The SRG Audience Council likes the quiz show "1 against 100" purchased by Swiss television from the production company Endemol. The show is challenging and has potential for excitement. However, this could be better exploited, according to a statement on Friday.
Moderator Susanne Kunz is also rated positively. She keeps an overview and tries to get something personal out of the candidates. The most important thing for the entertainment value of the show, however, is that communicative, witty and quick-witted candidates are selected.
A clear majority of the Council considered the audience competition to be superfluous. Audience loyalty to the program should not be sought and found with inappropriate competitions, but with the concept, elements of suspense and entertainment value.

The Tangram agency, based in Zurich and Vaduz, has realized a campaign for Jäckli + Seitz. It promotes the reopening of the St. Gallen sports store with advertisements as well as POS and direct marketing measures. Jäckli + Seitz had to move from its former location for a year due to renovations and is now returning there.
According to the press release, the agency is using a suitcase containing target group-specific content as an eye-catcher and common thread in its communication. The measures will be in use from now until the end of September 2008.
Responsible at Jäckli + Seitz, St. Gallen: Denis Seitz (owner). Responsible at Tangram: Willy Tanner (consulting), Sandra Böni (AD), Katarina Real (graphics), Armin Hoop (text).

The two call and contact centers Call World Telemarketing and Dialog World have been awarded the SQS Direct Marketing Quality Seal for outbound telemarketing. The two subsidiaries of the St. Gallen-based Trendcommerce Group were audited on the basis of various assessment criteria and examined at both management and employee level, according to a statement. For example, the recruitment and training of employees, the implementation of data protection regulations, product knowledge, complaints management and the consequences of misconduct were scrutinized.
The announcement also contains news that had to be kept strictly under wraps until now: Call World Telemarketing was entrusted with the task of managing the external ticketing contact center for Uefa Euro 2008. From March 2007 until the end of the Euro, the call center answered all questions concerning the major football event by telephone, Internet and letter.

Change in the theater scene: after four years, the previous director of the Theater am Neumarkt is handing over the reins to his successor. In the course of the new appointment by the team of directors Barbara Weber and Rafael Sanchez, the theater presents itself accordingly with a new website.
This was realized by the Zurich agency Mitlinks. It is intended to provide a clear and concise structure for the website. The integration of Showsoft, a software that ensures direct ticketing and electronic ordering, should make the new website of the small ensemble theater very user-friendly, according to the agency's press release.
The implementation was carried out in a specially developed content management system and enables Theater Neumarkt to manage the website independently. The design was created by Alain Kupper and implemented by Mitlinks.
Responsible at Theater Neumarkt: Max-Philip Aschenbrenner (project management). Responsible at the Mitlinks agency: Lorenzo Mutti (project management and concept), Watezz Bleuer (design).

How do you crack stars? How do you get Madonna, for example, to allow you a look behind the facade and reveal herself as a human being? Obviously, you can't do this during a press conference with 500 accredited journalists. The Red Bull Music Academy offers a possible solution: at the annual workshop for young, creative musicians, celebrities from the music world find themselves among their peers. Usually, even after three hours, the invited speakers hardly want to stop telling the youngsters about their profession and their social life. But of course you can't always show up for an interview accompanied by thirty young DJs and producers. That's why the American agency Another Anomaly has come up with something new. The interview magazine created by the agency, which is designed by CD James Cooper and his class at the Miami Art School, lets the interview partners compete in a ping-pong game. Cooper explains that this creates a conversation situation similar to that on Freund's couch, but has less to do with mothers and more to do with top spin. The first issue created using this method has just been published.
The relaxing effect of ping-pong has long been recognized in Zurich. Once a month, Krethi, Plethi, Hans and Wurst meet up for an after-work round at the Toni Molkerei. And even there - as has been tried and tested several times - it is surprisingly easy to strike up a conversation with this or that person.

Four years after his resignation as program director of Swiss Television, Peter Schellenberg is returning to "his" medium. Schellenberg will now work as a consultant for the Basel local channel Tele Basel.
As Tele Basel editor-in-chief Willy Surbeck explained to 20 Minuten on Wednesday, Schellenberg will work for the broadcaster in the area of quality assurance. Until now, Tele Basel has used rather unconventional channels here. "We have a hairdresser, a cab driver and a dentist who keep their ears open for us," said Surbeck.
Now Schellenberg and various other media experts are to bring professional TV structures to Basel. He admitted to 20 Minuten that he used to see local television as little more than local radio with pictures. But there has been a development and this needs to be taken into account.
After his time at Swiss television, he had retired and was still in charge of a jazz program at the local Schaffhausen radio station Munot. Now he is looking forward to his new role. However, he has no intention of making a comeback on a grand scale.

The decisions in the largest competition for moving images in the German-speaking world have been announced. After the jury had already met before the summer vacation, the award ceremony has now taken place in Hamburg. Die Klappe presented 5 gold, 12 silver and 22 bronze awards. Two Swiss agencies also received an award.
Wirz Werbung won a bronze flap in the TV category for the "Chairlift" furniture commercial. This was realized by Wirz & Fraefel. Bronze was also awarded to the agency Euro RSCG Zurich and its spot "Achterbahn". This animated cinema spot advertises the Zurich Chamber Orchestra. The big winner of the competition was the Hamburg agency Nordpol with three gold awards for the film "Power of Wind" for electricity generation with windmills.
Andreas Panzeri

According to Media Focus, the advertising month of August remained practically constant. Compared to the previous year, advertising pressure rose by 1.2% to CHF 231 million, as the market research institute reported on Thursday.
The cumulative increase since the beginning of the year is 5.9%. The key market of consumer electronics, photography and film led the way with growth of 38.7% to CHF 10.9 million.
Among the largest key markets, beverages continued to record an increase of 34.8% to CHF 11.6 million and personal care and cosmetics an increase of 16.9% to CHF 18 million. Advertising pressure for services increased by 20.6% to CHF 14.5 million.
Food, on the other hand, saw advertising pressure fall by 6.2 percent to CHF 20.7 million, vehicles by 12.4 percent to CHF 14.6 million and telecommunications by 7.3 percent to CHF 10.2 million.
Media Focus compiles gross advertising statistics. This means that all advertising placements are valued at the official rates of the advertising medium. Special discounts are not taken into account.

The Zurich agency Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett has launched a concept for Pet-Recycling Switzerland that aims to make the Swiss more aware of the value of pet. Although the Swiss population is ahead of the rest of Europe when it comes to pet recycling, 20 percent of all bottles purchased are still not returned. One of the reasons for this is that pet is perceived as being of little value, according to a statement from the agency. For many, pet is simply plastic, but it is more than that. The robust, versatile and environmentally friendly bottle can be used to make a surprising number of things. In addition to bottles, Pet can also be used to make textiles, packaging or bags. In short: every bottle that is returned is recycled and turned into something new. And every bottle that is not returned is lost.
Responsible at Pet-Recycling Switzerland: Jean-Claude Würmli (Overall Responsibility), Lukas Schumacher (Advertising Manager). Responsible at Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett: Patrick Suter, Martin Spillmann (CD), Reto Clement, Raul Serrat (AD), Martina Schörghofer, Rebecca Krausse (consulting), Sebahat Derdiyok (art buying). Photos: Hans-Jörg Walter.

A good two years after its entry, Ringier is exiting the Ukrainian media business. The largest Swiss media group is selling its subsidiary Free Media Ukraine, which it acquired 100% of in spring 2006, to the Romanian publishing company SC Adevarul Holding SRL.
Free Media Ukraine is the publisher of the daily newspaper Blik and employs 106 people. As Ringier announced on Thursday, the publisher is making this sale for strategic reasons. In future, the company intends to concentrate on its successful activities in Central and Eastern Europe. Overall, expectations for the Ukrainian market had not been met, the company added.
SC Adevarul Holding SRL will take over all employees and continue to run the publishing house. Managing Director Marco Stettler will oversee the handover of the publishing house in Kiev until the end of October. He will then take on a new, as yet unspecified management role at Ringier.
Ringier currently employs around 7016 people in Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Germany, Vietnam and China. The Group publishes 120 newspapers and magazines.

Barbara Lüthi, China correspondent for Swiss television, has been named Journalist of the Year. The 35-year-old television journalist accepted the CNN Journalist Award, which comes with prize money of 20,000 Swiss francs, on Thursday evening in Munich. She won both the overall award and the television category. She had been nominated for her report "Land expropriation in China", which was broadcast on Rundschau. This was a report on Chinese farmers who are being forcibly expropriated by the government.
Lüthi has been China correspondent in Beijing for Swiss Television since 2006. She previously worked as an editor for the political and business magazine Rundschau at SF. She won a CNN Journalist Award back in 2005 for a report on working conditions in Chinese toy factories. It was also reported that she met her current husband at the award party. Lüthi will become a mother in February. The journalist therefore has nothing but good feelings about the CNN Award.
In addition to Lüthi, 300 journalists from renowned German media such as ZDF, Zeit Campus, Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin and WDR were nominated this year in the four categories TV, print, radio and online.

On October 1, 2008, Igor Sokolov will take over from Yves Golaz as Area Sales Manager for Das Magazin in French-speaking Switzerland. Igor Sokolov is now responsible for the magazine titles Annabelle, Schweizer Familie and Das Magazin.
Yves Golaz is leaving Tamedia at the end of September to devote himself to other projects.