"Choose Italy for your vacation, because Italy is a unique country with sky, sun, sea, but also with history, culture and art. Italy is a unique country that you have yet to discover," says Berlusconi in the commercial, accompanied by incredibly emotional music. But see and hear for yourself:

It remains to be seen whether it is a little late for the spot and many Italians have already made their vacation plans. If the success is limited, it certainly can't be down to the commercial. Berlusconi is really trying hard. But he can't compete with Adolf Ogi. How he was able to sell the product "Switzerland"...

Olaf Kuhlmann has been working for Auto Zeitung in Cologne since 1995 as head of the editorial department and since 2004 also as managing editor. In this role, the 43-year-old has overseen the launch of various special publications and the development of Auto Zeitung Online. At the same time, the graduate engineer in media technology worked conceptually and editorially for other mobility publications also published by the Bauer Media Group. Olaf Kuhlmann succeeds Pierre-André Schmitt, who left Automobil Revue and Revue Automobile at the end of May. Until Olaf Kuhlmann joins, the editorial team will be managed on an interim basis by Deputy Editor-in-Chief Martin Schatzmann.

Both Grasshopper Club Zurich and the Vontobel Group are deeply rooted in Zurich, commented Peter Fanconi, Head of Private Banking at the Vontobel Group, on the new partnership. Details of the partnership will be announced at a media conference on July 16, 2010 at the start of the season.

This brings a lengthy concession procedure to an end. The city government had already put the concession out to tender last September, but canceled it in the winter following an objection from CCO. The US company had argued that the short duration of the concession procedure favored APG. At the second attempt, APG was awarded the contract after all. It will pay the City of Bern an annual flat-rate fee of around CHF 1.4 million from 2011 to 2013. This is only CHF 100,000 more than before.
The tendering process was significantly influenced by the difficult economic situation, the municipal council announced on Wednesday. This was also reflected in the bids submitted. From 2014, the amount of the levy will depend on APG's annual turnover, as the new concession also stipulates. The municipal council hopes that it will be able to benefit from any improvement in the economic situation. The concession is also linked to free services to be provided by APG. These include large-scale cultural posters as well as official and political posters.
CCO, which was unsuccessful in the licensing procedure, has decided not to appeal the municipal council's decision to the regional governor's office. This was stated by CCO spokesperson Verena Durrer at the request of the SDA news agency.

As the new Assai CEO, Guido Wietlisbach will also become a member of Wirz Group Management and a partner of the Wirz Group. Wietlisbach founded his own agency in 1994, which he ran from 2000 under the Ogilvy One brand. In 2008, he sold his majority shareholding to the international Ogilvy network and contributed his expertise to a start-up company in the automotive marketing internet sector. Guido Wietlisbach has been a jury member at various competitions such as Cannes Direct Lions, Swiss Effie, German and Austrian Dialog Marketing Awards and has chaired the jury of the Swiss Dialog Marketing Award since 2008.
Under his leadership, Assai will increasingly distinguish itself as a modern dialog agency. "For me, dialog marketing is an attitude and not a channel-specific technique," Guido Wietlisbach is quoted as saying in a press release. Assai offers the starting point for abandoning the conventional way of thinking and realizing a new agency offering that no longer differentiates between channels, between old and new, online and offline, but is oriented solely towards the solution for achieving better marketing and communication effects.

A first interim conclusion is sobering, the person in charge of the department for radio and television at Bakom, Matthias Ramsauer, stated to the media on Wednesday. 23 of the 37 broadcasters that have now been inspected do not meet the requirements. For nine of the total of 13 local television stations and 45 local radio stations that had received broadcasting licenses from the federal government in 2007 and 2008, there was no quality assurance system at all. This means that there are "no goals, no strategy, no regulation of work, roles or responsibilities" in the editorial departments concerned. At another 14, only "elements" of a quality control system were in place.

Too few journalists, no strategy for training
In many places, the editorial offices are understaffed. As a result, journalists do not have enough time for planning, researching and proofreading news. Often, the recommended ratio of 3 to 1 between professional journalists and trainees is not observed in the editorial offices. In addition, many newsrooms do not have a strategy for the training and continuing education of their program staff. It was strikingly often the impression that the contributions were made rather randomly and without a concrete wish to make a statement, Ramsauer continued. Only 14 editorial offices met the requirements for such internal quality management. The final results of the study, which will be conducted by external experts, are to be published at the end of the year.
Bakom is now seeking talks with those at fault, whose names it does not yet want to disclose. "If we find any signs of serious recalcitrance there, we will not shy away from publishing the names," Ramsauer said. As a sanction, fees could be lowered, Bakom Director Martin Dumermuth said: "In the end, the license can be withdrawn. But from our point of view, that is only the last resort."

Private radio stations fight back
The Association of Swiss Private Radio Stations (VSP) objects to the Bakom presentation. It was generally too early to make a differentiated comment on the results of the quality analysis of programs, as these were interim results. In a communiqué, however, the VSP criticized three points in particular: First, the statements of the most important stakeholder group, the listeners, were not included in the quality discussion. Secondly, the "financial superiority of the SRG" was damaging private radio stations. Deficiencies in quality were often due to the fact that private radio stations in Switzerland had relatively few commercial resources at their disposal. Regarding the accusation that there are relatively too many trainees employed by the stations, the association says: the private radio stations are the "radio school of Switzerland par excellence". For many years, the VSP has attached great importance to training and further education. To this end, it works closely with the MAZ School of Journalism in Lucerne.

Thierry Furrer will be working in Zurich. Initially, he will form a management team with Marcel Siegenthaler. Siegenthaler, the current manager, will retire from professional activities at the end of the year. Furrer will succeed Siegenthaler on January 1, 2011. The 40-year-old Furrer, who is bilingual, attended a hotel management school and rounded off his profile with commercial training. At the beginning of his career, he held a number of positions in the hotel industry. In 2001, he joined Ringier Romandie as Key Account Manager in charge of advertising sales for the publisher's magazines. In 2006, he was put in charge of the German-speaking Swiss market. Since then he has worked in Zofingen.

The Zurich-based agency will be responsible for a new brand image for the major Zurich fashion house from August. The new image campaign will be on display from the end of August.

The companies are joint ventures between the two companies. Publigroupe owns 51 percent of PubliDirect/LTV Yellow Pages, while Swisscom holds a majority stake in Swisscom Directories. In addition to growth, the companies expect significant cost and development synergies from the intensified cooperation and the planned joint management, according to the joint press release issued on Wednesday. The Competition Commission (ComCo) still has to approve the measure.
The ownership structure and the consolidation methods used for the joint venture companies will not change. The market for printed and online/mobile retrievable directories and search applications (Search&Find) is developing rapidly in terms of technology, according to the partners. They are also observing increasing national and international competition.

The result of this collaboration will soon be on display. This was announced by the advertisers on Wednesday evening.

Responsible at Pfister: Carlos Friedrich (Marketing Manager), Roland Flückiger (Catalog Production Manager), Baba Stauffer (Art Buying/Art Consulting).

True to the motto "Long live different", the Unicyclist Cedric represents the "Rivellutionäre" in another edition of "Best of Werbewoche".
You can see everything about the filming exclusively in the "Best of Werbewoche" on Star TV or stream it at any time on Startv.ch.

The advertising week on Star TV: New every Thursday at 19:45.

The study shows the total income of the Swiss media industry: on the one hand, user expenditure on content, access and hardware for media consumption was surveyed and, on the other, the results of the Swiss advertising statistics were taken into account. According to the survey, a private household spent an average of CHF 2,918 on media consumption in 2009. Compared to previous years, the level was maintained. While expenditure on Internet downloads fell by around 10 percent in 2008, the increase in 2009 amounted to 18 percent and a nominal CHF 235 million. Expenditure on the printed press fell by around 1 percent to CHF 1.7 billion. According to the association, it was not possible to analyze the extent to which there was a shift from the printed to the digital press in this study.
The industry was hit hard by the 15.1% drop in advertising revenue to CHF 2.8 billion. It has not yet been possible to compensate for this with commercial communication on digital platforms: On the one hand, because tariffs there have slumped again at a low level, and on the other because advertising revenue went directly to the providers of search engines and other platforms.

Investing in innovation: Multimedia offerings
Media executives who took part in a survey conducted by the Swiss Press Association on media trends are focusing on the development of digital platforms and the intensification of customer relationships in both the advertising and user markets. The media companies are once again more optimistic about the future. The uncertainty caused by the crisis is increasingly giving way to the self-confidence that every type of technical carrier media is dependent on professional journalistic content, the report continues. The willingness to invest in innovation is high: cost-cutting is no longer the first priority. It is now a matter of positioning traditional media brands with quality content in the digital world.
On the whole, Hanspeter Lebrument, President of the Swiss Press Association, expressed his satisfaction with the state of the industry on Wednesday. Contrary to all forecasts, he said, the industry closed last year better overall than in 2008, although for the first time the press sector had declined somewhat more than in previous years. "We are facing difficult times, but it is wrong to speak of a crisis," emphasized Lebrument. With the exception of free newspapers, not a single title was lost in 2009. Apart from a few changes in ownership, the press landscape has not been this quiet for a long time.