Monika Luck, Managing Director of Schweizer Werbung SW, announced her resignation at the end of 2009 at the last Board meeting. In future, she wants to devote more time to traveling, her family, her headquarters in Ticino and her agency for Schr-Ott and creativity. Luck has managed SW since February 1, 1998, looking after around 1,000 members and five different secretariats. In addition to the management of Swiss Advertising, these include the secretariat of the Commission of the Pension Fund, the secretariat of the Foundation for Fairness in Commercial Communication, the secretariat of the Association for the Promotion of Fairness in Commercial Communication, the secretariat of the Zurich Advertising Club and the secretariat of the Association of Swiss Advertising and Media Sales Companies (SAVA). Monika Luck has also sat on numerous committees.

The controversial audio recordings made by Swiss television are causing a stir in the Sunday press. Ursula Wyss told the Sonntag newspaper that the mere apology from SF editor-in-chief Ueli Haldimann, which he made in his Internet diary was not enough. Her main concern is the "abuse of trust between television and parliamentarians". Although Haldimann promises not to use the raw material and to delete it after the statutory retention period of four months has expired, Wyss is anything but satisfied. On the contrary: the SP parliamentary group leader demands that the recordings be deleted immediately.
Peter Studer, former President of the Press Council and Ueli Haldimann's predecessor, has also made serious accusations against Swiss television. As he told the Sonntags-Zeitung, in his opinion, the use of an unnoticed microphone and the use of statements obtained in this way violates the Swiss Criminal Code, the Civil Code, the Parliamentary Law Ordinance and the Swiss Journalists' Code - and presumably also the journalistic guidelines of Swiss television.
The Sunday press agrees on one point: the culprit is Toni Brunner. Like every member of parliament, he knows that audio recordings of conversations in the council chamber are taboo, writes the NZZ am Sonntag. It was primarily Brunner who had behaved "immorally".
Immorality or not, the incident could have far-reaching consequences. According to Sonntags-Blick, the Office of the Federal Assembly is now considering temporarily withdrawing SF's right to record in the halls of parliament.

In the article "Free newspapers eat up subscriptions" in the Werbewoche issue 45/08, we made a mistake in the table. The Zofinger Tagblatt (ZT) is listed there with 12,702 subscriptions in 2008 and a decrease of 10.9 percent compared to the previous year. Both are incorrect. The fact that the ZT has been publishing the part of its circulation that extends into the canton of Lucerne as the split edition "Luzerner Nachrichten" (LN) since September 2007 and reporting it separately was not taken into account. The 1,310 LN subscriptions should therefore be correctly added to those of the ZT, resulting in a total of 14,012 ZT subscriptions. The year-on-year decline in ZT subscriptions is therefore only 1.7 percent. We apologize for the oversight.

Major personnel changes at Publigroupe: The advertising agency is introducing a dual role at the top of the company. Going forward, CEO Hans-Peter Rohner will also serve as chairman of the board of directors. He takes over this role from Philippe Pidoux, who has unexpectedly stepped down.
Publigroupe announced on Friday that Pidoux had announced his resignation at the April 2009 general meeting. However, the dual role—which has been controversial from a corporate governance perspective—is intended to last only «for a limited time.» Publigroupe further states that this consolidation of «key decision-making authority» will enable the company to keep decision-making processes short and the organization efficient.
Publigroupe is being hit hard by the current economic slowdown. The company is facing a challenging transformation phase, and this makes it necessary to focus on the dual role. To meet corporate governance requirements, Board Member Pascal Böni will assume the role of Lead Director during the period of Hans-Peter Rohner’s dual role.
In addition, the Board of Directors is to be downsized as part of the ongoing restructuring of the Group. Accordingly, Gerhart Isler, the former publisher of *Finanz und Wirtschaft*, will step down from the board at the end of 2008.
The group also announced that the Board of Directors had appointed Thomas as Deputy CEO of the Group effective May 1, 2009. Kaiser is the head of the Digital & Marketing Services division.

The second issue of Coop's organic magazine Verde was recently published. On 48 pages, a team of authors writes reports and background stories about organic and nutrition, lifestyle and fashion. The team consists of specialist journalists and experts from the fields of nutrition and lifestyle.
Coop anticipated the trend towards sustainability awareness, healthy eating and organic products with the new Naturaplan brand. Verde is now the second step, the agency writes in a press release. Together with the advertising agency KSB/SJ and the PR agency Paroli, Coop plans to publish the magazine four times a year from 2009.
Verde has a circulation of several million copies throughout Switzerland and is included in various titles such as SI Style, Bilanz, NZZ Folio and L'Hebdo. In future, Verde will also be available in every Coop sales outlet and at www.coop.ch/verde be available online and can be subscribed to.

Responsible at Coop: Jürg Peritz (Head of Marketing/Procurement), Christian Waffenschmidt (Head of VIVA Competence Brands). Responsible at Verde: Oliver Suter Agentur Paroli (realization), Daniel Krieg and Uwe Schlupp, KSB/SJ (creation), Agentur Paroli and Lüchinger Publishing (editor-in-chief), Simone Fennel (art direction), Mel Sinha (picture editing), Christiane Gothuey (production), Matthias Ullmeyer (organization). Lithography: Detail AG. Printing: Ringier AG.

At the World Luxury Awards, the product film "Book of Dreams" won a Golden Star for its creative realization and degree of innovation. The film was produced by the corporate department of Condor Films to mark the 140th anniversary of the traditional Schaffhausen watch manufacturer IWC. In it, historical photos are combined with real footage and packshots to create a dream journey by IWC founder F.A. Jones through IWC's six themed worlds, says Condor Films, describing the Golden Star award winner. The film, with Dolby Surround sound, was produced for various communication channels and for use in a wide range of language regions.
The World Luxury Award is the only international creative award for work created for luxury brands. Various works in the areas of media, print, film, direct mail, outdoor, websites and online advertising, visual advertising, media use, PR, calendars and brochures are honored.
Responsible at Condor Film Corporate: Olivier Egli (Creative Producer), Dominik Stibal (Consultant/ Producer).

Swiss television's China correspondent Barbara Lüthi has been voted Journalist of the Year 2008. Second place in the public vote went to Bund editor Hansueli Schöchli, ahead of the Sonntagszeitung team of reporters who uncovered the Nef case. The Sonntagszeitung team included Karl Wild, Cathrine Boss and Martin Stoll, as announced by the publishers of the trade journal Schweizer Journalist on Friday.
Rainer Maria Salzgeber received the award for Best Sports Journalist of the Year and Swiss Television was named Editor of the Year for the first time. As in the previous year, the Editor-in-Chief of the Year is Patrik Müller from Sonntag. In French-speaking Switzerland, the journalist of the year is Myret Zaki from Le Temps, while in Ticino the RSI business editorial team consisting of Luca Fasani, Simona Soldini and Alessandra Felicioni received this award.
A total of 927 people voted for the Journalists of the Year via the Internet. A jury also honored journalists in other categories.

The Berlin advertising agency Scholz & Friends Berlin has developed a new motif for the "Dahinter steckt immer ein kluger Kopf" campaign for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The latest "clever mind" in the image campaign is the Austrian pantomime Samy Molcho. On the subject, he reads the FAZ, dispensing with any kind of props. He presents the newspaper reading exclusively through facial expressions and gestures.
The agency has been staging the "Dahinter steckt immer ein kluger Kopf" campaign for the FAZ for over ten years, featuring personalities from all areas of society. The image idea with Samy Molcho adds a new perspective to the photo series, the agency said in a press release. While the celebrities were previously shown behind the open newspaper while reading, the motif with the body language expert lives from the complete reduction of the situation as well as his art of bringing invisible things to life through gestures and facial expressions.
The advertisement is the first and only one in a series of different motifs in which the FAZ is not depicted. The motif will appear immediately in various newspapers and magazines, as well as online at www.faz.net/kluge-koepfe
and in the FAZ itself. Most recently, the literary pope and TV critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki was photographed for the campaign, as was Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking (see picture below). We think that such a beautiful subject also deserves a mention in Advertising Week.

Over 500 Swiss people have applied to succeed presenter Joël Gilgen on the Swiss Date show on Tele Züri. There are currently 120 candidates still in the running to compete in front of a jury next weekend. The three-member jury consists of lifestyle presenter Patricia Boser, current Swiss Date presenter Joël Gilgen and weather professional Peter Wick.
The search for a successor to Gilgen will be broadcast in an eight-part weekly documentary series and shown on all eight regional TV stations in German-speaking Switzerland instead of Swiss Date. The series will start broadcasting on January 10, 2009.

Switzerland has a new television award. The editors of the Internet TV guide Teleboy.ch are looking for the high-flyers and the downfalls of the Swiss television year. 165,000 users can vote until the beginning of 2009. The editors have now announced the nominees for their television award. Six finalists in each of six categories are competing for the public's favor. In addition to the "Most Exciting Presenter" discipline, a prize will also be awarded for the "Stupidest Program" of the year.
The awards are also intended to offer a review of the year, as the company Cinergy, which manages Teleboy.ch, writes in a press release. Viewers can now watch various TV events from 2008 again online as a video.
After the Axel Springer publishing house announced that the Swiss Television Prize presented by its printed television magazines would no longer be awarded in 2009, the publishers of Teleboy.ch are not ruling out the possibility that their awards could be presented next year with a gala.

Swiss television made audio recordings of members of the National Council during the Federal Council elections. This was done without their knowledge, as the commuter newspaper 20 Minuten revealed on Thursday. National Council President Simoneschi-Cortesi is now demanding clarification.
Because SVP President and National Councillor Toni Brunner carried a microphone from Swiss television during the Federal Council election, National Council President Chiara Simoneschi-Cortesi (CVP/TI) is now taking action. The TV footage was used for a portrait of Brunner in the SF "Reporter" series, for which he was accompanied by a camera team for several days. During the Federal Council election, he wore a small button microphone on his jacket.
In principle, journalists - with the exception of cameramen and photographers - are not allowed to enter the Council chamber. On the hectic morning of the Federal Council election, the "hidden" microphone not only recorded Brunner's voice, but also that of his political opponents. In the SF report from Wednesday, December 17, recordings of SP parliamentary group leader Ursula Wyss were used. She found an open microphone in the hall unacceptable, Wyss told 20 Minuten Online on Thursday.
Simoneschi-Cortesi is of the same opinion. According to the regulations, such recordings require the approval of the Office of the United Federal Assembly, the President of the National Council told SDA on Friday. "But there was no request and no authorization."
The matter was discussed by the National Council office on Friday. "We want to clarify the facts, then we'll see," said Simoneschi-Cortesi. She will send a letter to Swiss television on Friday requesting a statement.

The economic crisis did not slow down the Swiss advertising business in November. In November, advertising pressure rose by 2.0% compared to the previous year, as reported by the market research institute Media Focus on Friday.
Internet advertising grew by a full 42.3%. By contrast, the advertising market in television (-3.7%), radio (-2.3%) and specialty press (-6.8%) shrank, according to the Institute's report. Advertising in the other media groups increased.
The good result in the Sunday press (+14.9%) was due to the fact that it benefited from an additional Sunday. As expected, political campaigns also grew in the voting month of November, namely by 273.9%. The AHV initiative was the most heavily advertised. Household goods and appliances (+25.5%) and tobacco products (+17.1%) also performed well.
The cumulative increase since the beginning of the year is 3.1%. The institute assumes that the entire 2008 advertising year will be balanced with a plus.