At its General Assembly on May 19, the Association for Quality in Journalism appointed a new Board of Directors. Philipp Cueni, editor of the media magazine SSM Gazette, continues as president. Christine Fivan (former editor-in-chief of Zürcher Unterländer), Thomas Kropf (editor and trainer at SR DRS), Luciano Ferrari (head of the Tages-Anzeiger department) and Marlis Prinzig (journalist and media scientist) were newly elected.Josefa Haas (Head of the Media Institute), Matthias Hagemann (Publisher Basler Zeitung), Sandra Manca (Editorial Director Tages-Anzeiger Online), Enrico Morresi (President of the Press Council Foundation Board), Daniel Perrin (Director IAM Winterthur), Reto Schlatter (Head of Studies MAZ), Claudia Schoch (Editor NZZ), Frederik Stucki (Association of Private Radio Stations), Michael Walther (freelance journalist) and Vinzenz Wyss (Media Scientist IAM Winterthur) were confirmed.
On November 4, the association will once again be holding its traditional Herzberg conference. The theme for 2008 is "Confronted with suffering: trauma and journalism - of victims and perpetrators".

 Shortly before the start of the 2008 European Football Championship, German consumers are only aware of the official sponsors to a limited extent. Surprisingly, awareness of the companies has decreased rather than increased over the past six months. At least that is the result of a recent survey by the market research institute Innofact. The only exception is the beverage giant Coca-Cola, which was able to increase its brand awareness between December 2007 and May 2008 thanks to massive advertising activities. Apart from Coca-Cola, whose brand awareness increased from 24 to 27 percent (unaided) and 68 to 70 percent (aided), hardly any of the European Championship sponsors are currently being properly recognized. For example, the aided awareness of Adidas, supplier to the German national team, was 68% in December and only 58% in May. In third place in the perception ranking is McDonalds, whose awareness level also fell slightly from 59% to 58%. Mastercard has also lost three percent over the past six months and is now named by 43 percent of respondents as an official partner of Euro 2008. Far behind are companies such as Carlsberg, Canon and JVC.
"We assume that sponsors will now really get going again with their public relations work and that awareness will increase again just before and during the European Championships," predicts Hagemann, project manager at Innofact, to Pressetext. It is striking that companies such as Nike, Puma and Bitburger are currently being perceived much better and incorrectly as sponsors. National sponsors, on the other hand, seem to receive hardly any attention at all. With Telekom Austria in tenth place, there is only one brand in the top ten.

 
The Zurich-based production company Condor Films is founding the new subsidiary Condor Pictures together with Tom Talent Holding. This is part of the business strategy presented last fall (see ) and with the declared aim of concentrating more on the production of feature films in the future. The previous Features and Documentaries departments will be outsourced to the new company. This restructuring should lead to a focus on the respective core competencies and a clear division of the management organization.  
Condor Pictures aims to become a major European player in the film industry from its base in Switzerland. Kristian Widmer, Delegate of the Board of Directors and co-owner of Condor Films, will become Managing Director. In his new role, he will continue to be responsible for feature film production. Patrick Müller, previously Head of Documentaries at Condor Films, will become a member of the Executive Board and will be responsible for documentaries. 
 
Condor Pictures' first concrete projects will be presented to a select audience of industry professionals and representatives at the Cannes Film Festival.
 

 This summer, the canton of Graubünden is launching the comprehensive action program "Healthy Body Weight Graubünden 2008-2011". The program aims to positively influence the eating and exercise habits of children in Graubünden. An accompanying campaign is planned to publicize the program and motivate stakeholders. The Office for Primary Education and Sport and the Graubünden Health Department invited five agencies to pitch the campaign, including the branding and naming proposal. The concept from the advertising agency Clus in Chur impressed the responsible project group with its direct and positive approach to the target groups, a memorable claim and concrete measures for implementation, according to a press release. The campaign is scheduled to start in late summer 2008.

 The branding agency Metadesign has won two prizes at this year's IF Communication Design Awards: The jury honored the new appearance of NZZ Online and a project for the tire manufacturer Continental. Metadesign Zurich developed the concept for the relaunch of the news and umbrella brand portal NZZ Online. According to the agency, it is based on a design framework that is stringent yet modular and scalable. The design focuses on the editorial content and dispenses with superfluous gestures. For Continental's "Everyday Heroes" campaign, the laurels go to Metadesign Berlin: the agency has developed a visual world that uses dramatic-looking black and white photographs to tell of the challenges that long-distance, bus and car drivers overcome every day on the world's roads.
Almost 1,300 entries from 16 countries were submitted for this year's IF Awards. An international jury evaluated the entries and honored 310 of them.

 After a multi-stage agency evaluation, Bucher AG Langenthal decided to entrust Matter & Gretener with the lead mandate for the development of communication measures for Motorex. The company has been researching, developing and producing engine oils, lubricants and chemical-technical products under this brand for over 90 years. The Motorex brand is present in over 60 countries around the world. Matter & Gretener's first communication measures for the "Oil of Switzerland" will soon be on display.

Brunner AG Druck und Medien in Kriens has a new man at the helm: Edgar C. Britschgi, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Advico Young & Rubicam Switzerland, will chair the Board of Directors of the printing and media company. He replaces Josef Christen, who is retiring.
The shareholders elected marketing specialist Britschgi as the new Chairman of the Board of Directors on Wednesday, as Brunner announced on Friday. Britschgi is also Chairman of the Board of Directors of the consulting company Combo Management and has chaired the English-Swiss Chamber of Commerce since 2006. Brunner is active in the printing, publishing and web technology sectors and generated a profit of CHF 0.21 million in 2007 on sales of CHF 14.2 million.

 No, it's not the devil who made the mistake in the title above. It is merely based on an enthusiastic response received by the Werbewoche editorial team. "If advertisers on TV were able to constantly make the same kind of pitches as with this ad, zapping away on TV during the commercial breaks would no longer be an issue," says the advertising viewer. We are talking about the ad that Patric Franz and Patrick Ryffel designed for the "Only an ad can do that" competition. It features a confusing text full of mixed-up letters. "The ad is a real pleasure and absolutely perfectly designed," praises the ad lover. "Those who know how to read and are experienced quickly feel in their element and are proud to be able to understand the text without any problems, try to fathom the laws of the text, are praised for it at the end and realize with satisfaction: 'I immediately got the hang of it, yes, I am bagebt! Simple, perfect, ingenious, entertaining and contributing to the success of the day! Yes, that's how you imagine good advertising." Notice: creative advertising performance is appreciated - and the hymns of praise can sometimes be as elegiac as the advertising scolding we usually hear.

 Andreas Florek has joined the key account management team at Neue Luzerner Zeitung (NLZ). He will be responsible for marketing the Sunday edition, which will be published for the first time in September. The Sunday edition will be launched in the customer market in June, as announced jointly by NLZ and Publicitas. Florek will work in Remo Baumeler's team (Head of Key Account). He previously worked for Tamedia as Head of Advertising Sales for Annabelle.

 This spring, the Federal Office of Culture (FOC) credited CHF 5.1 million to filmmakers, distributors and screening companies as part of its performance-based film promotion program. In total, Swiss films achieved just over 810,000 admissions last year. This fell short of the record year of 2006, when more than 1.6 million tickets were sold for Swiss films. Although this result represents a decline, admission figures for Swiss films have stabilized at a high level over the last ten years, the Federal Office of Culture wrote in a press release on Friday. The BAK supports success at the box office with performance-based film funding. The funding credited must be used for new film projects. The two most successful films in 2007, "Die Herbstzeitlosen" (219,996 admissions) by Bettina Oberli and "Vitus" (71,007) by Fredi Murer, were already among the four most-viewed films in the previous year. In the category of newly released feature films, director Mike Eschmann achieved respectable success with the two film titles "Breakout" (65,284) and "Tell" (55,469). However, "Tell" fell well short of expectations.
Last year was particularly pleasing for Swiss documentaries. Five documentaries were among the ten most successful Swiss films, with "Bruno Manser - Laki Penan" being by far the most viewed with 30,287 admissions.
As expected, the biggest drop in admissions was recorded in German-speaking Switzerland (from 1.4 million to 650,000 admissions). In French-speaking Switzerland, viewer numbers remained stable at 141,000 admissions and were well above the 2005 level (90,000). In Ticino, more than 10,000 viewers saw Swiss films for the first time in seven years. However, special promotional efforts are still required to promote Swiss films in French- and Italian-speaking Switzerland, writes the BAK in its press release.

"The task of taking on responsibility and shaping things appeals to me," says Beat Mühlemann about his announced move to McCann Erickson. Managing an agency was a childhood dream that he no longer believed would come true: "When I moved to Migros in 1999 after seven years at Publicis, I thought that managing an agency wouldn't work out. And now that door has opened after all."
The role as CEO, which he will take up on July 1, means a return to agency life for the former Migros advertising boss - and to McCann Erickson: in 1977/78, Mühlemann worked at the agency for two years after returning from Paris, which was still a six-man store in Zurich at the time. He does not yet know today's McCann very well: "Of course I have spoken a lot with the management in the last few weeks, but the decision-making process only took a good month. After I start, I will get to know everything in detail."
His aim is to make the agency more present. This also includes attracting new Swiss clients. "McCann is underestimated in Switzerland", he agrees with the opinion of his new boss Helmut Sendlmeier (see
). Mühlemann does not yet want to say anything about how the agency will be positioned: "It would be presumptuous of me to say anything about that just yet. I first have to get started and get an idea."
Since the departure of Curdin Janett, a management team has been running McCann Erickson on an interim basis. How will the designated CEO define his place here? "Of course, the situation is special in that there are two offices in Geneva and Zurich with their own management teams. I want to work with them as a team. I have a participative management style, but of course I take overall responsibility and sometimes say where things should go. There will hardly be any hour-long discussions." Mühlemann has already discussed the future distribution of roles with Timo Kirez, who has had dual responsibility as Chairman and CD in recent months: "I don't want to interfere with his creative work, but I will give my opinion where necessary. In return, I myself accept justified criticism at all times."
The advertising professional also sees no cause for concern in view of the fact that superiors want to have a say in an agency network: He has had discussions with Sendlmeier, who is responsible for the German-speaking region at McCann, as well as with the European manager: "I don't see any problems. Helmut Sendlmeier is an absolute professional who knows the McCann Group inside out. Especially at the beginning, I will be grateful for the support of a strong person from the Group. I'm not afraid of being dictated to from Germany."
Carole Scheidegger

 One month after the launch of the new blog Netzwertig.com, the Zurich-based online publisher Blogwerk is taking over the German themed blog Zweinull.cc with immediate effect. Its editor Martin Weigert is to join the Netzwertig.com team as an author. Zweinull.cc has been in existence for 14 months and has 2900 RSS subscribers, according to a press release. It ranks 20th in the top 100 most-linked German-language blogs. Part of the takeover is the entire article archive of Zweinull.cc, which can now be found at Netzwertig.com. Blogwerk Managing Director Peter Hogenkamp sees the merger as an indication of the increasing professionalization and consolidation of the blogosphere. The terms of the takeover were not disclosed.