The submission deadline for the 56th International Advertising Festival in Cannes has been extended until April 9. The festival organizers are thus giving interested parties up to one month more time to submit their entries. The deadline extension applies to all categories.

The NZZ Group's profit fell by 51.2 percent to 22.2 million francs in the 2008 financial year. Turnover fell by 2.3 percent to CHF 538.1 million. The decline is mainly due to the sharp drop in the advertising market. The financial crisis that emerged in mid-2007 had an unexpectedly severe impact on the real economy in the second half of 2008 and triggered a sharp drop in advertising revenues, the NZZ Group announced on Friday. The company management does not expect the next upturn in the advertising market before mid-2011.
Equity ratio further expanded
In the NZZ division (including Neue Zürcher Zeitung, NZZ am Sonntag and NZZ Online), sales fell by 2.9 percent to 222.9 million francs. In addition, the investment in Internet activities had an impact of CHF 9.5 million on the operating result before interest and taxes, according to the press release. The NZZ Group's equity ratio, which was already very high, improved further - from 68.7 to 71.5 percent. The number of employees increased from 1,780 to 1,796 due to investments in new and existing products and acquisitions.
Freie Presse Holding with solid result
Turnover in the Freie Presse Holding (FPH) division with its holdings in regional publishers (Neue Luzerner Zeitung, St. Galler Tagblatt, Radio Pilatus and FM1 as well as Tele 1 and Tele Ostschweiz) fell by 1.7 percent to CHF 316.6 million. FPH's profit fell by 54.4 percent to CHF 15.6 million. Despite the decline of 24.2 percent to CHF 20.7 million, the operating result before interest and taxes was solid, according to the company management.
Zentralschweiz am Sonntag slows down decline in advertising
The decline in advertising at FPH was moderate with a minus of CHF 3.6 million. Advertising income from the launch of Zentralschweiz am Sonntag in September 2008 contributed to this in particular. Press and media manager Bernd Kundrun will be proposed for election as the new Board of Directors at the Annual General Meeting on April 18. He is to replace former FDP Federal Councillor Kaspar Villiger, who is running for Chairman of the Board of Directors of UBS.

The printing company Birkhäuser+GBC in Reinach, which belongs to Basler Zeitung Medien, is feeling the effects of the economic crisis. Nine of a total of 420 jobs have been cut. Redundancies were announced in five cases. Four jobs have also been eliminated through normal redundancies. As Basler Zeitung Medien writes in a press release, the increasingly difficult order situation and the associated pressure on margins make job cuts unavoidable in order to secure the company's economic future.
According to Managing Director Daniel Merkel, orders fell by an average of almost 10 percent. Turnover for the 2008/2009 financial year is estimated at around CHF 110 million, with the financial year ending in June.
Merkel went on to say that solutions were being sought to make the redundancies as bearable as possible for those affected by the layoffs. However, the situation is not easy at the moment. Birkhäuser+GBC is active in specialty areas such as label and continuous feed printing, commercial printing and electronic printing (media asset management).

In view of collapsing advertising revenues, the traditional US newspapers New York Times and Washington Post are resorting to further cuts. The New York Times is now cutting an additional 100 non-editorial jobs and reducing the salaries of senior editors and managers by five percent for the rest of the year. The Washington Post announced a new round of redundancy offers on Thursday. In the current newspaper crisis, many US papers have already cut jobs, according to an SDA report on Friday.
Following a loss in the previous year, the Washington Post fears a loss for 2009 as well. However, the entire group surrounding the print flagship was in the black in 2008 thanks to other divisions. The paper has already made several rounds of redundancy payments. If not enough employees accept the offers, there could be redundancies.
Various measures to reduce costs
The publishing house around the New York Times (NYT) already cut jobs last year. Although the editorial department also had to accept initial cuts, it is still by far the largest in the USA with almost 1,300 jobs. The NYT publisher also called on unionized employees to forgo wages. Otherwise there was a threat of redundancies. The group also imposed pay cuts at most of its other media outlets, with the exception of the International Herald Tribune. However, employees will receive additional days off in return.
The NYT Group recently had to sell its headquarters in Manhattan, which was only completed in 2007, due to financial difficulties and is now a tenant there. It also received a capital injection from Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim in return for additional shares.

The St. Gallen-based publishing house Laxone has launched a new publication to replace its former wellness magazine. The bi-monthly magazine under the name Laxone is aimed at a target group of affluent people aged between 30 and 60, according to a press release from the publishing house. The magazine clearly says yes to luxury and consumption.

After years of rapid growth, the success-spoiled Internet company Google is now increasingly cutting jobs in the crisis. Google announced in its Internet blog on Thursday evening that 200 jobs are to be cut worldwide in the areas of sales and marketing. The market leader in online searches had more than 20,200 employees at the turn of the year. This was the first time that the number of employees had grown only minimally. The cutbacks now announced are the biggest in Google's history to date. Jobs in Switzerland are not affected by the measure, as Werbewoche was able to find out from Google.
In its rapid expansion, Google has created a number of duplications, wrote Omid Kordestani, the Vice President responsible for sales and other areas, on the Internet. In addition, overinvestment had been made in certain areas due to overly optimistic growth forecasts. Since the beginning of the year, the Group has already cut 100 jobs in human resources and a few more in smaller discontinued business areas.

The Microsoft organization Consumer & Online hosted a "Microsoft Today Event" in Switzerland for the first time. At the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich on Thursday, March 26, the keynote speakers examined the topic of online creativity from different perspectives. National and international online experts presented current study results as well as "creative approaches to developing innovative advertising campaigns" with the social networking platform Windows Live, according to a statement from the agency.
Jeffrey Cole, Director of the Digital Future Center at the Annenberg School of Communication, is leading an international long-term study on the digital future. Over the last eight years, he has identified important online trends, including in the advertising sector. Attitudes towards web and video advertising have changed dramatically: Between 2000 and 2005, users showed no willingness to pay for digital content, said Jeffrey Cole, commenting on study results. Even today, few users are prepared to pay for online content. Acceptance of online advertising, on the other hand, is growing.
The booming possibilities of dynamically placed in-game advertising on Windows games and Xbox games also went unmentioned at the Today Event. In-game advertising brings the brand to life and the advertising is displayed true to the original, for example on billboards, posters or vehicles, as Chris James, Account Executive at Massive, Microsoft's subsidiary, explained.
Consumer & Online was expanded into a separate organization last year after Microsoft terminated its contract with Ad Link in 2007 and launched its own marketing activities in summer 2007 with three newly recruited employees.

The agency KSB/SJ has designed a series of advertisements for Volkswagen 4Motion that will appear in the new pleasure and lifestyle magazine Graubünden geht aus. According to the agency, the aim of the five advertisements is to show readers that it is almost impossible to enjoy the panorama of the Grisons Alps without a 4Motion with intelligent all-wheel drive. The ads feature bleak images of Graubünden bypass tunnels, countered by headlines describing the sights above the tunnels. A folding map was also developed especially for the Graubünden Goes Out launch event to demonstrate the partnership with Volkswagen and the advantages of 4Motion to the people of Graubünden.
Responsible at VW Switzerland: Domenico Gaito (Head of Brand), Katja Strebel (Advertising Coordinator), Denise Hofmann (Project Manager Sponsoring&Events). Responsible at KSB/SJ: Andreas Mädler (CD), Andy Lusti (text), Mario Moosbrugger (AD), Mareike Jansen (graphics), Nick Schoberth, Christoph Bürge (consulting management), Yvonne Stalder (consulting), Nadia Bachmann (DTB), Christian Breitler (photography), Felix Schregenberger (image processing). Litho: Visiolink. Print (folding card): Mercantil-Druck AG, Rudolfstetten.Print (postcard): Südostschweiz Print, Chur.

Credit Suisse's employee magazine one received two Mercury Awards in mid-March. It was awarded gold in the Magazines Staff/Employee category and silver in the Design Magazine Employee/Internal category. "One" is the international magazine for Private Banking and can also be subscribed to by employees in Investment Banking and Asset Management. The magazine was designed by the Zurich agency Process. The Mercury Award is a prize for public relations and corporate communications and has been awarded annually by MerComm Inc. since 1987.

SRG is outsourcing its music platform Mx3.ch by founding the operating company Mxlab. The wholly-owned SRG subsidiary Telvetia, the Swiss Society for the Rights of Authors of Musical Works (Suisa) and the Swiss Performers' Society (SIG) are participating in the company. According to a press release issued on Thursday, SRG is pursuing various objectives with the establishment of Mxlab. Firstly, Mx3.ch is to be made accessible to other media outside the SRG so that even more Swiss music is played. Secondly, the aim is to develop new projects within and outside the internet that promote Swiss music. The SRG's third goal is to "find and explore new paths between traditional media and new media". Not much is to change on the platform itself. It will basically remain as it is, according to Samuel Vuillermoz and Dominik Born, the two managing directors of the new company.
Mx3.ch was launched by the SRG as a pilot project in the fall of 2006 and has developed into an important platform for Swiss popular music over the past two years, according to a press release. Swiss bands can register on it and make their music available to the public, broadcasters and concert and event organizers. Private media also have the opportunity to use this service.

Thanks to over two million new members, Xing was able to increase its turnover last year by 80 percent to 35.3 million euros. The business network's profit also rose by 31 percent from 5.6 to 7.3 million euros. The rise in turnover is due in particular to the increase in paying members from 362,000 to around 550,000, as the company announced on Thursday. In total, Xing has around seven million registered users, three million of whom are from German-speaking countries. Xing plans to launch new applications for headhunters and pages on which companies can present themselves in the second quarter of 2009.

The agency KSB/SJ has developed a campaign for the SF Snowboard Driving School Laax to draw attention to the good snow conditions in the Flims - Laax - Falera region and to boost Easter business. A glass lift serves as the advertising space. A large poster in the lift shaft shows the subjective view of a snowboarder during a somersault in the Laax monster pipe. When going up and down, passengers on the lift are given the feeling of a backward or forward somersault.
> Documentary film
The installation is mounted in the glass elevator at the cab rank in Zurich main station, which leads directly to the tracks towards Laax. The campaign was created in collaboration with APG, SBB, the City of Zurich and AS Aufzüge.
Responsible at Snowboard Driving School Laax: Ivan Capaul (Head of Snowboard Driving School), Reto Poltera (Member of the Management Board of Weisse Arena Leisure AG). Responsible at KSB/SJ: Flo Wacker (CD), Andy Lusti (text), Mario Moosbrugger (AD), Jowita Jaskiewicz (graphics), Andrea Braschler (consulting), Manuela Barak (production), Mathias Zuppiger (photography), Patrick Rohner (image processing). Litho: Detail AG. Printed by Promo Printing, Alfred Egli. Responsible at APG: Astrid Kägi. Responsible at City of Zurich: Marie-Theres Marty, Mario Pfyffer.