On Thursday morning, around 50 newspaper carriers went on strike again in Zurich. They were protesting against wage cuts of up to 20 percent. Once again, around 3,000 subscribers had to do without their newspaper or at least wait longer for delivery.
After 26 August in Zurich and 11 September in St. Gallen, this was the third strike by the carriers of the Zuvo delivery organization. They gathered in Zurich's Volkshaus from 3 am. The strike was called by the Communication and Comedia unions. They are calling on the Zuvo management to withdraw the wage cuts of up to 20 percent announced in March and to negotiate with the two unions. By sticking to the wage cuts, Festhalten is showing its "cold and antisocial face", they announced on Thursday. They are threatening further strikes in Zuvo's delivery area if the management maintains its stance towards staff and unions.
On Thursday morning, in addition to the strike, 290,000 flyers were distributed by Swiss Post to all households in the cities of Zurich and St. Gallen, according to SDA. Among other things, the leaflets call for understanding for the strike.
According to Zuvo, only around 30 newspaper carriers took part in the strike. Around 3000 subscribers therefore did not receive their newspaper as usual in the morning, as Zuvo spokeswoman Sonja Levy told SDA on request. However, everyone would have their newspaper by 1 p.m. at the latest.
Legal action will now be considered, as Levy went on to say. The strike was disproportionate. Zuvo had reached an agreement with the Zuvo employee representatives in August. This has now been concluded and there is no need for action.

LZ Medien Holding has held a 49.6 percent stake in Beagmedien for several years. LZ Medien has now purchased additional share packages from various shareholders as of September 1, 2009, thus increasing its stake to 96.8 percent. The weekly newspaper Region, which belongs to Beagmedien, relocated to the LZ-MedienZentrum in Lucerne in August 2009, but the staff composition has remained the same. The two business divisions Beagdruck and Hellermeier remain at the previous location in Emmenbrücke.
Beagmedien offers a range of services from traditional printing to modern database and web-based publishing. The weekly newspaper Region informs around 18,000 readers about the latest news from the northern city region of Lucerne. The range of services is complemented by the Hellermeier communications agency, which specializes in annual reports and corporate design development, among other things.

The two French-speaking commuter newspapers 20 minutes and Le matin bleu are to merge this year. The Competition Commission has approved the merger of the Swiss activities of the French-speaking Swiss publishing house Edipresse with Tamedia without any conditions, the two companies announced. The media houses Edipresse and Tamedia now want to implement the merger as quickly as possible.
In a first step, Tamedia is to acquire 49.9 percent of the share capital of Presse Publications SR S.A. PPSR at the beginning of 2010, according to a press release. PPSR comprises the main Swiss media activities of Edipresse. In a second step, Tamedia will increase its stake by a further 0.2 percent at the beginning of 2011, according to SDA, and then acquire the remaining 49.9 percent in 2013. Edipresse will then acquire a stake in Tamedia. The title of the new commuter newspaper is still unclear.
The number of redundancies is also still unclear, as Tamedia spokesman Christoph Zimmer told SDA on Thursday. However, due to natural fluctuation over the past six months, there will be significantly fewer redundancies than expected. No further redundancies are planned.
The ComCo sees no competition law problem in the merger. Tamedia would not gain any market share in most markets as a result of the takeover, as the Competition Commission wrote in a statement on Thursday. In addition, there is no room for two commuter newspapers in the relatively small advertising market in French-speaking Switzerland in the long term anyway. The review also showed that no publisher was prepared to acquire Le Matin Bleu. In conclusion, "the requirements for proving the existence of a restructuring merger have been met", writes the Competition Commission.
A merger of the two media companies was already announced in March 2009 and justified with rapid structural changes in the media market. The new Tamedia-Edipresse group will be particularly strong in the daily print media. In addition to the free newspapers, it combines 12 paid daily newspapers with a total circulation of 700,000 copies. According to SDA, Edipresse will not contribute its international magazine business. The profitable western Swiss business magazine Bilan will be transferred to the international business.

The campaign for Migros' "I am" cosmetics brand is entering its second round. The categories "I am Face", "I am Hair" and "I am Body" are now being highlighted in three new TV commercials.
Exxtra Kommunikation shot fresh scenes in the style of the basic commercial with the song "I am what I am" by Gloria Gaynor. A wide variety of people, from construction workers to doctors, were brought in front of the camera with street castings. The recently produced sequences were edited together with the existing TV commercial to create completely new short films for Face, Hair and Body. The commercials can be seen now.
Responsible at the Federation of Migros Cooperatives, Zurich: Ursula Künzle, Daniel Hasenfratz (Marketing Communication, Brand/Label Management), Regina Diethalm (Head of Category Management), Adrian Känel, Verena Egger (Category Manager), Heike Kefer (Category Field Manager).
Responsible at Exxtra Kommunikation, Zurich: Dieter Hofmann (Creative Director), Fabienne Marcolin (Art Director), Marietta Mügge (Text), Sarida Bossoni (Agency Producer), Susan Baumgartner (Managing Director), Kathrin Steiger, Rémy Müller (Consulting); Production: Wiener Klappe: Begbie (Director), Thomas Dirnhofer (Camera).

To the spot 1
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To the spot 3

The building technology company Axima has been operating under the new brand name Cofely since September 1. As part of an agency competition, Wirz Corporate secured the mandate for the repositioning and launch communication of Cofely in Switzerland in April of this year. According to Philip Wernli, Head of Communications at Cofely Switzerland, the strategic approach to the repositioning and the measures outlined for the relaunch led to the contract being awarded. On this basis, a series of management workshops were initiated under the direction of Wirz Corporate, during the course of which Cofely's basic strategic orientation and product structure were revised.
Wirz Corporate realized the communication media for the relaunch and supported Cofely in the conception and implementation of the internal change communication. In a second phase, the agency will adapt all means and media of marketing communication to the new product structure.

Former Federal Councillor Joseph Deiss is the first Swiss national to make it into the animated, socially critical US television series "South Park". He sits at a table between Great Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown and France's President Nicolas Sarkozy and mediates between the USA and Canada. So far so good, but what does the CVP politician think of "his" appearance? When he saw the episode, he wondered whether it was really him, he says in the newspaper Le Matin, according to A-z.ch. He was both amazed and honored that he appeared in the series. It was also a funny coincidence because he had just returned from Canada. Deiss also feels a certain satisfaction with regard to his time in office as Federal Councillor. During his presidential year, critics had accused him of being unknown. This is now a great opportunity to prove them wrong.

The transition from school to working life is probably one of the most difficult and most important in anyone's life. With a fabric roll mailing developed by the agency at the airport, high school teachers were asked to place it on the blackboards of their educational institutions and to ask the Swiss Textile Federation's training officers to give a career talk. The Textile Federation's multiple award-winning DM campaigns are now in their fourth year and, as Corinne Egli, Head of Education, reports, this year looks set to be another record return.
Responsible at TVS Swiss Textile Federation, St.Gallen: Corinne Egli (Head of Education). Responsible at the agency at the airport, Altenrhein: René Eugstair (CD), Dominique Rutishauser (AD), Benita Sutter (graphics and illustration), Patrick Linder (text).

Impressum and Comedia are calling for more transparency at Radio and Television of Italian-speaking Switzerland (RSI). The two journalists' associations are dismayed by the cost-cutting measures of over ten million francs announced on Tuesday. Those responsible at RSI are understating the case when they claim that only 16 employees are affected by the measures. In fact, many more people are directly or indirectly affected, Comedia and Impressum wrote in a communiqué on Wednesday, according to SDA. They accuse the SRG subsidiary of having acted hastily. "If the 10 million hole in the 2010 budget was only discovered on September 11, why were such far-reaching decisions made in such a hurry?" the associations want to know from those responsible at RSI.
There is also fierce criticism within RSI. The employees accuse their bosses of an "ill-considered, authoritarian and irresponsible management style". RSI was once known for training young people and then letting them make a career in the company, writes Renato Minoli, President of the Lugano section of the Swiss Syndicate of Media Professionals (SSM), in a communiqué. In the meantime, however, experienced people are employed on poor conditions, exploited and dropped as soon as priorities change. Radio journalist Minoli describes the current state of RSI as "unfortunate".

Cosmic Bern has developed a campaign for Swisscom Directories, Local.ch and LTV Yellow Pages, which will be launched this fall. Concept idea and leitmotif of the first realized subjects is the headline "Properly listed. Get big.", according to a statement from the agency. The customer benefit is visually dramatized by an SME growing above all others in the row of houses.
In addition to various print and online measures, the campaign also included a separate Microsite set up. Further communication measures will follow.
Responsible at Swisscom Directories: Thomas Krüttli (Promotion Manager). Responsible at Local.ch: Michael Seiler (Communication Manager). Responsible at LTV Yellow Pages: Christiane Büring (Head of Marketing & Business Development), Chiara Schiavarelli (Communications Manager). Responsible at Cosmic Bern: Thom Pfister (CD), Julien Junghäni (AD), Roland Zenger (graphics), Isabella Jungo / Antonia Bekiaris (text), Simon Schatzmann (head of consulting), Bettina Ammann (communications planning). Photo: Croci du Fresne, Bern. Media: Mediaschneider, Zurich; Orange 8 (Online), Zurich.

The social network Facebook has further expanded its international leadership role and now has 300 million monthly active users worldwide. In addition, the site is now apparently in the black and has started earning money, as the company announced at a conference in San Francisco on Tuesday. Facebook had not previously expected to turn a profit before next year. "This is important for us because it makes Facebook a strong independent service for the long term," platform founder Mark Zuckerberg is quoted as saying on Pressetext.ch. The company is successfully positioning Facebook for sustainability. "We're having a lot of fun and facing important challenges that require us to rethink the current systems for online information flows," says Zuckerberg.
Facebook does not wish to comment publicly on future strategies at present. However, due to the booming user numbers around the globe, the company says that more and more advertisers are being attracted to the social network. Industry experts see increasing competition between Facebook and Twitter. If the social network opens up its platform further and adapts functions from the microblogging service, Twitter could face serious difficulties, believes social media expert Ben Parr, co-owner of Mashable.com.

The economic problems in the media houses are having an impact on the national news agency SDA. According to a press release issued on Wednesday, the agency is expecting a considerable drop in income and a deficit for 2010. For this reason, it will have to review its performance mandate and adapt it to the new economic circumstances. The Board of Directors has issued a corresponding mandate to the management, which must be implemented by the end of 2011.
The disappearance of free newspapers, the continuing decline in circulation, the problems at SRG and the concentration in the media landscape have significantly worsened the general conditions for SDA. Nevertheless, the agency expects a satisfactory result for 2009. However, the outlook for the coming years is much worse. In order to secure the company and thus the national news agency in the long term, SDA cannot avoid reviewing its existing service mandate and its products. The resulting new structure of the agency and its services should better reflect the various sub-markets in Switzerland.
Immediate measures taken
This structural adjustment will take some time and cannot be implemented without personnel measures. However, it is not yet clear to what extent jobs will have to be cut by the end of 2010. However, in order to keep the situation in balance as early as 2009, the management has taken certain immediate measures, such as a job freeze and a freeze on salaries.
The management is in talks with the personnel organization about how the medium-term measures can best be implemented. SDA intends to adhere to the principle of a national, regionally anchored full-service agency. The new performance mandate will continue to be based on these premises, but will differ from the current performance mandate in terms of the equivalence of language services and the depth of reporting.
Despite the difficult conditions, SDA will stick to the strategy adopted by the Board of Directors. This means that it will also offer customers new services as quickly as possible.

The Clus advertising agency from Chur has realized a campaign for the Graubündner Kantonalbank that documents Graubünden success stories: The subjects show entrepreneurs who have successfully implemented their business ideas and established themselves on the market. Advertisements, posters, restructured brochures and SME seminar series are intended to consolidate and further expand the bank's market leadership in the business customer segment, according to a statement from the agency.
Responsible at Graubündner Kantonalbank, Chur: Christine Purgly (Head of Advertising), Daniel Michel (Head of Marketing), Ursina Marx (Advertising Assistant). Responsible at Clus Werbeagentur ASW, Chur: Kajo Bächle ( consulting, CD), Olivier Chauliac ( AD), Robin Keller ( consulting/text). Photography: sfh Bildkommunikation, Bregenz, Reinhard Fasching.