Publicitas is reorganizing its management in Asia after announcing that no further investments will be made in the Chinese domestic business. As of April 1, 2009, the Asian markets and Australia will be led by CEO Charlton D'Silva. Publicitas India will remain under the leadership of CEO Marzban Patel, who will report directly to Publicitas CEO Robert Schmidli with immediate effect. Moritz Wuttke will return to Switzerland at the end of June.
Charlton D'Silva headed the News Ltd Metropolitan Newspaper Network for NSW Newsnet before joining Publicitas in 2003. Prior to that, the 40-year-old was International Advertising Manager for the Times of India Group. Charlton holds a Masters of Commerce Degree and a Post Graduate Diploma in Media Planning. He has over 20 years of media experience.
Marzban Patel is founder, CEO and managing director of Mediascope
Publicitas. The company, which is active in media sales and custom publishing, has offices throughout the Indian subcontinent. The 49-year-old founded the company in 1979 and today represents over 300 media in print, electronic, TV, radio, in-flight, online and ambient.

The Swiss advertising agency has created an anniversary campaign for Bell to mark its 140th anniversary. The subjects show photo album entries of happy customers - so-called "Bell moments". The agency also created an anniversary logo, which is intended to draw attention to the products in the Tradition line, among other things. The campaign was launched on March 29 and will be featured in the daily, Sunday and weekly press over the following weeks.

From Easter, the Eastern Swiss cable radio station FM1 Melody will be offering its listeners everything their hearts desire. In addition to beautiful hits, oldies and folk music, church services can also be listened to from the comfort of your living room. The radio station thus offers churchgoers even more independence in the age of individualization.
Anyone who thought that getting up early on Sundays to go on a pilgrimage to church was a thing of the past has rejoiced too soon. Only six live church services are planned per year. But over the Easter weekend, there will be the full package: on Good Friday, the Protestant service will be broadcast from Balgach, and on Easter Sunday, the sermon will come directly from the Catholic church of St. Antonius in Wangs. So, look forward to a contemplative Sunday brunch at home with Easter egg tartlets and Radio FM1 Melody!

Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett developed, realized and produced a new card design for the Maestro, credit and account cards of the 24 cantonal banks. The design is based on the key image of the bridge, which was realized in 16:9 format. The bridge serves as a symbol of connection, Swiss engineering and the overcoming of barriers, as the agency writes in a press release on Monday.
The bridges depicted were photographed by Michel Jaussi, such as the Arch highway bridge in the canton of Bern, the Sunnigberg bridge in Klosters, the Rhine bridge in Diepoldsau and the Salginatobel bridge in Schiers-Schuders. The personalization on the Kantonalbank Maestro card was kept in white. In addition, colored magnetic strips in the respective card color are printed on all Maestro, gold and silver credit cards.

Responsible at the Association of Swiss Cantonal Banks: Elisabeth Bürgin (Head of Marketing Communications), Raul Kriesi (Head of Competence Center VSKB Cards, Zürcher Kantonalbank). Responsible at SFLB: Raul Serrat (AD), Charlotte Gut (consulting), Hanspeter Hunger (production), José Antunes (image processing/litho). Photographer: Michel Jaussi Photography, Linn.

The account cards.

The PrePaid cards.

The Basic credit card.

The Gold credit card.

The silver credit card.

The Maestro card.

Goldbach Media has published the seventh edition of the "Goldbach Guide - Facts and Figures 2009" this year. The free reference work for electronic, digital, interactive and mobile marketing is published in German as a print edition with a print run of 8,000 copies. It is also available as a PDF flip catalog in German and French on Goldbachmedia.ch available.
The Goldbach Guide is aimed at advertisers, advertising agencies, media agencies and trainees in marketing and communication, as the company writes in a press release on Monday. The current edition has a number of new features: The entire online section as well as the general economic data and the development of the media have been expanded.

The Association of Film Directors and Screenwriters (ARF) welcomed 27 new members at its General Assembly at the weekend. Among them are well-known directors, including Katja Früh, Micha Lewinsky, Ursula Meier, Lionel Baier, Reto Caffi and Xavier Ruiz. Marc Forster is a new patron member of the association, according to a communiqué issued by the association on Monday. The association has also reiterated its previous demands to Nicolas Bideau, the head of film: It wants more transparency, better communication and an increase in the production credit.
In January, the association and others accused Nicolas Bideau, head of the Film Section at the Federal Office of Culture, of high-handedness and nepotism. For example, he is said to give preferential treatment to film producer Thierry Spicher when awarding funding. Bideau countered that the film associations were "sick" and therefore suffered from a loss of members.

Board of Directors elected
There were few changes in the Board elections: Stefan Haupt remains President, Michele Andreoli Vice President. Frédéric Gonseth stepped down and Alessandra Gavin-Mueller and Daniel Howald took up their seats. The other nine board members - including Bettina Oberli, Erich Langjahr and Anne Cuneo - were confirmed.

The Zurich-based advertising agency DD Com is now responsible for the visual identity of SV Switzerland. It will conceive and design all national promotions for the approximately 280 staff restaurants and canteens of the large Swiss catering company. DD Com replaces the Austrian agency Unique, which had been working for SV Schweiz since 2005. The first promotion will be carried out from September 7 to 18, 2009, and will bear the new agency's typical signature, according to a press release issued on Monday.

According to the Sonntagszeitung newspaper, the NZZ Board of Directors is to negotiate quietly and secretly with shareholders who are dissatisfied with the current management and are therefore demanding representation on the top board. Two asset managers are behind the move, including Erhard Lee, who holds around one hundred non-voting NZZ shares through his AMG Analysen & Anlagen AG. "We have agreed to maintain confidentiality with the representatives of the shareholder group in question," NZZ President Conrad Meyer told the Sonntagszeitung. However, the shareholders will be informed in good time whether the agenda item for an election to the Board of Directors is "relevant or not" for the Annual General Meeting on April 18.
Under the intertitle "There is rumbling in the NZZ shareholder base", "Praktikus", which is a popular read among investors, publicized the tug-of-war behind the scenes in Wednesday's Finanz und Wirtschaft. Both sides are keeping quiet about who the new board candidate is. However, the concerned NZZ shareholders around Erhard Lee have given assurances that there will not be a contest. They hope that the Board of Directors will give in. However, it is also conceivable that the company itself will put forward another candidate.
According to the Sonntagszeitung, there is a plausible reason for the displeasure among shareholders. Their shares are now only worth 36,000 francs, compared to almost 300,000 francs a few years ago. This means that the entire NZZ Group is now only worth 144 million francs. However, their main concern is that the "sustainable profitability of the company is in question".

Necessity is the mother of invention: to pay off his debts, German Thomas Tanriverdi wants to turn his bald head into money and have advertising tattooed on it. The 33-year-old doesn't really care what kind of advertising it is. Nevertheless, there are limits, he explained to SZ-Online: He definitely doesn't do pornographic stuff or anything like that. "No porky stuff, it has to be something serious," he says. Like Jägermeister, for example, his personal preferred candidate - but the deal with the spirits manufacturer didn't materialize. Perhaps his second favorite, the equally reputable liqueur producer Kleiner Feigling, will work out.
The 38-year-old Oliver Intemann has already had success with marketing his bald head: he offered his polished head for advertising purposes on the Internet auction site Ebay. The bridal and evening wear store Laras Dreamland won the bid for 505 euros. For 23 days, he walked around with the store's logos and internet address - they were not real tattoos, but merely tattoo stickers. So not a decision for life, but still somehow courageous. And certainly not everyone's cup of tea.

Swiss television advertised the Italian correspondent position internally this week - and the rumor mill in Leutschenbach is already churning: according to an insider, Tagesschau presenter Béatrice Müller will definitely take over from Gianluca Galgani from Chur in the next few weeks, as the Sonntag newspaper writes. Everything points to Müller moving to Italy for good with her husband Heiner Hug. "It's true, the position has just been advertised," SF spokesperson Urs Durrer confirmed to the Sonntagspublikation. However, nothing has been decided yet.
And another rumor made the rounds at the "Tagesschau" editorial team's Easter dinner on Friday evening: 33-year-old Cornelia Boesch is to replace Béatrice Müller and become the new "Tagesschau" presenter.

Walter Rüegg, Director of Radio DRS, wants the SRG Board of Directors to deal with his successor as soon as possible. "My aim is for my successor to be appointed and installed as quickly as possible," said Rüegg when asked by NZZ am Sonntag. He has communicated this to the Board of Directors of SRG Deutschschweiz. In September 2008, Rüegg's contract was extended until June 30, 2010. Rüegg has now declared that he is prepared to step down before this date - provided that a successor is available.
With his demand, Rüegg is putting pressure on the SRG management to elect a new radio director. In mid-March, SRG decided that radio and television would be merged and managed by one person from 2011. For the six months between July 2010 and January 2011, SRG would have had to make do with an interim head of radio. Rüegg seems to want to prevent this by announcing his intention to make way for a successor this year. The new radio director could apply for the post of director of radio and television in 2010 and compete against television director Ingrid Deltenre. She has announced her aspirations for the post, which does not sit well with some radio executives. At the beginning of March, 62-year-old Rüegg publicly criticized the procedure for the merger of radio and television. He incurred the displeasure of SRG Director General Armin Walpen, who had planned to make Deltenre Regional Director without advertising the position.

UBS put its global advertising campaign "You & Us" on hold in mid-March because it wants to cut costs. UBS does not know whether the campaign will continue at a later date. The campaign was stopped immediately, UBS spokeswoman Eveline Müller said in a report in the Sonntagszeitung. The communication strategy is to be revised, and no decision has yet been made about a new campaign and the advertising agency.
With the slogan "You, it's not just a word. It's a commitment", UBS put trust at the center and promised worldwide to put the client at the center of attention. The campaign came from the long-standing UBS agency Publicis, whose head Fredy Collioud is friends with ex-president Marcel Ospel.