The "Das Plakat" competition, which is held in German-speaking countries, is taking place for the 25th time this year. Entries can be submitted in the categories of consumer goods, services, institutions, trade, culture, media and capital goods for posters that were posted in Germany, Austria or Switzerland by May 31, 2008. There are gold, silver or bronze advertising pillars up for grabs. Posters on the shortlist will be awarded certificates. The closing date for entries is 16 June 2008. The competition is organized by Commclubs Bayern and the awards ceremony will take place in Munich at the end of October 2008. 

 The Zurich advertising agencies GGK and Brain2 have merged. As GGK Zurich announced, all business areas, the client portfolios and the operational processes of the two creative agencies located in the Tiefenbrunnen mill have already been merged. No money was involved in the merger: The shareholder base is structured in proportion to the combined revenues. Hermann Strittmatter remains Chairman of the Board of Directors, Oliver Kindhauser becomes Managing Delegate of the Board of Directors and Christoph Knuchel becomes a member of the Board of Directors with a focus on the creative area.
Together with the current Creative Directors Bruno Züttel and Jean Marc Demeulemeester as well as the consultants, GGK Zurich wants to offer its clients surprising solutions in terms of strategy and implementation to meet the growing demands of marketing communication, the agency announced on Monday. The company is proud to still be able to assert itself as an independent agency almost 50 years after it was founded. GGK was founded in Basel in 1959. Today, its clients include Cablecom, Economiesuisse and Air Engiadina.

 The army is expanding its media work and has appointed Christoph Brunner as its new deputy spokesman. Brunner previously worked as a journalist for the Mittelland Zeitung. The Department of Defense, Civil Protection and Sport (DDPS) announced on Monday that the increase in the army's media work was due to increased demand from Sunday and free newspapers as well as electronic media. This will enable the army to better fulfill its information mandate.

 Exciting news again from Condor. After the Zurich-based film production company recently announced the founding of its own feature film production company (see ), it is now also intensifying its efforts in the commercial film segment. With Matthias Bierer, the Condor Commercials department has signed a commercial film director exclusively for Switzerland. Matthias Bierer is famous for his subtle way of telling stories and is therefore an excellent addition to their directorial guard, Condor Films Managing Director Matthias Luchsinger announced on Monday in an enthusiastic tone. The internationally active filmmaker Matthias Bierer is a graduate of the New York Film School, worked for many years in California and has also been a renowned advertising film director in Europe for years for clients such as Nivea, Dove, Asics, Siemens, Mövenpick, Johnson & Johnson, Tchibo and Kraft. He attaches particular importance to authenticity in the actors, whether actors, supermodels or amateurs, Condor continues. Bieri has already won numerous awards such as Effie and ADC.

Blick am Abend has seen the light of day and editor-in-chief Peter Röthlisberger was very satisfied with the production process for the first issue: "Everything went well on the editorial side. The only glitches were in the interaction with the printers - and according to Murphy's Law, a color printer broke down on the very first day of production. There wasn't much practice time for the new look in the evening. The editorial team had only produced a zero number in advance and had to change the editorial system on Monday: Like many newspapers, Blick am Abend is now produced using Indesign. In addition, the editorial deadline is now set half an hour earlier, at 1 pm. This is to cope with the larger print run that will be printed for the European Football Championship. "Because the editorial team is already well-rehearsed and the processes are familiar, everything worked out well," Röthlisberger told Werbewoche. He particularly likes the cover story in the first issue, in which a girlfriend is sought for footballer David Degen. The article in the business section about the opening of the first McDonald's café in Zurich's Niederdorf district was a real highlight.
No institutional collaboration with BlickThe Blick am Abend will continue to feature many people and lifestyle stories in the future, with a "light-hearted and positive" tone, as the editor-in-chief says. "We don't want to burden readers with tragic news in the evening, but rather convey to them that life is good." This is also intended to differentiate it from the main Blick newspaper. There, the classic tabloid stories and longer reports will take place, while in the evenings the reader will be served happy stories. There is no institutional agreement with the Blick editorial team; they want to be in a certain competition. But if he meets Blick boss Bernhard Weissberg in the elevator, they naturally exchange ideas, says Röthlisberger.
To a large extent, it is the crew of the recently departed Abendblatt Heute that makes the new Blick am Abend. "Around a third of the editorial team has changed since the beginning of the year," explains Röthlisberger. There have been no redundancies. The editorial team is young, with an average age of between 20 and 25. Röthlisberger has been in charge for around a month. He has a good impression: "Everyone is very committed and fulfills the heavy workload with a lot of enthusiasm," says the boss. The fact that they are now all suddenly working for a new publication, even though they are still sitting at the same desk, is accepted: "People have had time to say goodbye to today. And they can continue to write their stories for Blick am Abend, and many have also been given new tasks."
Also "blackberry-colored" on the Internet "Blick am Abend no longer has a separate online presence on the Internet; instead, its content is integrated into Blick.ch. "We provide the people and lifestyle reports, while Blick provides the news," says the editor-in-chief. The content is separated by a colored element: The content from Blick am Abend is highlighted in blackberry, that from Blick in classic red. The new free newspaper will also be available online with an e-paper.
Ringier has always emphasized that its predecessor newspaper Heute was accepted by readers, but was struggling in the advertising market. How will Blick am Abend avoid the same fate? "The three titles Blick, Sonntagsblick and Blick am Abend are united under one strong brand. This enables good combinations," explains Röthlisberger. In addition, the target group has been expanded and no longer only includes 14 to 32-year-olds, although they are still the main target group.
 

 The Swiss Advertising Association has named Publicis CEO Fredy Collioud Communicator of the Month. This honor comes to him because of the successfully fished Swiss budget: The prestigious budget goes to the agency on Stadelhoferstrasse after a long selection process. Among the reasons given by Swiss for the award are the agency's worldwide network and (logically) a convincing and forward-looking concept. Not mentioned is the role of Publicis boss Fredy Collioud, writes SW spokesman Piero Schäfer in his laudation. But anyone who knows the ambitious, go-getting advertiser is undoubtedly not far from the truth in assuming that he has pulled out all the stops, SW adds. Network or not, Collioud obviously pushed his team to the limit and hardly allowed himself a moment's peace. Now that the budget has landed at Publicis, he can sit back and accept the congratulations - and the title of SW Communicator of the Month.

 
Multimedia designers Christoph Dubach and Marc Rinderknecht have founded their own web agency. Under the name Codama, they want to cover the spectrum from consulting, conception and design to the programming of interactive media such as websites, online promotions, mini-games, screensavers and banners. The duo is currently working on projects for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the ADC/BSW creative school, the bag manufacturer Freitag and the fashion labels Vitamin A and Komarov in Los Angeles.
The now 34-year-old childhood friends Dubach and Rinderknecht published the underground skateboard magazine "The Radical Vegetables" together during their teenage years. When Marc Rinderknecht left his job at Jung von Matt/Limmat to start the one-man agency Kobebeef after a trip around the world, Christoph Dubach became his successor. Since May 2008, the two have been working as Codama on Geroldstrasse in Zurich.

 The Swiss retailer Coop has a new media spokesperson. Nicolas Schmied succeeds Takashi Sugimoto, who moved to Coop's core business on May 1. Nicolas Schmied previously worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Applied Media Sciences in Winterthur and as a desktop publisher and editor at Tele Züri. With immediate effect, he will work together with Karl Weisskopf in the team of Susanne Erdös, Head of the Coop Media Office in Basel.

 
Stars and starlets whose shine is threatening to fade have a whole range of opportunities to prevent this from happening: There are jungle camps, presenting jobs on various game shows, reality TV, voiceover jobs for ringtone commercials, extra roles in bad films, nude shoots for Playboy or marriage to a far better-known partner. Brigitte Nielsen, busty ex-model of Danish origin, has used almost all of these publicity tricks several times. First her marriage to Sylvester Stallone, then a brief affair with Dieter Bohlen, and later her affair of the heart with legendary rap freak Flavor Flav from Public Enemy, which was widely publicized in the TV series "The Surreal Life" and "Strange Love". So what's left? How can you go one better? Well, Ms. Nielsen has found a way. After taking a look in the mirror, the 44-year-old decided she needed an all-round makeover and is now marketing it as a TV show on the German channel RTL. Three major operations are planned in front of the camera: "I'm having a complete makeover. Facelift, eye lift, facial fat injections, liposuction, breast lift and new teeth. It really is as if a horde of craftsmen are renovating an old house," Brigitte Nielsen is quoted as saying in an RTL press release.
In the three-part series "Aus alt mach neu - Brigitte Nielsen in der Promi-Beautyklinik", Frauke Ludowig will present the renovation work on Ms. Nielsen on July 13, 20 and 27 at 7.05 pm. RTL will document everything in detail, from the decision to have her first public celebrity operation, the various stages in the beauty clinic to the reunion with her children and her new life as an artificially rejuvenated old lady. Who could miss out on something like that? Copycats please come forward.

 The volume of online advertising is growing continuously. This is shown by the figures presented by the Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe (IAB) at the Interact 2008 trade fair in Berlin. While a decline is forecast for traditional advertising media due to a slowdown in economic growth, the study shows continued high growth for online advertising expenditure in Europe. According to the IAB, online advertising expenditure in the 16 largest European countries rose to a total of 11.2 billion euros in 2007. This is four billion euros above the previous year's result (7.2 billion euros). The adjusted growth rate of 40 percent shows that the European online advertising market is continuing to catch up with the US market, which grew by around 26 percent to EUR 14.5 billion in the same period.
Two thirds (EUR 7.3 billion) of online advertising investments in Europe are made in the UK, Germany and France. Various smaller markets recorded even higher growth: online advertising expenditure grew by 91% in Greece, 55% in Spain and 49% in Slovenia.
The development of the investment volume that advertisers in the various European markets invest in order to reach individual Internet users is also interesting. While the European average in 2007 was EUR 80.60, Norwegian advertisers were particularly willing to invest EUR 134.63 per Internet user. This was followed by England (120.80 euros) and Denmark (109.48 euros).

 
The Basel-based advertising agency Oswald Siegfried has won a new client. OSW is now responsible for the entire budget of the north-eastern Swiss car dealership Grosspeter, which represents the Opel, Chevrolet, Honda and Saab brands with its seven branches. The collaboration has already begun: The first step was to give the appearance a thorough refresh. Now the Basel office is in the process of giving the advertising presence a new look. The first results can already be seen in a customer magazine. Responsible at Grosspeter:
Jasmin Gasser (Head of Communications). Responsible at Oswald Siegfried Werbeagentur (OSW): Michael Oswald (Art Direction), Nadine Siegfried (Consulting), René Fisch (Text), Leila Merkofer (Graphics), Miriam Gramelsbacher (Consulting Assistant).

Since the last expansion, Airport Shopping at Zurich Airport has brought together over 80 stores, restaurants and services. The airport operator Unique commissioned the advertising agency Weber Harbeke, which had already worked for Zurich Airport and Airport Shopping in the past, to advertise these benefits. The result is a campaign consisting of countless individual motifs designed to meet customers' needs directly. For example, visitors returning home are greeted at baggage reclaim with "Only air in the fridge?". Thanks to the "Early risers and night owls welcome" motif, commuters know that they can also run their errands here early in the morning or late at night. The texts are set against a background of airport pictograms that symbolize the diversity of airport shopping.
The subjects can be seen as posters and advertisements in and around Zurich Airport. The print ads are flanked by radio spots in the airport's catchment area.
Responsible at Unique (Flughafen Zürich AG):
Michael Breuer and Emanuela Dancsecs (Manager Marketing Communication). Responsible at Weber Harbeke, Zurich: Thomas Harbeke, Max Weber (CD), Christian Sidow (text), Jürg Ernst (AD), Michael Kälin, Sibill Zellweger (graphics), Karin Both (consulting).