The companies organized in the professional association for sponsorship complain about the media coverage of the sponsorship of major sporting events. According to Faspo, many media misinterpret the results of surveys on sponsor recall published by market research institutes. In an open letter, association president Bernd Reichstein therefore addressed the German Press Council and the Working Group of German Market and Social Research Institutes. Reichstein writes that various media have equated the level of awareness of sponsors among customers with the effectiveness of sponsorship measures. In many cases, there is talk of bad investments. In the opinion of the association and its members, such an approach is highly negligent and incompatible with applicable quality standards. Sponsor recall alone is not a sufficient control parameter to be able to judge the success or failure of a sponsorship investment. "This is not possible simply because the sponsorship objectives of the companies are not known and these are generally not limited to the characteristic of advertising recall," Reichstein continues. Validity does not appear to be sufficiently scrutinized as a quality criterion. The association therefore appeals to the two professional organizations contacted to discuss internally to what extent this reporting practice corresponds to a scientific approach and the careful research required by the press code.

The Weber Harbeke agency on Zurich's Limmatquai has been strengthened. Susanne Keller has been supporting the team as Art Director since June 2. Her career has included stints at Grendene, Ogilvy & Mather, Publicis and most recently Grafinity, where she worked for clients such as Bilanz and EMI Sound.

 The European football association Uefa has responded to criticism from SRG Director General Armin Walpen. After he strongly criticized Uefa's censorship of various television images to the Sonntagszeitung newspaper and announced a letter of protest, the association spoke out on Monday.Walpen's criticism (see
) has no basis whatsoever, explained Uefa spokesman William Gaillard on French-speaking Swiss radio RSR on Monday. This is "silliness". Television itself had decided not to show pictures of fans setting off Bengal fires and Croatian spectators who wanted to advertise a beer and storm the pitch. According to Gaillard, SRG would have been better off talking to its own directors first. They were in constant contact with the Uefa technicians who supplied the images. The Uefa people could have pointed out to them that all images were always available on one of the ten image channels provided by Uefa.
Last week, Uefa justified its choice of images by saying that it did not want to provide a stage for violence. Furthermore, such scenes were "not relevant".
Nevertheless, the German broadcaster ARD showed four seconds of the match between Germany and Croatia during which flares were lit in the Croatian fan sector. The question remains as to whether these images were transmitted using Uefa's international signal or captured by ARD's own additional cameras in the stadium.

 Four different Swiss campaigns made it onto the lists that mean the world in the Promo category. The "Singles" campaign for Migros underwear by Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett and the advertising measures for Novartis developed by Saatchi & Saatchi Simko under the title "Silicon Body Parts" qualified for the all-important competition, as did the two Ruf Lanz campaigns "World Without Fighters" for the disabled transport service Tixi and the "Fictitious Construction Projects" advertisement created on behalf of the online auction house Ricardo.ch.

 Many nominations were awarded to Swiss agencies at the Media Lions: The jury in Cannes liked the "Slim Poster" campaign by Jung von Matt for the Daimler Chrysler brand Smart, the "Optical Zoom" campaign for Leica by Advico Young & Rubicam and the advertising activities for the cooking school of the vegetarian restaurant Hiltl by Ruf Lanz under the title "Giant Bowls".In the sub-category "Best Use of Outdoor", the "Optical Zoom" campaign for Leica by Advico Young & Rubicam and the Tagi advertisement "120 Unique Posters" by Spillmann Felser & Leo Burnett made it onto the list.
In the sub-category "Best Use of Ambient Media: Small Scale", the work "Fragile Eggs" for Suva by Ruf Lanz has been nominated. In the "Best Use of Ambient Media: Large Scale", Scholz & Friends from Zurich is on the shortlist twice: With "Election Barometer" for Blick and "Truckdriver" for truck driving school Strebel.
In the "Best Use of Sponsorship" category, "Veteran Football Players" by Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett for the pharmaceutical group Helvepharm received a nomination. And the "Free Internet Campaign for Sunrise by Advico Young & Rubicam is on the shortlist for "Best Use of Mixed Media".

 After the failed deal with Yahoo, the software giant Microsoft has at least found a partner for the advertising marketing of online videos: The cooperation with YuMe will begin this month. This start-up company, based in the US state of Washington, offers a platform for online video advertising. The company's network enables advertisers and publishers to precisely identify content and place targeted advertisements on the Internet and for mobile content, allowing Microsoft to generate additional advertising revenue in a market segment that is not yet dominated by Google. Google, on the other hand, wants to expand its business with text-based advertising and last week agreed a multi-year collaboration with Yahoo (see
).

 
The Sonntagszeitung newspaper devoted no less than three articles to Uefa at the weekend. The centerpiece was the interview with SRG Director General Armin Walpen, in which he took a stand on the images not broadcast by Uefa, such as a smoke parade in the audience at the Austria-Croatia match. SRG rejects any censorship of sports broadcasts, he said. Large sports associations were increasingly trying to secure control over images and sound with their own production companies. This worries him. He would therefore write to Uefa to draw their attention to this problem. Walpen's comments on SRG's advertising income in connection with the 2008 European Championships are also interesting; in some cases, this is not additional advertising, but a shift, for example from October to June. Such a major event could not be refinanced due to the high rights costs alone, he said. This is not even possible for television broadcasters in large countries. Sport is part of the public service and is primarily financed with taxpayers' money.
Taxes were also a topic in deputy editor-in-chief Ueli Walther's commentary on the "posturing of the monopolist Uefa". It is incomprehensible why the Nyon-based service company, which operates in a tough manner, is granted the status of a non-profit organization. The 2.1 billion that Uefa will have earned after the European Championship (twice as much as in 2004, 32 times as much as in 1992) should be taxed properly. In fact, the private company Uefa earns billions, while the host countries incur costs in the millions, which the public has to pay. He also calls the organization "stubborn", "greedy" and "submissive" towards its sponsors, who generate 500 million francs.
The head of sports at ORF, Hans Huber, also criticized the censorship practice and Othmar Kempf, President of the SRG Audience Council, found Uefa's behaviour "questionable". Peter Studer also unleashed a full broadside. For the former President of the Press Council, Uefa has not only turned out to be greedy, but also petty and control-hungry.
In terms of marketing, Zurich-based advertising strategist Daniela Bemberg believes that the 2008 event will be the peak. This certainly also applies to the television stations, which had to purchase broadcasting rights at high prices in order to receive censored images. However, it is doubtful that a peak was reached in terms of marketing.

 
In France, there are already around 20,000 advertising screens in operation that react to the age and gender of passers-by and display appropriate advertising. For example, advertising for this target group is shown as young people pass by. So far, the screens have mainly been used in supermarkets. This form of "intelligent advertising" is made possible by cameras attached to the screens, which measure faces and can thus deduce age and gender as well as register the direction and duration of the gaze. The advantage of registering the direction of the gaze is that it is possible to measure which advertisements are viewed and to what extent.
According to the report in the NZZ am Sonntag, the suppliers of the supermarket chains Auchan and Carrefour as well as Ikea have so far acquired the technology. The small Paris-based company Quividi is behind the cameras and image processing program. It wants to further refine the technology and soon be able to use it to record the mood of the viewer and their ethnic origin, despite concerns from data protectionists.

 The Cannes Lions 2008 jury announced the first nominations on Monday. Two Swiss agencies made it onto the shortlist for the Direct Lions. Zurich agency Ruf Lanz secured a place with its "Fragile Eggs" campaign for Suva. Saatchi & Saatchi Simko made it onto the list with their work for United Planet entitled "Envelope".

 The internet company Yahoo declared on Thursday that the takeover talks with Microsoft have definitely failed, but has found a new partner in arch-rival Google: The two companies want to work together in the field of search engine advertising. The four-year agreement provides for Google to place advertisements alongside Yahoo search results. The deal is expected to generate revenues of 800 million dollars annually, Yahoo announced. For the time being, the partnership will only apply in the USA and Canada. The two companies already announced in April that they were considering joint advertising opportunities (see
). The partnership that has now come about will not come into effect for another three months. This will give the US Department of Justice time to review the deal, as Pcworld.com reports. According to Google and Yahoo, however, the two companies do not need the approval of the antitrust authorities. Shortly before the deal with Google was announced, Yahoo declared on Thursday that talks with the software giant Microsoft, which was willing to take over the company, had failed. Microsoft had lost interest in buying the entire company and only wanted to take over Yahoo's search engine division. However, Yahoo rejected this option.

 
This year's festival in Cannes began on Sunday. Over the course of a week, around 10,000 representatives from the creative industry will gather on the Côte d'Azur. There are 50 seminars and 25 workshops open to them - not to mention the countless award ceremonies and parties. This year's festival once again boasts some superlatives: Over 28,000 works were submitted in the ten categories. Around 190 jury members sift through the lion contenders and separate the wheat from the chaff. Danielle Lanz, Christof Kaufmann and René Eugster are on the jury for Switzerland: Danielle Lanz in the "Promo" category, Christof Kaufmann for the "Media" work and René Eugster for the creative achievements in the "Direct" category.
The Swiss creative workshops submitted a total of 617 works - coincidentally exactly the same number as last year. 65 of these are in the running in the "Film" category, 165 for "Press", 186 for "Outdoor", 11 for "Cyber", 71 for "Media", 44 for "Direct", 16 for "Radio", 8 for "Titanium", 35 for "Promo" and 6 for "Design". The most diligent entrants include Advico Young & Rubicam, Ruf Lanz, Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett and Publicis.

 
The 55th International Advertising Festival took place in Cannes from June 15 to 21. Advertising Week lists all the shortlisted entries and Lions winners.Monday, June 16, 2008

Shortlist:

Winner:

Tuesday, June 17, 2008Shortlist:

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Wednesday, June 18, 2008

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Thursday, June 19, 2008:

Shortlist:

Agencies of the Year:

Friday, June 20, 2008
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Saturday, June 21, 2008Winner: