The German ADC "nails" were awarded in Berlin on Saturday. Over 8000 works in 46 categories were judged. Only 21 were awarded gold. Among them was Frank Bodin's idea for Greenpeace with Spencer Tunick's nudes on the Aletsch glacier. In addition to the Zurich agency Euro RSCG, Swiss Television won the second precious metal for Helvetia. In the TV on-air promotion category, there was a bronze nail for the clip "SF Delikatessen" with the slightly lascivious subject of the "tongue in the eye". Alex Hefter received the award as creative director for this idea. Other Swiss were also in Berlin, but came away empty-handed at the gala.  
The most awards went to Horst Schlämmer and his quirky advertising for VW. Hape Kerkeling's fictional character was awarded gold in eight categories. Nevertheless, the DDB agency did not manage to oust Jung von Matt from first place in the German creative rankings. This agency was able to collect a total of 54 nails. After DDB, Scholz & Friends ranked third, with the agency Nordpol in fourth place. However, Nordpol had the special honor of once again receiving the ADC Grand Prix in this competition "after an eternity". Their award-winning cinema spot is about a seemingly malicious man. He lifts up women's skirts on the street, ruffles the beautiful hairstyles of unsuspecting ladies on the escalator, tears pieces of laundry off the line, knocks over a market stall for no reason, rattles an open blind like a madman and complains that nobody understands him. Until suddenly a second figure enters the scene and hands the man a business card from the Federal Ministry for the Environment and Nature Conservation. Since then, the man feels understood, because he is now driving windmills. This ingenious realization of the advertising claim "The Power of Wind" was celebrated by the 2500 guests at the gala in the Premium Hallen in Berlin with a standing ovation.
 
The ADC Germany Creative Harvest Awards were accompanied by a three-day congress. At the "Summit of Creativity 08", over 50 top names gave talks on the latest trends in communication and marketing. Among the speakers were stars such as Karl Lagerfeld and Michael Ballhaus. The star cameraman of Martin Scorsese and former Rainer Werner Fassbinder has launched a project to enable young talents, with the help of the advertising industry, to realize committed campaign films against the waste of energy.
Andreas Panzeri

 
More on the "Summit of Creativity" can be found in the next Advertising Week.

  There was a small surprise in the user figures for media websites in March: NZZ Online moved ahead of the two previous leaders Blick Online and 20minuten.ch - at least in terms of unique clients, i.e. the number of different computers from which a particular website is accessed. Tagesanzeiger.ch just managed to stay in the top ten. This is according to the March figures from Net-Metrix Audit. In terms of visits (number of visits to a website), the ranking of media sites is unchanged compared to February 2008. The community platform Netlog climbed to second place and still holds the top position in terms of page impressions.
Among others, N24.ch (+ 185.7%), Pro7.ch (+ 64.5%), Bilan (+ 60.5%), Wetter.ch (+ 57.8%) and Konsum.tv (+ 40.7%) recorded strong increases in visits. Bluewin.ch lost ground compared to the previous month (- 11.5%). The relaunch in the new Swisscom guise at the end of February does not seem to have been met with enthusiasm everywhere. Nevertheless, the portal is still at the top of the top ten in terms of visits and unique clients.
Top ten websites with advertising in March 2008 by unique clients:
Bluewin: 3'800'000
Search.ch: 2'684'000
Directories.ch: 1'990'000
Scout24: 1'738'000
NZZ Online: 1'400'000
Blick Online: 1'391'000
20minuten.ch: 1'333'000
Moneyhouse: 1'306'000
MySwitzerland.com: 957,000
Tagesanzeiger.ch: 919,000
Top ten websites with advertising in March 2008 by visits:
Bluewin: 39'911'674
Netlog: 10'972'382
Blick Online: 10'728'109
Search.ch: 9'858'857
20minuten.ch: 8'132'370
NZZ Online: 7'353'225
Directories.ch: 6'686'144
Scout24: 6'270'360
Tagesanzeiger.ch: 5'523'706
PartyGuide.ch: 3'985'289
Top ten websites with advertising in March 2008 by page impressions:
Netlog: 422'590'231
Bluewin: 269'048'727
PartyGuide.ch: 204'439'522
Scout24: 187,879,626
Blick Online: 96'438'462
Homegate.ch: 91'273'226
20minuten.ch: 83'873'743
Tilllate: 63'555'377
Search.ch: 58'306'997
Directories.ch: 38'216'543

The Minerva School in Basel is 111 years old. The advertisers from the Bluegummy agency are not celebrating this milestone with a bottle of schnapps, but are taking a different approach: In a continuation campaign throughout the year, they are posing witty, subtle questions on the subject of education, for example, "Can you forget education?" or "Are educated people happier?". According to Bluegummy, the subjects follow the motto: "Even after 111 years, Minerva Schools are not tired of asking questions. Because education is never finished.
Responsible at Minerva Schools Basel:
Sigi Schwob (principal). Responsible at Bluegummy Marketing Communications: Flavian Kurth (overall responsibility/text), Kris Kronig, Helge Dilger (art direction), Franziska Liechti (consulting).

 
The Flims region advertises itself as a summer holiday destination under the motto "Mountain Adventure". The agency Publicis Dialog analyzed the websites of competitors in Austria and Switzerland. It came to the conclusion that almost nothing and nobody stands out. According to the Zurich-based agency, almost all of them advertise with a brochure in standard A4 format, an accompanying letter and a flood of individual brochures. The aim of the agency and the Films vacation region is to stand out. The client and agency achieved this goal with a simple trick: size. And in two ways. Firstly, with a mailing in the relatively small C5 format, which keeps the postage costs within reasonable limits. And secondly, with a brochure that allows a panoramic view of the Flims mountains in an absolutely huge daily newspaper size, which, according to Publicis Dialog, is not found in competitors' brochures:
Andreas Bärtsch (Marketing and Sales), Britta Kaula, Julia Dimmler (Marketing and Communication). Responsible at Publicis Dialog: Sandra Genge, Gabriele Knus, Monica Meuli, Alexandra Kellenberger (Consulting), Björn Brinkmann (Creative Director), Philipp Sträuli (Art Director), Raphael Schön (Graphics), Oliver Gisi, Fabian Zahner (Text), Peter Stäubli (DTP), Marco Kappeler (Prepress), Romeo Bucceroni (Production), Gaudenz Danuser (Photography).

 The annual report just published by the media research institute Mediapulse provides an overview of the use of electronic mass media in the past year. In 2007, an average of 139 minutes a day were spent watching television and 105 minutes listening to the radio. Furthermore, the latest results show, among other things, that the use of traditional media such as radio and television still clearly dominates and that the cliché that women are somewhat more reserved than men when it comes to newer media technologies is certainly valid.The Time Use Study 2006/2007 shows how media use fits into the daily routine of the Swiss population. Data on media use and the daily routine of the Swiss population was collected in over 3,200 face-to-face interviews. The results show that there are also regional differences in this respect: For example, the German-speaking Swiss have more free time than the other Swiss, and they spend most of it at home. In Italian-speaking Switzerland, on the other hand, more time is spent both eating and working at home than in German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland. In general, the use of traditional media such as radio and TV continues to dominate. The use of new forms of media such as chatting or exchanging text messages is most pronounced among French-speaking Swiss.

Viscom, the employers' association for the graphic arts industry, has a new look. The Basel West agency has developed a concept to strengthen the association both internally and externally and has refreshed its image. The soft redesign stands for an innovative association that remains clearly recognizable, according to a press release. Mood photographs of unprinted paper serve as the key visual. The 2007 annual report is the first medium to be implemented with the new concept. In addition to facts and figures, the report contains various articles such as an interview with Director Dr. Thomas Gsponer on innovations in the graphic arts industry and another interview on the importance of Switzerland in vocational training. Wolfau-Druck in Weinfelden has optimized photorealistic image reproduction.
Basel West was commissioned for the entire corporate redesign and for the new content and design concept for the association's media. The implementation for other publications such as the newsletter and association portrait is in preparation.
Responsible at Viscom, Swiss Association for Visual Communication, Zurich:
Dr. Thomas Gsponer, Beat Kneubühler. Responsible at Basel West Corporate Communications, Basel: Albin Kirchhofer (consulting), Markus Siegenthaler (concept), Thomas Aerni (art direction), Marc Eggimann, Frédéric Giger (photography).

 
To draw attention to the new look of the news magazine L'Hebdo, the agency Tasmanie has come up with a very special competition. In view of the presidential elections in the USA, the Lausanne-based creative agency posed the question "What if you won?". The best answer will be rewarded by L'Hebdo with a great prize: over five days, the winner will have the opportunity to take a look behind the scenes of the presidential elections and meet personalities from the worlds of politics, business and science. The winner will also be able to stay in five-star hotels and use a limousine service.L'Hebdo will appear in a new layout for the first time on April 30. According to a statement from the agency, the new look is intended to make it easier for readers to access the magazine. The focus is on positioning the title among decision-makers and students. In terms of content, the aim is to remain true to the tried-and-tested principles and to accompany current affairs with curiosity and accuracy. Last year, L'Hebdo maintained its position as the most widely read weekly newspaper in French-speaking Switzerland with a circulation of 48,451 copies.

The Natürlich magazine from AZ Fachverlag has a new look. It also presents new pages on the Internet and in its advertising. The magazine for nature, health and society is now 30 years old and, following its redesign, aims to continue to present the topics surrounding a healthy lifestyle in a relaxed, fun-loving and consistent way with a wide range of services. It has 227,000 readers per month. The new advertising campaign by the Zurich agency am Wasser programmatically positions the monthly magazine as a source of quality of life. With realizations that leave no doubt that a healthy lifestyle and joie de vivre have a lot to do with each other. The campaign will be launched in April 2008 with advertisements in consumer magazines and daily newspapers.
Responsible at AZ Fachverlage:
Irene Frei (Publishing Director), Peter Jauch (Product Management). Responsible at Agentur am Wasser, Maeder & Partner Werbeagentur: Ruedi Maeder (CD/Text), André Juchli (AD), Sonya Fricker (Consulting).

 
The Hamburg office of the German advertising agency Serviceplan has dared to break a taboo. For its Bonn-based client Hut Weber, it is showing a pictogram of Hitler next to a pictogram of Charlie Chaplin on a new poster campaign, inspired by his appearance in the film "The Great Dictator. "The images differ only in that they feature a hat. The text underneath reads, "It's the hat." As the industry service Horizont.net reports, the campaign has already sparked lively discussions.

 Deutsche Post wants to enter the market for national advertising papers with a free newspaper. Publishers in the northern neighboring country are protesting and speak of a "scandal" or "regulatory super disaster". Post board member Jürgen Gerdes told the Financial Times Deutschland that a weekly newspaper on the subject of the Internet and computers was initially planned. It is to be distributed directly to millions of letterboxes. However, the final decision is still pending and will be made in the coming weeks. The computer newspaper could be followed by other papers, and the logistics group is apparently also targeting the topic of cars. With its newspaper offensive, Deutsche Post is directly attacking the core business of media companies in our northern neighboring country, even though Gerdes emphasized that editorial cooperations are planned.
Publishers are up in arms: "This is a scandal," Wolfgang Fürst from the Association of German Magazine Publishers told the Tagesspiegel. They will react "with all severity" to this offensive. One option for him is for the publishers to look for alternative distribution channels and thus deprive the Post of an important part of their turnover.
For Jörg Laskowski, Managing Director of the Federal Association of German Newspaper Publishers, the newspaper plans are tantamount to a "regulatory super disaster": the state is subsidizing the postal service because it is exempt from VAT. This is unacceptable if it is also involved in publishing.
Speculation about Deutsche Post's entry into the newspaper business has been repeated time and again in recent months, with publishers never failing to howl in outrage. The mail group is already active with its Einkauf aktuell supplement, which, however, has no editorial content.
 

 
Draftfcb, part of the Draftfcb/Lowe Group, is highlighting the special shape of the current Daihatsu fleet just in time for the swimming season, which will hopefully start soon. This is because all models are reduced to the essentials, require little fuel and still offer the comfort and equipment of larger vehicle classes, the advertising agency writes in a press release. To illustrate this, the creatives chose the comparison with physical fitness, which is unusual for cars. Responsible at Daihatsu:
Roland Hüsser (CEO). Responsible at Draftfcb: Diana Weikert, Michael Ottinger (consulting), Roland Jäggi (AD), Boris Beuckmann (text), Nicole Cannabona (DTP).

 From Monday, Publimedia will have a new name - or, to be more precise, a name affix: it will be called Publicitas Publimedia in future. The change of name will coincide with the relocation of Publimedia's Zurich units to the new Publicitas operational headquarters in Zurich Altstetten, according to a press release. The change of company name is part of the introduction of the brand architecture of the new Publicitas. It follows the new brand concept, according to which the name Publicitas will precede the existing brands of the Swiss marketers. This is also reflected in the new Publimedia logo. As has already been announced, the other Swiss marketers of the new Publicitas are to follow Publimedia's example: With their move to the new Baslerpark location, Cinecom, Cinecom & Media, Mosse Media, Publimag, Radiotele and Web2com will also include the name Publicitas first in their company names at the end of May. After a transitional phase of around 18 months, the original brands will then be completely absorbed into the Publicitas brand: Publicitas will then be the sole brand for Publigroupe's "Media Sales" business segment.