Swiss Post launches its new customer magazine "Magazin" on Wednesday with a circulation of 2.3 million copies. It provides readers with up-to-date information about the Group, its services and products as well as background information, as Swiss Post announced on Wednesday. Swiss Post has been publishing a regular publication for its private customers since 1978. In order to better achieve its communication goals, it had its previous customer magazine analyzed in 2007. Based on this evaluation, the two Zurich agencies designed
"Lemongrass Communications" and "Arnold.Inhalt und Form." redesigned the publication editorially and graphically. The customer magazine is published in German, French and Italian and is delivered free of charge to all Swiss private households without a stop-advertising sticker on the letterbox. Another issue is planned for the beginning of November this year. From 2009, the frequency is expected to be increased to four times a year.

Bloggosphere Gawker Media, America's most successful blogging company, rakes in millions. 
A good blog, according to the collective wisdom of industry insiders, must be addictive. Why else would you go to the same website several times a day to read snippets of new content? English journalist Nick Denton adopted this principle six years ago when he began building up Gawker Media in New York, which has grown into a media empire. "Exactly what English newspapers have been doing for years is also successful on the Internet," says Denton, a former Financial Times journalist. The core of the company, which now consists of 15 different websites, is Gawker.com, a constantly updated and expanded gossip blog about the American and especially the New York media scene. It's all about the stars and makers of the latest hit TV series, such as the current "Sex and the City" spin-off for teenagers called "Gossip Girl", which is due to come to Germany this year. It's about the latest cost-cutting measures at the New York Times, the US tour of German band Tokio Hotel and a 20-year-old video showing talk show host Bill O'Reilly going berserk, not understanding what was written on his teleprompter and exploding with anger.
But although Gawker.com gets the most press and America's biggest media groups advertise there, the tech and gaming blogs Gizmodo.com, Lifehacker.com and Kotaku.com are even more popular with the public. But the sex blog Fleshbot.com, the celebrity blog Defamer.com and the fashion site Jezebel.com are also very popular with the public. Defamer scored a hit this year when it featured a Scientology video by Tom Cruise, which brought the company almost 250 million page views.
All of Gawker Media's blogs have one thing in common: their cynical, irreverent and therefore entertaining tone, which, according to the company, attracts a total of 20 million users. "It has introduced a new style of gossip reporting that is more like the English style," says Alex Halavais, a communications professor at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. "That is, give the readers what they want."
Where there are readers, there are also advertisers. "Blogs are playing a growing and profitable role in advertising because you can divide readers into smaller and smaller segments," says Halavais. It is also possible to use click-through figures to measure exactly who is actually looking at an advertising message.
Gawker Media's annual turnover is estimated at around twelve million dollars, with production and personnel costs remaining low, as readers are also asked to send in tips and internal information from their companies. The company now has 130 employees. "Talk is cheap," says blogger and cultural critic Mark Dery, a lecturer at New York University, alluding to the conversational tone of the blogs. "It's a job for milquetoast university graduates who are willing to work for a pittance." Although Denton refers to his products as "web journalism", writers who work for traditional media generally want nothing to do with it. Dery calls blogging "opinion piece writing. It's just a shame that it's dragging journalism into the abyss."
Gerti Schön, New York
 

 
Column Today, the linked citizen has the opportunity to become a data gourmet. The offer is there. All you have to do is reduce it. 
The promise of the IT revolution was - typical technology, typical revolution - that it would liberate and enrich us. Liberated from propaganda, TV garbage, the drumbeat of advertising; enriched by relieving us of boring tasks and leaving us more time for important things. And we read and write more today than we used to. The opening up of the means of publication (blogs) has given us many wonderful tools for expressing our opinions. News has become more accessible and transparent. The Internet is an electroshock weapon against the bastards who try to chop, polish and whitewash information to their own advantage. Today, we can really X-ray politicians before we vote for them. And the best thing about it: it's all free! But?
We have more data garbage and less free time: today we have more tasks (in the inbox) and less leisure time to solve them. We are bombarded with even more stupid advertising (spam), write (text) and read (beep-beep-beep) even more data fast food (and free newspapers). The big companies are even more savvy (with viral campaigns, blog cheerleaders and "social media consultants"). We outdo each other in blogging, tweeting, tweeting and Facebooking. We happily link our circle of friends with the dubeli sites, where peeping Toms and spammers, envious and neurotic people, old annoyances that have finally been got rid of, come at us again. We have become data fast food junkies. How did it get this far?
Revolutions are vicious circles: the slack King Luis XVI was followed by Robespierre and then by Napoleon Bonaparte I, the tyrant-in-chief. And on the Internet?
Ironically, there is still talk of "people's rule of the web", and it is even said that "the mob" is now in power. The fact is that the World Wide Web is in the hands of a few autocrats - Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft - who have long since divided up the most beautiful Internet properties among themselves. It is much more difficult to run a web service profitably outside of the three Internet emperors' areas of jurisdiction than it is to set up a "real" store. If you look at the success stories of successful start-ups such as YouTube, you can see that the dream of a fun website that finds users and makes money with a good range of information alone is a mirage - you need relationships and massive amounts of money, otherwise nothing will work. Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer now wants to get his hands on Yahoo! and reduce the Internet titans to two. And then, in a digital Russian campaign, the emperor Google is to be crushed ...
Be that as it may, the revolution is over. The people have nothing more to say about Napoleon's battle plans. - The question remains: What has the revolution brought us?
It is said that the birth of world-famous French cuisine can be traced back to the fact that after the beheading of the king, the kitchen staff of the Palace Royale, numbering several thousand, became unemployed and then opened countless gourmet restaurants for the citizen in the city of Paris. - In fact, the linked citizen now has the opportunity to become a data gourmet. The offer is there. All you have to do is reduce it: Pare down email accounts to just one. Chop off Facebook notifications. Peel off your Xing account. Burn Twitter and freeze your cell phone.
> Oliver Reichenstein is a communications architect and lives in Tokyo

 
Euro II The Adcom agency in Baar wants to motivate the national team with eleven bottles. 
A brewer cannot pretend that a European Championship in his own country is none of his business. Beer and football simply belong together. That's why Baar Brewery is sending "11 Mandli" onto the pitch. The Baar brewery has been a family business since 1862 and can count on a devoted fan base. The Erdmandli in the lettering runs like a red dwarf through the history of the company, through beer names and labels. So it quickly became clear that the light, fizzy beer brewed especially for the football summer had to be called "11 Mandli".
The 11 Mandli, assisted by Adcom and their trainer Gide Kuhn, not only help to quench their thirst, but also guide purchasers of at least 35 bottles of beer safely through the European Championships with tips and gadgets. The promo set contains: a whistle (hands off the beer), a red card (the neighbor is a Germany fan), a set of Jass cards (the Austrians are playing) and a condom (the game goes into extra time).
 
Andreas Panzeri
 
 
Further euro campaigns:
 
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Nike
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Pro Infirmis
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Swisslos
 

 
Press (Almost) only subscribers make it onto the readers' letters page of the Neue Luzerner Zeitung. Not appropriate, says the expert. 
The reply came as a surprise: Jakob Hitz (name changed) had sent a letter to the editor of the Neue Luzerner Zeitung (NLZ) during a controversial regional referendum campaign and immediately received a rejection, together with an "offer for an annual subscription on exceptionally favorable terms". The reason for not considering his letter: On the letters to the editor page of the NLZ, "our subscribers should always have priority". Roland Bucher, responsible for the Forum section, confirms the rule. It is also made transparent in an occasional box on the forum page. However, it has some obvious pitfalls: should both cohabiting partners buy a subscription? And what about those who subscribe to the newspaper at work? A rejected letter to the editor simply has to intervene: "The effort involved in making a phone call is not that great," says Bucher.Stefan Ragaz, deputy editor-in-chief of the NLZ, explains that the editorial board decided on this rule around two years ago: "For me, it is clear that subscribers have priority over non-subscribers." Furthermore, "a subscribed newspaper has no interest in reducing subscription income". The regulation is "one of several filters" at times when the editorial team receives a particularly large number of letters from readers, i.e. especially before controversial votes.
Those local or cantonal politicians who do not wish to take out an NLZ subscription are also banned from the NLZ readers' letter page during these weeks. Those non-subscribers who treat themselves to the pleasure of reading the newspaper in a café in the morning are also banned. Unless, of course, the editors decide that their articles and arguments are new or important.
The Press Council has emphasized several times in recent years that there is no right to the publication of a particular letter to the editor, at least not as long as "no arbitrary general publication ban is imposed on a letter to the editor". Not even in regions where a media publisher has a dominant position. Media lawyer Peter Studer, until recently President of the Press Council, is "disconcerted" by such a practice, which he has never heard of before. It is not a breach of ethics, but it is not appropriate. "After all, the site is called a readers' forum and not a subscribers' forum," says Studer. He has no objections to appropriate criteria, such as "reference to a published article". Such a rule applies at the Basler Zeitung, as Heidi Ranz from the Readers' Letters Administration explains. Before votes, BaZ publishes an additional page with readers' letters commenting on the proposed votes. The Tages-Anzeiger also only uses objective criteria, as Peter W. Frey, who is occasionally responsible for letters to the editor, reports: "The editorial team decides according to content, relevance and interest."
At the Bund in Bern, letters are also checked against the "subscriber file", and here too subscribers have priority, reports Filip Haag, who is responsible for the readers' letters page. However, if the letter refers to a published Bund article, the Bund editorial team always assumes that it is from a subscriber. Haag also sees the printing of a letter to the editor as "a service to the reader". And not to the subscriber.
Hans Stutz
 

The crux of the matter with letters to the editorLetters' letters
Even in the age of blogs and citizen journalism, they are still considered an important instrument for the free expression of opinion. For some, it may be a somewhat antiquated way of expressing their opinion. However, there is no shortage of contributions to the forum columns of the printed press, as the public today takes it for granted that they can express themselves in the media in many different ways.
This was not always the case. Letters to the editor were often in short supply. Publishers and editorial offices therefore had to come up with something. The NZZ, for example, has a tradition of rewarding printed readers' contributions. Even schoolchildren made a sport out of scanning the news for profitable topics.
In his Ringier anniversary publication, journalist Karl Lüönd recounts an amusing example from the tabloid press: Hansjürg "Fibo" Deutsch, now responsible for the TV division at the publishing house and a young student at Blick, recalls: "There was a phase when there weren't enough good letters to the editor, especially from the interpersonal sphere. So I started writing such letters and was constantly inventing new problems." Deutsch's letter to the editor Seline Kalberer triggered heated discussions among readers. As a woman, he had written to Blick that his husband refused to push the baby carriage on a Sunday walk. "And suddenly there were women at the door of the editorial office who wanted to pour their hearts out to this Ms. Kalberer."
The complete opposite is currently happening in Cuba. For a few weeks now, the party organ Granma has been printing letters to the editor for the first time since the revolution, including very critical ones.
This only became possible in the course of the phase of self-criticism initiated by the new president and brother of Maximo Lider, Raul Castro. However, the opening remains controlled. The new regime continues to prohibit Cubans from using media such as the internet or satellite TV.
 
René Worni 

 
Relaunch Medianovis has been commissioned by the Baloise Group to redesign and produce the Group employee newspaper wir.bâloise. The insurance group, headquartered in Basel, relies on Medianovis' expertise in visual design and the efficient realization of print media. The total circulation is 11,000 copies per issue four times a year, and Medianovis is realizing the relaunch and the newspaper concept with the online editorial system K4. Previously, wir.bâloise was published in the Baloise Group's core European markets in three languages: German, French and Dutch. It is now also produced in English by Medianovis. The newspaper is also available in
retrievable.

 
Direct marketing Sony links mailing with the Internet with E-Bridge. 
The advertising letter is still considered a successful medium for acquiring new customers. No wonder: in Switzerland, the classic advertising letter is the most frequently used direct advertising medium. According to the Swiss Dialog Marketing Association, one in four advertising francs is spent on addressed mailings. However, the tried-and-tested paper format could soon be a thing of the past, as a new generation of letter post has made the leap into the digital world. Electronics giant Sony DADC has developed a technology that seamlessly combines traditional mailing with the Internet and makes "personalized media integration" a reality.
High return rateWe are talking about E-Bridge, a new trend medium. Specially produced CDs and, more recently, even DVDs can be sent to the customer, who can then play them on their PC. The data carrier contains content that the company has prepared personally for the customer and enables contact to be established. There are practically no limits to what can be created. Sony DADC sees the advantages in a particularly high response rate and an individual customer approach.
According to Christian Dankl, responsible for E-Bridge at Sony DADC, the technology solves a problem that advertisers are increasingly confronted with: that of sensory overload. Whereas in 1965, for example, 80 percent of 18 to 40-year-old men could be reached with three commercials, today it takes 117 commercials to reach the same target.
The question of advertising efficiency is more topical today than ever.
After years of research work, Sony has developed a process for converting CDs into
individualize. In detail, this means that during the production of the data carrier, each disc is given its own serial number. When the recipient then inserts the CD they have received, they are greeted personally and a multimedia experience tailored to them follows. One click and the recipient switches seamlessly from the offline to the online world. For example, the order forms are filled out so that the customer is just one click away from the advertised goods. According to the company's own description, E-Bridge offers a cost-optimized way of minimizing losses when switching from offline to online media.
Automotive industry interestedThere is currently great demand for the Wunder-Disc in the automotive industry. Take Audi, for example. At the beginning of November last year, the German car manufacturer sent such CDs to 12,000 customers, on which the advantages of the new Audi A4 were presented in multimedia form. The Italian car company Maserati also used a CD mailing of this kind to introduce the Gran Turismo Coupe, arguing that an exceptional car requires an exceptional presentation. 8000 selected people were able to start the virtual tour with the Maserati with just one click. The Japanese car brand Lexus also recently sent out a multimedia mailing of this kind to promote the IS250 model. The aim was to generate a high number of test drives.
Despite the difficult brand environment, the access statistics after the campaign are impressive. Lexus was able to record twice as many test drives compared to traditional mailings. The car manufacturer sent out a total of 25,000 personalized CDs. The response rate is 11 percent, as can be read in a case study.
As Christian Dankl explains, the media break for customers from the online to the offline world works without any difficulties. However, the reverse path is often blocked. As various studies have shown, customers prefer the communication trigger channel for response campaigns. On the other hand, the general change of media from offline to online is not particularly popular with many consumers. With E-Bridge, Sony now wants to lower this inhibition threshold in order to make direct marketing more attractive.
As various studies have impressively shown, CD mailings have an average response rate twice as high as traditional print mailings and e-mail marketing campaigns. Not only the response rate speaks for the personalized disc, but also the image values speak for CD mailings. As a study by the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences shows, two thirds of the addressed customers of the La Redoute department store chain remembered the mailing after two months.
Success easily measurableIn addition to the good contact quality and the high response rate, E-Bridge has another advantage over the classic advertising letter. The CD solves a measurability problem. Traditional mailings have the disadvantage that advertisers always know very late whether a campaign was successful or not. By networking with the Internet, the campaign manager can analyze user behavior on the data carrier or on the respective landing page in a matter of seconds. The length of stay, purchase abandonment rates and usage profiles can also be scrutinized in detail.
Christian Lüscher
Google AdWords for small and medium-sized businessesThe search engine company Google
relies on the still young direct marketing method E-Bridge. In order to make the AdWords program, Google's most important source of income, better known among Swiss SMEs, the company recently commissioned a CD mailing. The letter contains only one CD. When the recipient inserted the data carrier, they were given a basic course in Google AdWords. Online advertising can be simple. Google sponsored the recipients with credit of between 50 and 200 euros so that they could test the advertising program straight away. Google would not say how successful the mailing campaign was when asked. According to a Sony DADC employee, the response rate was between 10 and 16 percent. According to Sony DADC, further mailings are planned for Google following a successful campaign.
 

Sony's CD forgeSony DADC is leading the way
in the field of optical storage media. As a technology and solutions provider for the entertainment, advertising and information industries, Sony DADC offers replication (CD, DVD, UMD, Blu-ray) and software services. The majority of sales are generated with products that are less than four years old. The electronics specialist made positive headlines at the beginning of the year. Sony DADC is investing heavily in the expansion of its Austrian plants in Thalgau and Anif in the coming months. The company is responding to the growing demand for Blu-ray Discs with 50 gigabytes of memory on the global market. Worldwide demand for this relatively new disc format currently stands at 100 million units per year. However, demand is increasing rapidly. Experts expect it to double within a year. The decision by US film studio Warner Bros. to only produce its films in high resolution on Blu-ray Disc in future, which was announced in January, has boosted demand in particular. (cl)

 
As part of the print campaign with Eve ambassador Mahara McKay, Cardinal is supplying around 800 beauty and hairdressing salons and fashion boutiques with a total of 500,000 bottles of the new lifestyle drink Eve. The summer campaign with the fresh aperitif in a Cüplig glass will last six weeks and will be carried out in all major Swiss cities. The print campaign launched in Swiss lifestyle and women's magazines at the beginning of June shows the former Miss Switzerland and well-known DJ Mahara McKay with friends - and of course a cool glass of Eve in one of the three flavors lychee, grapefruit and passion fruit. "It's easy for me to play this scene in front of the camera, because my friends and I also like to toast with an Eve," says Eve ambassador McKay.  

TV research During the European Championships, out-of-home TV usage will be surveyed in at least four ways.16 UBS arenas and additional public viewing arenas in the four host cities have been set up for Euro 08, so more people than ever will be watching the matches outside their own four walls: in public places and restaurants. For the UBS arenas alone, organizer Perron 8 expects 1 to 2 million visitors, depending on the weather and the success of the Swiss team, which poses problems for television research in Switzerland. This is because the Telecontrol (TC) measurement system used is connected to TV sets in private households and does not record TV usage outside the home or on cell phones. TC will therefore only be able to capture a fraction of total TV usage, especially as viewers include numerous fans who have traveled from abroad and are not captured by the TC system anyway.
Mediapulse AG, which is responsible for TV research, has been preparing for this special challenge for a long time. And a year ago, it also announced that it would be paying particular attention to out-of-home TV usage during Euro 08. But five days before the sporting event, CEO Manuel Dähler simply said: "We do indeed have certain intentions regarding out-of-home TV use during Euro 08. However, we will only communicate further details once the project has been successful. Maybe it won't succeed ..."
This hesitation is of no use to SRG, which needs daily ratings for out-of-home use. "We asked Mediapulse for a survey, but it didn't materialize. So we organized a survey ourselves," says SF Director Ingrid Deltenre. Specifically, the market research institute Demoscope was commissioned to conduct a daily telephone survey of 350 people across Switzerland during the European Championship to find out where and how (TV, public viewing, mobile TV, Internet, radio ...) they watched the matches. "The figures will then be made available to us the following day. We will also communicate some of them," said Deltenre. However, care will have to be taken to ensure that the figures are not mixed up. It is already clear that the demoscope results, including those on TV usage at home, will not match the more precise TC household measurements. "We are less concerned with absolute figures than with trends and being able to show the approximate difference between TV usage at home and away from home," says Deltenre.
Publisuisse, which sells special TV advertising offers for the UBS arenas, also needs figures. However, Manuela Gerber, who is responsible for the European Championships, relies on three other surveys. Firstly, Perron 8 counts visitors on site using turnstiles at the arena entrances. Secondly, people are employed to estimate the proportion of fans arriving from abroad based on car numbers, flags and outfits. And finally, Publisuisse obtains data from Mediapulse. As part of its basic research, the latter has the Konso Institute survey around 115 people daily on media use anyway - and during the Euro, Konso simply adds a few specific questions. Unlike Demoscope, however, the Konso results are only available after the European Championships.
And: Mediapulse had already had the Konso questionnaire supplemented once before, during the World Cup 06. Mediapulse also took advantage of the fact that TV usage can also be measured with the mobile Radiocontrol watches - even outside the home. A comparison between TC and RC measurements also showed that up to 20 percent additional TV usage took place outside the home during the World Cup 06. Mediapulse will presumably carry out such a parallel evaluation this time too.
 
Markus Knöpfli
 

 
Disposal ViznerBorel and Manifesto Films have scored the first goal for Euro 08. 
Euro 08 is approaching - and so is the mountain of waste. A consortium has taken a number of measures to ensure that we are at most on the field of glory and not drowning in waste. Among other things, an elaborate commercial with the meaningful title "A Goal for the Environment" was produced in Zurich. This film was produced for Uefa Euro 08 as part of a joint sustainability concept for Switzerland and Austria in the three areas of environment, economy and culture/social affairs.
The most striking medium for these waste appeals is a commercial that is shown at all public viewings in Switzerland and Austria. It was filmed on Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich.
The advertising agency ViznerBorel has already gained experience with various campaigns on the subject of recycling and was therefore commissioned to develop this anti-littering commercial. No easy task, as Creative Director Guillaume Borel explains: "Nobody is interested in waste disposal just before the kick-off of a match." The agency therefore relied entirely on the power of emotion. "With our concept, we want to involve people, inform them and get them involved."
A Euro shirt as a rewardThe 60-second spot was created by Reto Salimbeni and his Manifesto Films. The commercial adopts the visual language of large advertising films such as those for Coca-Cola or Nike - after all, it has to be able to hold its own in this environment at public viewings. Thanks to a lot of goodwill from everyone involved, however, the budget is "much more modest". How was director Salimbeni still able to conjure up such infectious enthusiasm on the screen as in a sold-out stadium with just a few extras? "The enthusiasm is obviously there in the country. We didn't have to motivate people particularly. The mood of victory shown by the fans in the film is genuinely felt. Many voluntary extras took part purely for fun. All they got for their fee was a Euro shirt." As a filmmaker with Italian roots, Salimbeni is a real football fan. He is therefore familiar with these cheers and victory poses from his earliest youth. "But I didn't want to satirize and ridicule the atmosphere."
Only one day was available for filming. Part of Zurich's Bahnhofstrasse had to be cordoned off for the shoot.
The effort was also worthwhile for those responsible in the city. Initially, the idea of having the commercial filmed even more cheaply by students was mooted. But Euro 08 is about the highest championship. The creatives therefore think it is "fundamentally a good idea to work with professional communication agencies for institutional advertising as well, in order to communicate these important issues professionally".
Salimbeni wanted to use the means of entertainment for his style so that people would want to take in such a message - "for fun and not under the finger of admonition".
The city of Zurich has implemented a communication strategy around the spot that "makes disposal very easy" during Euro 08, as those responsible hope. This concept includes disposable cups as well as internationally understandable signage with newly developed pictograms. These point to the collection points set up throughout the area. And Vizner-Borel is proud: "The first goal scored at Euro 08 is the goal in this film."
Andreas Panzeri

 
The Swiss Advertising Association elected three new vice presidents at its board meeting on Tuesday. According to a press release on Wednesday, two replacement elections and one confirmation election were held. Peter Leutenegger (Draftfcb/Lowe Group) was elected as the new Vice President for the "Agencies" section. Christian Merk (Zurich Financial Services Group) is also a new member of the "Principals" section. Christian Kauter (APG Affichage) was confirmed as Vice President for the "Contractors" section.

 
Gaby Darbyshire, Vice President of Business Development at Gawker Media, explains Gawker's success. 
What are the reasons behind Gawker Media’s commercial success? We only report on topics where we believe our style can bring a fresh perspective to the general coverage. Our blogs were unique when we launched them, but we now have plenty of imitators. Our readers are loyal, and they can be sure that our editors deliver fresh content. Independence and credibility are the keys to our success.
Do you think opinion-driven blogs like yours are the future of journalism? No. There will always be a need for well-researched journalism that isn’t opinion-driven. But I believe that in the future, what will matter is how the facts are interpreted, and that will define a newspaper’s brand. In the U.S., there’s an expectation that newspapers must be objective and that reporters shouldn’t have political opinions. It’s difficult to live up to that expectation without losing credibility. But I believe that will change. In Europe, this has long been the practice.
Do you plan to launch any more blogs? We rarely launch new titles, and only when we believe there’s truly a gap in the market that we can fill with something new.
Who are your competitors? We face plenty of competition from individual existing blogs, but there is no other blog-publishing company like us. Our only direct competitor, Weblogs Inc., was sold to AOL in 2005.
 
Interview: Gerti Schön