The internet platform Tilllate.com will be sold in full at the beginning of 2010 to the publishing house Tamedia, which has held around 86 percent of the shares since February 2009. The four founders Markus Popp, Christian Hagmann, Silvan Mühlemann and André Schraner are thus withdrawing as shareholders, but will remain on the management board. Tamedia intends to continue its collaboration with the founding quartet after the takeover of Tilllate.
On the other hand, the company plans to review its international activities in England, Germany, France and Italy, as reported by the Sonntag newspaper. Although the company is satisfied with its online traffic abroad, investments are still necessary, Markus Popp told the newspaper. Negotiations with the German Axel Springer publishing house for a takeover of the foreign business had recently failed, it was also reported. Tilllate is now examining whether and in what form which countries should be continued.

At the beginning of May, paper wholesaler Antalis will be repeating the paper tour it first conducted two years ago. This time too, the tour will take place on a special train that will stop off in all regions of Switzerland. Guests can find out about innovations in the paper industry at the various stops. The motto of the Antalis Papertour 2009 is: "On the way to new horizons". The Papertour train will travel via Zurich, Lucerne, Basel, to the Swiss capital of Berne and finally stop at the stations in Lausanne and Geneva in French-speaking Switzerland.
This year's tour will focus on ecology, sustainability and responsible business practices. Specialist presentations on these and other topics will be held during the day's events. The SBB special train will also present Antalis' product range to visitors. Overall, however, the focus of the paper tour will not be on the products, as Antalis writes in a press release. Instead, the tour is intended as a platform for the exchange of information.
The current program of presentations can be viewed at www.papertour.ch can be read.

On Thursday, the SRG Audience Council judged the docusoap "SF bi de Lüt - Familiensache" to be pleasantly unspectacular, but a little too idealistic. A majority of the Council judged the program "glanz & gloria weekend" to be entertaining, but not very informative.
The SRG Audience Council has watched the six-part docusoap "SF bi de Lüt - Familiensache" and rated it as pleasant, unspectacular evening entertainment for families and an older audience. The program gets close to the people portrayed without losing the necessary distance. However, an ideal world is largely portrayed, according to the Audience Council. Tensions within the families are hardly expressed.
The people magazine "glanz & gloria weekend" also received some criticism from the Audience Council. The Audience Council's observation group gave a controversial assessment. While some found the program marginal or banal, others described it as an entertaining mix. The Council agreed that the program was entertaining for long stretches, but not distanced enough from the celebrities. For some Council members, the show conveyed a celebrity world that was too ideal.

Stephan Obwegeser will become the new CEO of Search.ch by July 1 at the latest. The qualified marketing planner and communications manager will take over the management of Räber Information Management, which operates Search.ch. He succeeds Robert Furger, who will be leaving the company at the end of May. Obwegeser will be responsible for further expanding the search and directory portal, according to a press release from Search.ch.
Stephan Obwegeser joined 20 Minuten as Head of Marketing and New Business in 2001 and has been Head of Publishing Online & New Business since the online relaunch in 2006. In 2008, he was also appointed Head of Online Development at Tamedia. Before joining 20 Minuten, he was responsible for the introduction of ad management technology in Switzerland and Austria at Real Media and was Head of Sales for the Swissguide directory service.

With around 16.7 million internet shoppers a year, Amazon has become the website with the most online shoppers, pushing the internet marketplace Ebay into second place in the rankings. This is the result of the latest Online Shopping Survey OSS study by Enigma Gfk. And online retailer Amazon.ch continues to increase its profits. In the first quarter, the US company earned 177 million dollars, almost a quarter more than in the previous year. According to Wuv.de, turnover rose by 18 percent to 4.9 billion dollars. Competitor Ebay, whose surplus in the first quarter fell by almost a quarter, is finding this increasingly difficult.
In last year's OSS ranking of online shoppers, clothing was in first place for the first time with 12.6 million shoppers, ahead of books with 12.4 million shoppers. This was followed by event tickets, CDs and hotel accommodation.

As part of a campaign developed by Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett last year, a new motif of the bread roll as a Floralp Butter Fan was launched. The Floralp Gipfeli and Zopf fan motifs are already well known. A total of four motifs will be displayed on posters throughout German-speaking Switzerland from the beginning of May.
Responsible at Floralp: Peter Ryser (Managing Director BO Butter), Charlotte Hofstetter (Head of Advertising & Media SMP), Daniela Schmutz-Beutler (Project Manager Floralp SMP), Olivia Etter (Project Manager Butter SMP). Responsible at Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett: Maren Beck (text), Karin Estermann (AD), Martin Spillmann (CD), Pam Hügli, Isabelle Meier (consulting), Suzana Kovacevic (art buying). Photographer: David Willen. Image editing: Tanja Willen. Food stylist: Peter Marty.

According to the Goldbach Index GEMI, the Internet, radio and teletext once again shone with growth in advertising pressure in March. While the radio medium recorded an increase of 8 index points to 257, the Goldbach Index shows an increase of 6 index points to 445 for the Internet. With retroactive effect from January 1, 2008, 20 Minuten Online is now included.
Teletext also increased by 5 points to 165, while the TV medium suffered a reduction of 2 index points to 444. All e-media together maintained their position at the previous month's level of 433 index points, while the index for all media remained at 191 points.

The 17 leading PR agencies in Switzerland did not make any gains last year. At CHF 61.6 million, their fee income in 2008 stagnated at the previous year's level of CHF 61.5 million. Only the five largest PR agencies made substantial gains, as the BPRA, the association of PR agencies, announced on Friday. Only one in two of the 17 BPRA companies reported an increase in income.
The development of the PR agency market is a reliable early indicator for economic development, the report continued. In the previous year, the Confederation had reported growth of 7.5 percent. The companies in this group employ 255 people and hold 73 percent of the total market with 84.44 million Swiss francs. The largest agency is Farner Consulting with net fee income of CHF 14.4 million in 2008, followed by Trimedia and Burson-Marsteller.

The SRG SSR idée suisse Assembly of Delegates approved the revision of SRG's statutes on Friday. The new statutes were approved by 33 votes to 6, well over the required two-thirds majority, according to a statement from the SRG media office. The revision will enter into force on January 1, 2010. This means that from 2010 SRG will be under the unified strategic management of the SRG Board of Directors and the continuous operational management of the Director General.
Director General Armin Walpen will be responsible for the management of the entire company in future. The radio and television directors of the four regional companies will report solely to him and the Director General himself will no longer be a member of the existing regional boards of directors. According to the communiqué, these regional boards of directors will in future be called regional boards and will function like a board committee with participation rights in programming-related business. Their chairmen will continue to be members of the SRG Board of Directors.
On November 26, 2008, the Assembly of Delegates had already approved the Board of Directors' report on the structural reform by 35 votes to 6, thus paving the way for the revision of the Articles of Association.
The guiding principles of the new structure are www.srg.ch viewable.

The Swiss Training Center for Marketing, Advertising and Communication Sawi held its first courses in Biel in 1968. Later, further schools were opened in Lausanne, Bern, Basel, Geneva and the Zurich area. Over the past four decades, more than 100,000 students have attended the Sawi training center.
On April 23, Sawi celebrated its anniversary at the Jucker Farmar in Rapperswil-Jona. All representatives of the communications and advertising industry and partner associations as well as all Sawi graduates and guests from politics and business were invited.
A similar celebration will take place in French-speaking Switzerland on April 28, 2009 in Lausanne.

Ringier significantly increased its sales in 2008. With 5.3 percent growth compared to the previous year, the media company achieved sales of CHF 1,536 million. According to a Ringier press release, this was mainly due to a pleasing business performance in Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, but also to higher sales of digital media. Consolidated profit after tax amounted to CHF 62.2 million, which is comparable to the multi-year average. Cash flow, on the other hand, fell from CHF 208.3 million to CHF 146.9 million.
Ringier recorded the strongest growth of 18.6 percent in the Czech Republic, 11 percent in Slovakia and 6.6 percent in Switzerland. On the other hand, Ringier Romania reported a 27 percent drop in sales, mainly due to the sale of three titles, currency fluctuations and intense competition, as Ringier explains in the press release. In China and Vietnam, sales were down slightly by 1.6 percent on the previous year. Digital media achieved a share of 8.5 percent of total sales. In 2007, the share was still at 5.5 percent.
The number of Blick Mobile users is also growing rapidly. While around 100,000 users visited the Blick Mobile pages in August 2008, this figure had already risen to over 300,000 by March. The number of page impressions on the site has increased by over 290 percent since August.
Marc Walder, Managing Director of Ringier Switzerland, stated at the media conference on Friday that the company was not very satisfied with the relaunch of Blick in tabloid format. Ringier is working on a new concept despite rising readership figures.

The Bern-based agency Contexta has developed a new campaign to reposition Swiss Lotto and introduce the Plus supplementary product. Under the claim "Tomorrow's millionaire", the campaign ranges from traditional measures to POS and online promotions. According to a statement from the agency, the campaign is designed to differentiate Swiss Lotto more strongly from its rival product Euro Millions.
Six TV commercials and various radio spots are intended to show how life could change after winning the lottery. Both the radio and TV commercials were pre-produced with trimmers so that the current jackpot amount can be communicated in each case. In addition to lottery games, the campaign promotes the newly launched Plus supplementary game.
The corporate design was completely revised for all communication measures.
Responsible at Swisslos: Markus Fischer (Head of Product Management Lottos), Rolf Kunz (Head of Marketing and Distribution). Responsible at Contexta: Bene Abegglen, Moritz Staehelin, (Creative Direction), Lionel Büttner (Art Direction), Nadine Borter (Overall responsibility), Philipp Tinguely (Consulting). Internet: Atfront, Peter Eisenegger. Media: Media Plus, Urs Rueb. Production photo/TV spots: Condor Films, Serge Höltschi (director). Radio spots: Dexmusic.

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