After Wemf expanded its MA Strategy intermedia study a year ago with the medium Internet from NET-Metrix Profile, it is coming up with another innovation this year: Starting with the publication at the beginning of December, the strategy tool will be supplemented with the radar psychography from Demoscope, similar to what Wemf has done before with Mach Basic. Media planners can use it to segment target groups according to values, and also to psychographically represent media users, consumers, products, brands and sales channels.
The MA Strategy is used by media planners to approximate the media mix with which they can best achieve the defined advertising and media objectives. Until now, however, only socio-demographic criteria and consumer characteristics could be included in the MA Strategy. Now, MA Strategy Radar also enables the combination with values. "Value concepts are increasingly decisive psychological determinants of purchasing and consumption behavior," says Wemf Managing Director Marco Bernasconi. The value structure of the buyer determines which type of marketing, which advertising style, which media and which sponsoring have the best effect. Users of MA Strategy Radar can easily run through, compare and analyze different media strategies in order to reach the target group in the best possible way.
The expansion of MA Strategy is the result of suggestions from the market. Last year, Wemf had the tool scrutinized by various marketers, media providers and media agencies. "They were very satisfied with the tool, but wanted it to be expanded," says Marco Bernasconi. In addition to the addition of radar data, the market expects the inclusion of other media, such as outdoor advertising, mobile, direct marketing and sponsoring. Wemf is therefore focusing on these requests and will possibly be able to present a further expansion as early as next year, Bernasconi announced.
Markus Knöpfli

MA Strategy Radar
The information contained in the MA Strategy Radar comes from the Mach Basic reach study and the Mach Consumer consumption study. Mach Basic provides the media values of print and cinema, sociodemographic data, and information about the values and interests of consumers and media users. Mach Consumer provides the number and profile of consumers in terms of attitudes, purchasing and information behavior for various submarkets.
In contrast, the MA Strategy and thus also the MA Strategy Radar are intermedia studies that are based on the "narrower user group (ENK)" for the comparison of the media print, radio, TV, cinema and Internet. Unlike reach, this parameter is defined in the same way for all media: It is the group of people who regularly use the medium in question. (mk)

The Basler Zeitung is cooperating with Tamedia. It diligently prints the impressive circulation of 42,000 copies of the commuter paper News. It distributes it in its catchment area, or rather has it distributed by the post office following the sale of its own Prevag. It diligently acquires advertisements. It also cooperates with Tamedia on the Internet and is part of Newsnetz, a merger of Tagi, BZ and BaZ. It provides regional articles for the Newsnetz. It holds a 25 percent stake in News Print AG and is allowed to operate largely autonomously. BaZ is spending a lot of money. This is manageable, says publisher Matthias Hagemann. Nevertheless, BaZ remains in a quandary. Tamedia's free destroyer 20 Minuten continues to distribute 70,000 copies daily on the Rhine knee. Publisher Hagemann is nevertheless hoping for a significant increase in revenue from news next year. It doesn't look that bad. He denies internal rumors that BaZ has already run into liquidity problems twice due to the production and distribution of News. The only liquidity bottleneck he is aware of is that he has just run out of Rivella on a mountain hike. Hiking calms the nerves. But when News flops, it hits the people of Basel first. Today, BaZ still sees News as a means of competing with 20 Minuten and tomorrow it could become Tamedia's bridgehead to the Rhine.

In marketing, in advertising, in politics, in private life: When decisions are made, some trust their intuition, others seek the best solution with logical reasoning. As a consultant and lecturer, I find that many managers pretend to decide rationally, but in reality proceed emotionally and then justify their decisions rationally.
Since Herbert Simon's groundbreaking publication fifty years ago, science has also been concerned with the question of the extent to which decisions can and should be made rationally. Simon describes that many decisions cannot be made rationally because the problems are too complex and people cannot absorb, store and process any amount of information.
The logical method
Nevertheless, it makes sense to approach a problem logically. However, it should not be expected that a logical problem-solving methodology will lead to the only or best result. One widely used method is utility analysis (NWA): For a given problem, various alternatives are defined, as well as criteria against which the alternatives are evaluated. In a second step, the criteria are weighted and the alternatives are evaluated. In my opinion, the advantage of NWA is not so much that the best solution is found. Rather, NWA helps to formulate alternatives, determine target criteria, and evaluate the alternatives. This is especially important when several people are involved in the decision-making process. The people involved recognize where differences of opinion arise: For example, one person wants to keep investments low, another person wants to take risks, a third person wants to maintain the status quo. Another advantage of this quantification is the calculation of sensitivities. For example, one can check at which estimated sales volumes variant A is better than variant B, or how strongly the risk must be weighted so that variant G performs better than variant H. Third, such decision rules are often formally required, for example in tenders for public contracts.
The intuitive method
The logical approach is rivaled by intuition. Time and again, one reads in interviews how successful managers or politicians rely on their intuition when making important decisions. To put it somewhat bluntly: They refrain from systematically examining all the variants, but instead make decisions emotionally. Research results show that intuitive decisions can be more successful than rational decisions, but only under certain conditions. As Gerd Gigerenzer shows in his excellent book "Bauchentscheidungen" ("Gut Decisions"), intuition is based on rules of thumb (in technical jargon, "heuristics") that radically simplify the decision-making process. An often cited example is blitz chess, where grandmasters can play a game of very high quality in five minutes. Since they can only calculate a few positions in this time, they rely on rules of thumb (e.g. castling brings the king to safety, a rook is stronger on a half-open line, etc.). What is important in this example is the realization that grandmasters can rely on their intuition, precisely because they know hundreds of openings by heart and have already played through thousands of positions.
The best method
Even though I can only begin to show the contrasts between logic and gut feeling in this short article, I assume that all readers are familiar with the conflicts: a logical decision is summarily thrown overboard, or an emotional decision is subsequently backed up with an analysis that has been bent into shape.

Stefan Michel: "Many managers pretend to make rational decisions, but in reality take an emotional approach."
For the solution of such everyday phenomena Edward de Bono proposes the method of the 6 hats. Each hat represents a decision-making approach (for example, logic, emotion, etc.). Instead of playing these methods off against each other in an uncontrolled way, the participants consciously try to solve the problem with different hats. First, the logic hat is put on and the problem is discussed objectively. Then the problem is discussed emotionally with the emotion hat, and so on. De Bono writes that teams that work with the 6 hats make better and faster decisions. In addition, there is less frustration because it is no longer a question of whether logic or gut feeling wins.
Links
The discussed book titles can be found on www.michel-partner.ch/books.htm.
Wikipedia describes the method of the 6 hats of de Bono on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bono_Hats.
Stefan Michel is Professor of Marketing at IMD in Lausanne (www.imd.ch).

KSB/SJ has designed four new subjects for a Coop poster campaign. The motifs are all based on the same slogan "For me and you" and will be displayed throughout Switzerland.
Since the launch of the "For me and you" poster campaign at the beginning of 2006, Coop has launched two to three new subjects for this advertising platform every year. Each spring and fall, several such motifs appear in a national poster campaign. According to the agency, the campaign is intended to make people smile.
The new subjects will be hanging on billboards from mid-October. Many of these motifs are also ordered in each case for the living room walls at home, according to a KSB/SJ press release.
Responsible at Coop: Jürg Peritz (Head of Marketing/Procurement), Lydie Goltdammer (Head of Advertising Realization), Stefan Schwär (Project Manager). Responsible at KSB/SJ: Flo Wacker (Creative Director), Mario Moosbrugger (Art Director), Mareike Jansen (Graphics), Marion Lim (Text), Dany Kielholz (Consulting Management), Rahel Isler, Nathalie Pasternak (Consulting), Nadia Bachmann, Adriana Stepanov (DTP). Photography: Andrea Vedovo, Sonja Schäfer, Image editing: Felix Schregenberger, Litho: Detail AG, Media: Coop Media (Karin Heliopoulos), and Initiative Media Western AG.

Beer and mountains, rap and Trio Eugster: Jung von Matt/Limmat put together a joint package with Calanda beer and Brandet Entertainment for Graubünden Ferien. Now the cheeky experiment with the creative fusion of beer, beery ideas, film, folk music, rap and ethnic chaos has made it into the big evening show "Die grössten Schweizer Hits" on SF, on Sunday, October 26.
Graubünden Ferien likes to break new ground in its umbrella brand communication. In the last campaign by Jung von Matt, we were entertained by witty sayings from ibexes. Now the fun factor has been turned up a notch. The agency has paired two brands and is now using Graubünden Calanda beer to advertise Graubünden vacations. The vehicle for this is "the first interactive music clip" in advertising history. The fans were involved in the campaign. The origin of the idea was a song composed by the Eugster trio a long time ago to celebrate the 225th anniversary of the Calanda brewery. A hit back then. Today a nostalgic joke. "You could make something new out of it," said the creative minds around CD Alexander Jaggy and gave their idea to Gimma's chaos group OBK. The people of Graubünden, who use the abbreviation "die fidelen Oschtblock Kuabuaba", showed not only humor but also interest. Markenfilm produced a music video with director Alex E. Kleinberger, who specializes in such clips. The main idea of the clip is a headless dancer - "eina ohni Bira" in Grisons German. He invites viewers online to give him their voice and participate interactively in the video themselves via webcam.
The idea has worked, as the clicks on www.bira.ch prove, as do the more than 40,000 fans on YouTube for "Viva La Grischa" and now "Die grössten Hits" as a topper. And the story is set to continue, as the snowboarding season is about to start.
Andreas Panzeri

It took around 42 years from the first thoughts of urban expansion in Bern-Brünnen to the opening of the Westside leisure and shopping center. A first project from 1972 was a victim of the oil crisis, a second with 6,000 apartments and around 4,000 jobs was rejected by the people at the ballot box in 1978. After a series of further projects, the people of Bern finally said yes to the mature large-scale project in Bern-Brünnen in 2000. To realize this leisure and shopping center, the Migros Aare cooperative founded Neue Brünnen AG. Now the Westside has been opened on October 8.
The Berne agency Polyconsult was commissioned with the overall communication for the opening. For CD Jürg Tscharner and consultants Caroline Bühler and Jasmin Stadelmann, the task was to develop an integrated campaign with a consistent visual language that does justice both to Westside's diverse offering and the aesthetic ambience of the adventure center. The visuals dramatize in a catchy way what Westside is all about: the combination of a wide variety of offers in one place. At Westside, you can combine your Saturday shopping with a wellness outing, a movie night with a fine meal, or a business seminar with action in the adventure pool.
Indeed, "the most spectacular leisure and adventure center in Switzerland" has a lot to offer its visitors: In addition to a shopping mall with 55 stores, also a gigantic adventure pool & spa, 10 restaurants, 11 cinemas and a seminar hotel. All this is framed by the impressive architecture of Daniel Libeskind. Westside is similar to a naturally grown city district, bustling by day and by night. The façade of the large buildings is framed in Robinia wood and connects the building complex in a simple way with the landscape, which opens up to the west.
But Westside is not only architecturally much more than a mere shell for a shopping center. It is a living space. The seamless juxtaposition of shopping center, retirement home, hotel and leisure facilities in conjunction with nature, the new Brünnen residential development and the built fabric of the nearby old town of Bern is unique. "Westside is an urban marketplace and a stimulating experience destination with international flair," the architect is pleased to say.
Andreas Panzeri

"Very pleasing" is also the high level of Swiss film production, is the verdict. "Already the nomination on the shortlist is a remarkable distinction," the jury added. The main awards will be presented on November 6 at the Schiffbau. The shortlist will be publicly screened at Zurich's Arthouse Piccadilly cinema on October 30, starting at 11 am. The main prizes will be awarded on November 6 at the Schiffbau. The shortlist will be publicly screened at Zurich's Arthouse Piccadilly cinema on October 30 from 11 am.
> To the jurors
> To the shortlist

The S&W advertising agency bsw from Baden celebrates its 30th birthday in 2008. Founded in 1978 as "Dr. Schweizer & Wiezel, Agentur für Werbung und PR", the communications company is one of the older advertising agencies in Switzerland. S&W serves national and international clients, but is also present in the regional and cantonal markets. S&W is managed by Urs Wiezel, Alfredo Biffi, Martin Perini and Jörg Krummenacher. Just in time for its birthday, the Badem-based advertising agency has moved into new premises in the Merker-Areal.

17 regional free newspapers are currently members of the Swiss Association of Free Newspapers (VSGZ). They want to launch their own, national advertising combination, which will start with a trial this fall. "We will start an initial trial with interested companies," says VSGZ President Thomas Akermann. Akermann is the director of Anzeiger Luzern and Luzerner Woche and has been president since the summer of 2007, after the association had led a sleeping beauty existence for several years.
If the results of the field test are positive, the association plans to give the new estate a name and logo next year. The size of the offer is still open. The core part comprises the German-speaking Swiss centers of Zurich, Basel, Bern, Lucerne and St. Gallen, and can be expanded to include the French-speaking Swiss centers of Geneva and Lausanne with the titles GHI and Lausanne Cité. "Of course, this can be expanded further on a modular basis, for example if a provider of 4×4 vehicles wants to advertise in Graubünden, then a title can also be added there," says Akermann.
Following the change of system at the free newspaper .ch, which is saying goodbye to home delivery at the end of October, the free newspapers in the VSGZ are the only papers that are distributed to all letterboxes, including those that cannot be served with advertising due to the stop stickers. "We are now the only ones in this area, which is our clear strength in terms of a USP," says Akermann. The reason for this is that the newspapers have their own editorial section, which accounts for at least 20 percent of the total volume, and they generally function as official newsletters.
Added value home delivery
Most of the titles have been on the market for a very long time - the Anzeiger Luzern, for example, has been around for 80 years - and have become essential reading in most households. "They are practically part of the family," says Akermann, which also has a lot to do with sympathy. The aim is to be able to offer this service to advertisers at the lowest possible thousand-reader contact price. "We have a good price, although we can't get down to that of 20 Minuten," says Akermann. There, the CPM is around 50 francs, with the VSGZ titles around 80 francs. Akermann explains the price difference with the elaborate distribution concept, which focuses on a completely different audience than the commuter press.
It is also unlikely that the publishers of commuter newspapers will join the association. This is because the VSGZ titles differ from the commuter newspapers not only in terms of their distribution concept and target audience, but also in terms of waste. The littering problem has currently become an issue due to the recent roundtable initiated by Media Minister Moritz Leuenberger. Akermann points out that, unlike the commuter newspapers, his association members are not jointly responsible for the amount of waste paper in public spaces due to letterbox delivery.
René Worni
1.3 million readers
In German-speaking Switzerland, the VSGZ free newspapers reached a total of 1.28 million readers throughout Switzerland in 2007, 320,000 in French-speaking Switzerland alone, according to Mach Basic. Of the 962,000 readers from German-speaking Switzerland, 446,000 read a free newspaper exclusively. This means that the titles reach an average of over 40 percent of an audience that does not normally read subscribed newspapers. In French-speaking Switzerland, there are 147,000 exclusive readers. The figures do not include the 15 percent share of foreign-language readers because their reading habits are not included in Mach Basic. (rw)
Like 30 years ago
The Anzeiger Luzern and the Luzerner Woche are merging to form the Anzeiger Luzern, which will be published in a new format on Wednesdays and Fridays from January 1, 2009. The paper previously known as the Stadtanzeiger will become the actual advertising paper for the Lucerne city area with a circulation of 50,000 copies on Fridays. This should enable tradespeople to advertise as cheaply as 30 years ago. The new millimeter price of 83 centimes is 57.2 percent lower than before. The editorial content will be shifted to the Wednesday edition, which has a high circulation of 124,000 copies and reaches 150,000 people according to Mach Basic. The Anzeiger Luzern remains the official news organ of the city of Lucerne and is delivered to every letterbox in the city. The current director Thomas Akermann will become the new head of the UD Media Group Lucerne, which publishes the Anzeiger Luzern. (rw)

There is uncertainty among many managers in marketing and sales when it comes to the value of diplomas, especially among those who have become certified sales managers or certified marketing managers in the course of their career. Having passed the higher professional examination and obtained a federal diploma, qualified sales managers and qualified marketing managers are rightly regarded as masters of their profession. Nevertheless, they look with a certain amount of suspicion at the graduates of numerous Master's programs in marketing that have emerged in recent years as part of the development of universities of applied sciences. They fear that the professional excellence of graduate sales or marketing managers will be overshadowed by nice-sounding designations on university certificates. On the other hand, people on such Master's programs regularly underestimate the level of non-academic higher professional examinations. Relaxation is needed in the mutual relationship. It helps to consider what characterizes the various programmes.
The higher specialist examinations are "master examinations" based on job profiles. Certified sales managers and marketing managers are specialists and managers who have learned their profession from the ground up and have many years of practical experience in the profession. In addition, they have undergone an extremely selective process as part of the diploma examination. Professional organizations, such as Swiss Marketing (SMC), play a key role and thus bring the very important perspective of the working world into the higher professional examinations.
Master's programs are not directly derived from job profiles and often have an in-depth character in one or more subject areas. Professional organizations play a secondary role, if at all. The course content is determined by university professors and lecturers. The examination procedures have a formative character; the aim is to ensure learning success. Of course, Master's programs also teach you for your profession and not just theory, as is often claimed.
The prejudice that Master's graduates are not fit for practice and that the degree is a gift due to a lack of failure rates is just as false as the assertion that graduate marketing and sales managers are only strong on the operational side and less suitable for strategic tasks. Let's reconcile the two different educational paths for managers in marketing and sales with the following formula: Master's and Master's degrees in marketing and sales are equivalent, but different.
Dr. Peter Petrin, Vice President Swiss Marketing (SMC) and Director of the SIB (Swiss Institute of Business Economics)

In Frankfurt, the book industry celebrates itself. A year ago, the Federal Council banned fixed book prices in German-speaking Switzerland. Booksellers were free to set their own prices and no longer had to adhere to the prices prescribed by publishers. The parliamentary Commission for Economic Affairs and Taxation commissioned the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) to draw up a report on the initial effects of the abolition of fixed book prices. The results of the study are now available.
What was the impact of the abolition of fixed book prices? The average list prices of all books rose by 6.8 percent in German-speaking Switzerland between March 2007 and March 2008. This figure is entirely in line with the Swiss Booksellers and Publishers Association (SBVV), which had always argued that the abolition of fixed book prices would make books more expensive, with the exception of bestsellers. Therefore, the abolition of fixed book prices would also be harmful to consumers.
But let's take a closer look at the matter. The 6.7 percent increase relates to list prices in German-speaking Switzerland and not to actual selling prices.
Here, the situation is quite different. The hitherto passive book trade suddenly moved. Ex Libris offers a 15 percent discount on the list price of its full range and 30 percent on its bestsellers. Large bookstore chains offer discounts of up to 30 percent on their own bestsellers. Smaller booksellers offer discounts on selected ranges or have introduced customer loyalty systems where regular customers can also benefit from discounts.
Consumers can therefore save money if they inform themselves. For a basket of 20 titles without bestsellers, this was 14.7 percent in June 2008 and 16.5 percent for one with bestsellers.
Of course, this does not suit the SBCV, and Ex Libris was promptly sued. The SBCV paints the death of smaller bookstores on the wall with the fall of the fixed book price. I am firmly convinced that this horror scenario is wrong. It is always used when protected and rigid relationships have been nurtured in an industry for decades. To the benefit of the industry, at the expense of the consumer.
The small bookstore has a real chance of survival in the market. But only if it takes care of its customers. Many have recognized the signs of the times, only the association is still trying to stop a normal development. Structural preservation instead of innovation. As usual. A pity.
Pierre C. Meier, Editor-in-Chief
[email protected]

The recently published study "Mobile Life 2012" by Active Mobile Media predicts that mobile professional and private applications will become increasingly important.
The study predicts a growing market volume for mobile data services such as video, games, music and advertising over the next few years. A large proportion of this will be financed by advertising, which is expected to triple net revenues in Germany by 2012, as Active Mobile writes in a press release.
Mike A. Weber, Managing Director of Active Mobile, assumes that the development of mobile services in Switzerland will be as strong as in Germany.
According to the press release, various indicators show that this forecast could also prove true for Switzerland. On the one hand, the attractiveness of mobile offers in the areas of media, news, services and entertainment is increasing. On the other hand, improved technical conditions and falling costs for data connections are making mobile access easier.