Even those accustomed to doomsday scenarios from the US newspaper industry will take a deep breath: of the 8 billion dollars that the Tribune Co. spent at the turn of the millennium to incorporate Times Mirror and thus the Los Angeles Times into its group, 3.8 billion dollars had to be written off these days. The New York Times - one of the few papers on the other side of the Atlantic that still maintains reporting on the media industry and journalism - recently calculated how the stock market values of newspaper companies, which were once said to be the most profitable legal investment after casinos, have developed.
The large corporations have lost market value dramatically. The Washington Post Co. has lost 24 percent since the beginning of 2008, the New York Times Co. 26 percent and the largest newspaper group in the USA, Gannett, 52 percent. For many other listed publishing houses, price falls of 50 to 70 percent in the last one to two years are the order of the day. And there are even more drastic cases. For example, the market capitalization of the Journal Register Company, which publishes the New Haven Register and hundreds of smaller newspapers, fell to one million dollars in August 2008. The papers have thus lost 99 percent of their value since the beginning of the previous year. In the same period, GateHouse Media, another publishing house that publishes hundreds of small local papers, has lost almost 98 percent of its market value and is now listed at a market value of 26 million dollars. The Sun-Times Media Group in Chicago is trading 91 percent lower than in January 2007 and its share capital is currently valued at 34 million dollars.
Stock market players may now be wondering whether these are buy prices - and are certainly in good company with a large number of investors from outside the industry who are thinking "now or never" about taking advantage of this opportunity. Others who may have believed in synergy effects and their own superior management talents - such as Sam Zell in the USA and David Montgomery in Europe - have already got bloody noses. Which is why we'd better refrain from the surefire tip for investing or destroying money in the summer slump.
Instead, on this occasion - the Olympics are just coming to an end - we would like to remember Al Neuharth. He was, so to speak, the marathon runner and gold medal winner in the American newspaper business at the end of the 20th century.
In the space of two decades, he has turned the upmarket tabloid he founded, USA Today, into the highest-circulation US newspaper - with first-class sports coverage, by the way.
As a precaution, however, the optimist and bon vivant ¬Neuharth had already played out the end of the world twenty years ago - and imagined the lead story that the leading US newspapers would report on immediately beforehand. His headline versions: New York Times: 'End of the World - Third World Countries Hardest Hit'; Wall Street Journal: 'End of the World - Dow Jones Index Plunges to Zero'; Washington Post: 'End of the World - Government Sources Say White House Ignored Early Warnings'; USA Today: 'We're All Dead! Latest sports scores p. 6'. The joke may sound more macabre today than when Neuharth invented it. However, if it was intended to encourage a cheerful, summery serenity in dealing with the scenarios of the exodus of our daily newspapers, it still served its purpose in the Olympic year 2008.

New packaging and new flavor. The bottles (Car Can and Pocket Bottle) offer optimum protection for the Stimorol dragées and are therefore particularly ideal for the summer, when many people spend time near and in the water. This trendy packaging and the new flavors are presented by the Lucerne agency Velvet in a campaign under the motto "New Summer Look". The fresh and cheeky motifs are also intended to reinforce Stimorol's status.
Stimorol has been claiming to be "the original" for years. However, tradition should not prevent innovation. "Stimorol customers are unique, go their own way and are always looking for new horizons. They also remain true to themselves and stand by their identity," the advertisers write, somewhat rubbery for a mass product. In any case, it sounds as profile-less as chewing gum pushed around in your mouth for hours. But the creative result seems more interesting than the theoretical basis. How they work - that will also become clear when the posters are evaluated with the Poster Performance Index PPI after they have been displayed. This allows the qualitative and quantitative performance to be measured. Reach, GRP, brand recognition, appeal and recall are the main criteria. And they are likely to be good after a first bite or look. (pan)

From a cozy DSL start to super-fast Infinity: Swisscom's new, expanded DSL offering provides just the right Internet connection for everyone. Contexta brought this variety to the point in a large-scale overall campaign.
People's needs are as diverse as the people themselves. And sometimes it can be surprising who finds what important. The rich, pearl-clad lady wants "the cheapest". The little girl on her running bike wants "the fastest", of course. The mathematics professor wants "the easiest". The tall basketball player wants "the smallest". And the daredevil and absolutely unconventional artist longs for "the most normal". They all find exactly what they are looking for at Swisscom. Because Swisscom's versatile DSL Internet offering meets every need.
The DSL campaign is Swisscom's comprehensive and fully integrated overall campaign. The demands on the campaign concept, which had to function quickly and flexibly in all disciplines, were correspondingly high. Contexta and the team around the two CDs Bene Abegglen and Moritz Staehelin solved the task in a skillful play with contrasts, clichés and their refutation. The campaign is designed to surprise, and thus to get to the heart of the diversity of DSL offerings in an astonishing way. At the same time, it emphasizes Swisscom's broadband expertise and the benefits that customers derive from it. The idea will be carried out not only on TV and in print, but also in cinemas, on the Internet, in direct mailings, on the radio and in Swisscom stores. "The simple and very clever mechanism of the broad-based overall campaign has the great advantage that the individual DSL subscriptions can be advertised very specifically without losing the main message," say Roger Renfer and Patrizio Pivirotto, advertising managers at Swisscom. From the fastest to the cheapest to the very normal DSL subscription: Swisscom has just the right thing for everyone.
The core of the campaign is a 30-second basic spot produced by Ping Pong, which presents the entire diversity of the new DSL offering. This results in several short product spots, accompanied by corresponding print subjects, which advertise the various DSL subscriptions. Of course, the campaign is also found on the Internet, where there is a lot of interaction and high entertainment value.
In order to be able to implement this accordingly, Nadine Borter, who is responsible for the entire project, relied on illustrious people. With director Christian Aeby and photographer Giovanni Castell, Contexta staged Swisscom's new visual language in a very atmospheric and independent way. On a real Tour de Suisse, they traveled from Geneva via Olten to Ticino and staged the various characters in fitting locations: "Nobody is only what they seem to be. The rich lady suddenly wants the cheapest thing and the freaky artist wants the normal thing. These contrasts are most exciting when our protagonists remain credible and authentic," says Aeby. In the same way, photographer Giovanni Castell added an extra quality to the campaign with his images. "We tried to capture the unexpected and the random, not the overly obvious."
Peter Eisenegger and Daniel Landolt from the Contexta subsidiary atfront have further developed the campaign online. On the Internet, the various characters live together under one roof: At www.swisscom.ch/dsl, visitors can get to know the DSL house and its interesting residents in more detail and are thus introduced to the benefits of the new DSL subscriptions in an entertaining way.
Andreas Panzeri

Following a successful merger with Wincare and just in time for its 50th anniversary, Sanitas, Switzerland's fourth-largest health insurer, is giving itself a new look. This will be visible to the general public for the first time in the current premium fall. The Zurich agency Rod Kommunikation has developed a multi-stage, integrated campaign that focuses on the price advantages of Sanitas' clever insurance products and positions the brand as a health insurer with an excellent price-performance ratio. "Intelligent insurance solutions that take account of contemporary lifestyles naturally also include attractive premium savings models and discounts," explains Valentin Hüsser, Head of Strategic Marketing at Sanitas.
The basic idea of the campaign: this message is dramatized using small and big dreams, visualized as green-wrapped gifts. The motto "More money left over for everything that moves you" is supported by a far-reaching campaign that is staged on numerous channels. This includes internal communication, TV commercials, posters and advertisements, promotions, online activities and a direct marketing concept aimed at families.
The campaign begins with the TV commercial. Further measures can be seen in the course of the fall. (pan)

What is it: it's gray, gloomy, smells of exhaust fumes - and you leave it as quickly as possible? That's right, a conventional parking garage. But this type of parking space could soon be a thing of the past if the young company CS Media is successful in this country.
CS Media, founded a few months ago in Basel, is the only licensed provider for Canada and Europe (excluding Portugal and Austria) of CarSpaze, a new product in the field of outdoor advertising. ¬CarSpaze consists of at least 20 Eternit panels measuring 1.5 meters by 1.2 meters, which are not covered with paper but printed using a special process. CS Media has now started to equip heavily frequented parking garages with these 24-metre-long advertising panels. They cover the gray concrete walls in front of which the cars are parked. At the same time, CS Media is retrofitting the lighting so that the CarSpaze walls are illuminated and the corresponding parking garage floor loses some of its often oppressive discomfort. CS ¬Media describes the change as follows: "CarSpaze transforms parking garages into an impressive media landscape and significantly improves the parking experience."
The first CarSpaze wall in Switzerland is being unveiled today, August 21, in the station parking garage in Bern. SBB was the first customer to have the entire third floor (150 meters in total) fitted with an impressive advertising motif. Of course, this is not a short-term affair: CS Media needed six weeks for production and installation. "The billboard, which is primarily suitable for image advertising, usually lasts a year, but at least six months," says Grégoire Schnegg, COO of CS Media. A minimum panel length of 24 meters costs around CHF 100,000, a fifth of which is for production. CarSpaze panels are recyclable.
CS Media has already concluded contracts with around ten other parking garage operators throughout Switzerland. Negotiations are also underway with several advertising customers. Schnegg, who incidentally was CEO of cinema operator Pathé Suisse until eight months ago, expects to have around four more CarSpaze advertising walls by the end of the year. CS Media is also ready to launch in Germany and the UK. "For the time being, we are focusing on parking garages, but we can imagine other locations, for example outdoors. We have some ideas," says Schnegg.
One detail in passing: in order to gain a foothold in this country, talks with the outdoor advertisers APG and Clear Channel Outdoor (CCO) were necessary. Some of them have exclusive contracts with parking garages, but only use them at the entrance, exit and elevator. Due to the lower frequency, they are hardly interested in the parking spaces themselves. "Of course they don't enjoy us, but they realized that we do a different job and don't take any space away from them," says Schnegg.
CS Media is active in marketing itself, but also cooperates with other agencies. And PubliGroupe was chosen as the main agency. "We approached P and agreed a contractual partnership with them," explains Schnegg.
Markus Knöpfli
A new medium for PThomas Bargetzi, CEO of Media Sales (Switzerland) at Publicitas, is delighted to now have another medium in the marketing portfolio alongside print, TV, radio, online, cinema, mobile and AdScreen: CarSpaze. "Out-of-home advertising is part of Allmedia and generates net sales of CHF 600 million a year," he says. Although CarSpaze is not directly comparable with the poster medium, it is more of a specialty. "But customers are asking for new forms of communication, so we are obliged to offer them solutions," he says. In the new P structure, which came into effect on August 1, CarSpaze marketing will be housed in the Direct Sales division, specifically in the New Sales department. "This department can now start immediately. In any case, we will actively approach customers," says Bargetzi. (mk)

Would you like to reach around a quarter of all households in the Zürcher Unterland with advertising at low cost? Then you can take part in an online auction of ten full-page and ten half-page advertisements in the Zürcher Unterländer (ZU) and the Neues Bülacher Tagblatt (NBT) until August 22 (4 pm). The starting price per page is CHF 999, per half page CHF 555, which corresponds to a discount of around 80 percent compared to the normal rate.
This appeal is not fictitious. It can be found on the Publicitas website www.dynamicpricing.ch. And there you can also read that the ZürichseeZeitung (ZSZ) held a similar auction before the summer vacations, and that the titles of the Société Neuchâteloise de la Presse (SNP) L'Impartial and L'Express were even auctioned in April. What all the auctions have in common is that they were launched in cooperation with Publicitas and only advertisements in Monday editions were offered. However, while the SNP newspapers each registered a total of 45 advertisements for auction by the end of the year with different starting prices depending on the season (at CHF 1500, 2500 and 3000), ZSZ, Zürcher Unterländer (ZU) and Neues Bülacher Tagblatt (NBT) limited themselves to advertisements in the summer and fall respectively and to just one starting price each.
Positive resultsThe experiences at the ZSZ and in French-speaking Switzerland were similar: "All advertisements were booked, there were no gaps," says ZSZ Managing Director Erland Herkenrath. "The average price achieved was 30 percent of the starting price," adds SNP Director Jacques Matthey. The minimum was only slightly above the starting price, while the maximum was around twice the value. This means that barely half of the normal price was ever reached. "That's true," says Herkenrath, "but that's still more than if we had to place filler ads - as is so often the case on Mondays." In addition, sales were even 40 percent higher than expected. Matthey mentions another aspect: "The auction made us the talk of the local market. In total, around 100 customers took part, including some new customers."
The initial results on both sides are positive, but there are still restrictions: "We certainly won't be doing this all the time, because we don't want to undermine our tariff," says Herkenrath. He therefore only wants to discuss whether and how ZSZ and ZU will continue with the Züriland-Zeitung. Matthey, for his part, points out that such campaigns do stimulate the advertising market somewhat. "But they can only ever make a small contribution to our overall turnover."
This assessment is also shared in principle by Publicitas. However, Séverine Lago, Head of the Dynamic Pricing project and recently appointed Head of Market Development, emphasizes that the auctions described are initial tests in local markets. "We want to use them to gain experience and sound out the needs of the various market partners," she says. The aim is to make print advertising more flexible. "We want to dust off the image of the press and show that print advertising can be modern and dynamic," says Lago. Over the past two years, her team has researched various industries around the world and compiled ideas for more flexible pricing. A good 40 different offers are currently being tested with ten directing publishers and more than 25 newspapers or combined newspapers. These are not just auctions. Other instruments, such as last-minute offers from the Aargauer Zeitung and Edipresse titles, are currently underway or still in preparation. Not all ideas are web-based either; some are brought to the market by sales representatives, such as "Name your own price". Customers can suggest a price themselves. If his offer is equal to or higher than the minimum price set by the publisher, he receives the advertisement. Another idea is standby ads: The customer books an ad without a fixed date, for example sometime in September. The publisher then publishes it when it has free space. The Dynamic Pricing team also launched the "Pubbooster", a first cross-media package for the local market: for CHF 330, for example, the customer receives a small advertisement, the printing of a flyer, a cinepicture, graphics included, plus a month's presence in the PDF edition of the newspaper and an industry analysis.
Not all dynamic pricing ideas are new. For example, it can happen that Lago's team simply suggests a traditional summer discount to a publisher because they have never tried it before. Lago does not see her role primarily in the development of new products, but in the systematic collection and processing of ideas - and as a motivator to try out new things. "We want to show that the prize can be used as a marketing tool for targeted offers," she says. At the same time, she also wants to create the conditions to facilitate trial runs. For example, while the SNP titles still had to be auctioned via the ricardo.ch website, ZSZ and ZU/NBT already had their own P auction platform at their disposal.
Markus Knöpfli
Not yet a major successThe dynamic pricing project has also caused displeasure in the industry. The P, the guardian of the grail of tariff fidelity, is almost only active in local markets and is primarily thinking about discounts, it is said. Séverine Lago counters this by saying that she does not want to limit herself to baking small rolls, but that she understands when publishers carry out initial tests in the local market. In addition, the publisher always retains control of the rates, even at auctions. "We only advise them," she emphasizes. She also emphasized that there would be no undermining of tariff loyalty. Lago's assertion that dynamic pricing measures had already led to six-figure monthly sales was also met with a shake of the head. "A growth rate of several 100,000 francs per month is now realistic," she wrote in mid-July. This does indeed seem a little grandiose in view of the fact that only two auctions have delivered measurable results - which also never generated 100,000 francs per month. But Lago is adamant: "There are many other newspapers and around 40 different offers, so this statement doesn't worry me." (mk)

The web browsers Internet Explorer from Microsoft, Mozilla Firefox and Safari from Apple are facing competition from Google: the search engine giant has launched its own web browser Chrome, which is available to download for free on the internet from today - but only for the Windows operating system for the time being. According to Google, versions for Apple and Linux are in preparation.
Google announced in a statement on Tuesday that it had decided to develop its own software due to the shortcomings of previous browsers. The most important innovation is likely to be that individual sub-windows, known as tabs, are operated separately from each other like individual processes. This should increase the stability of the program.
Like Mozilla Firefox, Chrome is designed as an open source program that can be further developed by users. Some of the same components are used as in Mozilla and Safari. Observers assume that Chrome will spread primarily at the expense of Mozilla, which has increased its market share to around 20 percent to date. Around six percent of users use Safari.
According to Google, the surprise announcement of the new software is due to a glitch. The company sent the internet blog "Google Blogoscoped" a copy of a comic illustrating the advantages of Chrome too early. After the information spread around the web, Google responded with an official statement.
The launch of Chrome is reminiscent of the so-called browser war of the mid-1990s. At the time, Microsoft had sunk the leading Netscape Navigator into insignificance within a short space of time, for example by adding Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system free of charge.

Axel Springer Switzerland has taken over the Swiss leisure and party portals Partyguide.ch and Usgang.ch. Together with the student portal Students.ch, which was purchased by the publisher in 2007, the two portals will be combined under the umbrella of the newly created Amiado Group, as the company announced in a press release on Tuesday.
31-year-old Adrian Bührer, co-founder of Students.ch, takes over the overall management of the new Amiado Group. Ralph Büchi, CEO of Axel Springer Switzerland and President of Axel Springer International, will become Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Amiado Group. The co-founders and former heads of Partyguide.ch and Usgang.ch, Jason Fellmann, Symeon Virlis and Markus Soller, will remain managing directors of their portals.
Together, the three online offerings will become the market leader in the 18- to 34-year-old age group, and Axel Springer Switzerland will move up into the top 5 Swiss online providers. "Attractive growth prospects are opening up for the Amiado Group", Adrian Bührer was quoted as saying in a press release on Tuesday. "Advertisers in Switzerland are offered a perfect environment to address a young target group across media."

The festival summer is still in full swing and so is the sponsorship. The SonntagsZeitung of Zurich-based Tamedia is involved in the Orange Cinema and the Montreux Jazz Festival, among others. AY&R has come up with a commercial and a poster motif to match each event. These are intended to further establish the SonntagsZeitung's babushka campaign.
"Tremendous reactions"
At the end of US President George W. Bush's term of office, the ad once again addresses an issue that will long outlast his presidency: the war in Iraq. And the poster subject takes an ironic look at the favorite toy of bad boys: the electric guitar.
"The response has been tremendous," says Markus Gut happily. Many people want to have the film on their computer or cell phone, and the poster "is also constantly being ordered by fans". It follows on from the success of the first subjects, which have already won a shortlist place in Cannes.
Andreas Panzeri

Former Mosse Media vice director Hans Verbeke is joining online advertising broker Admazing with immediate effect. As key account manager, he will be able to draw on an extensive network, according to a Milestone press release. In addition, he will drive the expansion of the Zurich location.
As Product and Key Account Manager, Project Manager and finally Vice Director, Hans Verbeke worked for almost 20 years at Mosse Media, which belongs to Publigroupe. In 2006, he became an independent marketing and communications consultant. In the future, he will put his media experience at the service of online advertising and drive the ongoing expansion at Admazing, according to the Milestone announcement.

Tibits is growing and growing. What began in 2000 with the first vegetarian restaurant/take-away in Zurich's Seefeld district is taking shape. Tibits Winterthur opened in 2002, followed by Bern in 2003 and then Basel in 2007. And it continues. For the first time in the company's history, Tibits is now venturing abroad. Tibits will open its doors in the middle of London this fall.
To let Londoners know what to expect even before the opening, Wirz Werbung has developed a 30-metre-long construction wall to arouse curiosity about the new restaurant during the renovation work. Later, Wirz wants to attract Londoners to Tibits with a campaign and also below the line. CD Matthias Freuler loves the challenge of being able to compete as a Swiss with London's creative minds in a direct encounter. We can already reveal that the legendary flower tubs on nearby Regent Street could play a role in these ideas.
Wirz has been with Tibits since the beginning. The agency supplied both the name and the logo. The name Tibits is derived from the English word "titbits/tidbits" which means "tidbits". The brand therefore stands for enjoyable, fresh and healthy food and drink.
In 1998, the three brothers Reto, Christian and Daniel Frei took part in the Venture business plan competition organized by ETH Zurich and management consultants McKinsey with the idea of setting up high-end vegetarian fast-food restaurants. The idea corresponded to their own need for enjoyable vegetarian food in a relaxed atmosphere. The business plan convinced the jury and the concept was awarded a prize.
The reactions were so positive that the Frei brothers decided to implement the idea. However, they lacked a catering professional to implement it. Rolf & Marielle Hiltl, owners of the Hiltl restaurant, which is the oldest and leading vegetarian restaurant in Europe, heard about the project from the media and contacted the Frei brothers. The chemistry was right from the start and the two were a perfect match. Together they founded a company and developed the concept further. Tradition and innovation were thus ideally combined.
Andreas Panzeri

Tibits todayIn the meantime, the managing son Rolf Hiltl is concentrating more on the large and newly renovated restaurant in the center of Zurich. He still holds 25 percent of the shares in Tibits. As Hiltl is not a household name abroad, the "by Hiltl" sub-line is no longer integrated into the logo in London.