The award ceremony for the best Swiss annual reports took place for the third time in the auditorium of the University of Applied Sciences in Business Administration (HWZ) in Zurich. CEOs, CFOs and communications representatives from major Swiss companies, members of the HarbourClub, the MSCom alumni community and members of SIRV, the Swiss Investor Relations Association, were invited. Almost 200 guests attended the event. After a welcome address by Alexander Fleischer, Head of Communications at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Dirk Schütz, Editor-in-Chief of Bilanz, hosted the awards ceremony. The overall winners Straumann, Novartis and Credit Suisse were honored with laudatory speeches by Gaby Tschofen, Head of Communications at Barry Callebaut, Philipp Hallauer, Chairman of the Board of Directors of KPMG Switzerland, and Karin Kofler, President of the Club Zürcher Wirtschaftsjournalisten. The event was made possible by the three main sponsors KPMG, Sihl+Eika and Linkgroup.

The winners of the overall jury (from left): Andreas Luther (Credit Suisse), Nadine Enke (Novartis), Mark Hill (Straumann).

It is a fine tradition at the Seedamm Plaza that the seminar and event hotel in Pfäffikon delights business partners and potential customers with a 15-month calendar in the fall. For the 2008/09 period, the recipients have now been surprised with an innovation never before seen in Switzerland. All photos taken at the hotel are individually personalized. The champagne bottle shown, for example, bears the recipient's first name and surname. Thanks to innovative technology, the lettering is perfectly curved over the curve of the bottle. Other personalized lettering can be found on photos of the entrance hall or carved on sushi sticks.
This printing magic, or one-to-one image personalization, was made possible thanks to close collaboration between AlphaPicture i-clue in Germany and FO-Smartprint in Egg. The photographs were taken by Daniel Boschung. He had to ensure that his templates allowed for the integration of type that could appear as three-dimensional as possible. AlphaPicture is the "world's only technology" that can personalize any photos, graphics or illustrations with alphabetic characters without any restrictions.
Andreas Panzeri

Coop has geared its Naturaplan organic lifestyle line for the future this spring. With new products, new packaging, a new design, new logo, new image and new brand presence, the wholesaler has done everything it can to keep Naturaplan on the road to success.
So far, this concept has been a success: According to a press release from the Zurich advertising agency KSB/SJ, Naturaplan products have once again recorded a year-on-year increase in sales of over 10 percent.
The agency has developed a new advertising campaign for the organic label. Three new subjects were designed around the claim "For organic without compromise", which are intended to take account of the growing need for healthy consumption. Naturaplan's organic products were arranged into "organic molecules" and the headline "Flavor enhancer: nature" was added.
The pictures were taken in Hamburg under the direction of Reinhard Hunger. The new motifs appear in the national press, as posters and large posters and at every POS.
Responsible at Coop: Jürg Peritz (Head of Marketing/Procurement),
Christian Waffenschmidt (Head of Viva Competence Brands), Lydie Goltdammer (Head of Advertising Realization), Christof Braun (Project Manager). Responsible at KSB/SJ: Flo Wacker (Creative Direction), Beat Egger, Andy Lusti (Text), Robin Strebel (Art Direction), Dany Kielholz (Consulting Management), Sabrina Arthur, Rahel Isler (Consulting), Nadia Bachmann, Bettina Beyeler (DTP), Photo: Reinhard Hunger, Food Styling: Volker Hobl, Image Editing: Zerone Hamburg, Litho: Detail AG, Media: Coop Media and Initiative Media Western.

Z-Notes in a convenient one-handed adhesive box
What could be more frustrating than having only one hand free and urgently needing to jot down an important phone number? The Z-Notes in the new one-handed sticky note box provide the solution, because the box stays put on the table even when you’re pulling out the next sticky note with full force. This makes them ideal for anyone who’s got their hands full in life. And that’s exactly what the Zurich-based advertising agency Noise highlights in its campaign, which is aimed directly at consumers and buyers. The stylish portrayal of a typical everyday situation serves as the key visual for this product across all above- and below-the-line initiatives—from print ads to point-of-sale displays—throughout Switzerland.

The new Migros restaurant with take-away offer "Sessibon" has already opened at three locations. The design and furnishings were created by TBS Identity in collaboration with Zurich designer Peter Kern.
The Zurich agency TBS Identity also designed the branding of "Sessibon" and is responsible for brand management. It designed the logo, created the corporate identity and realized the clothing for the employees, as well as the packaging and product labeling.
TBS-Identity is also responsible for other means of communication. The agency's posters, advertisements and sales promotion measures are now also available to other Migros restaurants for launching and publicizing "Sessibon", according to a statement from the agency.
Following the first openings in Bern-Winkelried, Lachen and Romanshorn, around 20 more "Sessibon" with 30 to 150 seats are already planned.
Responsible at Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund: André Hüsler, Philipp Bänzinger. Responsible at TBS-Identity: Beat Aeschlimann (Concept/Consulting), Daniel Leber (Creative Director), Kathrin Treml (Art Director), Anka Refghi (Project Management), Nadia Ermert (Polygraphy).

Things are starting to roll in terms of roadside assistance in Switzerland. After the Cooldown Club for young members at TCS, Avia is now also launching a new customer card for private individuals with free breakdown service. From January 2009, cardholders will not only be able to benefit from cashless refueling at Switzerland's largest service station network, but also from a Europe-wide breakdown service. The "unique offer" is being advertised in cooperation with AXA Winterthur. In addition to the free services in the event of a breakdown, Avia cardholders also benefit from a special discount when they take out cancellation costs or personal assistance insurance, as well as legal expenses insurance from Winterthur-ARAG.
TBWA Zurich won a pitch for the communication of the new customer card and numerous other measures related to Avia's new branding. The advertisers led by CD Urs Schrepfer see a lot of dormant potential in the 700 or so Avia gas stations in Switzerland today to position this brand even more strongly in competition with international multinationals like Shell or Esso. Many Avia service stations are still waiting for their customers in a sympathetically inconspicuous, but at the same time "too discreet" manner. To change that, the creatives have now flown in a bird. The mascot, invented at TBWA and further hatched in three dimensions at the new post-production service provider Elefant Studios in Zurich, is to function as a key visual for Avia in the future. TBWA came up with the idea of a bird as a sympathetic figure because an old Avia logo in 1946 actually still had a propeller integrated into it, because Avia was also known for its aviation fuel.
Typical Swiss organization
In 1927, independent Swiss importers of petroleum products joined forces and founded the Avia Association in Switzerland. Unlike its well-known competitors, the organization is not a multinational corporation, but a typically Swiss institution that nevertheless plays a quite considerable international role in Western Europe. Today, the eleven member companies of Avia, such as Osterwalder in St.Gallen, Grisard in Basel or Küng in Bern and Schätzle in Lucerne, supply the largest network of service stations in Switzerland under their common brand name. However, the independence of the members is still the main characteristic of the organization.
Thanks to this independence, the Avia companies are strongly anchored in the regional market and "therefore closer to the customer," according to Patrick Staubli, the association's managing director. Through their joint warehouses, the Avia companies have high tank capacities at their disposal. With around two billion liters per year, Avia is a significant factor in the national supply. In Europe, the association has been present in 14 countries with over 3,000 service stations since Avia International was founded in 1960.
Large customer base
Even before TBWA's new brand offensive, Avia can boast a customer base of over 100,000 private cardholders. These will now automatically receive a new Avia card in the mail in time for the date of other club renewals, offering the new breakdown service. Anyone who fills out the application is automatically insured after paying the next fuel bill. In addition to the Europe-wide breakdown service, the cardholder also benefits from discounts at various hotels worldwide as well as at Sixt and also Sixt Holiday Cars.
The campaign for the card will start next Sunday with a double-page ad in the Sunday press. Here, the canister will mutate into a bird for the first time. At larger gas stations, for example on the highway, the animal can puff itself up to a height of over two meters as an eye-catcher on the roof. PR will also play a major role in the entire launch. At TBWA, this will be coordinated and implemented by the newly established in-house department headed by Ingrid Notter.
Andreas Panzeri

Smile in the photo, tilt your head slightly, look to the side, have hair on your face, open your mouth, have a shadow in the background or no neutral background: Anyone who has had their passport photo taken recently will know that there is a lot to consider. The new passport photo standards have been in force since last year. According to these, all the details listed above are prohibited.
Spillmann Felser Leo Burnett has taken up the crux of the matter with (too) many standards and made a new commercial for Sympany on the subject. The film shows how complicated it can be today to get a passport photo and thus a new passport. "The insurance company wants to draw attention to its message once again: that many things in life should be as simple and uncomplicated as the new Sympany insurance group," says Heidi Herzog, Head of Corporate Marketing at Sympany. CD Peter Brönnimann is delighted that Condor was once again able to shoot the commercial with Swiss feature film director Dani Levy ("Alles auf Zucker"), who lives in Germany. The "Passfoto" film now complements last year's films such as "Wedding" and "Coffee Shop". In addition, reminder spots draw attention to Sympany's current low health insurance premiums.
Andreas Panzeri

Sunday readership is dwindling", "The Sunday market is in decline", "The Sunday newspapers can barely maintain their level": these or similar were the titles and comments on the publication of Mach Basic 2008-2. In fact, for a year now at the latest, one has had the impression that the Sunday market in German-speaking Switzerland is saturated: all three major Sunday titles have passed their zenith, and two of them have now lost significant readership.
Katzenjammer in Winterthur
Moreover, the loss is even greater than the first regional Sunday title, Südostschweiz am Sonntag, is able to make up for with its 85,000 readers: two and a half years ago, before the paper was launched, the three major titles still had a total of 2.288 million readers; today the four of them have 100,000 fewer. Nevertheless, three other publishers have now ventured into the supposed Sunday goldmine. One of them, Guido Blumer from Winterthurer Stadtblatt, had to put his pickaxe back in the corner after just six months.
Nevertheless, the Sunday market should not be prematurely labeled as declining. After all, Sonntag, the seventh edition of the Mittelland Zeitung, has now been on the market for a year and, according to a special Wemf study, has 362,000 readers. Although this is 142,000 readers less than had been hoped for, the Sunday reach of the Sonntagsmarkt has reached an unprecedented 2.551 million readers. If you also include the recently launched Zentralschweiz am Sonntag and its readership of 248,000 - although this is only an estimate - then the number of Sunday newspaper readers rises to 2.8 million. Publisher estimates should not be taken at face value - the hopes of Südostschweiz publisher Hanspeter Lebrument and Sonntag editor Peter Wanner for more than two readers per copy for their regional editions were certainly far too optimistic. But the Neue Luzerner Zeitung was more cautious: for Zentralschweiz am Sonntag, they modestly assumed just 1.2 readers per copy, significantly fewer than for the weekday edition. In this respect, the current Sunday reach estimate of 2.8 million readers is realistic.
But an analysis of the Sunday market can hardly just be about adding up reach figures. That's why Werbewoche looked for a different approach, precisely because of the new titles and the little corroborated data currently available on them.
The chosen approach is firstly concerned with the question of how the readers of SonntagsBlick, NZZ am Sonntag or SonntagsZeitung behaved when Südostschweiz launched its Sunday editions in May 2006 and Mittelland Zeitung in September 2007. The second question is: Can we draw any conclusions from this behavior for the new situation in Central Switzerland and the Mittelland?
Southeastern Switzerland as the loser
Let us first look at the development in Südostschweiz: According to Mach Basic 2006-1, shortly before the launch of Südostschweiz am Sonntag, a total of 155,000 people in German-speaking Switzerland read the daily newspaper Südostschweiz on weekdays and (at least) one of the three established Sunday titles on Sundays: 82,000 read the SonntagsBlick, 48,000 the SonntagsZeitung and 25,000 the NZZ am Sonntag. Today, two and a half years later, there are a total of 23,000 fewer people who read Südostschweiz on weekdays and one of the three established Sunday titles on Sundays (see table). It is not possible to say how many have switched to Südostschweiz am Sonntag instead. What is clear, however, is that the decline is primarily attributable to Südostschweiz, which now has exactly 23,000 fewer readers. In contrast, the SonntagsZeitung remained stable in the economic areas 27, 28 and 29 and 61, the Südostschweiz core areas, the NZZ am Sonntag only lost 2000 readers and the SonntagsBlick 11,000 readers.
The situation is different for the Mittelland Zeitung. Shortly before the launch of Sonntag, a total of 248,000 people in German-speaking Switzerland read one of the MZ partner titles on weekdays and (at least) one of the three established Sunday titles on Sundays: 122,000 read SonntagsBlick, 81,000 SonntagsZeitung and 45,000 NZZ am Sonntag. Today, one year later, there are 22,000 fewer people. What is striking is that the combination of Mittelland Zeitung and NZZ am Sonntag or Mittelland Zeitung and SonntagsBlick has decreased, but there are 5,000 more people who read both Mittelland Zeitung and SonntagsZeitung.
SonntagsZeitung relatively stable
A look at the core areas of the Mittelland Zeitung, economic areas 31, 32, 41 and 43, shows an even clearer picture: the Mittelland Zeitung itself only lost just 12,000 readers there, while the NZZ am Sonntag and SonntagsBlick suffered above-average losses. NZZ am Sonntag, which lost 4.4 percent of its readers in German-speaking Switzerland in the same period, lost 6.1 percent in the four economic regions, while SonntagsBlick lost 10.2 percent of its readers in German-speaking Switzerland and even 12.6 percent in the Mittelland Zeitung region. The SonntagsZeitung, which reported a 2 percent drop in readership in German-speaking Switzerland, only lost 1 percent in the four economic regions.
All of this should be taken with a grain of salt, as in most cases the changes in reach are not significant, particularly in the respective economic areas. Nevertheless, it can probably be deduced that a title like Sonntag, which professes to be more than a regional Sunday paper and is now taken very seriously in wide circles, can certainly have an impact on the established titles. By contrast, very regionally oriented titles such as Südostschweiz am Sonntag and probably also Zentralschweiz am Sonntag primarily reach their compulsory subscribers.
But the question also arises as to why the SonntagsZeitung of all newspapers is so resistant to its regional competitors. Did the "dumping combo subscription" with the Solothurner Tagblatt, which is offered for just CHF 100, help it? This is certainly one reason. But that alone is not enough, because the SonntagsZeitung made similarly strong gains in Northwestern Switzerland (WG 31) and Aargau (WG 41) as it did in WG 32.
Another possible explanation is that the launch of the regional Sunday titles expanded early Sunday delivery, which also opened up new areas for the established Sunday titles. Apparently, however, the SonntagsZeitung in particular was able to use this for its marketing.
Markus Knöpfli

On Wednesday, Wemf AG for Advertising Media Research published the annual circulation figures for Swiss print media. These figures cover the period from July 1, 2007, to June 30, 2008, and are based on the principle of self-reporting. Perhaps the most striking result is the shift in the Sunday newspaper market. Although more Sunday newspapers and Sunday editions of daily newspapers are entering the market, among the existing Sunday papers, only the Sonntagsblick saw a decline in circulation. The market therefore does not yet appear to have reached saturation.
The NZZ am Sonntag increased its circulation by 4,000 copies, from 122,072 to 126,371. The Sonntagszeitung remained roughly the same at 202,141 copies, compared to 202,222 copies the previous year. The Sonntag, published by Wanner, entered the market with a provisional circulation of 190,107 copies. The Sonntagsblick suffered losses once again, though its circulation decline—from 265,478 to 262,188 copies—was less severe than it had been a year earlier. The decline was more significant for Le Matin Dimanche. The French-Swiss newspaper lost more than 8,000 copies and now stands at 202,030.
The ’Specialty Press’ segment is led by the trilingual publications of the two major retailers, Coop and Migros. As was the case last year, though not to the same extent, Coop’s publications saw a circulation increase of 26,000 copies, while the circulation of Migros Magazine fell by 24,000. The circulation of the TCS newspaper *Touring* also fell by 17,000 copies.
In the consumer press segment, *Schweizer Illustrierte* and *Tele* were among the titles that saw declines, each losing about 16,000 copies. Schweizer Familie saw an increase of about 3,000 copies. Circulation for Beobachter, Glückspost, Weltwoche, and WoZ remained roughly the same.
All of the financial publications saw an increase in circulation. The *Handelszeitung* saw the sharpest rise, from 30,861 to 45,190 copies. However, according to WEMF figures, the latest number is provisional. The reason for the increase in circulation was the discontinuation of the business newspaper Cash in mid-2007. Of the 43,000 Cash subscribers, approximately 27,000 switched to the Handelszeitung, about 5,000 chose the Bilanz, and 2,000 opted for the investor magazine Stocks.
Only minor changes, in the range of a few hundred copies, occurred among the top publications in the trade press sector. *Die Bauern-Zeitung*, which saw a slight decline, and *Der Schweizer Bauer*, which saw a slight increase of the same magnitude, are increasingly converging in circulation.

Advertising is good. Period. I'm not talking about the content of the advertising, but the fact that it makes the existence of media possible in the first place. In the post-paradigm era of free content, nobody wants to think otherwise. But hand on heart: the flood is enormous. It is getting bigger and bigger and continues to grow with every new media offering. On the Internet, the beacon of hope for the eagerly investing media industry, which is looking for redeeming and revenue-generating business models, it flashes in Flash animation and contrasts with the columns of text. And it seems to me that there are fewer of them each time. Sometimes the screen acts like a strobe flash.
Advertising contaminates every area of life anyway, and you can think of an inappropriate advertising slogan for every one, which has sometimes survived for decades in a dying lobe of the brain: Mänhätten eifach gärn or De Oli wetti än Atari (or similar) or Wär hätts erfunde läbt gsünser undsofortblabla.
Advertising is not simply good per se. It wasn't just heretical unease that made me think of this, but a colleague who came out as a militant opponent of advertising posters in the midst of daily business. Someone who is as magnetized by the lush billboards as the concrete landscapes once were by Zurich's sprayer Harald Nägeli. The city fathers of São Paulo, who banned advertising in public in their metropolis and thus put their importance - whether intentional or not - in the right light, also made me think of this.
The flood of messages that neutralize each other is counterproductive and can be unbearable. Less would clearly be more, more impact.

The company Heusser.biz has a new name and a new website, as announced in a press release on Tuesday. The new brand has been renamed Heusser Communicates.
The agency said in a press release that the new image is also based on consistent brand management.
The company's clients include SRG, Nestlé Suisse, the Hirslanden private hospital group and UBS.