Swiss Advertising SW has chosen the new government spokesperson André Simonazzi as communicator of the month. The native of western Switzerland took up his post as government spokesman on April 1. He replaces Oswald Sigg, who held the post for three years. Simonazzi, a former journalist and long-time employee of Caritas, will also become Vice-Chancellor.
Simonazzi comes across as reserved, charming and balanced, according to an SW press release. His credo: precision and truth are important in communication, as he explained to the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper. According to the press release, the Federal Council spokesman is not trying to put on a PR exercise. In return, he was awarded the title of Communicator of the Month by Swiss Advertising.

The LZ Group generated record sales of CHF 157.3 million in the 2008 financial year. This represents an increase of 5.5 percent compared to the previous year. By contrast, consolidated profit was very modest, amounting to just CHF 600,000 - 96 percent less than in the previous year (CHF 14.9 million).
The sharp drop in consolidated profit was due to high book losses on strategic securities investments, said Erwin Bachmann, CEO of LZ Medien. The financial result closed with a minus of CHF 8.9 million, which corresponds to a decline of CHF 10.7 million compared to the previous year.
In a four-year comparison, however, investment income was still slightly positive, said Bachmann. The CEO also emphasized that at least the 2008 operating profit (EBITDA) of CHF 21.8 million was quite respectable, despite the slump in advertising in the second half of the year and the launch of "Zentralschweiz am Sonntag".
The Lucerne media company's sales growth is also primarily due to this new title, as well as the print sector and specialist publishers. However, advertising revenue in the newspaper division fell by 2.4 percent overall to a total of CHF 48.6 million. In contrast, subscription and newsstand revenues increased slightly by 1.1 percent to a total of CHF 39.7 million. Thanks to acquisitions and new customers, income from the Print and Calendar business segments increased significantly to CHF 52.5 million, an increase of 17.5 percent.
Income from electronic media and other income amounted to CHF 16.5 million, 7.5% more than in the previous year. Operating expenses increased significantly by CHF 11.3 million to CHF 144 million (+8.5 percent). The main reasons for this are the launch of the seventh edition and the operating expenses for new acquisitions. The balance sheet total at the end of 2008 amounted to CHF 151.7 million, of which the share of equity was CHF 100.3 million or a very solid 66.1 percent.
When asked whether he now regrets launching the seventh edition of the Neue LZ last year, Bachmann waves it off: "The decision was absolutely right," he says, "because Sunday is definitely an advertising and readership market. Zentralschweiz am Sonntag (ZaS) has also been well received by the public and the advertising industry. The timing of the launch is debatable. "A year earlier would certainly have been better," he said. But as a Sunday edition is always a long-term project, you have to reckon with economic downturns anyway.
Bachmann is pleased that there have been no significant shifts in advertising from the weekday to the Sunday edition. "On the contrary, the ZaS brought us back customers that we hadn't had during the week for some time," he says. These include ads for cars and other campaigns that are typically placed in the Sunday press.
The question remains as to whether Bachmann would still encourage his colleague in St. Gallen - Hans-Peter Klauser, CEO of Tagblatt Medien - to have his own Sunday edition. Bachmann laughs: "Hans-Peter Klauser knows my opinion, but he hardly needs my advice." But it certainly takes more courage to launch a new edition today than it did last year. "In any case, you shouldn't wait too long to start planning, so that you can press the button as soon as the economy improves," says Bachmann.
Markus Knöpfli

Roger Harlacher is now in charge of the SWA. The previous president Gérald Stalder said goodbye to his office and the members after nine years at the SWA annual meeting on Wednesday evening. He now wants to devote himself to his garden in the south of France.
At this year's annual meeting, the Swiss Association of Advertisers and Contractors, or SWA for short, presented the results of the recent revamp it had undertaken. At the meeting, for example, it introduced Roger Harlacher, who will henceforth assume the office of president. The Zweifel Pomy-Chips management member also addressed some words of thanks to his predecessor. Gérald Stalder's nine-year presidency included important successes. For example, the entire SUISA negotiations, the new tariff system for print media and many more.
Harlacher welcomed Markus Faschang, CEO of L'Oréal, as another new member of the committee. He went on to summarize the goals set for the current year under the heading of communications efficiency. For example, the remuneration paid by the media to the agencies should continue to be transparent, while at the same time the media and agencies should be fairly rewarded for their services.
In his closing remarks, the SWA president-elect denounced the controversial advertising bans, which are taking on ever greater proportions. "The development, expansion and management of brands are not possible without freedom from advertising and without efficient and viable media.
(Text: Adriana Zilic, Photos: Elisabeth Real)

Daniel Kallay (l.), Red Bull, Roger Harlacher, President SWA.

Arend Hendriks, Microsoft Advertising, and Gaby Zimmerli, Ogilvy & Mather.

Kevin Schnell, Jens Windel, both Media Focus, Markus Faschang, L'Oréal Switzerland, and Elisabeth Bürgin, Association of Swiss Cantonal Banks (from left).

Roland Sutter and Manuela Gualeni, Sulzer, Sutter Advertising Agency.

Peter Felser (l.), Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett and Ulrich H. Moser, Conavest.

Michael Brodbeck (l.) and René Maeder, both Polyconsult.
ALL PHOTOS FROM THIS EVENT CAN BE FOUND IN THE UPCOMING ADVERTISING WEEK OF APRIL 9, 2009.

Marti & Partner has won a new client. The Zurich-based agency has been commissioned by the Swiss Handball Federation to support the men's A national team on its way to the Summer Olympics. The mandate includes marketing, communications (primarily public relations) and sponsorship tasks.

The search for a CEO is being intensified at AZ Medien. As he reaches retirement age, publisher Peter Wanner wants to withdraw from the operational business and concentrate more on strategic issues, writes the Aargau-based media company.
Furthermore, a reorganization of the company into seven divisions with seven responsible managing directors is announced. The two divisions Aargauer Zeitung/Sonntag and Crossmedia/Online will be managed by Christoph Marty. The Anzeiger/Zeitschriften/Buchverlag division will continue to be managed by Ueli Eckstein until his departure, which is expected to be at the end of the year.
Peter Buri is the designated head of Vogt-Schild
Roland Baumgartner will be responsible for e-media and Roland Tschudi for financial services/distribution. The management of the Printing/Prepress/Informatics division remains vacant for the time being. Peter Buri has been appointed Head of Media Northwestern Switzerland, consisting of Basellandschaftliche Zeitung and the recently acquired Vogt-Schild Group. The 50-year-old Buri succeeds Christian Müller and was formerly Editor-in-Chief of the Aargauer Zeitung.
The publishing director and the editor-in-chief of the Aargauer Zeitung are no longer represented on the management board; they report directly to the managing director of Aargauer Zeitung/Sonntag and, together with him and the editor-in-chief of Sonntag, now form the management of Aargauer Zeitung/Sonntag. In journalistic matters, the editors-in-chief have direct access to the publisher.
Launch of a multimedia center in Aarau
In recent weeks, the multimedia and cross-media communication platform A-z.ch has been significantly expanded, AZ Medien continues. The next step will be the launch of a multimedia center in Telli in Aarau. Due to this ongoing project work, the two business divisions Aargauer Zeitung/Sunday and Crossmedia/Online will be managed by Christoph Marty in the same position until further notice.

Peer Steinbrück as a tax evader and five-digit zip codes: Newspapers and radio stations sent their readers and listeners into April with these and other April Fool's jokes on Wednesday. A newspaper hoax in the Bernese daily Der Bund reported that dozens of place names ending in -igen would be renamed in the canton of Bern. Frutigen, for example, would be renamed Frutingen.
The free newspapers 20 Minuten and News took over the April Fool's joke from Switzerland Tourism and reported that prominent mountain peaks had to be cleared of bird droppings.
The Anzeiger Luzern newspaper reported that the German finance minister had banned the product Aromat because it makes you fat. In addition, Steinbrück may be evading taxes in Switzerland, as Radio Top found out. According to SDA, the Geneva Courrier and Die Südostschweiz also did not refrain from making an April Fool's joke about banking secrecy. The Olten Tagblatt, on the other hand, reported the city council's approval for the construction of a Formula 1 racetrack. Radio Argovia, Radio Grischa and the Solothurner Tagblatt also took no pleasure in the April Fool's joke. According to Argovia, the zip codes would be extended from four to five digits and, according to Grischa, the canton of Graubünden would get the Valtellina back.

It seems almost astonishing given the current economic gloom: as the British industry service Mediaweek reports, citing figures from the market research institute Nielsen Company, global advertising expenditure in 2008 was still around 1.5 percent higher than the previous year.
Gross expenditure on TV advertising in the previous year was around five percent higher than in 2007, accounting for 44 percent of global advertising investment. Expenditure on radio advertising stagnated. Their market share is between six and seven percent. Magazines and periodicals, on the other hand, shrank by four percent in the Asia/Pacific region, nine percent in Europe and 13 percent in North America.
Looking at the individual quarters, it is clear that the advertising industry is becoming increasingly cautious: in the fourth quarter, only television advertising showed a small increase.

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment Switzerland (TCFHE) has commissioned Open Up with all its media and public relations work. The Zurich-based communications and PR agency will be responsible for traditional press relations and media promotions and will handle both basic PR and project press relations.
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment LLC is a worldwide marketing and distribution company for Fox films and TV programs as well as licensed films and in-house productions. TCFHE is a subsidiary of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, a News Corporation company.

Ferris Bühler Communications is awarded the marketing account for the Würenlos shopping center. In addition to PR and marketing activities, the mandate also includes the conception and realization of various events. The Baden-based PR agency is to publicize the wide range of shopping and gastronomy on offer above the A1 with various measures.

Publicis is drawing attention to the special exhibition "Witzerland", which is taking place at the Swiss National Museum in Zurich from April 2 to September 13, 2009. The agency is promoting the multimedia compilation of humorous, witty and satirical views of Switzerland with an emblem familiar from tourism advertising. The thread that comes loose from the fabric badge turns the word "Switzerland" into "Witzerland", making the emblem the key visual of the exhibition.
From mid-March, the motif will adorn posters, streetcar posters, megaposters, advertisements, e-boards, cinema slides, invitation cards, postcards and flyers. There will also be a real emblem as a giveaway.

Responsible at the Landesmuseum: Andreas Spillmann (Director), Walter Keller (Exhibition Curator), Christoph Stuehn (Head of Business Administration & Member of the Executive Board), Mariella Frei (Head of Marketing). Responsible at Publicis: Ralph Halder (CD), Sonja Gross and Viviana Chiosi (Creation), Vera Schmid (Art Buying), Tufan Tuna (TV Producer), Margrit Weber and Sina Loosli (Consulting), Andreas Caruso (Production), Fabio Clerici (Litho), Peter Stäuble and Andrea Achermann (DTP).

> To the e-board animation

In future, the International Herald Tribune (IHT) will look more like its parent paper, the New York Times. The aim is to make the IHT stand out even more as the international edition of the New York Times. The paper's business section will be given more space and photos will be larger. In addition, the websites of the two newspapers will be merged, as the French newspaper Le Figaro reported on Monday. The traditional newspaper, based in Neuilly near Paris, has been wholly owned by the New York Times for two years. It takes over a large part of the content, but also has its own correspondents.

The Achtung! agency group has launched a spring campaign for City Night Line to increase brand awareness. The focus of the current campaign, called "Augen zu und da" (Eyes closed and there), is a "living advertisement": from March 30 to 31, 2009, a bed with a lady in pyjamas stood in front of a compartment in the middle of Zurich main station. Above it was the slogan "Augen zu und da: Im City Night Line über Nacht durch Europa".
The advertising campaign has been running in various major German and Swiss cities since the beginning of March 2009. The rail company wants to use the campaign to establish itself as a product that stands for pleasant travel, good service and reliable offers, as Christian Brambring, Managing Director of DB AutoZug and City Night Line, was quoted as saying in a press release on Tuesday.
In addition to "living advertising", the campaign includes other activities that take place primarily in train stations or in their immediate vicinity. For example, poster pillars with the campaign motif can be seen, framed by oversized sleeping goggles. In addition to posters, floor stickers are used to encourage passengers to place their clothes on the foil print before going to bed. In addition, promotional teams distribute City Night Line travel guides in shirt pocket format.

Caption: The "living advertisement" in the middle of a train station.