Following a competitive presentation, Migros Culture Percentage has chosen Euro RSCG Zurich as its new partner for the relaunch of Migros Culture Percentage Classics, formerly Klubhaus-Konzerte. The agency surprised with a clear strategic recommendation and the creative implementation, according to a press release on Monday. The campaign, consisting of a film, posters, advertisements and online measures, will be shown in German and French-speaking Switzerland this spring.

Following the takeover of the French-speaking Swiss media group Edipresse by Tamedia, Moritz Leuenberger hopes and expects the Zurich-based group to assume its new responsibilities in terms of state and media policy. He is concerned about Swiss-German cultural dominance over French-speaking Switzerland, said the media minister during question time in the National Council on Monday.
On the other hand, such mergers in the media landscape are also a means of surviving and remaining viable in the face of giants such as Google. Media concentration is not bad in itself, Leuenberger continued. It cannot be a goal for as many newspapers as possible to print the same news agency reports. A large company can afford more journalism.
The Federal Council had no opportunity to intervene in this media concentration. It is now up to the Competition Commission (ComCo) to assess the admissibility of the takeover from an economic perspective.

It was a recent dinner conversation: What would you do if the entire economic system completely collapsed? The answer came quickly: Go to the gun store. What was met with laughter at the time is now a reality in the USA: gun dealers are reporting record sales. In the fourth quarter of 2008, Smith & Wesson sold 40 percent more pistols than in the third, as Adage reports, and sales at Sturm, Ruger and others even rose by more than 80 percent. Only rifles were more popular, recording an increase in sales of over 300 percent.
The first reason cited is Obama's election in the fourth quarter. Democratic presidents are more likely to restrict gun sales than Republicans. Clinton's election in 1992 was also accompanied by an 18-month increase in firearms sales. It looks like people want to get a gun just before closing time. Another reason is hunting, which promises cheap and protein-rich food in times of crisis, a shooting sports official is quoted as saying. But of course, gun purchases are also about people's increasing concern for their safety, especially - as mentioned - in tough economic times.

Jenni Kommunikation will be responsible for public relations at Swiss TXT Multimedia Solutions. The Zurich-based agency will provide the SRG subsidiary with technical advice and implement PR strategies.
Swiss TXT Multimedia Solutions designs, develops and operates multimedia communication solutions for electronic media such as mobile web, internet and teletext

Vögele-Shoes has been in Jung von Matt/Limmat's portfolio since last July, and now the agency is presenting its first campaign for the footwear label. It revolves around models posing in oversized shoe boxes, analogous to shoes wrapped in tissue paper. Naturally, the models wear Vögele shoes and put them in the limelight. Depending on the motif, the focus is sometimes on the extravagant, sometimes on the casual.
The result is nine motifs for posters and advertisements. In addition, short film sequences on e-boards breathe life into the shoebox models. The campaign is continued interactively on the web, with Voegele-shoes.com undergoing a complete redesign. The focus was on a uniform brand appearance in the course of the new communication presence, as the agency writes in a statement.
The new motifs are also present at the POS and also adorn the sides of the company's own trucks. The campaign will be launched on March 9 and will be used not only in Switzerland but also in Austria and Slovenia.
E-Board sequence
Responsible at Vögele-Shoes: Daniel Widmer (Head of Marketing), Carmela Vetsch (Head of Communications). Responsible at Jung von Matt/Limmat: Lukas Frei, Alexander Jaggy (CD), Inken Rohweder (AD), Samuel Christ (text), Nora Vögeli (graphics), Martin Samsel, Petra Gayko, Jasmin Schmid (consulting), Ilonka Galliard (art buying), Paco Peregrin (photography), Bruno Manser, Claude Eberhard (art direction web), Matthias Adolf (consulting web) and Rene Hildebrand HiHo (programming online).

Weber Harbeke has created a magalog, a mixture of magazine and catalog, for Migros on the theme of Easter. To demonstrate Migros' product range expertise, recipes with meat, fish and poultry are listed based on the Sélection product line - as ideas for an Easter brunch. In the 32-page booklet, customers will also find articles for coloring eggs and making nests.
The Magalog is distributed free of charge in all Migros stores with the relevant product range and also appears as a supplement in the Swiss weekly and monthly press as well as in a partial edition of Migros magazine.

Responsible at the Federation of Migros Cooperatives, Zurich: Wolfgang Schuster (Project Manager Market Development), Mirjam Fuchs (Project Manager Seasonal Focus), Isabel Läderach (Junior Project Manager Seasonal Focus). Responsible at Weber Harbeke, Zurich: Thomas Harbeke, Max Weber (CD), Christian Sidow (text), Evelina Melchiori (AD), Michael Kaelin, Sibill Zellweger (graphics), Dominik Abt (consulting). Photos: Martin Hemmi. Styling: Nina van Rooijen and Aleli Leal. Food styling: Christian Splettstösser.

The digital marketing agency Orange8 Interactive, which is part of the Goldbach Media Group, is now also represented in Zurich. Senior Consultant Frank Lang, who looks after key accounts in the agency business in Biel, will build up a team of consultants in Zurich in the medium term. The marketing planner and sales coordinator has experience in direct marketing and as a senior account director. Among other things, he worked at the digital unit of McCann Australia, where he was responsible for clients such as Microsoft and Intel.

Skittles, the sweets brand from Mars, has launched a new Website. It is actually more of a non-page, as it only consists of a small navigation field that links to social networks with content about the product. For example, under "Videos" you are redirected to YouTube, under "Photos" to Flickr and under the product descriptions to Wikipedia. Other links also lead to Web 2.0: "Friends" leads to Facebook and "Chatter" to Twitter. The current homepage is the Wikipedia article on Skittles.
Website visits increased by 1300 percent
The website launch - or image campaign, it's not so clear - began on March 2, when the Skittles.com site consisted of nothing more than a news ticker that was fed in real time with Twitter messages about Skittles. On March 3, website visits increased by over 1300 percent on. When the new website soon became known in the Twitter scene, politically incorrect and unflattering messages ("Skittles causes AIDS") piled up at such a rapid pace that Skittles.com then linked to its fan page on Facebook on March 4. When the number of fans there shot up to over 580,000 within a short space of time, attracted by the high publicity of their news, as on Twitter, the page changed again. Now the homepage is on Wikipedia, i.e. in calmer waters.
Did Skittles people change the Wikipedia entry?
Of course, the use of a wiki page as a company homepage gave Wikipedia users and editors something to talk about. Commercialism and encyclopaedic aspirations don't mix well. Although the encyclopedia entry itself did not sound like corporate PR and was balanced overall, the description of each individual flavor of the candy was as detailed as in a small product brochure. For this reason, the suspicion was expressed on the discussion page that the Mars company might have expanded the page. After some back and forth, the editors combined the product descriptions into a separate article and shortened the original to about a quarter. The question now is whether Skittles will relink its page and thus react to this change.
Not an entirely new idea
The idea of becoming involved in Web 2.0 as a brand is imaginative, but not entirely new. How Adage writes, the website of the web agency Agency.com strongly reminiscent of the site launched last year by Modernista. This has only minimal content of its own and mainly shows what is available on the web about Modernista, on Facebook, Google or YouTube. The Modernista page reads: "Don't be alarmed! See Modernista through the eyes of the internet."
The Skittles website works in the same way. However, it says: "Skittles is not responsible for what people write and post on the linked pages." The small difference between a branding agency and the confectionery giant Mars. Nevertheless, what is new about the Skittles page is that a consumer goods company can be represented to this extent by the social network sphere. And it is not entirely without risk if a brand cannot control the content on the linked pages to any great extent. One exception to this is the link to YouTube, which leads to the Skittles corporate channel.
Skittles website received a lot of attention
The Skittles experiment has already received a lot of attention, particularly in the marketing media and blogosphere. The verdict is largely positive. To summarize, one BloggerIn positive terms, the brand has certainly created brand awareness, albeit perhaps more among advertisers and marketers than among potential customers. And of course the site received a lot of free press - as did this article. On the other hand, he called it a missed opportunity for Skittles not to get in touch with all those visitors. But perhaps that will come, as it should in Web 2.0.
(elk)

The Quartz Swiss Film Prize was awarded for the first time on Saturday. The organizers, the Federal Office of Culture FOC, SRG and Swiss Films, want to use this event to put the spotlight on Swiss filmmaking. A commission of the BAK nominated films in the categories feature film, documentary film, short film and animated film. Prizes were also awarded in the categories Actress and Actor, Young Acting Talent, Screenplay and Film Music.
Winners:
Best Feature Film
Home (Ursula Meier)
Best Documentary Film
No more smoke signals (Fanny Bräuning)
Best Short Film
Un dìa y nada (Lorenz Merz)
Best animated film
Tôt ou tard (Jadwiga Kowalska)
Best actress
Céline Bolomey Du bruit dans la tête
Best Actor
Dominique Jann (Air Business)
Best young acting talent
Kacey Klein Mottet (Home)
Best Screenplay
Home (Ursula Meier, Antoine Jaccoud)
Best Film Music
Zara (Marcel Vaid)

Recording from Tôt ou tard (Jadwiga Kowalska).

For the first time, a representative of the Ringier publishing house has commented on the takeover of the western Swiss publishing house Edipresse by Tamedia. Frank A. Meyer sharply criticized the impending deal. He considers the increasing domination of the Zurich media to be a cause for concern, as he replied to the Sonntag newspaper when asked whether the deal was good or bad. In addition, Ediprese would have been a better fit for Ringier in terms of products anyway, Meyer continued.
The Romands, on the other hand, would welcome the Edipresse takeover. The editor-in-chief of Le Matin and Schweizer Illustrierte, Peter Rothenbühler, told Kleinreport.ch that the takeover announced this week had triggered "surprisingly few reactions".

The Bund has been threatened with the loss of its editorial independence as a Bernese daily newspaper for some time. However, more than 11,000 readers and sympathizers have now signed the petition to save the traditional paper, as the NZZ reported on Sunday. Not exactly a weak reaction to Tamedia's plan to strip the Bund of its editorial autonomy. However, with a circulation of 55,000 copies and a balance sheet that is generally in the red, it is difficult to force Tamedia to continue such a project - not even with 20,000 signatures. Opinions are still divided on the possible concepts of an editorial cooperation with the Zurich Tages-Anzeiger or a merger with the Berner Zeitung. However, the suggestion by journalist Karl Lüönd from Uri that the 11,000 petitioners could make a solidarity contribution of CHF 1,000 to the federal government instead of signing the petition is convincing. At the very least, it cannot be denied that without such proof of action from readers or the media, the petition would appear to be more of a symbolic attempt at a rescue - and would not make the bill any better.

Paid print media are currently fighting for their survival. According to SDA, publisher president Hanspeter Lebrument is no longer sure whether they really still have a future. However, the press is currently still the most important mainstay of publishing houses. For example, 90 percent of the publishing houses' income comes from the print sector.
For Lebrument, the Swiss press landscape is in a transitional phase. Although publishers are trying to integrate the Internet into their business model, they are not yet making any real money. On the other hand, he has high hopes for regional newspapers.