The new head of entertainment at Schweizer Illustrierte is Bettina Portmann. The 36-year-old has been editor of the entertainment department at SI since 2007 and replaces Susanne Walder, who became a mother in May 2008. On an interim basis, the entertainment department was headed by René Haenig, who will concentrate fully on his function as chief reporter again as of November 1. Before joining Schweizer Illustrierte, Bettina Portmann worked as a video journalist, editor and producer at Tele 24 and Tele Züri.
Her deputy will be 33-year-old Simone Matthieu, according to the Ringier announcement. She is currently interim head of the society department at Sonntagsblick and already worked as a society reporter at Blick from 2005 to 2007. Matthieu was previously deputy head of society at 20 Minuten and editor at TR 7 (now TV Star), where she was responsible for setting up and managing the lifestyle, culture and VIP parties department.

Bettina Portmann (left),
Simone Matthieu.

On November 30, Zurich voters will decide on the streetcar extension to the zoo. Zurich Zoo is against this proposal for various reasons. The Zurich agency Lesch + Frei has created a motif for the referendum campaign. In the image of the rabbit with the impractically elongated ears, it writes: "There are things that are better not extended. No to the streetcar extension".
Responsible at Zurich Zoo: Markus Rege (Head of Marketing and Education). Responsible at Lesch + Frei: Thomas Lüber (CD, text), Matthias Kadlubsky (AD), Susanne Fürst (consulting), Barbara Meier and Désirée Guzzo (polygraphy), Mariano Lo Presti (illustration/image editing).

For some time now, rumors have been circulating that Ringier is on a cost-cutting course, as reported by Kleinreport and picked up by the Sonntagszeitung. There is talk of up to 50 million francs that the Group wants to save. Marco Castellaneta, Group spokesman at Ringier, puts these speculations into perspective in an interview with Werbewoche. The media in question had misinterpreted an internally published report from Ringier's intranet and drawn incorrect conclusions from it. It is correct that Ringier declared cost efficiency to be one of five strategic goals two years ago. In economically turbulent times, it is particularly important to make the best possible use of the resources available, but at the same time not to lose sight of the long-term goals, said Castellaneta. "The Group management has therefore decided to review expenditure at all locations" - so that investments can continue to be made in the existing titles, but also in the digital expansion and conversion plans. Any cost-saving measures will be communicated once a decision has been made.

The Swiss Media Awards were presented on Thursday as part of the travel trade fair in Montreux. The freelance journalist Urs von Schroeder and the freelance business and tourism journalist Andreas Güntert were honored.
Schroeder received the award in the travel category with his article on modern Shanghai, according to a statement from Swiss. The travel report entitled "Future Fever on the Huangpu" appeared in the spring of 2008 in the Schaffhauser Nachrichten newspaper and in Denkpausen, the publication of the Management School St. Gallen.
In the Aviation category, Andreas Güntert was honored with his article "Impressions on Seat 34K". The text summarizes a first flight report with the Airbus A380. Güntert's article appeared in the Sonntagszeitung of October 28, 2008.
In the presence of former Miss Switzerland Amanda Ammann, the winners were presented with their prizes (Swiss Business Class tickets valid worldwide plus 2,000 Swiss francs travel money).
Around 40 texts from German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland were submitted. The jury consisted of Jürg Dinner (Swiss), Daniela Bär Bruderer (Switzerland Tourism), Andrea Hemmi (The PR Company), Peter Brun (Kuoni), Alfred W. Hugentobler (President Switzerland Aviation Journalists) and Kurt Schaad (Swiss Television).

On November 6, the Edi.08 award ceremony will take place. A week before, the nominated films will be screened: On October 30, you can get an overview of the 2008 film works. The public screening will take place at the Arthouse Piccadilly cinema, admission is free. Registration is not required.
Edi., the Swiss film award for commercial, industrial and corporate films, honors outstanding commissioned films in the categories Corporate, Commercials and Clips & Trailers. The competition is under the patronage of the Federal Department of Home Affairs and is organized and run by Swissfilm Association.
Thursday, October 30, Arthouse Piccadilly Cinema, Mühlebachstr. 2, 8008 Zurich.
from 11 a.m: Corporate Movies Part 1
from 12 o'clock: Corporate Movies Part 2
from 1 pm: Commercials and Clips & Trailers.

Telecommunications provider Sunrise is now promoting its Sunrise Zero Plus mobile subscription with an integrated campaign on the web, TV and in print. The Zurich-based interactive agency Plan.Net Suisse, a subsidiary of the Plan.Net Group headquartered in Munich, is responsible for implementing the online creation.
The online creations can be seen until mid-December on portals such as 20min.ch, Search.ch, Blick.ch, Directories.ch and Newsnetz. The campaign is available in German, French and Italian.
In addition to this campaign, the second flight of Sunrise's online price advertising is starting these days. Plan.Net Suisse has developed a new advertising format for the company, which will advertise selected Sunrise products on Swiss websites every month with immediate effect. The monthly frequency is intended to increase the brand's recognition value.
Responsible at Sunrise: Priska Heger (Director Marketing Communications), Marina Stierli (Senior Manager Online Communications). Responsible at Plan.Net SuisseYvan Piccinno (Managing Director).

The agency Ruf Lanz has realized a campaign for Smile.direct, which is to position the direct insurance for motor vehicles and private households as a fair company. Three subjects have been created for the time being, according to a statement by the agency. Not simply the damage is presented, but the situations directly before it. Thus three visibly hungry martens make themselves on the way into the next multi-storey parking lot, and a driver gets lost on vacation in the stupidest moment. Finally, the third subject alludes to an upcoming current event and can therefore not yet be revealed, says Ruf Lanz.
The fateful situations were captured by Dutch photographer Arthur Mebius. The subjects appear as double- and half-page advertisements in the popular press and online in animated form as banners.
Responsible at Smile.direct Versicherungen, Wallisellen: Claudia Staub (Head of Marketing + Communication), Dieter Lützelschwab (CEO). Responsible at Ruf Lanz Werbeagentur AG, Zurich: Markus Ruf, Danielle Lanz (CD), Grit Wolany (AD), Torsten Maas, Markus Ruf (text), Gian Marco Juon, Michael Gassler (consulting). Photography: Arthur Mebius, Amsterdam. Image editing: Stephan Lesger, Amsterdam.

On November 6, the Chur-based company Markenkern will hold its seventh event in its lecture series on the topic of brand and marketing. In the presentation by Fabio Aresu, Managing Director of Markenkern, and Manfred Brandstätter, FH Salzburg, participants will learn how they can shorten the time-to-market with simple rituals. They will also talk about how users can become part of the brand to be organized right from the start and how to deal with unforeseen events in the project.
The event at HTW Chur starts at 5 p.m. and is open to the public. Admission is free. A small aperitif will be served after the lecture. Further information about the event and Markenkern can be found on the Markenkern website.

This year's Bern Marketing Day took place on October 28 under the motto "Under Pressure". Swisscom CEO Carsten Schloter and Arena presenter Reto Brennwald, among others, spoke to an audience of over 600 participants about how they deal with pressure situations. With 19,000 employees, Schloter is confronted with pressure on a daily basis: According to Schloter, there is huge pressure on prices and innovation in the dynamic telecommunications industry. Swisscom counters this pressure with a differentiation strategy by setting itself apart from the competition with a particularly good service.
Brennwald spoke about the situation on the political show Arena. He withstood the pressure from at least two different camps by preparing himself well for the topic, not getting involved in discussions and intervening immediately if someone misused the Arena as a platform for political slogans.
Ottmar Hitzfeld (national coach), Monika Seps (Swiss chess champion), Gian Gilli (OC President of the Ice Hockey World Championship 2009), Daniel Hösli (Commander Patrouille Suisse) as well as Dr. Dan Iselin and Dr. Philippe Snozzi (Cosmetic Botox Treatments) also spoke to the participants of the Marketing Day. The event was moderated by Röbi Koller.

Six days before the US presidential election, Democratic candidate Barack Obama spoke to voters at length for 30 minutes in prime time on Wednesday thanks to millions in donations.
According to media reports, the broadcast on four television stations cost between 3.5 and five million US dollars, as reported by SDA. In the commercial entitled "Barack Obama: American Stories", the black senator interwove stories of the hardships of average Americans with his political program.
Scenes from his youth alternated with judgments from political friends about the 47-year-old. The "infomercial" - a mixture of advertising and information - was accompanied by calm music and ended with a link to a live performance by Obama in Florida.
In the past three weeks alone, Obama has shown 140,000 TV commercials to viewers across the USA. The New York Times calculated that the films would last 53 days in a row.
Campaign budgets have risen steadily in recent elections. In 1992, at the time of George Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot, it was 192 million dollars for all candidates. In the last election in 2004 it was already 717 million dollars, this time the candidates will spend more than 1.3 billion dollars according to an estimate by the independent Washington Center for Responsive Policies.

In collaboration with Tilllate.com, the Maxomedia agency has created a campaign for Gleis7.ch, SBB's youth platform. The aim is to publicize the "7clubbing" project: young people between the ages of 18 and 25 with a Gleis 7 or GA Junior travelcard receive a CHF 7 discount at two Swiss clubs every weekend. Interested young people can find out a few days in advance on Gleis7.ch in which clubs they can party for less the following weekend. Two preview videos give a small taste of the upcoming events. You can also see the best photos from past parties in the gallery.
Maxomedia is responsible for the concept, content and technical implementation of the campaign.

With the Derivatives Guide, Cash won second place in the category for print publications with over 100,000 copies. The jury was impressed by the absolute added value for the target group and the unique multimedia implementation. The international competition is organized by IFRA, the global research and service organization for the newspaper industry. It is awarded to publishing houses that have carried out particularly innovative and successful projects to realize the messages of their advertising customers using cross-media. 66 projects from 27 countries competed for the Cross Media Award. According to the jury, "Cash has succeeded in offering the target group absolute added value with the Derivate Guide", in particular by structuring relevant information - both in terms of content and user behavior.