This summer, ex-Mister Switzerland Renzo Blumenthal stood in his home region, Val Lumnezia in Graubünden, for a TV spot in front of the camera. He advertises a washable mineral foam mattress by Elsa from the Swiss mountains. In addition to a female dog, Blumenthal's little pig Reimund was also supposed to walk across his master's washboard stomach. Because the animal did not do this, it had to be pushed onto the mattress.
Zurich animal lawyer Antoine Goetschel felt that this was a violation of the Animal Protection Act and took the matter to the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the Canton of Graubünden. It is now clear that no charges will be brought against Renzo Blumenthal for cruelty to animals. There will nevertheless be a fine, as the Animal Protection Act requires a permit to film one's own animal for commercial purposes. However, the fine is not directed against Blumenthal, but against the production company responsible, Ferris Bühler Communications, as announced in a press release on Monday.
Blumenthal is quoted in the press release as saying that he experienced a great deal of solidarity following the coverage of the shooting. "Many celebrity friends were of the opinion that there were much more important things that animal welfare should stand up for." German cult comedian Michael Mittermeier is now making fun of the furor surrounding the shooting. In a recent interview, he spoke of the "piggishly funny TV commercial with the half-naked Alpöhi and his flying sow".

When employees spend time on Facebook during working hours, they not only lose working time and therefore money, but large companies also increasingly consider the virtual meeting place to be a security risk. Raiffeisen, Syngenta, Nobelbiocare and CS have therefore made access from internal company computers impossible. Now UBS has also taken action, as reported by the Sonntag newspaper. Apparently it fears espionage. There is a risk that someone could gain unauthorized access to confidential data or persuade the victims to take certain actions, said UBS spokesman Andreas Kern. However, in view of the financial institution's image, which is not quite at its peak at the moment due to its not overly happy handling of risks elsewhere, the bank would be advised to at least let its employees keep their face, even if only virtually.

Publicitas Cinecom and Wemf AG für Werbemedienforschung have presented the new Mach Cinema model for cinema research. Taking into account seasonal attendance figures, it provides detailed planning values for the reach of a cinema campaign for the first time. In September 2009, the first data sets from the Mach Cinema survey will be reported together with Mach 2009-2 and integrated into the Publicitas planning tool Vergo. Othmar Fischlin, Head of Market & Media Research at Publicitas, said in a press release on Monday that this will make it easier to plan cinema campaigns.
Patrick Knecht, Head of Cinema National at Publicitas Cinecom, believes that the launch of Mach Cinema will make cinema a more attractive advertising medium. In competition with other media, cinema now offers even better data, says Knecht.
Mach Cinema is based on Pro Cinema's admission figures and collects socio-demographic, consumption-specific and psychographic content via telephone surveys. Information on all bookable cinema genres is also included in the survey so that target group analyses can be created according to these genres. "This makes seasonally adjusted planning possible for the first time," explains Marco Bernasconi, Managing Director of Wemf.

The National Council does not want to hear about an obligation to provide information on the energy consumption of appliances or the fuel consumption of vehicles in advertising. It rejected a motion with this demand on Monday by 99 votes to 67.
In her parliamentary initiative, Franziska Teuscher (Greens/BE) demanded that the energy and fuel consumption of tumble dryers, washing machines and motor vehicles be displayed in TV commercials, advertisements and catalogs. She was of the opinion that an energy label should be published for every appliance.
The current declarations are not enough, said Teuscher. If only appliances with the lowest consumption were sold, a lot of energy could be saved and consumers could assume their responsibility.
A legal basis is therefore needed.
The majority of the Committee for the Environment, Spatial Planning and Energy (Urek) had requested that the proposal be rejected. Consumers are already highly aware of energy and fuel consumption and the current legal basis is sufficient.

To visualize a half-price promotion for Sunrise's mobile high-speed Internet "T@ke Away," Munich-based agency Hello used only half of all booked advertising space. The campaign motto "Save yourself half" is intended to explain the unusual appearance, as the agency announced on Monday. With the campaign running between September 15 and October 25, Hello is realizing its fourth project for Sunrise. Large-area and citylight posters, advertisements, flyers and POS measures will be used.
Responsible at TDC Switzerland (Sunrise): Priska Heger (Director MarCom) and Anabel Rodriguez (Senior MarcCom Manager). Responsible at Hello: Matthias Wetzel (Creative Director Text), Franziska Schaer (Art Director), Andreas Grill (Art Director), Tommy Böck (Text) and Julia Klug (Etat Director).

The 15th Swiss PR Symposium will take place in Wallisellen on October 28. This year's event, organized by the professional register of the Swiss PR Association SPRG, will focus on Switzerland's position in the intensified international competition between locations. Non-members of the SPRG can also register.
Professor Martial Pasquier from the Graduate Institute of Public Administration, IDHEAP, presents a study that examines Switzerland's image abroad, and Peter Waser from Microsoft Switzerland shows why his international company will increasingly focus on Switzerland in the future.
Other speakers include Professor Hans Peter Wehrli from the University of Zurich and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Greater Zurich Area, as well as Daniel Küng, CEO of Osec, and Joana Filippi from the Office of Economic Affairs of the Canton of Schwyz. Raymond Loretan, former Consul General of Switzerland in New York, will present a case study on the USA. Flavia Schlegel, the new head of the Swissnex office in Shanghai, will explain how Swiss science and innovation can be made attractive to the Chinese. The event will be moderated by Marion Preuss, President of SPRI and former Tagesschau presenter. Bruno Bieri will provide musical interludes.

The Federal Office of Communications has opened supervisory proceedings against the new SF series "Day and Night". As reported by the Sonntag newspaper, OFCOM suspects Swiss television of having placed surreptitious advertising in the new medical series.
Specifically, this involves the medication packaging of the generics company Helvepharm. The colorful boxes have a prominent place on the medicine shelves of SF-Permanence. Although Helvepharm is allowed to sponsor programs, the company is not allowed to appear in the series with prescription drugs or with non-prescription drugs that must be labeled with a mandatory notice due to the legal requirements that apply to television, Bakom lawyer Carole Winistörfer told the Sonntagsblatt.
The Foundation for Consumer Protection has reportedly also become aware of the drugs and has lodged a complaint against the product placement with OFCOM. According to the law, goods and services provided by a sponsor may be integrated, but they may not have any advertising effect. Consumer protection was quoted as saying that this was not the case here. The colored packs would stand out in the medicine rack.
Helvepharm takes a different view. Although the packs placed in the series are similar to the pharmaceutical manufacturer's real medicines, they are not completely identical. This means that it is not legally sensitive, emphasized Head of Marketing Christina Kobi. Helvepharm had paid a five-figure sponsorship amount and also provided the packs and other materials. Due to the ongoing proceedings, no one from SRG wanted to comment to Sonntag.

Mazdas are beautifully designed cars, according to the experts: the Mazda design studios recently won the Grand Prix du Design at the Festival International de l'Automobile in Paris. Now the Zurich advertising agency JWT&H&F has developed a communication package on the subject of design for the Mazda dealer exhibitions in the fall.
The centerpiece is a newspaper supplement that explains the new Nagare design language, assigns a typical driver to each Mazda model and defines its world. In addition, a Mazda can be won in a competition that is offered via dealer invitation cards, exhibition advertisements and garage decorations, among other things.
The Mazda Design supplement is published in three languages and is inserted in all major Sunday titles in Switzerland and other magazines.
Responsible at JWT&H&F: Remy Fabrikant (overall responsibility), Mike Krüll (CD/text), Grischa Rubinick (CD/art), Paolo Tonti (AD), Vanessa Lehmann-Spalleck (consulting), Rainer Bühler (strategy), Jonathan Heyer (photo). Responsible at Mazda: Marc Ulmann (Advertising Manager), Nathalie Gantner (Marketing Assistant).

The Campaign for Media Freedom, newly founded in July, intends to exert pressure on the SRG next week. As Sonntagsblick writes, President Filippo Leutenegger is planning to submit a motion in the next few days. The motion demands that the FM frequencies be divided equally between the SRG and the private radio stations. The SRG currently holds 70.2 percent of the frequencies.

(Image: Keystone)

The ability of individual media outlets to influence opinions is debatable. Critics claim that political decisions and mood swings in a country can largely be attributed to the media industry. Consumers assume that the information in newspapers, radio and television is well-researched and true, and believe it. Their opponents, on the other hand, tend to assume that readers think for themselves and are critical, and do not get their opinions from the newspapers without questioning them.
At the beginning of last week, it emerged that a certain amount of media influence was not entirely out of the blue. The share price of the American airline United Airlines suddenly plummeted. So much so that the shares even had to be temporarily suspended from trading. The reason: a report from the Chicago Tribune that appeared on the internet, in which the airline was accused of insolvency. The problem: the report dates back to 2002, but today the company is on a relatively sound footing. A system error in Google's news archive caused the report to suddenly reappear. That's how quickly you can influence a share price today. The whole Swissair story was probably just an Internet hoax. Quickly turn off the computer.

The current SR DRS Director Walter Rüegg will remain in office until June 2010. In order to ensure that the SRG.D media convergence project can be continued with the proven cooperation, his mandate will now be extended by one year, the SRG Board of Directors announced in a press release on Friday.
The media convergence project is geared towards a more intensive convergence of radio, television and multimedia. According to SRG, in future it should be possible to access program offerings more independently of time, place and reception device. The various media should also complement each other more than before.
The Board of Directors discussed the project again on Thursday and wants to include Suisse romande, Italian-speaking Switzerland and Romansh-speaking Switzerland in its deliberations alongside German-speaking Switzerland. In addition, guidelines for implementation in the regions are to be adopted. However, it has not yet been decided when this will be the case.

Swiss publishers want to regain control of their titles. They feel "sandwiched" between journalists, who single-handedly determine the quality of a newspaper, and the state, which restricts advertising.
"We have gone too far with journalistic independence", railed publisher president Hanspeter Lebrument in Montreux on Friday. The "Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Journalists" contained "some adventurous things" that did not benefit the subscribed newspapers.
Lebrument once again criticized state interventionism in the advertising market. Freedom of the press lies "in independence from the state". "We must prevent advertising censorship - which restricts, sometimes makes impossible, sometimes prohibits - from spreading step by step." Lebrument is in favor of associations that advocate freedom of advertising.
In a speech, Federal Councillor Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf also addressed the assembled Swiss publishers and shared with them her first experiences with the media in Bern. At a point de Presse in front of her office, the media representatives came very close to her - "an estimated 20 centimetres". The relationship between the media and politics does not have to be quite so close, Widmer-Schlumpf said according to the speech text.
"An arm's length - the image that describes the distance of healthy business relationships in the economy - is also appropriate between politics and the media." She went on to reflect on her role as part of the regulatory authority and that of publishers as companies.
She called for the quality of Swiss journalism to be kept high. The state would assume its responsibility to support the media in maintaining this. This has been done by adapting copyright law. "I call on you to continue to focus on or return to proven quality features and journalistic principles in the face of tough competition," concluded Widmer-Schlumpf.