On the Côte d'Azur, the jurors agreed on the shortlist for the newly created Design category. Switzerland only made it onto the shortlist once: Walker represents the Swiss on the shortlist with the annual report for Fleurop. The Design Lions awards ceremony will take place on Wednesday evening.

 Only one Swiss work was nominated in the "Radio" category in Cannes - and it bagged a Lion straight away: Ruf Lanz won a Bronze Lion with his work "Bush" for the Sport Factory Outlet. The commercial was produced in the Selmi sound studios in Zurich. The Grand Prix in the "Radio" category went to the agency Dentsu Tokyo with a spot for a Canon digital camera. The jury awarded a total of 67 prizes.

 The outdoor jury in Cannes has awarded the two Swiss agencies Advico Young & Rubicam and Saatchi & Saatchi Simko with precious metal. AY&R received the "Silver Lion Campaign" award for five subjects from Leica's "Optical Zoom" campaign. Saatchi & Saatchi Simko received the "Bronze Lion Campaign" award for five images for Voltaren by Novartis. The Grand Prix for Outdoor - as in the Promo category - went to BBDO New York for its campaign for the HBO channel. The advertising campaign, entitled "Voyeur", started with a video that was projected onto a house wall on the Lower East Side in New York. It gave the impression that the viewer was looking directly into the apartments behind it. Their fictitious residents could be followed on the Internet.

 There were no Lions for the Swiss in the Direct category at the Cannes Festival. The Grand Prix went to JWT India in Mumbai for the "Lead India" campaign on behalf of The Times of India newspaper. In an advertisement, the agency called for greater commitment to political and social change in India. They were looking for a candidate for the next elections. This resulted in a snowballing movement that led to countless newspaper articles and blog entries. 34,000 people wanted to run for the new movement.

The management of the Aarau-based communications agency Renzen Communications is being expanded. New partners and management board members are Emmanuelle Friedli as Creative Director Art and Hanno Lietz as Creative Director Text. Emmanuelle Friedli was previously Art Director at Grey Worldwide and Saatchi & Saatchi Simko in Geneva. Hanno Lietz is a long-standing copywriter and concept developer at Renzen Communications. Managing Director of the agency and Chairman of the Executive Board is
Frédéric Renzen.picture: Frédéric Renzen, Hanno Lietz and Emmanuelle Friedli.

At the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Danielle Lanz judged the entries in the Promo category. She gives *Werbewoche* a behind-the-scenes look at the jury’s deliberations, discussing elaborate submissions and a captivating guerrilla marketing idea. «I saw some very impressive work. But many of them were also submitted in a very elaborate manner,» says Danielle Lanz of Ruf Lanz, who served on the jury in the «Promo» category in Cannes. «A good idea alone no longer seems to be enough: it’s best to create a documentary film that shows how the idea and the campaign came about. That’s how you increase your chances of winning a Lion.» Danielle Lanz regrets this trend, even though she assumes that the industry experts on the jury will recognize the idea itself and not just the submission. As an example of an outstanding idea with a simple execution, Lanz cites a project by Munich-based Serviceplan: «The agency designed signs for the travel portal Expedia.com and, as part of a guerrilla campaign, placed them exactly at the locations where footage is filmed for the weather channel on the BR, 3Sat, SF, and ORF networks. In the middle of a snowfield, the sign reads ‚Off to Mallorca.’ Here, it was the idea that won them over, not just the submission.»
Danielle Lanz is generally satisfied with the quality of the entries she judged over the course of three days: «We saw some very good work and awarded a fair number of prizes.» Two entries from Switzerland also won Lions in the Promo category: one from Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett and the other from Saatchi & Saatchi Simko.
Grand Prix with a Large Budget Lion contenders need—in addition to the increasingly important presentation—a compelling idea and strong execution, as Lanz explains: «The idea must be new and astonishing. That is absolutely crucial.» In addition, as is the case at most international competitions, the big, well-known brands have an easier time: «A local, complicated campaign usually doesn’t convince the jurors because they don’t know the client and therefore can’t quickly contextualize the work.» The Grand Prix winner—a campaign by BBDO New York for HBO—made a strong impression on the juror: «A very impressive campaign with a massive budget.»
For Danielle Lanz, Cannes is also a personal win: «I’m taking a lot of inspiration home with me. The opportunity to exchange ideas with top creatives from other countries is also invaluable. Cannes has recharged my batteries.»

 
Last year, the Zurich branding and communications agency Schneiter Meier Külling acquired two more clients for the conception and production of the annual report. The existing clients SBB, Georg Fischer, Zürcher Kantonalbank and Zur Rose were joined in 2007 by the reports of Swiss Life and Sanitas. Two versions of the report were produced for Swiss Life; a reduced, image-oriented annual report is aimed at employees, customers and shareholders, while a comprehensive version covers the information needs of analysts and pension specialists. According to the agency, the Sanitas annual report conveys the most important information in a journalistically condensed, quick-read format.

 
In the course of the ongoing consultation on the revised Postal Act, the Swiss Direct Marketing Association SDV has spoken out and called for the letter market to be opened up as quickly as possible. Opening up the market is more urgent than ever, the association wrote in a press release on Tuesday. The SDV is convinced that the liberalization of the market will lead to lower prices and services that are better tailored to the needs of customers. The experience to date in the parcel sector has been positive; everyone can only benefit from further liberalization. The association also believes that Swiss Post is ready for a controlled opening of the market.
At the same time, the SDV is calling for regulations and control mechanisms to prevent Swiss Post from cross-financing its other services with income from the universal service. The planned regulatory authority must have the resources and powers to ensure that the universal service can be guaranteed at a reasonable cost and that excessive profits cannot be made. Access to the postal infrastructure - for example to P.O. box facilities - must also be clearly regulated.
The SDV firmly rejects any further expansion of the basic service in payment transactions and in the delivery of newspapers and magazines.
 

 The RTV Division of the Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM) has a specific credit for the annual support of research projects in the radio and television sector. From this year onwards, the credit will be used mainly for the introduction of a continuous analysis of Swiss radio and television programs, announced Bakom. The analysis of SRG's radio and television channels is to begin in 2008, followed by the analysis of private radio and television channels in 2009. SRG is subject to various conditions in its current license. According to Bakom, compliance with these conditions is to be checked in two ways: On the one hand, SRG is obliged to define its own content and formal standards on the basis of the quality criteria. This internal view will be contrasted with an external view consisting of an external scientific analysis of SRG's radio and television programs. The external scientific program analysis will be linked to the program and quality requirements of the SRG concession.

 
The internet plague of spam turned 30 at the beginning of May this year. A good reason to wish it the plague, or rather a virus and the plague on its perpetrators, from the bottom of our hearts on its birthday. Who wants to spend years watching garbage like good mix of fake brand watches & jewelry get an offing to add some more inches to your male shaft virility enhancement lots of bling in little time greater pleasure for you, but let's get a brief overview. Spam first appeared in the USA in 1978. A marketing manager at the IT company DEC - may he come down with the bubonic plague - wrote to 400 potential customers to advertise a mini-computer. This was still on the Internet predecessor Arpanet, the WWW did not yet exist.
In the last 30 years and with the advent of the Internet, the problem has really become a big one (the perpetrators' hands may bleed). No less than four out of five emails received are now spam. Google estimates that the number of unwanted emails has quadrupled in the last four years - from 20 to 80 percent of the total volume. Nevertheless, today's spam filters manage to block around 99 percent of advertising waste.
The methods of the "spammers" - may they jump back in time to the year 1349 - have also become more sophisticated. While the 400 e-mails in 1978 were at most a nuisance, today attempts are also made to obtain account numbers and bank details (phishing) in order to empty accounts. Whole websites can also be paralyzed with a spam attack. This is what happened in Estonia last year, when internet banks were unavailable for several days and had to accept losses running into millions.
Incidentally, the name Spam goes back to a sketch by the comedy troupe Monty Python. A pushy waiter tries to sell a customer the canned meat "Spiced Ham" by any means necessary. No matter what the woman orders, a chorus of Vikings behind her warbles the refrain "Spam, Spam, Spam". You'd wish cholera on them.

 
At Radio 24, the two areas of presenting and editing will be brought together and coordinated by the new position of Head of Program Planning. Nicola Bomio, the previous Head of Music, will become Head of Program Planning. In addition to the Head of Program and Presentation Karin Müller and Nicola Bomio, the extended program management now consists of Andreas Meier (previously Head of Presentation, now Head of Music), Reto Schärli (as previously Head of Editorial) and Peter Schnyder (Head of Sport). According to the press release, the aim of the new organization is to plan all programming activities centrally and pool resources. The station also reports positive feedback on the morning show "Ufsteller" with Patrick Hässig. "A huge thank you to our listeners, who listen to Radio 24 for almost an hour a day and, above all, are already tuning in at 5.00 a.m.," says program director Karin Müller. Radio 24 has also announced that it will be sending its own team of reporters to Beijing to cover the Olympic Games.

 The Media Lions were awarded in Cannes on Tuesday evening. Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett won silver for the Helvepharm campaign featuring the senior players of FC Münchwilen. Ruf Lanz won bronze with the fragile eggs for Suva. Bronze also went to Advico Young & Rubicam for Leica's "Optical Zoom" campaign. The Swedish agency Forsman & Bodenfors won the Grand Prix for Media with a campaign for the pension fund AMF Pension. The advertisement called on young Swedes to send in a photo of themselves. They received a picture back showing them at the age of 70. The jury was impressed by the approach used to make the rather dry pension fund product appealing to the young target group.