On July 21, 2008, Radio 24 will launch the weekly special "On the Rocks¬". Rock music will be broadcast from its origins in the 1960s to the present day, from Aerosmith to Jimi Hendrix and Joan Jett to ZZ Top, as the radio station announced on Friday. The music program is enriched by background reports on topics such as the creation of the Hard Rock Café or Joan Jett's world hit I love Rock'n'Roll. The program, which is broadcast on Mondays from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., is hosted and presented by Karin Müller. "On the Rocks" is also broadcast by Radio Basilisk and Radio Rottu.

Hannes Britschgi will become the new editor-in-chief of Sonntagsblick on September 1, 2008. The 52-year-old journalist takes over from Marc Walder. Hannes Britschgi has been Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Sonntagsblick since April 15, 2008 and prior to that was Editor-in-Chief and Head of Ringier TV for Ringier since April 2005. He previously worked for Swiss television for 15 years. He worked as a journalist, presenter and editorial director for the programs "Karussell", "Max", "Kassensturz" and "Rundschau". In 2001, he moved to the news magazine Facts, where he was editor-in-chief for three years before joining Ringier. Britschgi studied law in Berne, where he was admitted to the bar in 1984.Marc Walder has been Editor-in-Chief of Sonntagsblick since February 2007. He will take over the management of Ringier Switzerland on September 1, 2008.

The marketing and communications agency Jaisli & Partner Marketing, which has been operating in Aarau for over ten years, has relocated its headquarters to Hergiswil in the canton of Nidwalden. Heinz Jaisli and his team will be taking their clients, including Chrysler Switzerland, Schenker Hydraulik and Jaisli-Beck, with them to Central Switzerland, as can be seen from the press release.

Publicitas provides information on the interim status of its reorganization and announces that sales in Switzerland will be divided into four areas in future. The reorganization is progressing "faster than planned", according to a press release issued on Friday evening. In particular, the marketing of print media and TV has become more effective, transparent and sales-oriented. Further reorganization steps are planned for August to optimize sales processes and services. Sales Switzerland under Thomas Bargetzi will in future be divided into four regional sales areas (Léman, ROC, Central and East). In addition, the two departments "National Sales" and "Direct Sales" will be created in Zurich. The competence units for each media category will be located in National Sales. The main task of the regional sales units with their branch network will continue to be active print sales, the press release continues. In addition, however, consulting and sales across all media are to be successively promoted. Competence units will be deployed for this purpose. They will support the regions with specific know-how, for example on electronic media. They will also look after the partners in the media agencies and customers, as Bargetzi is quoted in the communiqué. The key account departments of Publicitas Publimedia and the "Electronic & Interactive" units will work more closely together in future. In consultation with the agencies involved, they will look after the 50 or so most important advertising clients. The "Media Partner Relations" unit will be integrated into Sales. A newly introduced reporting system is intended to ensure uniform measurability across all areas of the company. And Publicitas is apparently focusing on internal competition: since June, all sales units have been able to see how their sales performance compares with that of other units on a ranking list. The heads of the "Sales Switzerland" sales organization from 1 August 2008 and 1 September 2009 are:Head: Thomas Bargetzi
Sales area West: Patrick Cuénoud
Central sales area: René Gehrig
Sales area East: Stefan Bai
NZZ-Media: Walter Vontobel
Publicitas Publimedia: Stephan Gartenmann
Electronic & Interactive: Tim Dührkoop
Publicitas Publiconnect: Markus Bucher
Direct Sales: Moreno Cavaliere
Publicitas Publimag: Darko Panic
New Sales: Werner Schlatter
Publicitas Swiss Press: Paul Baumgartner
Media Partner Relations: Alexandra Kasper
Sales Support: Heinz BischofHead of Marketing & Communications Worldwide:Head: Christian Gartmann
Market Development: Séverine Lago
Marketing Services: Michael Schaefer
Legal Services: Jan Widmer
Project Rebranding: Sabine Tschopp

 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.

 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 largest advertising customers 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 affecting 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.

Beijing, the venue for this year's Summer Olympics, is a long way away. That is why Swiss Olympic is calling on the Swiss population to support the Swiss Olympic team with success and congratulations as well as motivational texts via the Internet. The campaign, which is linked to a competition, was developed by the Bern agency Freiburghaus und Partner. The competition starts on July 28 with a broad-based online campaign and advertisements in print media throughout Switzerland and will run until August 24. Participants can send in their wishes by text message or by entering them on the www.swissolympic.ch/fanpost website. The entries will be reviewed and published by Swiss Olympic and shown on the TV screens in the House of Switzerland in Beijing. Responsible at Swiss Olympic: Dany Gehrig (Head of Marketing Swiss Olympic).
Responsible at Freiburghaus und Partner: Simon Freiburghaus (Creative Director), Youri Laubscher (Art Director), Pascale Berclaz, Heike Kamieth, Lea Moser (Consulting), Croci & du Fresne (Photo and Composing).

 Yes or No, the clothing brand of Swiss department store group Manor, is getting a boost from a new campaign. The advertising measures developed by Planetactive, an agency specializing in digital marketing, are intended to increase the number of newsletter subscribers and boost traffic to the website, among other things. At the same time, the Yes or No brand is to be strengthened, with the campaign focusing on the so-called Friday question, a weekly competition designed to motivate regular visits to the website. In line with Yes or No's young target group, the Friday question is about lifestyle topics, VIPs, entertainment, news or sport. The question can be answered with a clear "Yes" or "No". Participation is possible via a microsite or by SMS. The campaign runs for 22 weeks.
Planetactive has grouped numerous measures around this competition. These include a microsite, teasers on other Manor websites, e-mails and newsletters as well as POS flyers and the integration of supplementary offline measures.

Engadin Scuol Tourism has appointed Niculin Meyer as Media Manager. He will succeed Nicole Feyen. The 24-year-old will be responsible for contact with journalists and marketing partners in Switzerland, Germany and Holland, as Cash Daily reported on Friday. Meyer completed his training as a qualified tourism specialist HF at the end of June.

Swiss announced its collaboration with Publicis at the end of May and shortly afterwards awarded the agency its first contract: at the beginning of July, the posters for Euro08 had to be taken down at Zurich, Basel, Geneva and Lugano airports and replaced with a new campaign for the airline's flight schedule. Publicis presented the concept a few days later, from which eleven motifs have now been produced, according to the agency. Each motif shows a destination and tells how often Swiss flies there each week. For the realization, Publicis took up well-known clichés and implemented them in a new way. For example, that the Italians talk more, the French flirt more or that the Germans export more. These national characteristics are always countered with the statement that Swiss flies more. The new posters are now hanging at the airports mentioned above. According to the press release, the campaign was realized with stock images due to time constraints. Responsible at Swiss: Frank Maier (Head of Marketing), Christine Moch (Manager Advertising), Corinne Weishaupt (Advertising ).
Responsible at Publicis: Martin Denecke (CCO), Ralph Halder (CD), Peter Rettinghausen (Text), Denis Schwarz (Art Direction), Simone Platz (Graphics), Stephan Lanz (Senior Brand Director), Myriam Mojon (Junior Brand Director), Dominique Ospel (Assistant), Andreas Caruso (Production), Fabio Clerici (DTP), Vera Schmid/Deborah Herzig (Art Buying).

The Government Council of the Canton of Zurich has set itself the goal of developing a uniform corporate identity and introducing it at the beginning of 2010. For the selection of the future corporate design partner, the Canton of Zurich is conducting a public, two-stage submission procedure. In the first phase, experts, studios and agencies can submit written applications. No design proposals are required in this phase. A jury will nominate three participants for the second phase, who will then prepare concept and design proposals.The closing date for applications is August 29, 2008. The invitation to tender, which provides detailed information on the framework conditions, requirements and the judging process, can be downloaded from the website of the State Chancellery.

Euro 2008 is over and Spain has been crowned European champion for weeks now, but the issue of public viewing is still keeping lawyers on their toes: the Federal Administrative Court has ruled that no special tariff will apply to such major events in the future. With its ruling, the court confirmed a decision made by the Arbitration Commission for the Exploitation of Copyright and Neighboring Rights in April. The Commission determined that only copyright societies may demand license fees (see Copyright societies may license public viewing). In accordance with this tariff, the copyright society Suisa collected CHF 160 from public viewing organizers for the duration of the entire European Football Championship. For its part, the European Football Association (Uefa) also charged fees for public viewing events, albeit much higher ones. Uefa also appealed to the Federal Administrative Court against the fact that only the Suisa tariff should apply (see Uefa goes to court over public viewing). The appeal has now been rejected. The court had already withdrawn the suspensive effect of the appeal in May, so that the Suisa tariff could come into force for the European Championships.