Shared suffering is not necessarily half suffering: when someone close to us is seriously ill, it can also make us ill. However, family, friends and relatives of the seriously ill are often forgotten in the concern for the sick person. The new commercial produced by Wirz Werbung for Interpharma, the association of research-based pharmaceutical companies in Switzerland, and Vips, the association of pharmaceutical companies in Switzerland, focuses the camera on some of these forgotten people: Wife, daughter and son. Without words, carried only by music, the viewer witnesses scenes of grief and despair surrounding a sick person and - if he or she does not lose all empathy - is transformed from viewer to sympathizer within seconds.
Medicines relieve pain. With effective medication, even serious illnesses such as diabetes can be brought under control. As a result, patients can often live an almost normal life - and so can their relatives. However, effective medicines can only be bought if pharmaceutical companies carry out targeted research. Companies like those that are members of the Interpharma and Vips associations.
And that's exactly what the touching commercial wants to tell us: "A serious illness doesn't affect us alone. That's why we do research," says the fade-in at the end. Pharmaceutical research therefore not only serves sick people, but also focuses on those who deal with the sick. Who could question its usefulness?
Anne-Friederike Wilhelm
> To the spot

Actually, we suspected it: sport is not healthy and, let this melt in your mouth, is detrimental to our work-life balance. If that's not a great joy to hear SAM headhunter Moritz Nauer announce so soon after Christmas. So we can casually swing our lifebelts past the gyms that want to fight our pounds with percentages. Unless, of course, we aim high.
Excessive sporting activity is the result of "health mania conveyed by the media", says Nauer. Top managers in particular fall victim to this. Here we go again: evil evil media, evil evil advertising. And oops: snowboarding schloter, ice hockey player Merz and skier Vasella are in great danger! Honestly: do you think that glorious and stupid CEOs and CFOs are concerned with their feel-good balance sheet when they go out for sport? You can just about accept that they work up a sweat. But above all, top managers need to show other people - preferably when they are looking. In the office, in their marriage, with their children and in their spare time. After twelve hours of management, a mature executive simply needs another hour of training. If he is good. Because if you don't get down regularly, you might not be able to get back up soon. Think about this the next time you go jogging.

Flop of the week 1: Swiss companies are "social media grouches"
The PR agency Burson-Marsteller Switzerland has published a study on the use of social media platforms by SMI companies. The result: in contrast to US companies, Swiss companies make little use of social media for corporate communications.
The study entitled "How SMI companies use social media" analyzes which of the companies use Facebook pages and groups, Twitter profiles or blogs for corporate communications. Only 30 percent of the SMI companies surveyed use one or more social media platforms, while, according to a study by Burson-Marsteller USA, 60 percent of Fortune 100 companies already use Twitter, Facebook or blogs strategically to achieve their communication goals. Those SMI companies that already use social media platforms primarily use these channels to disseminate information. "The companies publish news and campaigns in classic push mode and are therefore still barely exploiting the dialog potential of social media platforms," says Daniel Jörg, Head of Burson-Marsteller Crossmedia.
Flop of the week 2: Advertising revenues down by a fifth in 2009
After advertising revenues fell by six percent in 2008, the Swiss press earned a good fifth less from advertising in 2009. Income still amounted to CHF 1.59 billion last year. The decline mainly affected the financial and business press as well as the Sunday press. The volume of job advertisements shrank particularly sharply last year. According to Wemf AG für Werbemedienforschung, revenues fell by a good 45 percent to CHF 167.6 million. Commercial advertisements fell by 16 percent to 1.25 billion Swiss francs. Real estate ads were placed around a fifth less (CHF 63.8 million) and publishers took in almost 12 percent less with brochure inserts (CHF 107 million). The financial and business press and the Sunday press were hit particularly hard, with advertising revenues falling by around 30 percent in each case. Revenues in the daily press and the general press each fell by around a fifth. The trade press (-16.5 percent) and the specialty press (-8.8 percent) recorded less severe losses. Only the regional weekly press was able to practically maintain the previous year's level.

The advertisements focus on the new design, while special posters dramatize the load capacity of the estate and position the E-Class as a family saloon. In the TV commercial, the focus is on the new Airmatic air suspension, which is so soft that hardly any jolts are noticeable in the car. A level of comfort that is unlikely to appeal to young parents - after all, the shaking and rocking of the car is one of the best ways to get babies to sleep.

> To the spot

Responsible at Mercedes-Benz: Doris Lengwiler (Head of Marketing Communications). Responsible at Jung von Matt/Limmat: Michael Rottmann, Alexander Jaggy (CD), Patrick Beeli, Fernando Perez (AD), Samuel Wicki, Livio Dainese (text), Ariel Zumstein (graphics), Ilonka Galliard (agency producer), Thomas Hinderling, Angela van der Sman (consulting), Michael Saxer (camera), Lukas Gähwiler (editing), Jingle Jungle (sound design).

Media consumption is changing dramatically, as is the advertising impact of individual media and advertising media. Cross-media is the magic word for cross-media communication. The new imageRUNNER-¬ADVANCE series includes models that can be used by companies and agencies as a tool for the successful implementation of cross-media campaigns. Developed to meet the increasing demands of today's business environments, the systems help companies to become more efficient through easier integration of their document workflows, lower operating costs, improved document security and greater environmental compatibility.
imageRUNNER ADVANCE automates paper-intensive document processes and optimizes document-based communication. For example, the new print platform enables the printing of personalized print products that are part of cross-media campaigns. The provision of a selection of new file formats based on user requirements, such as Office Open XML or Adobe® PDF, also simplifies work with printed documents and the saving of documents for long-term archiving.
Canon (Switzerland) AG
Susanne Frei
Industriestrasse 12
8305 Dietlikon
Phone +41 44 835 66 61
Fax +41 44 835 64 26
[email protected], www.canon.ch

In terms of awareness, Migros« two campaigns for »Total Minimax« and »Naturgemäss« rank ahead of Swisscom’s »Outsourcing« campaign. In terms of »Uniqueness,« Swissmilk’s »Lovely” campaign comes out on top, ahead of McDonald’s “Grüsel” ad and the ad for David Gym. Swissmilk’s “Lovely” campaign also tops the “Brand Fit” category, followed by the Ovomaltine Choco Crunch ads and an ad for Swiss meat. “Lovely” also takes first place in the “Likeability” category, followed by the “Suvaliv” campaign and McDonald’s “Grüsel” poster.
> Results

Question and methodology
Method: Computer Assisted Web Interviews (CAWI).
Instrument: Online interviews via the Marketagent.com reSEARCH platform.
Target group: web-active people from German-speaking Switzerland between the ages of 14 and 59.
Sample size: n = 500 net interviews per wave, random selection by quota.
Survey period: March 23, 2009 – November 25, 2009.
Questions:
- We introduced you to some ads at the beginning of today's survey.
Which of these ads do you remember? Please name the advertising companies or the brands advertised. (Awareness)
- In your opinion, to what extent do these ads stand out from other advertising in newspapers, magazines and journals? Please rate each from 1 (= lifts
does not stand out at all) to 6 (= stands out very strongly). (Uniqueness)
- To what extent do these ads fit the image you have of the respective brands/companies? Please rate each from 1 (= does not fit my image of this brand at all) to 6 (= fits my image of this brand very well). (Brand Fit)
- To what extent do you like the following ads? Please rate each from
1 (= I do not like at all) to 6 (= I like very much). (Likeability)
The values printed are in each case the top box ratings "stands out very strongly", "fits very well with my image of the brand", "I like it very much".
The author of the representative study «Switzerland’s Favorite Advertisements» is Marketagent.com Switzerland, a company specializing in online market research that has a registered panel of 20,000 respondents in German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland. Marketagent.com Switzerland is a subsidiary of the leading Austrian market research company Marketagent.com online reSEARCH GmbH and the Swiss communications agency Contract Media AG.

Rolando Baron discussed the economics of attention, the bursting of the advertising bubble and new approaches to marketing with Jean Etienne Aebi. The first part of the interview is now available on Blog.buerobaron.ch to see. Together with Claudia Nielson, Büro Baron has developed the following idea: Anyone can invite the Zurich city council candidate to their home and talk to the SP politician about the issues that are burning under their nails. The only condition - the host has to cook something delicious.

He repositioned Parisienne, launched various Axe and Rexona fragrances for Unilever, brought the X-box games console to Switzerland, launched Feldschlösschen's Cardinal Draft as a beer for young people, and launched Lipton Linea.
General Motors, Coca-Cola, McGregor, Microsoft, Nestlé, Japan Tobacco International and Unilever regularly rely on his intuition. Because Joko Vogel (40) is able to empathize with investors and gamers, skaters and fitness queens, hobby chefs and snowboarders, fashion freaks and those with a sweet tooth. When Vogel wants to get buyers excited about a brand or product, he doesn't sort them into the classic marketing pigeonholes, but looks at which scenes they move in: "People can't be segmented by age, income and place of residence," says the marketing specialist. "For example, if you want to sell something to seniors, you're spoiled for choice: Do you appeal to hiking enthusiasts or jassers, culture fetishists or golfers, millionaires or model train fans? They all belong to the same age group, but have very different interests. That's why you have to communicate with them in a scene-specific way." That's exactly what Vogel scene marketing does: The agency tailors its below-the-line
marketing measures to the wishes and needs of scene members.
Scene applause guaranteed
Most customers who commission Vogel Szenenmarketing want to launch a new product or give an already introduced one a sales kick. The brand already has a face and is aimed at a defined target group that has so far been addressed via classic communication channels. Vogel then takes a close look at the target group and segments it further into relevant scenes. "We consider for which scenes the product would be interesting at all and whether the brand fits these scenes. Scenes always have a theme, so golf, electronic or something similar. We try to integrate the brand into the scene via that theme."
An example: In 2007, Unilever approached Vogel Szenenmarketing with the request to launch the Axe shower gel "Shock" at young men between 17 and 25 years. For men in this age group, cars are a central theme, so Vogel came up with the idea of targeting the scene of car freaks and tuners: In the "Axe pimps you up" campaign, young men could either win a new car, or a tune-up of their favorite on four wheels. To do so, their vehicle had to be voted the ugliest car in Switzerland. At relevant scene meeting points such as car washes, gas stations, rest stops, parking lots, parking garages, shopping malls and at car shows, cheekily styled Axe promo girls approached vehicle drivers, informed them about the campaign and handed out samples of the shower gel from a freezer. Those who wanted to take part in the campaign were given a sticker with a PIN stuck on their vehicle. In addition, the promo girls photographed the car and recorded the coordinates of the driver. The data about the participating vehicles were published on the website belonging to the action. On the Internet, participants had the opportunity to invite their friends to vote for their car, and it was also possible to follow the route of the promo girls online. Unilever also ran an online campaign to accompany the promotion. The promotion ran for three weeks in four Swiss regions. Then the ugliest car could be chosen by entering the PIN on the Internet or by cell phone. The owner won a car makeover, and the new car was raffled off among all participants. A film in the style of "Pimp my ride", broadcast on MTV and TV M3, documented the transformation of the ugliest car. As a grand finale, Vogel organized an Axe party during the Auto Tuning Fair in Bern, to which all participants and voters were invited. The launch of the shower gel was a complete success: it boosted Unilever's sales, and many media outlets reported on the campaign. No wonder Unilever has been relying on Vogel scene marketing for more than ten years.
Long breath important
If scene marketing is to work, you need patience. "You don't create credibility and acceptance in a scene with a snap of your fingers," Vogel emphasizes. "You have to give it a little time and build up a relationship of trust with the scene members. Scene members don't want a brand that just throws money around. They only accept a company that engages with the scene, takes an honest interest in it and is committed. If that's the case, the company will also be successful." And sustainable success: Because once a brand or product is part of a scene, it's hard to imagine it without. Members of the scene are very loyal consumers.
Joko Vogel currently has several exciting projects under his wing: With his help, for example, Swiss Olympic is tackling the volunteer scene. Vogel is also working on a concept for an energy drink that is intended to hold its own alongside Red Bull without occupying the same scenes. To find the right target groups for the drink, Vogel invited representatives of a wide variety of scenes to a roundtable and interviewed them together with his client. "We wanted to know what makes people tick, which brands are already present in their scene and are considered innovative, and who the opinion leaders are in the respective scenes," Vogel describes his approach. "Scene representatives can tell you exactly what a company needs to do to be successful in their scene. For example, one skater told us they needed someone to build them ramps. Skaters would have no problem with a supporting company's logo on the ramp. After all, the company helps them live their sport." Currently, Vogel is organizing a second roundtable on the same topic, but on an international level. It is important to the marketing professional that his customer is present at all these discussions. This is the only way he can get a feel for how to successfully integrate his brand into one or more scenes.
Score with professional partners
Joko Vogel is well networked. If necessary, he integrates specialized partners into his projects, be they PR experts, online marketers, event organizers or specialists in classic communications. "This way, my customers really only pay for the services they use," he emphasizes. Vogel Szenenmarketing is currently the only Swiss agency that can demonstrate broad experience in scene marketing. "In the meantime, however, large classic agencies are also trying to offer scene marketing," says Vogel. "We welcome that, because this development raises awareness among companies of how relevant scenes are." Incidentally, scene marketing is not just an issue for liquid large companies. A foundation, a small TV station or a specialized bookstore can also target their scene. Vogel: "Scene marketing has no limits. After all, we work with emotions, and almost any topic can be emotionally charged. With that, you can attract attention and interest scene or daily media without it having to cost a lot. What matters is the idea."
Constantly independent
Joko Vogel was born in Zurich. As a boy, he dreamed of becoming a veterinarian - while his parents dreamed of him taking over their pharmacy. But their offspring decided early on to go his own way. "By the age of 16 at the latest, it was clear to me that I wanted to be my own boss one day," he recalls. After finishing commercial high school, he worked for two years in a small trading company in Rüschlikon before founding a beer import company at the age of 23. In 1997, Vogel sells the beer import company to his best customer. From 1993 to 1996, as founder and president of BEX AG, he organizes the BEX beer fair every year at the Kongresshalle in Zurich. In parallel, he works as a consumer development manager at British American Tobacco until 1998. In the summer of 1997, Vogel founded SOS & Vogel Gastro AG and opened the Kantorei restaurant in Zurich's Niederdorf district. In the fall of 2003, SOS & Vogel Hotel AG added the Plattenhof design hotel in Zurich.
But Vogel is far from done with founding companies: In 1998 he opens Vogel Szenenmarketing, in 2000 Eye Media, an agency for digital media, in 2001 ID Event AG and in 2004 the PR agency Primeur. At the beginning of the year, Vogel merged his companies with the promotion agency Fastbreak to form the agency association Compresso. Compresso's clients now get above- and below-the-line marketing from a single source under this umbrella, from PR, promotions and media planning to events, online and scene marketing. "Compresso is set to become Switzerland's one-stop shop for scene marketing," says Vogel, outlining his plans for the next three years.
In his free time, Joko Vogel indulges in sports: he plays soccer and ice hockey, snowboards and races bikes, and toils in triathlons. And he is part of the organizing committee of the "Tortour", Switzerland's first non-stop cycling race lasting several days. Every year in August, the route leads from Neuhausen am Rheinfall to Neuhausen am Rheinfall - once around Switzerland. For the approximately 1,000 km and 15,000 meters of altitude, individual riders and teams sit in the saddle for about two days. It is clear that Vogel will be part of the six-man Compresso team in 2010, competing not only against world-class cyclists but also against teams from the NZZ, Swisscom, the Zurich city police, IWC, TUI and Mercedes. It is not unlikely that one or the other future Compresso customer will be among the competitors on the bike. Sport connects. And pedaling is always worthwhile.
Anne-Friederike Wilhelm

According to Google between the lines, Chinese hackers had hacked into various servers of major American companies in the service of the state and snooped for company data and dissident information. And that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Google is no longer prepared to censor its own search engine in China. Boom!
No sooner said than done: Chinese people who google "Tiananmen" after January 12 don't see pretty girls strolling across a cleanly swept square, they see the man in front of the tank. Google fans bring flowers to the Chinese headquarters. The story of Google giving the Chinese government the middle finger explodes all over the Internet.
George Kurtz, CTO of McAfee, one of the major antivirus program manufacturers, confirmed a few days later that the hacker story was true. Chinese hackers had indeed exploited a leak in Internet Explorer to sneak into the tasty servers of Google, Adobe & Co. via the back door.
Google knows what Google does
Well, no one doubts that the story is true. Industrial and political espionage in the form of hacker attacks by the Chinese government is nothing new. It's all in the Ghostnet report (which is referenced twice in the Google blog post). Everyone knows that the Chinese government is stalking its own dissidents everywhere. The blog text was massaged for weeks until it was in its current form. If you assume that Google knows what Google is doing, then you can assume that everything in the document is factually correct. If you assume that Google doesn't know what Google does, then you don't know who Google is.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Sergey Brin, who grew up in Russia, is behind this unconventional move. Google co-founder Brin prevailed over CEO Schmidt after intense debate. And like almost everything Google does, it is very likely to work:
1. google is establishing itself as a fighter for freedom of expression and human rights.
2) Google stands up to China and is the first Western company to bang its fist on the table.
3 Google puts governments that fight against the company in the Chinese corner.
4 Google distracts for some time from the looming Google Phone debacle.
5 Google is refurbishing its own brand, which has become increasingly dubious from a consumer perspective, as the trustworthy, safe, popular one.
6 Google is again the "other" company.
7. the buck stops with Microsoft because once again it has to take the rap for a huge blunder with its Internet Explorer and because everything they do in China is now wrong (unless they follow Google).
Robert Scoble, the nerd on duty who always wants to be first everywhere with every tech trend, immediately announced: "I'm a total Google fan again." His nemesis, tech crunch columnist Paul Carr, normally ten times more sharp-tongued and astute than all tech columnists put together, immediately tried to take the Scoble opposite position. No reason to cheer, he said. Because the Google bandwagon is certainly not a moral one. I see.
The debate now goes back and forth between the cynics who think Google is simply a sore loser (because they "only" managed to capture 30 percent of the Chinese search market) and the romantics who see Google as a knight in the fight with the Chinese dragon. Many arguments are wild speculation (e.g. "Google is currently building a global anti-firewall"), and it is not uncommon to hear nothing more than ludicrous know-it-alls (e.g. "Google doesn't understand Chinese business culture").
In my opinion, these are all rather trivial positions. Of course, large companies of the caliber of Google are managed less according to moral criteria than according to strategic criteria. Morality is merely a corporate strategy factor (somewhat more important in the age of communication). It goes without saying that Google's move is "amazing". Who would have expected it? Who else could even afford something like this?
If you're not Chinese, you don't make money in China
What is actually surprising about the Google-China story is that the business with China is not worthwhile for Google; and that is pretty big news. The financial investment, the brand damage and the loss of know-how are apparently too great for the 600 million dollars that flow back into Google's coffers. Conversely, the image gain from a withdrawal seems more important than the prospect of a possible financial gain at some point in the future. So instead of simply pulling out, they set off a PR nuclear bomb.
The story is also interesting because Google's withdrawal could be a bigger blow to China as a business location than many experts would like to think. If the number one tech brand pulls out of China because business is not worthwhile, then this could become a "kaiser clothes" moment for a business location in which money has been blindly invested for decades.
For many, Google's withdrawal from China means what observers have long suspected and many insiders have been saying for years: "If you're not Chinese, you're not making money in China." If this idea catches on among the CEOs, CFOs and business ministers who still consider China to be a capitalist Eldorado - then Google has turned the wheel of world history with the blog entry in question.

A new SBB leisure campaign has been on air since the beginning of January. For the first time in a long time, the railroad is using TV as the lead medium. The budget is now being managed by Contexta. At the center of their ideas are the three "leisure testers" Sergio, Benôit and Beat. The trio, one each from Ticino, French-speaking Switzerland and German-speaking Switzerland, goes on a trip together once a month to test SBB's day trips. They travel to the most beautiful regions of Switzerland, experience exciting adventures together and then report on their experiences. Contexta uses witty short commercials to draw attention to the current RailAway combination offers. These are available in the respective month with up to 50 percent discount. A new spot is shown every month. In addition, various print media refer to the comprehensive leisure platform Sbb.ch.

The head of marketing communications passenger transport about the new approach
What are the considerations for SBB to rely on TV as the lead medium with this campaign "for the first time in a long time"?
Reto Meissner: SBB decided to take this step in order to get even closer to the target group via an emotional path. We want to be present with our customers at the time when the weekend is planned. And we want to be there where the decision is made - at home.
How important is leisure traffic for SBB?
Leisure traffic is very important for public transport. Here, we still have potential to grow further without further burdening peak traffic times. We are convinced that we can generate further growth here.
Isn't it dangerous that this new campaign features only men as identification figures, or are women not a target audience for these offers?
It is a wrong conclusion that when we choose men as protagonists, we focus on men as a target group. Quite the opposite. Like many decisions, the majority of leisure time decisions are made by women. With the three men, we can reach the target group in a surprising, sympathetic and humorous way for SBB. We don't see this as a danger, but on the contrary as a great opportunity.
As Head of Marketing Communications Passenger Transport, what do you particularly like about this campaign?
The open and well thought-out conception, which allows us many adaptation possibilities for further surprising stories and a stringent, cross-media appearance. In addition, a surprising and humorous appearance that helps put SBB and public transport in a new light. pan

Responsible at SBB:
Reto Meissner

Polygrapher Mimoza Paloka began her career at Scan Print in Fehraltorf. She also worked for Boncept and Prime Communications in Zurich, where her clients included Globus, Bâloise, Swisslos, Swiss International Airlines, DZ Privatbank and the Jacobs Foundation. AD Marcel Fässler can look back on experience in Switzerland and abroad. After Publicis and Advico Young & Rubicam in Zurich, he moved to Jung von Matt/Alster in Hamburg. His portfolio includes campaigns for Sixt, BMW, Bild, Wirschaftswoche, Mey and Esprit.

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