The leisure portal Partyguide.ch has been given a new design. During the implementation of the redesign, care was taken to retain the handling. This means that users can still find almost all functions in the same place as before, while various enhancements have also been made. Sony BMG now provides current clips for the Music TV section. The event calendar now runs via Cinergy's Eventbooster, so an event now only has to be entered once on PartyGuide.ch and is then automatically published in over 16 other media.
The redesign of Partyguide.ch with modern and new forms of advertising should provide advertising customers with even more opportunities to showcase their products, the company wrote in a press release on Tuesday. All forms of advertising should be targeted to the right target group without wastage.
With more than 128,000 visitors a day, over 6.6 million page views per day and an average time spent on the site of around 22 minutes, Partyguide.ch is one of the most popular Swiss leisure portals and is aimed in particular at young, active, communicative, trend-conscious and mobile people between the ages of 16 and 30.

Just in time for the start of the Olympic Games in Beijing, the advertising agency Euro RSCG Zurich and the production company Rosas'n'Co are presenting a new spot for human rights in Tibet as part of a global campaign. With a direct statement, the spot is intended to draw attention to human rights violations in China and make a contribution to the protection of the Tibetan community. Christine Wiederkehr acted as director. Born in Biel in 1978, she has won international awards for her graduation film. The International Association of Tibetan Organizations has been trying for years to draw attention to China's human rights violations - in view of the Olympic Games, a global solidarity community was therefore established, also supported by numerous celebrities such as star director Oliver Stone. Part of the campaign was an attempt by Tibetan athletes from all over the world to get the Olympic Committee to accept their application to participate as a national team.
However, the application was rejected by the Olympic Committee and Plan B of the follow-up campaign was implemented accordingly: Dramatization of the human rights violations. On Human Rights Day, a demonstration was organized in front of the Olympic Committee in Lausanne - international news outlets such as the BBC and Al Jazira reported on it - and the realization of the current commercial was pushed forward.
Responsible at the Swiss-Tibetan Friendship Society (GSTF):

Daniela Lehmann (Campaign Coordinator). Responsible at Rosas'n'Co, Zurich: Kerstin Reulen (producer), Christine Wiederkehr (director), Filip Zumbrunn (camera), post-production: Ultraimages, sound: Jingle Jungle, music: Alex Kirschner. Responsible at Euro RSCG Zurich: Juerg Aemmer (CD), Matthias Müller (consulting), Frank Bodin (overall responsibility)

The advertising market in the US is currently struggling with the weak economic environment. Starting with daily newspapers and radio stations, a kind of shadow is beginning to cast over the entire industry, which is now also beginning to affect the TV sector, reports the Financial Times. In a year in which the advertising industry should actually be experiencing rising sales due to upcoming major events such as the Summer Olympics in Beijing and the US presidential election campaign running at full speed, the opposite is actually the case. Large advertising customers such as car manufacturers, banks, retailers and airlines are increasingly tightening their belts in terms of advertising expenditure. According to the Financial Times article, such budget cuts are a major threat and would put the industry under severe pressure.the outlook for US media groups is not particularly rosy at the moment. Some of the biggest advertisers in the US market, such as Coca-Cola and General Motors, have already indicated that they intend to drastically reduce their advertising expenditure in the near future. In addition, the industry has been overstretched for some time due to the rapid pace of technological development and new forms of digital distribution. Although media companies are already increasingly active in the digital field, the revenues generated are not yet sufficient to offset the losses from traditional business areas. According to experts, the negative mood caused by fears of inflation in the form of budget cuts is also having an impact on the German advertising market. It is currently in a stagnation phase, said Volker Nickel, spokesman for the Central Association of the German Advertising Industry, to Pressetext. If anything, the industry can hope for an increase of one percent.

Search engine giant Google is once again facing competition. A group of former Google employees launched the search engine Cuil on Monday. According to its own information, it searches more than 120 billion Internet pages for search words. That is more than Google, the operators announced. The search results should also be more accurate. The results are not presented in lists, but in the form of short content details. The name of the new site comes from the Gaelic word "Cuil", which means "knowledge". According to its operators, the new search engine offers greater privacy protection than its competitors. The search queries of individual users are not archived, so they leave no trace on the web.

In Switzerland, publishers are currently in eco-fever, while in Germany a media company is just ending its experiment with a green lifestyle magazine: Hubert Burda Media is discontinuing the LOHAS title Ivy after two regional test editions. As Horizont.net reports, Burda does not see "a sufficient economic basis" for the magazine. Despite a good media response, the economic environment currently offers "no necessary prospects either in print or online". The publisher is therefore stopping the tests and also ending the brand's internet activities.three magazines dealing with the environment and sustainability are to be launched on the Swiss market in the near future: the magazine Ecolife from Profile Publishing, a planned line extension of Beobachter and a supplement to Schweizer Illustrierte.

Switzerland is gaining a new photography prize: SBB Cargo is launching the SBB Cargo Newcomer Photo Award in collaboration with the advertising agency Euro RSCG Zurich. It is being offered for the first time this year. Photographers in training will be challenged to take part in a professional competition photo shoot and will be judged by a panel of experts. The shoot on the theme of "SBB Cargo" will take place at locations throughout Europe. The judges are Barbara Basting (cultural editor Tages-Anzeiger), Martin Parr (Magnum photographer), Rein Wolfs (Artistic Director Kunsthalle Fridericianum Kassel) and Jürg Aemmer (Creative Director Euro RSCG and President of Designnetwork Switzerland). The winner of the SBB Cargo Newcomer Photo Award 2008 will receive prize money of CHF 5,000. The 12 best photographs from the shoot will also be printed in large format in the 2009 SBB Cargo calendar.

Maybe it was the bad weather, maybe it was the new blockbusters: in any case, July has been a good month for cinemas so far and Publicitas Cinecom is pleased with the good audience figures. According to the CAM (Cinema Admission Monitor) projection, over a million moviegoers have flocked to Swiss cinemas in the past three weeks, it said in a press release. Compared to the three-year average of 860,000 visitors in the same period, this corresponds to an increase in performance of over 21 percent. Audience magnets were films such as "Mamma Mia!", "Hancock" and "Kung Fu Panda". According to the press release, the signs are good that the boom will continue, as the two films "The Dark Knight" with Heath Ledger and "Wanted" with Angelina Jolie still have their Swiss film releases ahead of them.

 In its latest campaign, the agency at the airport is trying to emphasize the fact that the hotels run by the large Austrian Simma family offer a princely service. The family runs two four-star hotels in the Bregenzerwald near the border. According to the agency, these are as diverse in their offerings as the members of the Simma family are different: Pleasure, culture, recreation, congresses, seminars, relaxation - the hotels cover a wide range of interests, and the small agency's advertising measures include a series of brochures in a wooden slipcase, a range of postcards and a new website.
Responsible at Hotel Adler & Hotel Rössle, Au/Bregenzerwald:
Barbara Simma. Responsible at the agency at the airport: René Eugster (CD), Dominique Rutishauser (AD), Benita Sutter (graphics), Désirée Schmid (text), Miram Egli (consulting/concept).

In the first half of 2008, marketer Goldbach Media Group reported an 11.1 percent increase in net sales to CHF 116.0 million and a 28.2 percent increase in operating profit to CHF 5.5 million. Net profit, on the other hand, fell from 14.3 million francs to 5.5 million francs. This is due to the absence of the extraordinary income from the sale of Radio Energy. Goldbach saw particularly strong growth in interactive and mobile media, where sales rose by 37.5 percent to CHF 31.7 million. The marketer now generates over 27 percent of its net sales in the online segment, as it announced on Tuesday. In the offline segment, the sale of advertising for private radio and TV and advertising at selected points of sale (Adscreen), Goldbach Media achieved a 3.5 percent increase in sales and revenues of CHF 84.7 million, although the industry's expectations for advertising volumes due to the European Football Championships in June were far from being fulfilled. Despite the difficult market environment, Goldbach Media is sticking to its forecasts. For 2008 as a whole, the company expects double-digit sales growth and an increase in operating profit before interest and taxes (EBIT) of over 10 percent. Further expansion in Eastern Europe is also planned.

As a journalist, if you get the opportunity to chat for a few minutes with a high-profile star such as Marilyn Manson, Pharrell Williams or Snoop Dogg, you should normally try to behave with the utmost seriousness. After all, you don't want to waste precious interview time or risk the star suddenly cutting the conversation short. So don't make too much of a fuss, don't make a fuss, don't upset the hierarchy between the star and the questioner. Canadian presenter Nardwuar the human serviette, however, knows no mercy: with a high, annoying voice and a strangely nerdy look, he pounces on his world-famous interview partners with an inane "who are you?". Everyone should first introduce themselves to the Canadian with the tartan cap, the big glasses and the infantile demeanor. And then, when some, such as Blur drummer Dave Rowntree, have long since lost their temper with the exchange of trivialities, the journalist from Vancouver suddenly pulls the aces out of his sleeve. He then pulls things out of his old briefcase that are closely linked to the artists' life stories: Pharrell Williams, for example, is first handed the original pressing of his first record, then a book about skateboarding and finally a child's doll and can't keep his mouth shut in amazement. At the latest then they tell the human napkin everything it wants to know. Very entertaining.

It was already known that the French-speaking Swiss company GSMN, the former Agen holding company, was looking into selling its press division. Now another rumor is making the rounds: Tamedia and Ringier are interested in acquiring the business newspaper L'Agefi and the women's magazine Profil Femme from GSMN. As reported by Le Temps, Tamedia is already preparing an offer. The purchase would strengthen the business newspaper Finanz & Wirtschaft and the women's magazine Annabelle with a counterpart in French-speaking Switzerland. However, the Zurich media company was unable to comment when asked by Werbewoche: "We do not comment on rumors. Both Finanz & Wirtschaft and Annabelle are successful and there is no reason to fundamentally change the concept," explained spokesman Christoph Zimmer. Ringier is also refraining from commenting: "As a matter of principle, we do not comment on market rumors," explained company spokesman Marco Castellaneta. Ringier is already present on the women's magazine market in French-speaking Switzerland with the title Edelweiss. The GSMN Group (Genolier Swiss Medical Network) combines clinics and media under one roof, but announced in May that it would concentrate on the healthcare sector in future.

The Zurich agency Wirz Werbung has expanded its consultancy over the last three months: Isabelle Jubin, Fabienne Hunziker, Nadine Nyffenegger and Patricia Holend have joined the team. Isabelle Jubin joins from Germany, having worked as a junior consultant at BBDO in Düsseldorf for the past three years, mainly on clients such as Uncle Ben's, M&M's, Celebrations and Falk. Fabienne Hunziker most recently worked at SFLB for clients such as Migros Do it & Garden and Neuco. Nadine Nyffenegger and Patricia Hollend started at Wirz directly after their training at SAWI. Picture from left to right: Patricia Holend, Fabienne Hunziker, Nadine Nyffenegger, Isablle Jubin