The St. Gallen publishing agency MetroComm will take over MetroComm on May 1, 2009.
Frehner Consulting, domiciled in St. Gallen. Sole shareholder Rudolf A. Frehner is handing over his management consultancy for corporate publishing to Natal Schnetzer, owner and managing director of MetroComm. The two companies have been working closely together since 2002. The publishing company realized the customer magazines published by Frehner Consulting.
Rudolf A. Frehner founded the company at the beginning of the 1990s. The company offers partially and ad-financed customer magazines for industry, hotels, hospitals, associations and the public service sector. Around 120 magazines are produced each year.
The publishing agency MetroComm employs around 25 people. It has its own online platforms and also publishes various periodical magazines for associations and business representatives, including the business magazine "Leader".

Around a year after the last advertising film for Swiss Air-Rescue (Rega), the Walker advertising agency has launched another commercial. In the film entitled "Heaven can wait", the viewer sees an injured girl in a critical situation from the perspective of a young boy. The film was directed by Martin de Thurah and produced by Academy London based on Walker's idea. The 90-second film about a Rega mission ends with the astonishing fact that one in 12 people will need Rega at some point in their lives, the agency writes in a press release. The commercial can now be seen nationwide on television and on cinema screens.

Responsible at Rega: Walter Stünzi (Head of Communications) and Maria Betschart (Communications). Responsible at Walker Advertising Agency: Pius Walker (CD), Roger Beckett and Benn Callis (Lyrics), Andrew Smart and Justin Barnes (Art Direction) and Adrian Fluri (Consultant). Production company: Academy Films, London. Director: Martin de Thurah. Music: Jonas Bjerre. Producer: Simon Cooper.

The Aarau advertising agency Renzen Communications launched a bunny photo competition for Posthops.ch at Easter. Under the motto "Snap the bunny", the funniest Easter bunny photo was sought. The winning picture was chosen by a user vote and published in the free newspaper 20 Minuten.
The competition was communicated in electronic and traditional media via banners, skyscrapers, monster boards and advertisements. Matching products, such as a camcorder, were also advertised. In addition, the best pictures were published on the CanalPoste post-info medium. Around 256 photos were uploaded to the homepage.

Responsible for post offices and sales: Andreas Etter (Head of Marketing Communications), Michel Teutschmann (Marketing Communications Consultant), Jessica Era (Product Manager postshop.ch). Responsible at Renzen Communications, Aarau: Abraham Gillis (text), Urs van Laer (graphics), Claudia Trombini (consulting).

The winners of the bunny photo competition
1st rank

2nd rank

3rd rank

Despite the financial crisis, global advertising expenditure rose by 1.5 percent last year compared to 2007. However, according to a recent report by the advertising statistics company Nielsen, this growth is primarily attributable to the Asia-Pacific region. Here, there was growth of 7.7 percent in 2008, while the USA and Europe both recorded a fall of 2.5 percent. The nations with the strongest growth included China (+ 17.1 percent), Indonesia (+ 15.4 percent) and Malaysia (+ 12.5 percent).
Spain recorded the biggest drop of 14.1%. However, South Korea and Taiwan also suffered heavy losses of around seven percent each. Unsurprisingly, the economic crisis generally had the greatest impact in the last quarter of 2008. "The advertising industry was one of the hardest hit by the economic situation," says Ben van der Werf, Managing Director of Global Adview at Nielsen.
In terms of the individual media types, print suffered the most - in line with the trend in Switzerland. Magazines suffered a global decline of 6.3% and newspapers lost 2.8%. TV and radio, on the other hand, gained 4.2% and 0.4% respectively, although this is also primarily due to growth in the Asia-Pacific region.
According to Nielsen, advertising pressure increased in all sectors last year. At minus six percent, the automotive industry recorded the sharpest decline. This was followed by the financial sector with minus 4.6 percent. The retail sector, on the other hand, increased its advertising expenditure by 9.5 percent, and the pharmaceutical sector also saw an increase of 6.7 percent.

The agency Tangram, based in Zurich and Vaduz, has created a new medium called AirportNews for St. Gallen-Altenrhein Airport. The travel companion is intended to position the airport as a regional business airport. AirportNews combines information for international business travelers with editorial contributions from business, politics and the region of Eastern Switzerland.

Responsible at Airport St. Gallen-Altenrhein: Patrizia Mäder (Marketing). Responsible at Tangram: Willy Tanner (consulting), Sandra Böni (AD), Simona Degiacomi (graphics/realization). Printed by Casanova Druck und Verlag, Chur.

Radio DRS wants to return to the loss-free zone by 2011. The cost-cutting measures could also affect the regional journals. The management mentions the merging of broadcasting areas as a possible option.
"In the medium term, we need to examine whether the current division of territories is still appropriate," DRS spokesperson Andreas Notter told SDA in response to a report in the Sonntagszeitung. On the one hand, there are very large and very small areas. The two smallest include only the two Basel half-cantons and the canton of Graubünden. Notter went on to say that he was aware that a reduction in the broadcasting areas would be very difficult to implement politically. Regional information enjoys a high level of audience appeal. However, cost-cutting measures would not only be examined in the regional journals, but in all programs and departments.
Last year, Radio DRS recorded a loss of CHF 5.3 million. Various measures are to be taken to achieve a balanced result again by 2011. At the presentation of the results at the beginning of April, Radio Director Walter Rüegg gave assurances that there would be no cuts to the programs.

Adlink Internet Media AG, the parent company of Adlink Media, announced its consolidated financial figures for the first quarter of 2009 on Friday. In a difficult market environment for online advertising, business was in line with the company's expectations, writes the company. Earnings before taxes fell by 55 percent.
Consolidated sales amounted to EUR 52 million, compared to EUR 57.1 million in the same period of the previous year. Compared to the significantly more favorable conditions for online advertising worldwide in the first quarter of 2008, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization fell by 43% from EUR 5.3 million to EUR 3 million. Earnings before taxes fell by 55 percent from EUR 4 million to EUR 1.8 million.
The Adlink Group, headquartered in Montabaur, Germany, expects 2009 to be a difficult year for all online marketers. Based on current market conditions and developments to date, the Management Board is sticking to its forecast for 2009 and expects sales revenues of around EUR 200 million and EBT of around EUR 8 million.

The umbrella organization of Swiss sports federations, Swiss Olympic, has a new head of media, Christof Kaufmann. Kaufmann has been in charge of the media office on an interim basis since fall 2008. He joined Swiss Olympic as a trainee in September 2005 and was responsible for the association's organ Swiss Sport in 2006 and 2007. He previously studied contemporary history, journalism and sociology at the University of Fribourg.

Google is defying the crisis: the internet giant continued to increase its profits strongly at the beginning of the year. The surplus increased by nine percent to 1.42 billion dollars in the first quarter.
In the same period, sales rose by six percent year-on-year to 5.51 billion dollars, as Google announced on Thursday in Mountain View, California.
Google had a good quarter in view of the severity of the recession, CEO Eric Schmidt told the media. The search engine giant even exceeded analysts' expectations with its figures. The share price rose significantly in response to the announcement.

Leo Kirch has secured the blocking minority of Constantin Medien. In addition to the production company Constantin Film AG, this also includes the Swiss media company Highlight Communications. According to Wuv.de, Kirch has increased his stake in the Constantin Medien network, formerly known as EM.Sport Media, via his investment company KF 15. As a result, he now has a blocking minority and can significantly influence decisions - either supporting or blocking them.
The Constantin Medien network includes the Swiss rights agency Team, the film production company Constantin Film AG and the Swiss media company Highlight Communications.
Founded in 1983, Highlight Communications operates in the film, home entertainment and sports and event marketing segments. It holds a majority interest of 80 percent in the sports marketing agency Team. The agency also holds a 93 percent majority stake in Constantin Film.

The Basel-based Oswald Siegfried advertising agency has two new clients: SKM Kulturmanagement Basel and Abt Automobile AG. It secured the SKM Kulturmanagement budget in a pitch. Now a
brochure produced for the university course. Further work is to follow.
Abt Automobile AG represents the Mini Cooper, BMW and Morgan brands. F12 posters, cinema slides and brochures are currently being produced for this customer, and the homepage is being refreshed.