The advertising agency Ruf Lanz has generated buzz for the direct insurer Smile.direct with dented parking barriers. The agency’s campaign can be seen in large parking garages, where conventional parking barriers have been replaced with conspicuously bent ones that look as if they’ve been in an accident. The slogan provides an explanation for the damaged barrier: «Life isn’t fair. So at least your insurance should be.» Ruf Lanz has been positioning the brand under this slogan since fall 2008.
The promotion follows a «smile» campaign by the agency under the same slogan. It was named the “best campaign of the year” by two advertising professionals, Markus Gut (Advico Young & Rubicam) and Geri Aebi (Wirz Werbung), in a poll on Tagesanzeiger.ch. Smile.direct, based in Zurich-Wallisellen, is a direct insurer specializing in motor vehicle and personal property insurance.
Person in charge at smile.direct Insurance: Claudia Staub (Head of Marketing + Communication), Dieter Lützelschwab (CEO). Responsible at Ruf Lanz: Danielle Lanz, Markus Ruf (Creative Direction), Grit Wolany (Art Direction), Torsten Maas (Copy), Gian Marco Juon, Michael Gassler (Consulting).

Just in time for the onset of winter, the advertising agency JWT+H+F has created a winter theme for Coca Cola. The ski resorts of Davos and Klosters as well as several towns in Central Switzerland were decorated with Coke materials. The figures that the agency used for the subjects are based on the "Happiness Factory" campaign that has already appeared in cinema and television commercials. Under the motto "Winter on the Coke Side of Life", the subjects are intended to convey the Coke moment in winter. The "Factory" comic heroes can now be seen on posters as well as on gondolas and ski lifts.
Responsible at JWT+H+F: Remy Fabrikant (overall responsibility), Grischa Rubinick (CD), Sebastian Day (Junior AD), Vanessa Lehmann-Spalleck (consulting), Frame Eleven (3D), Type Design (image editing). Responsible at Coca-Cola: Alessandra Nicolette (Senior Brand Manager Sparkling Beverages), Barbara Hagmann (Brand Manager), Melanie Conrad (Assistant Brand Manager).

Goldbach Media subsidiary IP Multimedia is expanding its portfolio in the local area. With the addition of the two Ticino regional stations Tele Ticino and Radio 3iii as well as Ticinonews.ch, the company is expanding its offering for local campaigns. The expansion will contribute to better coverage of the southern canton alongside or as an alternative to the SRG stations, the company writes in a press release.
Tele Ticino's broadcasting area covers the whole of Ticino and the Moesano region as far as San Bernardino in Graubünden. Thanks to this coverage, national campaigns can now also be optimized with a regional TV station in Italian-speaking Switzerland, as IP Media writes further.

The Swiss advertising marketing company Goldbach Media is acquiring 55 percent of the online advertising marketer Falk Interactive, based in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Goldbach informed the press on Friday that the purchase would be made by means of a share swap and for cash. The takeover price was not disclosed. Goldbach Media has secured the option to increase its stake to 100 percent over four years.
Falk Interactive was founded in 2008 and already has a significant portfolio of marketed websites, according to the press release. Goldbach has already been represented in Russia with a company in Moscow since the takeover of Arbomedia in fall 2008.

The brand and communications agency Evoq will be working even more closely with Ringier Print in Adligenswil from next year. Adrian Schaffner, a member of Evoq's Executive Board, will take on various marketing tasks for the print shop.
The mandate includes the development of internal communication tools, but also technical and content-related support for customer projects in newspaper design, advertising marketing, advertising and new media.

"Rescue package" is the Swiss word of the year 2008, having won out over other expressions from the financial crisis vocabulary such as "bonuses", "financial injection" or "liquidity bottleneck".
The word "rescue package" has undergone an impressive change in meaning, writes the jury, made up of various media professionals, in a statement on Thursday. Before the financial crisis, rescue packages were put together for famines and disasters. Now the term illustrates the importance and need for state intervention to save the economy.
According to the jury, other important terms last year were "Botellón", "Raser" and the "Task Force Cervelat".
The European Football Championship gave Switzerland the bad word of the year 2008: "Europhoria". According to the jury, the slogan did not make the leap into colloquial language. This shows that Switzerland does not allow itself to become euphoric.
The phrase of the year remains political. After Neo-Federal Councillor Ueli Maurer was crowned last year with the statement "The Rütli is just a meadow with cow dung", this year it is the turn of German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück. With the statement "We must not only use the carrot, but also the stick", he fulfills the cliché of the ugly German to an excessive degree and does a disservice to the German population in Switzerland, writes the jury.
For five years now, a "Word of the Year" has been chosen in Switzerland at the end of each year. Previous winners have included terms such as "smoking ban", "Aldisierung", "Meh Dräck", "Konkordanz" and "Sterbetourismus".

The temporary Zurich radio station Rundfunk.fm is giving one of its listeners an unusual Christmas present: on Wednesday from 9 p.m., the DJ radio station will be broadcasting from a private apartment in district 4. "We're giving a listener a Christmas present by hosting our radio party at his home," radio producer Oliver Scotoni told 20 Minuten. To do this, all the equipment is moved into the home. After the radio parties for several thousand people, they now want to do something small. To avoid the apartment being stormed, the address will remain secret.
The radio project, which has been running for several years now, is taking place for the first time during the Advent season. The station can be received via FM (ZH Süd 90.1 MHz and ZH Nord 92.2 MHz), Cablecom and the Internet.

Deutsche Bank acquires a stake in Axel Springer. With retroactive effect from December 15, the bank is acquiring around 8.4 percent of the giant German publishing house. According to the industry service Horizont, this corresponds to a total of 2,753,301 shares.
At the same time, the American financial investor Hellman & Friedman, which joined the media company in 2003, is reducing its stake from 9.9 percent to 1.6 percent.
According to Axel Springer, the shares of Deutsche Bank will be widely placed on the market in the medium term in a "recovered capital market environment". This is in line with the desire of Springer shareholders for greater liquidity and serves the company's value development.

Imelda Marcos, ex-wife of the former dictator of the Philippines, already knew the importance of good footwear. Several thousand pairs were piled up in her chambers in the magnificent ruling palace in Manila. Now the Iraqi journalist Muntaser el Saidi has brought the shoe back into the spotlight in a unique publicity stunt when he threw them at the American President George W. Bush at a press conference in Baghdad. Quite apart from the political significance and the rather tragic consequences for the shooter, the TV recording is an extremely amusing little strip. Bush's ability to react is also astonishing. Perhaps, like his former predecessor Ronald Reagan, a former actor, he has simply missed his calling. With reflexes like that, he's a dodgeball pro.
In the Arab world, shoes have become a symbol of resistance to the American occupation since Saidi's action. On Thursday, the AFP news agency reported that the pair of shoes thrown at Bush had now been tested for explosives and destroyed. The shoe thrower's lawyer sharply criticized the destruction of the shoes: "These shoes were sacred," said the lawyer.

Markus Kellenberger has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the magazine Natürlich. The 49-year-old will take up the post on January 1, 2009, according to a press release from AZ Medien. Kellenberger has been a member of the Natürlich editorial team since 2005 and has focused on health and social issues. Prior to this, he was editor and producer at the consumer magazine K-Tipp for seven years. In the 1990s, he was head of the newsroom at Tele Bärn. An occupational therapist by training, he previously worked as an editor at the Bund, Luzerner Neuste Nachrichten and the Berner Zeitung.
Karen Heidl, Publishing Director of AZ Fachverlage, is quoted in the press release as saying that the role of Editor-in-Chief, which was re-created after five years, is intended to further develop the magazine, which was relaunched in spring 2008, into a modern reading magazine. Since the relaunch, the publishing house has been working on the gradual further development of the Natürlich brand. In addition to further optimizing the print edition, an expansion of numerous online user services is planned by spring 2009.
Natürlich has been published for almost 30 years and reaches 189,000 readers every month, according to its own figures. The magazine has a certified circulation of 43,035 copies.

The online scheduler Doodle was awarded the People's Choice in the Places & Events category at the Open Web Awards 2008 in San Francisco. Earlier this week, Doodle already received the Blogger's Choice in the same category.
The ad-supported service was developed in 2003 by Swiss Michael Näf for a private purpose. In 2007, Näf and his business partner Paul E. Sevinç founded a company based in Zurich, which has been backed by venture capitalists as Doodle AG since March 2008. According to Google Analytics (November 2008), Doodle.com has 2.5 million monthly users.
The Open Web Awards are an international competition that honors innovation and excellence in websites and services. The social media blog Mashable, in collaboration with more than 100 blog partners, has chosen the winners of 26 categories in the two sections Audience and Blogger from 50,000 nominations.

The Finnish company Powerflute is taking over the Scheufelen paper mill with effect from January 1, 2009. The business operations will be transferred to the investor in full and with around 500 employees, according to a press release issued on Thursday. All conditions of the purchase agreement dated October 3, 2008 have been fulfilled.
The paper mill from the Lenninger Valley filed for insolvency on July 17, 2008. Business operations were maintained in full. Immediately after the insolvency proceedings were opened, the company, which produces 290,000 tons of high-quality coated paper annually, was sold to Powerflute. The purchase agreement was initially subject to various conditions, all of which have now been fulfilled. The transfer of business operations can therefore take place as planned on January 1, 2009.
The investor Powerflute is a public limited company listed on the London and Stockholm stock exchanges that produces corrugated base paper from birch pulp in Finland. The acquisition of the Scheufelen paper mill marks the investor's entry into the new business segment of coated premium papers.