Flowcube Communications has won a new client. The agency has been commissioned to handle PR and branding for the jeans label Replay. The mandate includes all media relations and managing the press office in Switzerland.
The Replay brand, with 220 stores in over 50 countries, is now part of the fashion company Fashion-Box Industries. Flowcube operates internationally. Headquartered in Zurich, the agency has a branch in Milan and a partner agency in Munich.

The German media group Burda is taking over the knowledge platform Lycos IQ. The company is thus jumping on a bandwagon that Holtzbrinck and Prosieben Sat. 1 have been on for some time: Knowledge communities have become a popular alternative to search engines.
Burda sees the portal as a good addition to its editorial offering. Holtzbrinck and Prosieben Sat.1 have already had their own question and answer pages for some time. "Lycos IQ provides us with an exciting technology and a very active community. We will supplement the offering with the knowledge of our editorial teams and further develop the portal," Philipp Welte told the German industry service Meedia. For the publishing director, the takeover is part of his so-called "change program". According to Welte, the aim is to guide the publishing division safely through the recession and to align it towards a convergent future despite the revenue crisis.
Instead of simply entering a search term as with Google, users ask Lycos IQ complete questions and receive direct answers. Instead of the barely comprehensible hit lists of conventional search engines, Lycos IQ relies on the expertise and knowledge of people from the community, as Burda Verlag describes its new acquisition in a press release on Wednesday.
The market leader in the question and answer segment is the Hamburg-based website Wer-weis-was.de. According to IVW, the ProsiebenSat.1 subsidiary achieved 28 million clicks and 16 million visits. The Holtzbrinck investment Gute-Frage.net achieved 32 million page impressions in March but only 14 million visits. According to Lycos IQ, it currently has 750,000 users.

The agency Brüngger Bachmann Dialog has developed a campaign to mark the 40th anniversary of Sawi. In collaboration with Publicis Dialog, the agency showcased the last four decades of the training center in the form of mailings and posters. Sawi has been a provider of training and further education in marketing, advertising and sales for 40 years and celebrated its anniversary at an event in Rapperswil on April 23, 2009.
Responsible at Sawi: Pia Kasper (overall management). Responsible at Brüngger Bachmann Dialog: Daniel Brüngger, Remo Bachmann (CD), Manuela Eigenmann (Art). Responsible at Publicis Dialog: Gabriele Knus, Dominic Siegrist (consulting), Fabian Zahner (text).

The Hamburg-based publishing house Gruner + Jahr is planning drastic cost-cutting measures. Depending on the source, 70 to 200 jobs in marketing are to be cut. Jobs are also to be cut in the editorial offices. According to the industry service Werben & Verkaufen, 100 to 200 jobs are to be cut in the marketing sector alone. On Tuesday, Meedia.de estimated the number of redundancies at around 70.
Even before this new round of savings, the first effects of the previous measures are reportedly already being felt at the publishing house. Because temporary staff are no longer being hired, mountains of work have been left undone, as Kress.de quotes the G+J works council in its BRAktuell info. Further savings are now to be made due to an expected drop in sales of 8-10 percent. Profits are expected to shrink from 225 to 200 million, according to a forecast by Torsten-Jörn Klein, G1J's international director. In principle, the company is obliged to carefully review structures, processes and costs, as the Management Board writes in an internal statement to employees. However, the works council rejects salary, vacation and Christmas bonus cuts. According to its statement to Kress.de, the workforce has already made enough sacrifices in recent years. According to Wuv.de, a G+J spokesperson emphasized that the publishing house could not rule out layoffs for operational reasons.
While the publishing house had still spoken in April of a growth area in the diversification of business in corporate publishing or in digital marketing, marketing is now to be centralized and consistently restructured towards a joint print and online focus. According to an assessment by Meedia.de, this would mean the elimination of at least 70 of the current 250 jobs.

A good two and a half years after the launch of Nzz-campus.ch the website has been comprehensively revised in terms of both content and design. It now features even more content from NZZ publications as well as articles written especially for NZZ Campus. The blogs of the university correspondents, who report directly from student life, have been retained. Audio and video podcasts can be played in better quality with a new player and can also be subscribed to via iTunes and can therefore also be played on the iPhone or other players.

The Walker agency received two awards at this year's One Show in New York. In the "Interactive" category, the "eBay Attack" campaign designed for Amnesty International was awarded a Bronze Pencil. The same work was awarded a Merit by the jury in the "Innovation in Advertising" category.

The current editor-in-chief of the Frankfurter Rundschau, Uwe Vorkötter, is leaving his post to return to the Berliner Zeitung. The vacant chief chair will be taken over by Joachim Frank, deputy editor-in-chief of the Kölner Stadtanzeiger, and Rouven Schellenberger, currently vice editor-in-chief of the Frankfurter Rundschau.
According to Horizont.net, Uwe Vorkötter is expected to return to the post of editor-in-chief of the Berliner Zeitung from the summer, a position he already held from 2002 to 2006. Brigitte Fehrle, who is currently leading the editorial team on an interim basis, could become Vorkötter's deputy.
Like the Kölner Stadtanzeiger and the Berliner Zeitung, the Frankfurter Rundschau belongs to the M. DuMont Schauberg publishing group.

Exactly from 9:06 p.m. onward, "Doctor Sex" Bruno Wermuth answered the questions of 20 Minuten Online users on all sexual topics on Tuesday evening. With "Sex nach 9," the web portal launched Switzerland's first online call-in show. 10,300 users followed the launch of the live advice show. A total of 352 calls were received before and during the live broadcast. The topic of the show was "The First Time.
Last Tuesday night's broadcast can be viewed at the following link: www.20min.ch/life/sexnach9/story/10953207.

The Bernese cantonal government met with SRG representatives on Wednesday. It is calling for all important political programs to be produced in the capital in the long term.
The cantonal government is pleased to note that the SRG Board of Directors has decided in March to retain Bern as the company's headquarters and main location for radio news reporting, according to a press release from the cantonal administration. The fact that the Elephant Roundtable will take place in Bern in future is also a step in the right direction.
According to Viktor Baumeler, Chairman of the SRG Board of Directors for German-speaking Switzerland, the SRG delegation replied that the expensive technology in TV studios must be well utilized. This would prevent extensive decentralization, said Baumeler when asked by SDA.
Television Director Ingrid Deltenre and Walter Rüegg, Director of Swiss Radio DRS, also took part in the discussion. The SRG delegation also informed the Bern government council about the media convergence and structural reform projects.

The Schützengarten brewery is celebrating its 230th birthday and has launched the anniversary beer Weisser Engel to mark the occasion. The brewery has engaged the St. Gallen agency Ammarkt for the naming, packaging design and launch campaign. On May 14, the new Schützengarten wheat beer will be celebrated with a tapping party at the Waaghaus in St. Gallen, featuring former Miss Switzerland Amanda Ammann, among others. At the same time, advertisements, rotairs, table stands, beer plates and web banners will be used.
Responsible at Brauerei Schützengarten: Ernst Zingg (Sales Director), Roger Tanner (Head of Marketing Communications). Responsible at Ammarkt: Severino Clerici, Nadine Rusch (art director), Martin Fuchs (text), Heinz Frischknecht, Roland Geiger (consultant). Illustration: Ernst Feurer, Biel. Photography: Tobias Hauser, St. Gallen. Composing: Detail, Zurich.

TBWA\Zurich has developed a commercial for Europride 09 to attract the gay community and interested heterosexuals to the largest gay and lesbian festival in Switzerland. Director Richard Hickey and the well-known 3D artist Andrew Daffy were recruited to realize the spot. Among other things, Daffy has designed the animation effects for the Harry Potter films, now runs the House of Curves and was in charge of spots for Johnny Walker, Levis and XBox.
The agency writes that the fact that the elaborately designed production actually came to fruition is solely due to the power of an idea. Namely the idea that transports a Freudian insight in an entertaining way: There's a little gay in all of us. The "There's a little gay in everyone" campaign spot can be seen immediately in selected cinemas and on television as well as on various gay and lesbian websites and, of course, on YouTube.
" Europride spot
Responsible at Europride 09: Michael Rüegg (Head of Communications). Responsible at TBWA\Zurich: Urs Schrepfer (CD), Adrian Egger (AD), Tobias Bühlmann (text), Philipp Sattelmeyer (consulting). Film production: Daniela Berther (Great Pictures), Clare Spencer (Grasshopper Films). Director: Richard Hickey. 3D animation: Andrew Daffy (House of Curves).

The Cultural Office and the Cultural Foundation of the Canton of Thurgau have launched the homepage www.thurgaukultur.ch which goes online on May 13, 2009. The platform is intended to raise awareness of cultural life and supplement the cultural reporting of the newspapers. The platform offers an editorially managed cultural agenda, an online magazine and services for cultural event organizers in Thurgau. These include free seat reservation solutions and online ticketing. The focus is on a blog by cultural professionals, cultural discussions and the integration of Art-TV and own video contributions. The platform was realized by Tagblatt Medien in collaboration with Ostevent.ch.
Thurgau Kultur AG was founded as an independent sponsor of the project. The Chairman of the Board of Directors is Humbert Entress, President of the Cultural Foundation of the Canton of Thurgau, and René Munz, Head of the Cultural Office, is on the Board of Directors. The Managing Director is Thomas Epple, Bischofszell. The agenda and magazine are managed by Kathrin Spycher and Martin Preisser. Management and editorial staff account for a total of 110 full-time equivalents.

Financing the platform
The operating costs are estimated at around 180,000 francs per year. The canton and the cultural foundation will bear a larger share of these costs, while other foundations and sponsors such as the Thurgauer Kantonalbank have promised to make substantial contributions over three years. In addition, advertising for suitable companies or cultural events as well as special services of the cultural portal, which are not part of the basic offer, should generate income.