primarily through falling retail prices. There is a great danger that this will cause the price structure to slip across the industry. A cautious approach to pricing can currently be observed, especially with offers close to the established print prices.
Loss of range
When is a reader worth more: when they pay for the product themselves or when their attention is passed on to advertisers? Because if consumers switch to the paid offers on the Internet, their attention is lost to the free websites, thus reducing their reach for advertising. That would be the devil beaten out of them: If the new money from readers is not enough to compensate for the loss of revenue due to dwindling reach in the advertising market. There are developments in both directions: Advertising is tolerated with free offers; if readers pay for the product themselves, they will at best still accept visually high-quality advertising that is not perceived as annoying but as entertaining. Conversely, owners of smartphones or tablet PCs seem to spend money effortlessly on subscriptions, apps, games and other types of entertainment.
Foreigners win
The shrinking mini-media markets in Switzerland are too small to finance expenses for special editorial productions in the sense of the supreme discipline. Take Iconist, for example: for this digital magazine about style, culture and society with opulent photo spreads and videos, the German Springer publishing house employs a team of around 20 people to highlight a different focus in 15 stories every quarter. Because offers from major foreign providers are better made and easily accessible via the newsstands on the Internet, even more money from advertising and consumer budgets will flow abroad with the apps. Advertising windows from abroad, which currently account for around 30 percent of the TV market, are likely to spoil the apps' appeal for domestic publishers.
Pressure under pressure
It is an obvious prediction that the success of the iPad and its ilk will come at the expense of printed products. However, this will only have an impact in the medium and long term, depending on how quickly eReaders are used by the masses.
Cooperation
Codex is the name of the project in which representatives from Swisscom, Edipresse, NZZ, Ringier, Tamedia and the Orell Füssli bookstore have joined forces to explore the eReader market in Switzerland. At the end of July, a test lasting several weeks was carried out with around 150 customers. The aim was to obtain customer feedback, learn about technical challenges and clarify what possible future payment models with digital media and reading content could look like. The consortium partners will decide on the next steps in the coming days. As competition in both devices and app stores is set to increase significantly in the near future, the Codex ideas of a common range of devices and a central platform for digital content are hardly realistic. On the other hand, an American study (A New Digital Future for Publishers) with 1800 test customers is likely to be informative: among other things, it advises publishers to cooperate with each other in order to exploit cross-selling opportunities and with device providers so that the corresponding app is already pre-installed when the purchase is made. In other words, a general subscription app for access to all publishing offers. Are we ready for this?
Christoph J. Walther

Since her first appearance in the Migros TV commercials in 2009, Chocolate the chicken has quickly become an acclaimed star. This popularity is currently being used to great advertising effect in a new film "The Return of the Chicken". In a self-developed egg-laying game, Jung von Matt shows how Chocalate, despite her fame, "has remained a completely normal chicken", as CD Michael Rottmann says. Together with the four white hens Regina, Lucia, Iris and Anna, the brown darling lives for four weeks in a chicken coop near Bern - watched by five live-stream webcams. The flock of chickens does nothing different than usual: scratching, pecking, flapping around and laying. And this is "not the rabbit in the pepper, but the egg in the nest", as copywriters Thomas Engeli and Christian Schnellmann explain. In this live prediction game, players have to guess every day which hen will lay an egg first. With the right predictions and a little luck, prizes with a total value of over 15,000 francs can be taken from the nest. You can also guess the exact time at which Chocolate will release her daily contribution to Migros. Players can follow what is happening in the coop at any time via the live cams and cheer on whether the chickens stick to their predictions. The exact time of laying is recorded using RFID technology, which registers exactly when an egg slides out of the nest box. The online game is filmed in a barn at a Migros delivery company. The henhouse is used for presentation and training purposes and has only been slightly adapted for the prediction game. pan

I have already written twice. I'm still waiting for an answer! Every day, people seeking advice who are not taken seriously vent to the Observer. Others feel that they are being treated like a joke by impersonal standard letters. "The reply only contains empty phrases, my actual problem is not addressed at all." The anger is understandable. Many companies pay too little attention to their dissatisfied customers. In a well-managed company, complaints should be a matter for the boss. Most customers would rather change providers after a disappointment than complain. And if dissatisfied customers leave, they will pass on their frustration. Good complaint management is the best customer advertising. And the cheapest.
Read through twice
Read through every complaint letter twice. What has disappointed or annoyed the customer? What does he expect from you? Respond to complaints immediately. Inform your customer if clarifications are in progress. Above all, do not delegate this task to subordinates.
When you reply in writing, use natural language that is adapted to the customer. Avoid foreign words and technical jargon and explain processes and content clearly and comprehensibly. This is the only way to gain trust. Think about the solution before writing. What could you offer your customer? Complaints are not always justified. Nevertheless, question your actions. Respond to criticism, even if it seems unjustified (for example: "We will take your feedback as an opportunity to reconsider the wording in our General Terms and Conditions"). In this way, you show your customer that you have considered their concerns.
Pick up the phone in particularly difficult situations. A letter is usually unnecessary after the conversation. Always end your response to a complaint with a forward-looking, positive conclusion, for example by giving your customer a tip or informing them of a new offer.
You should not respond to complaints in this way:
- Don't make excuses, don't play internal departments off against each other and don't play small in front of your customer.
- Do not delegate the answering of a complaint to subordinates.
- Never weaken a customer's response ("no complaints have been received except yours").
- Do not treat complaints as a "case". Not: "...in your case, clarification has shown that ....", but "We have forwarded your complaint to our sales partner. He replied that ..."
- Never refer your customers to suppliers. As a contractual partner, you are the point of contact for your customers.
Examples:
Reminders
Dear Mr. Fix
Thank you very much for your letter of November 19.
I will personally check with our accounting department to find out why you keep receiving reminders even though the invoice has been paid.
I apologize for your inconvenience.
Kind regards
Unauthorized reminder
Dear Mr. Kundert
Thank you very much for your letter of February 14, in which you describe your annoyance. Thank you for your openness and your clear words.
I apologize for the unjustified reminders you have received and for the unfriendly treatment by my employee on the phone.
Of course, I have personally made sure that the payment has now been debited correctly and that the dunning procedure has been stopped.
Please let me know the next time you are in our area. I would love to invite you for a coffee. I would also take the opportunity to give you a sample range of our new products to try out.
Best regards
Book tip
"Professioneller schreiben", 180 letter and contract templates for everyday business in Switzerland, the new business reference book for Swiss SMEs and for the home office, Beobachter-Buchverlag, 320 pages including CD Rom, CHF 58.-, ISBN 978 3 85569 421 1.
Do you need legal advice?
The Beobachter Consulting Center offers you and your employees expert advice by telephone on legal issues concerning your company - 6 months for only Fr. 99.-. Order the consulting package for SMEs at
Observer.ch/kmu/ or 0800 83 0800.

This is a Test

Eylem Cengiz is the new Key Account Manager for PCtipp.ch and DigitalLiving.ch. She takes over immediately from Kurt Strebel, who has decided to leave the company after thirteen years with IDG. Eylem Cengiz worked for several years as a sales consultant at Christinger Partner and is now looking forward to bringing her affinity for IT, consumer electronics and online and offline media to bear within IDG's product range. Eylem Cengiz is a trained typeface and advertising designer and has completed training as a sales specialist.

Nicola Delis took up the newly created position of Account Manager Online at the beginning of August. Delis previously worked in sales at Digital XPress and most recently at Swissclick. Delis is a graduate of the Google Search Advertising Fundamentals Exam.
Werner Ortler (Key Account Manager Computerworld - Print, Online & Events), Christoph Mayer (Advertising Sales), Daniel Frey (Head Sales Support) and Leonardo Rapisarda (Sales Support) will continue in their current roles.

When Markus Gut talks about a "big box", he is talking about more than just the now well-known use of all cross-media resources. "With Audi, our Exxtra Communications has won one of the most interesting budgets in Switzerland," says the CCO of the Y&R Group. The contract will cover all communication over the next few years: classic, digital, sponsoring, POS and direct. After winning the pitch in the summer, Exxtra produced the first commercial just a few weeks later. Around the World Cup in South Africa, the creatives staged the claim "Vorsprung durch Technik" with the stars of the Swiss national football team. The tricky film marked the start of Audi's partnership with the Swiss Football Association at prime time. The long-standing claim and brand essence is a steep template from the Audi parent company in Ingolstadt. However, Markus Gut promises that the Zurich creatives have a "free hand" for all the ideas around it. He modifies the claim "Vorsprung durch Know-how" a little to explain why Exxtra won the budget. "We can draw on all the necessary specialists in-house."
The specifications are an exciting challenge. Audi's international advertising is known for the "world's best brand management". The product itself is positioned as "the most progressive premium brand", as Head of Marketing Erich Hunold and Advertising Coordinator Barbara Wernli at Audi know.
"Sporty, high-quality and progressive" are the brand values that are to be incorporated into all Exxtra measures, explains Managing Director Susan Baumgartner at Exxtra. Audi's high-quality image is reflected in a correspondingly clear "pure & clean" visual style. This stylizes the products into icons. The brand values of "sporty" and "progressive" are also illustrated with an asymmetrical design.
Another ingenious idea for the Audi A5 demonstrated this back in mid-August. To whet fans' appetite for driving a convertible, Exxtra developed a three-part prism poster for Audi in collaboration with Detail Bildbearbeitung. In "real time", as Marketing Director Erich Hunold assures us, the moving poster shows the opening process of the convertible top. Over the course of the three image phases, the Audi transforms from high-necked to topless in 15 seconds.
The Audi R8 GT is launched at the beginning of 2011. What makes it special, apart from its 560 hp, is that the elegant speedster is strictly limited. There are just 333 vehicles worldwide, and only 15 will be available in Switzerland. Anyone who wants to drive such an exclusive car has to "apply" to Audi. A special selection process then decides who gets to buy one of these rare cars. It goes without saying that the mailing could not look cheap. The Exxtra team around AD Benny Goldstein designed a six-page folder with high-quality photo prints. The pictures of the powerful R8 GT have been integrated into the brochure by hand, just like in a private photo album. If you take out the photos, you can read the advertising underneath.
Currently on display is a cross-media campaign for the launch of the A1. This model is set to shake up the small car segment in the future. In order to target the young audience, Exxtra has launched the online game "1 against 500", in which you can win an Audi A1. A campaign with ambassadors is still in the Exxtra gift cabinet. These prominent Audi drivers were photographed by Stephan Schacher. As with numerous subjects for Audi, the argument here is also without the crude depiction of a car.
Over the next few years, Exxtra will focus on 360° customer relationship management, the style-defining communication presence, the brand experience at the POS and website maintenance for Audi.
Andreas Panzeri