As part of the opening up of the Swiss electricity market, energy service provider Efforte has decided on a new brand identity. The Olten-based company chose the Aarau agency Renzen Communications for the design. They were entrusted with the task of developing a completely new image. The aim was to position the still young company as independent, dynamic and likeable. To counterbalance the complexity of the subject matter, the new branding focuses on the human aspect. According to the agency, the combination of people shots and pictograms integrated into the image, which symbolize the respective business area, is intended to create an unmistakable visual world. In addition to the complete redesign of the website, a document folder for inserts, new stationery, two trade fair mailings and various advertisements were created.
Responsible at Efforte:
Christoph Bünger (CEO). Responsible at Renzen Communications: Emmanuelle Friedli (CD), Urs van Laer and Achim Kaufmann (graphics), Daniel Roth and Hanno Lietz (text), Luca Pibiri (consulting).

 
Self-promotion The Serviceplan agency group hosted an I-Day on the subject of interactive media at its headquarters in Munich. 
"User-generated content" and "social media" are just a few of the buzzwords currently being hotly debated in the media landscape. But will these topics have a lasting impact on our communication? Or are they just bubbles that will burst after a short half-life - just like the virtual world of "Second Life"? The agency group Serviceplan, whose network also includes Plan.Net as a specialist for interactive communication, invited over 100 executives, client representatives and interested parties from the media to its first I-Day last week. The event, which was staged both as self-promotion and as a contribution to the discussion, presented well-known trendsetters in presentations followed by workshops. The topics were moderated by Michael Frank, Managing Director of the Plan.Net Group, and Florian Haller, Managing Director of the Serviceplan Agency Group. They said: "The industry wants to set trends. In the middle of the year, now is the time to take stock: where have the expected trends developed?"
Rescuing the commercialRoman Kuhn, director, producer and commercial filmmaker, presented his latest invention
before. The filmmaker has already been nominated for a German Film Award with a documentary about Hildegard Knef. In the 1990s, he not only projected affordable lifestyle into popular fashion with numerous commercials for H&M, but also had a lasting influence on the style of many music clips with his emotionally charged commercials. His soundtracks to numerous H&M commercials regularly landed in the charts. With the now launched platform Floaded - which is derived from "film loaded" - Kuhn wants to combine all these worlds. He is speculating on nothing less than a possible rescue of the commercial. "We are all aware that the commercial as an interrupter of a feature film on TV has reached the end of its career," said Roman Kuhn. His new idea is now a separate platform for commercials of a more advanced kind. On
short films with integrated products will be shown. As a pilot, "The Erlkönigin" can be clicked on. Anyone planning to buy a new car in the near future, for example, can watch this film for several minutes. The images show the desired Mercedes in all poses and driving situations, broken up into scenes that are as beautiful as they are exciting or action-packed. There is also a tool that allows the viewer to click on certain parts of the car. This takes them to the brand page, where they can find more information about the car or other products presented in the film.Kuhn believes that many such Floaded clips can be edited with "waste material" from traditional commercials. Beautiful drives that last only seconds in a movie or TV commercial can be squeezed out in full length on Floaded and accompanied by beautiful music. "The emotions that can no longer be generated in a 20-second spot - because the switching costs are too expensive - can come back into play in the new medium," Kuhn believes.
As a pioneer in the search for future forms of advertising, the German automotive industry has contributed financially to the launch of Floaded. In line with the concept of "entertainment at the front - product information at the back", the development of special microsites is also part of the design of a Floaded clip. The information presented in the film is further elaborated on there.
To make the new advertising films as attractive as possible for viewers, additional links should also be provided, for example to the actors appearing in the film and their latest movies. If the music plays an important role, information about the band can be obtained by clicking on the corresponding button.
"These new forms of advertising require even more overarching thinking on the part of agencies," Kuhn concluded in the workshop. Does Floaded have more chances of survival than "Second Life"? This will be debated at the next I-Day.
Wickert's double successIn addition to the trend scouts from Profero - a partner agency of Plan.Net in London - and this year's Cannes juror Friedrich von Zitzewitz, who invented the Horst Schlämmer blog, Ulrich Wickert will also be presenting a new project on I-Day. The retired "Mister Tagesthemen" from ARD continues to work as co-editor and creator of the news platform Zoomer.
Launched in February by Holtzbrinck Verlag, this portal already employs 40 full-time editors. Zoomer has 1,000 comments per day on its site. With over five million users, the newcomer has already overtaken the generally popular TAZ site.
Wickert was interested in details such as the fact that ten editors monitor user comments for 24 hours so that no misdirected "user-generated content" can enter the network. The television personality explained that a 90-second video blog is best received by Zoomer. Wickert also had personal success with a reading where Zoomer users watched him for a full nine minutes without a single interruption.
At the workshop on this topic, it was agreed that the boundaries between print and online content will become even more blurred in the future. However, this is not the end of print products. Wickert even cited examples where a printed magazine has evolved from a website. However, this was still a marginal issue relating to nature conservation. But perhaps nature conservation does not actually play the most important role in the virtual world.
Andreas Panzeri

On Wednesday evening, the trade journal Media Trend Journal (MTJ) presented the Media Trend Awards for the eleventh time. The ceremony, hosted by Anna Maier, took place at Zurich's Moods in front of around 300 guests. As in the previous year, the prize for the best media provider went to 20 Minuten. The free newspaper almost tripled its lead over the runner-up, Clear Channel Outdoor. The former award winner, Tamedia Zeitungen, advanced to third place. IP Multimedia was honored as the best media marketer. Publisuisse is in second place. Cinecom, the winner of the last two years, fell back to third place.
For the first time, a special prize was awarded to the best media agency. The winner is Mediaschneider AG, which received the prize from the hands of
SWA Director Jürg Siegrist received. Over the past five years, it achieved the highest average of all grades in the agency rating that MTJ and the Swiss Advertisers Association (SWA) have been conducting since 2003. Starting in 2009, the award for media agencies will be presented as an actual award. Then, in addition to the agency rating, other criteria will come into play. The Media Trend Award was determined in an online survey among advertising clients, media agencies and advertising agencies.

 
Food From time to time, there is advertising that, in contrast to the mass of advertising, has a class that makes it a popular cultural asset. The campaign for Toni yogurt "Das im Glas" in the 1980s was one of these like hardly ever before in Switzerland. The ads were collected, hung in kitchens as well as doctors' surgeries, were considered part of the media experience, praised in letters to the editor, and thousands of their fans suggested new ad motifs themselves. Today's brand owner Emmi has therefore decided to revive this classic of advertising history. The campaign will be launched in July and August 2008 with four new motifs - and will be intensified with further motifs in the following year. The choice of media is also new: The campaign will kick off with a strong poster presence over six weeks throughout Switzerland. There will also be a promotion with Coop, in which 100 lucky winners will be able to enjoy free Toni yogurt for a year. Comebacks are not only found in rock music and politics. The remake campaign was once again realized by Jean Etienne Aebi together with the Wirz agency.

 
Radio market Publicitas wants to broker private radio stations to SMEs. However, many broadcasters doubt the expertise of P. 
Wherever you look among private radio stations, you hear the same thing: PublicitasRadiotele has lost its former position as the market leader among radio broadcasters and is now practically insignificant for some radio producers. The Goldbach subsidiary IP Multimedia is considered number one. And even small intermediaries such as Spot Promotion, Cover Media, RadioEmotion (see adjacent article) or the young SRG subsidiary MediaSense have to some extent overtaken P. A very bad start for a company that has taken up the cause of all-media marketing. "Pressure is squeezing margins. "We are actually seeing a drop in radio sales," says Publicitas spokesman Christian Gartmann. He explains the background as follows: Radiotele was already in a very difficult situation in 2006, when it was taken over by PubliGroupe. "Since the Swiss Radio Pool has been exclusively marketed by the SRG subsidiary MediaSense, the pressure has become greater and the margin lower." It is astonishing that Gartmann makes no mention of the exodus of most of Radiotele's long-standing employees and the associated loss of expertise and customers.
Either way, P is now trying to regain ground in the radio market and elsewhere. Thomas Bargetzi, CEO Sales Switzerland, and Ueli Weber, outgoing Head of the Electronic and Interactive Unit, have been on the road a lot recently to get former customers back on board for 2009. It is not yet possible to estimate how successful this will be. However, Weber's surprising departure raises doubts. In mid-March, the team also tried to make P's all-media strategy palatable to private radio stations at an event. Bargetzi also announced that in future he would no longer only be working the national radio advertising market, but would also be acquiring local radio customers via the individual P branches.
However, this caused many radio stations to shake their heads and worry. "How are the 400 P employees supposed to sell radio with commitment if they have no idea about this medium?" asks one person who does not wish to be named. The radios are not interested in simply putting together discount packages. Concrete sponsorship or promotional offers, on the other hand, require in-depth knowledge. At Basler Zeitung Medien (with Radio Basel 1), CEO Beat Meyer also recalls the "poor performance of P" in the local print market in Basel and Aargau: "How does it expect to be successful in the radio sector, where it has even less expertise?" asks Meyer. And Alfons Spirig, Managing Director of Radio Central, fears that the P will only target the local customers he already has. "Then I'll have to pay P an agency commission and end up with less than I have today," he says.
In short, radio stations fear new, unprofessional local competition. Nobody really wants to believe in the propagated market expansion. Even where there was goodwill at the beginning, disillusionment is now spreading. Out of a total of nine radio stations approached, none of them have even seen a draft contract from P for placement in the local market. Not to mention concrete advertising contracts. The most obvious idea so far has been the P idea of bridging the start-up time of each radio web stream with a few seconds of advertising. But even here there have been no bookings.
Expansion instead of revolutionGartmann reacts calmly to such accusations. He says that P never claimed to start allmedia marketing from one day to the next. "This requires a training program for employees in the branches and an Allmedia tool," he says. Both will be rolled out shortly. Incidentally, P's involvement in the local radio market is not so new, Gartmann continued, adding that there have been agency agreements between several stations and local P branches for years.
However, some stations are not making a big deal of this. Christian Gartmann, himself a former radio broadcaster, emphasizes that P will not turn anything upside down in terms of radio brokerage in the local area: "However, we want to drive this area forward and expand it by intensifying our cooperation with the broadcasters." In fact, it makes no sense to take existing customers away from the broadcasters. There are certainly small and medium-sized companies that are also interested in campaigns in several media in the local area, but only if the booking of all these media is simplified. "With its large sales force, P can therefore support local media, not just newspapers and radio stations, but also cinemas, local TV and regional online platforms," says Christian Gartmann. Moreover, the intention is not to simply put together discount packages. "We would earn less from that," he says.
Markus Knöpfli
 

 
Further loss of expertiseOnly half a year
After Ueli Weber took over the management of the Electronic & Interactive unit at Publicitas, the "pioneer of the interactive business at Publicitas" (original quote from the P-Communiqué) is leaving the company. He did not give any reasons. The operational management of Publicitas Cinecom, Publicitas Radiotele and Publicitas Web2com will now be taken over by 38-year-old Tim Dührkoop, who has been responsible for strategy development at the new Publicitas since fall 2007 and deals with all types of media. (mk)

 
Vin Crosbie, a newspaper consultant and professor of communications at Syracuse University, explains how hyperlocal journalism can help save the newspaper industry in the U.S. 
Why is hyperlocal the big trend in the U.S.? Hyperlocal is essentially block-by-block reporting, which means that every event that takes place in a residential block is newsworthy, no matter how minor it may be. That’s exactly what local newspapers were doing 50 years ago, before national and international news became all the rage. So, it’s a return to a tried-and-true method.
Even major American media conglomerates are now heavily investing in the hyperlocal trend. Does that make sense? It can certainly make sense if approached correctly. At the Washington Post, it went wrong because LoudonExtra.com didn’t receive the necessary support from the Post itself. Anyone launching such a project must treat it like a magazine launch: if you don’t promote it, the whole thing is pointless from the start.
Can hyperlocal journalism save the newspaper industry? It can help. It’s good medicine, but it won’t cure the patient. Personally, I believe that personalized journalism can be another important tool—that is, online and even print editions of newspapers tailored to the interests of individual readers. The technology for this already exists; it just needs to mature further.
 
Interview Gerti Schön
 
 

 
Credit cards The Glanzmann Consulting Group, together with MasterCard and the agency ViznerBorel, launches the new "Golden Years" credit card for people over 50. 
"Senior citizens no longer exist," explains Toni Glanzmann with conviction. The new 50+ generation of consumers is making its way into the "golden years." The PR legend should know. The current owner of Switzerland's oldest PR agency founded another start-up in his prime in his seventies.
His idea runs under the term "Golden Years", which Glanzmann has already trademarked in many ways. The concept includes a credit card that is issued exclusively to the 50+ generation. "The only difference between this group of people is that they have time and usually also money to enjoy life more intensively than before," says Glanzmann. Otherwise, the 50+ generation has no different expectations of life than the younger generations. "The age boundaries are blurred. There are now only active and passive people."
Active people over 50 are now the main target group for Glanzmann's new credit card. The "Golden Years" card opens the door for this generation to consume products and services that are on the market due to overcapacity or underuse. In concrete terms: on Wednesdays, the beds in the beautiful luxury hotels in Gstaad or St. Moritz often stay cold because that's when the young and affluent clientele are at work. The vacation resorts in Mauritius or Dubai are just as empty in the summer because the British managers have no need to escape the drizzly weather in London. "But it's very nice in Mauritius in summer," says Glanzmann. After all, he also acts as a tourism consultant for the island. Glanzmann would now like to offer these and similar overcapacities such as mountain railroads, luxury restaurants and midweek helicopter flights at reduced prices to wealthy "early retirees" with the necessary leisure time. Discounts of up to 50 percent are to be offered to those who are 50+ and can therefore pay with the "Golden Years" card.
For Glanzmann, this matchmaking offers a "win-win situation" for everyone. The 50+ generation has more fun thanks to more frequent consumption and the economy is boosted.
In order to make his card attractive, Glanzmann and his first team members, such as former FIFA Marketing Director Guido Tognoni and several consultants for product development and marketing communication, are already negotiating intensively with various luxury brands. These brands, such as Jaguar, IWC, Kuoni Travel and luxury ski and golf equipment suppliers, are to offer massive discounts to owners of "Golden Years". In return, they can address a consumer group with an estimated annual income of CHF 15 billion.
In 2010, over 3 million people in Switzerland will be over 50. Every second pensioner has over CHF 250,000 in assets. One in five is a millionaire. For Glanzmann, this financial development goes hand in hand with a change in values. "People want to be able to afford something better after a lifetime of work." The 50+ generation is interested in fashion, leisure, travel and, increasingly, education. Glanzmann is therefore also in contact with institutions such as Akad regarding discounts.
To ensure that the card is correctly positioned, it is only issued "against proof of age". However, the father can easily buy his daughter-in-law a discounted Jaguar.
The new card is issued by Viseca and can be used worldwide as a sub-brand of MasterCard. With an annual fee of 500 francs, "Golden Years" is 200 francs more expensive than American Express. "But that is quickly recouped," Glanzmann calculates. His plan for the first phase in Switzerland is at least 20,000 cards. Exclusive card numbers can still be allocated for the first 1,000 in August.
The expansion of "Golden Years" from Switzerland to other countries is already in the pipeline. The new card is being launched with a campaign by ViznerBorel. The Zurich agency also created the logo and design.    
 
Andreas Panzeri 
 
 
 
Start-up at 70Born in 1938, Toni Glanzmann
took over the management of PRW Public Relations + Werbe AG in Lucerne, which was founded in 1965 by former National Councillor Robert Eibel, in 1981. During this takeover, Eibel's political column "Trumpf-Buur" was spun off from PRW. In return, the agency managed major campaigns for the introduction of casinos and the launch of Coca-Cola light in Switzerland. Glanzmann was a consultant for American Express for 14 years. Together with former Migros boss Pierre Arnold, he founded the world's first recruitment agency for board members. In the 1960s, the trained businessman was head of the Zurich cooking studio, the PR service of Knorr, Roco and Findus. An important success
Glanzmann's PR was the successful campaign against the drug initiative. He was President of the Zurich PR Society and, as Chairman of the Swiss Professional Organization of PR Professionals, drafted the code of conduct that is still valid today. Now Glanzmann wants to take off again with "Golden Years". (pan)

As CEO of Admazing, Simon M. D. Morton wants to ensure that hardly anyone in the online advertising sector will be able to avoid his company in the future.
Being an entrepreneur has always been one of Simon Morton's life goals. At the age of 15, he was already trading on the stock market with his pocket money "not much to the delight of his parents". As a teenager, he discovered the Internet as a second passion. His years of maturity at secondary school were synchronized with the development years of this new medium. Together with his classmate Philipp Hasenfratz, who turned out to be "a true genius" when it came to computer technology, Simon Morton dreamed of setting up an Internet shop. Their role model was the overnight stars, as they were making headlines in the international business news at the time with horrendous successes. However, the two young entrepreneurs had to wait until they were of legal age before their own start-up was legally recognized. When Admazing's first customer brought in a profit of 316 francs, there was a lavish party. But Simon Morton was already clear back then: "We have to prove ourselves again and again."
Admazing did not have a group behind it - and this fact still drives Morton and his team to provide services that are always "a little better than the competition". The online advertising broker feels obliged to provide such above-average service orientation and performance to its customers so that they always get the most for their advertising money. "This constant optimization is what sets us apart," Morton is convinced. He also wants to know each of his customers personally, even though Admazing now manages "several hundred campaigns a year".
In order to cope with this size, Morton relied on a good team early on. Within five years, Admazing has grown to 13 people and is now the number 3 in the industry. The young boss sees it as an important entrepreneurial talent to create a climate in which good people "can fully develop their skills". More than half of the employees are key account managers with planning skills. Morton himself is a business student - currently on a break - and joined Media as a career changer. "I had to teach myself the skills and bring the right professionals into the company." Morton also "professionalized" his Board of Directors very early on, for example with Thérèse Ruedin ex AY&R and now owner of the Ruedin Consulting advertising agency. He also made use of external consultants and worked with clients and agencies: What does the market want? What does the client want? What do the professionals say?
"We are so successful because we have constantly listened and implemented all these needs extremely flexibly," he believes. Morton sees this fast and direct strategy as a "major advantage of an SME".
Admazing entered the market in 2002 when it was in a downturn. Many customers were no longer interested in the Internet because more and more people were losing money on the stock market with Internet shares. "This bad reputation of the internet annoyed me and I wanted to prove it: The medium has it in it."
The WWWeb fascinated Morton right from the start because it has "revolutionized the economy and our entire lives" like almost nothing else in history. "That's where I want to be professionally and entrepreneurially."
The idea for Admazing dates back to the time of Yahoo and the first search engines. These sparked Morton's plan to program a platform on which advertising space could be searched for using a machine. Using the do-it-yourself principle, customers could then plan their own campaigns and place target groups precisely on the web. Admazing started with this approach. However, the two founders soon realized that their customers were not keen enough on self-made networks. The medium was not yet advanced enough for this automation idea. Most new customers on the web still needed advice and wanted "us to do the work for them".
So Admazing had to "reinvent itself" and has been constantly expanding its consulting services ever since. "In this business and medium, you have to continue to specialize a business model and refine the offering because there are new technologies, channels and opportunities every day."
However, the basic idea that advertisers can reach their target groups very precisely online has remained the same. Admazing wanted to prove this right from the start with monitoring that was as transparent as possible. To this end, the intermediary developed its own reporting tools. However, their market launch needed money. Admazing tapped various investors with a business plan. However, this was not easy in these times of an increasingly bursting Internet bubble. The Thurgau Cantonal Bank, on the other hand, was persuaded that not everything about the Internet was just false speculation.
The company, which is co-financed by the bank, is now known for its successful AdCockpit tool. Here, advertising customers have access to all their campaign data at any time, right down to the individual advertising media. "This also makes it easy to access all reports," explains Morton. His AdCockpit provides information on all placements and sub-placements - at a glance.
At Admazing, all renowned websites are brokered, but "deliberately not exclusively", as the agency clearly wants to position itself as an independent broker. The portfolio contains "a good mix" of roughly the same number of direct and agency clients. These include, for example, Hotelplan, Die Post, Teleclub, Fiat and Stimorol.
When asked why online advertising in Switzerland only accounts for 1.5 percent instead of around 10 percent compared to Germany, Morton puts forward the interesting theory that this "underdevelopment" is no longer so clear in Switzerland. "We already do a similar amount of online advertising in Switzerland. But there are no clean market figures because many players don't report their sales at all and not all disciplines are recorded."
When Simon Morton needs a break from the virtual realities of this economy, he finds his "second life" as an organizer of classical concerts. Because he has also caught the eye of his musical friends as a creative entrepreneur, some have asked him to manage their tours. In the meantime, this hobby has become "semi-professional". In 2004, Morton organized the first classical concert in Baghdad since the end of the war for the Swiss pianist Timon Altwegg with the FDFA's Competence Centre for Cultural Foreign Policy. "We thought it would be a strong signal if a Swiss pianist was the first foreign soloist to perform Western music there again after 14 years of embargo."
His sporting hobby also has to do with freedom. Since secondary school, he has not only surfed the net, but also enjoys gliding through the air - close to nature with a paraglider.
Andreas Panzeri

 
Column Are crying women a good way to promote our host country in Europe? 
In Switzerland Tourism's Euro farewell commercial, unabashedly weeping Swiss women lament the end of the games as if it were a tragic event. Their faces are tear-stained and reddened, truly no feast for the eyes. Sad, sad - something monstrous must have happened to this nation for its women to look so painfully into the cameras. A natural disaster, an assassination attempt, an insidious epidemic? No, just the farewell to guests in Switzerland who attended the Euro. The fact that we generously co-financed the UEFA EURO 2008™ with our taxes, left entire neighborhoods to those who wanted to do business with the fans and subjected our social life to the match schedule is part of liberal people's tolerance towards those who have contracted the football virus. However, the fact that the Swiss women are supposed to cut such a sad figure as crybabies at the end is going a bit too far, so what's the point of this commercial? According to the makers, it is a thank you to all visitors and expresses the hope of seeing them again soon. With this creative spot, the European Championship hosts say goodbye. The commercial is surprising and poignant. It is uncompromisingly poignant - apparently the key word for the creatives - and shows the longing of the Swiss women who have committed themselves as hosts, their longing for the many great footballers, guests and fans from all over Europe.
The commercial is broadcast at prime time on TV channels in Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands. Even with the best will in the world to note the possible irony intended or even to recognize comedic sophistication, it is difficult to imagine who is supposed to understand this commercial as a thank you.
Experience has shown that a little sentimentality when saying goodbye has a bonding effect. In very intimate encounters, a tear may even appear in the corner of the eye. Even if not everyone is as dignified to look at as Greta Garbo, a tear of sentimentality never has a disfiguring effect. It makes the beauty shine even brighter. Especially when it is accompanied by the joy of a reunion.
The longing that is so strongly evoked by the makers also lends grace. It creates a sense of expectation full of energy and sensuality. Longing can be tinged with a slight sentimental tinge of sadness. But people only cry when they have to say a painful goodbye.
The Swiss women, presented as lamenting wives, are presumably intended to whet the appetite for a reunion? Future meetings will hardly take place in a joyful mood. At best, the poor women arouse pity. There is even the anxious question of their health and mental state.

We can only speculate about the reasons for the poignant spot. We can rule out the possibility that the rapid elimination of the Swiss team caused the hosts to be particularly upset. The daily confrontation with male emotional outbursts cannot be the trigger either. The commercials were conceived long before sweat, tears and blood were often indistinguishable on Euro faces. Since we rarely see women's footballers on television, it remains a mystery whether it is the women or the men who are closer to the water in this sport. Or, after all the sissies on the pitch, do we now need crybabies on the screen to compensate?
But such thoughts are hardly behind it, because the message for the conception of the commercial can only be: Switzerland is a country that is not as good with emotions as it is with money. Ultimately, the latter is what counts for location marketing - and the people responsible have thus achieved their communication goal.
Josefa Haas is Head of the Media Institute
www.switzerland.com/aufwiedersehen

 
At the latest since the wild knocking at Morgarten and the leaf shot in Hohle Gasse, we know that an ambush can always happen in Central Switzerland. But times are changing, halberds and crossbows are no longer in vogue, and so an unknown person from the 3,300-strong community of Schötz in the Lucerne hinterland has moved his attack to the Internet. In Google Earth, the apparently slightly frustrated contemporary added pictures and his own comments to almost every house in the village. The pictures included an "overgrown" house and one that was "run-down" due to an inheritance dispute, a "divorce house", a "youth house" and one inhabited by a "dark-skinned family". The images have since been objected to and deleted by Google, and preliminary investigation proceedings have been initiated by the cantonal police. For municipal president Iseli-Buob, the action is an "absolute impertinence" and criminal charges are expected to be brought by the municipality and individuals. It will be of little use. 

 
Internet Cyrill Treptow and Christoph Lüscher found the Swiss branch of the Japan-based agency Information Architects in Adliswil. 
Newsnetz, the ambitious online merger of the Tages-Anzeiger, Berner Zeitung and Baslerzeitung titles, can be interpreted as the first major online offensive by quality titles in Switzerland. Tamedia has high hopes for the project. In addition to the high-caliber editorial team, the Swiss media group has also hired proven web professionals from Japan. The agency behind the basic concept is iA, short for Information Architects. The Tokyo-based agency is managed by the Swiss Oliver Reichenstein and is no unknown quantity. Last year, the web agency realized the magazine's new Internet presence for Tamedia and has created a second-generation Internet news portal from the news magazine Facts, which was thought to be dead (see:
"Even the dead live on the internet"
). 
With its third and therefore most prominent acquisition, the mandate for Tamedia's news network, the agency is setting up a branch in Switzerland. As iA founder Oliver Reichenstein says, the situation required a local presence with an office. What is surprising is that two Tamedia Internet specialists are joining the team. Christoph Lüscher, Managing Director of the dating platform Partnerwinner.ch, and Cyrill Treptow, Head of Online Magazines, are opening a branch in Adliswil together on July 1. Both have worked with Reichenstein on Internet projects for the Zurich publishing house. With the establishment of a Swiss office, the professional plans of the two Internet men are changing fundamentally. However, the change is a logical consequence of what they have built up with Oliver Reichenstein over the last few months. As those involved tell Werbewoche, they are delighted with the collaboration to date.
It all started last year when the two Tamedia employees discovered Reichenstein's "Web Trend Map" purely by chance while surfing online. "Someone knows something about the Internet," was their first thought. This chance encounter was not the end of the story. What happened in the following months is rather atypical for the Swiss Internet landscape. Within a short space of time, Reichenstein gave Tamedia the image of an online-competent publishing house. While other Swiss media companies are struggling with the Internet, the Internet experiments, in particular Facts 2.0, show an avant-garde pioneering character. Publishers near and far keep a watchful eye on Switzerland and follow Internet developments with keen interest.
The fact that Christoph Lüscher and Cyrill Treptow will probably be leaving their jobs at Tamedia at the end of the year and are currently taking a professional risk by founding the iA office can be attributed to Reichenstein's working style. In an interview with Werbewoche, Lüscher and Treptow were impressed by Reichenstein's tenacity. When they first came into contact with the Basel native, who lives in Japan, they had observed an irrepressible doer quality in him that had acted like a pull on them. The focus was always on the project and its development, not the money. "Reichenstein didn't come, collected the money and then left again," Lüscher recalls. He stayed, continued to develop the platforms and drove the projects forward, despite a few setbacks within the publishing house. "Reichenstein is a figure of integration. He managed to get established and unconventional editorial teams to get involved in experiments," says Cyrill Treptow.
 
That was revolutionary, as the media manager notes in passing. Especially because Reichenstein organized everything via the Internet. The result has not left the industry cold today: on the Internet, for example, user comments on Dasmagazin.ch now account for 50 percent of all content. The high quality of the content speaks for itself and has led to a paradigm shift in the editorial offices. Editors are now much more involved with the Internet, which they use as a valuable communication platform. Although the projects have long since been completed, Reichenstein continues to tinker and optimize for Tamedia. "For us clients, projects always have an end. Not for Reichenstein," says Treptow. That's why the Internet crack has taken on the role of "perpetual beta guy" for his new partner, the tireless developer.
Christoph Lüscher and Cyrill Treptow were ultimately inspired by Reichenstein's inexhaustible creative energy. "Ultimately, he showed us that a job in the service industry can be very interesting after all. Even though I once swore I would never switch to this industry," says Lüscher. Despite the solid job situation at Tamedia, Lüscher and Treptow now want to take the plunge into self-employment and live Reichenstein's drive in Switzerland themselves. As Christoph Lüscher emphasizes, the decision is not a crazy idea. Thanks to his work as Managing Director of Partnerwinner and his many years of Internet experience, he sees great potential for an agency like iA. "There is a lucrative gap in the market for iA," says Lüscher. This refers to strategically thinking agencies, a middle ground between a full-service web specialist and an agency that focuses on small and simple projects. Treptow: "Companies today often spend too much money on things that only work to a limited extent. Today, there have to be agencies that work in an agile way. Our way is through consulting. Online evangelists like us are needed to present new ideas and provide inspiration."
Lüscher and Treptow underline the fact that such statements are not just empty phrases with their experiences on the client side in recent years. In their opinion, most agencies make a sluggish impression that is characterized by stagnation. "And people always think that the Internet is in a second generation. No, it's not. Many media products reveal no understanding of media. The Internet needs more cleverly conceived projects. We are not aiming for super budgets. The market is too small for that and the Internet is too young. We want to revamp existing brands. The potential for this has clearly not been exhausted," says Lüscher.
Both Lüscher and Treptow have the confidence to take the step into the agency business. They see the fact that they are coming from the client side and switching to the supplier side as a decisive advantage. "We have already seen hundreds of jobs as clients and we think that we can compete with other agencies and provide an adequate service. We've been in the business for a long time," says Treptow. As the two fresh agency founders write on the iA weblog, "simplicity, performance orientation and an evolutionary approach to website development should characterize the work". The focus is on the brand, which in their opinion develops more and more in an interactive process with the audience. Lüscher and Treptow want to consistently pursue Reichenstein's philosophy in Switzerland. "We don't follow the "hit and run" principle, but are still there when it comes to earning money with the website," says Treptow.
Christian Lüscher

 
Press A small earthquake for French-speaking Switzerland: Le Matin abolishes its editorial outlets.  
Le Matin, the tabloid of the Lausanne publishing house Edipresse, is closing its editorial outlets in the French-speaking cantons of Switzerland and in Zurich. The journalists and photographers affected will in future work at the Lausanne central editorial office. The French-speaking Swiss press is talking about a turning point, but editor-in-chief Peter Rothenbühler assures us that this is merely a measure as part of the announced relaunch. Rothenbühler wants to turn his newspaper into a "daily magazine". "We will remain a news newspaper, but our perspective will be magazine-like," he defines. More background is the magic word: speed is less of an obligation than staying on the ball and setting topics. We are no longer looking for local topics, but rather those that are of interest to the whole of French-speaking Switzerland. It is no longer the personal network of contacts of the locally based journalist that counts, but the ability to send several reporters to the scene to investigate if necessary. The closure of the editorial outlets, including the one in Zurich, is not a cost-cutting measure, assures Rothenbühler, but part of the new editorial concept: "We will continue to report regional stories, but we no longer want a cantonal garden."
Even if Rothenbühler denies it: The decision to centralize the editorial office in Lausanne was made under the pressure exerted on the paid newspaper by the in-house free paper "Le Matin bleu". The paid-for "Matin" lost around 6,000 copies last year and six people were made redundant last summer for financial reasons. Advertising is also continuing to migrate from the paid newspaper to the free paper. The newspaper La Liberté speaks of a loss of 19 percent in the first five months of this year, a figure that Rothenbühler neither confirms nor denies.
However, the newspaper has already been working on a relaunch for a year, which is expected to take place on September 10. "The newspaper is doing well. We simply have to manage to clearly differentiate ourselves from the free newspapers in terms of content." Local facts are left to fast media such as the Internet, radio and television or the free newspapers. The newspaper has to offer more than all the others on the topics that are important to Matin readers according to surveys. And what are these topics? "Sport, celebrities and faits divers of social importance."
The decision to abolish the cantonal editorial offices has made headlines in the French-speaking Swiss press. This is because the newspaper, which until Rothenbühler's arrival proudly set itself apart from the tabloid style in German-speaking Switzerland, has played an important role in French-speaking Switzerland in recent decades. At least as long as the local press was the only medium and was under the influence of religion or political parties. Thanks to the editorial outlets, Le Matin was often able to publish revelations that the local press kept under wraps for economic or political reasons.
Matin seems to have abandoned this political role, which can only be fulfilled by well-established and networked local journalists. It is also fitting that the newspaper and its star illustrator Barrigue, who was able to get to the heart of social contradictions with bilious humor,
agreed on an "amicable separation" in the spring. Barrigue did not comment on his departure from Matin, for which he had worked for 29 years. He put the matter in general terms: the media should inform and sensitize people, not dull them with sensationalism, he told the media magazine Klartext. Bernard Reist, head of information for the cantonal government of Valais, who was interviewed by Le Temps, echoed this sentiment: "Le Matin seems to want to abandon the continuous coverage of politics and focus solely on entertainment," he interpreted the abolition of the regional offices.
 
Peter Rothenbühler does not agree with this view of things. In the case of political scandals, where the local press has inhibitions, his newspaper will continue to "say everything". But you don't need local journalists for that. And it is true, he says, that there is no need for continuous consultation and parliamentary reports. "When it comes to major political issues, we want to play an even more important role than before with research, editorials and commentaries."
Helen Brügger