Sunrise has received mail from Swisscom's lawyers regarding its current price comparison campaign. Sunrise spokesman Gottardo Pestalozzi confirmed a corresponding report in the Handelszeitung newspaper at the request of Werbewoche. Sunrise advertises that corporate customers can save up to 40 percent on cell phone calls if they switch to the telecommunications company. On the Sunrise.ch/business-preisvergleich website, it calculates how big the savings potential is compared to Orange and Swisscom. A campaign designed by the agency Brot und Spiele with advertisements and posters is running in parallel (see Brot und Spiele shows savings potential for Sunrise Business
).
Swisscom takes issue with the price comparisons: "We have discovered some errors in the way the comparison is made," says spokesman Carsten Roetz. Sunrise had not selected the optimal Swisscom subscriptions for the comparisons and had not taken certain savings options into account. "However, we will not be taking any legal action against Sunrise," Roetz told Werbewoche. "We have instructed our sales front well. In this way, we can show customers where the comparisons are not correct".
Sunrise will not change the current campaign unless Swisscom takes legal action. "The campaign is fair, we have compared standard offers", says Pestalozzi. This is the first time Sunrise has advertised with price comparisons. The campaign has been very well received by consumers, the spokesperson continues: visits to the price comparison website increased by 80 percent between January 11 and 28.
Swisscom spokesperson Roetz, on the other hand, is critical of comparative advertising: "You have to think about it very carefully. It is difficult to compare offers, as they often differ in many respects". If you don't convince customers, it can easily backfire.
Ralf Beyeler from the comparison service Comparis.ch finds the Sunrise comparison fair, as he told the Abendzeitung Heute.

Rolando Benedick will chair the newly composed Board of Directors of kiosk operator Valora. This was announced by the Group on Wednesday evening. Benedick, head of the Manor Group, was appointed Chairman at the first meeting of the enlarged Board of Directors. Financier Adriano Agosti, who had previously engaged in a power struggle with the old Board of Directors, did not make it onto the Board (see). Agosti will, however, have been pleased with Benedick's election as Chairman: He had nominated him for the BoD. Also in Agosti's favor is Markus Fiechter, who also made it onto the board. However, despite Agosti's sympathies, Benedick and Fiechter were also nominated for election by the old BoD. Benedick takes over the chairmanship from Beatrice Tschanz, who has held the office on an interim basis since the resignation of Fritz Ammann last November. Ammann had resigned under pressure from Agosti's investor group.

 The Draftfcb/Lowe Group is upgrading. Following the departure of Patrick Lienert (see ), Florian Birkner and Nicolas Vontobel are taking over responsibility as Creative Directors at the two agencies. Together with Keith Loell, who has overall responsibility for the Group as Executive CD, they will continue to invest heavily in creative quality, according to a press release issued on Thursday. Florian Birkner started his career at Scholz & Friends Berlin before moving to Advico Young & Rubicam in 2005. Most recently, he worked at Publicis.
Nicolas Vontobel has worked for McCann-Erickson, Weber, Hodel, Schmid, JWT+H+F, Lesch+Frei and Advico Young & Rubicam, among others.

The Swiss family-owned company Westiform, based in Niederwangen, has been commissioned to make Swisscom's new brand appearance visible at the individual locations. The new appearance of the telecom company is to combine the various Swisscom brands as well as Bluewin into a single brand (see ). Part of this is also a new, moving logo. Swisscom developed the appearance together with the London agency Moving Brands and the Swiss typographer Bruno Maag. The order for Westiform now includes the implementation of the building signage. The production, distribution and installation of the labeling elements will begin in the spring of 2008.

 The Cannes International Advertising Festival opened this year's submission deadline on Thursday. Agencies can now once again submit their work in all categories in the hunt for the coveted Lions. The deadline for Film, Press and Outdoor is March 7. The deadline for Design, Direct, Media, Promo and Radio is March 14, and the deadline for Cyber and Titanium and Integrated is March 20. Entries can be submitted online at Canneslions.com. The Film category has been expanded this year: films that were not made for television or cinema, such as internet or mobile spots, are now also eligible. The Design category has been added and honors brand design as well as product communication and development. The festival in Cannes takes place this year from June 15 to 21.

The PR and communications agency Burson-Marsteller, with offices in Bern, Zurich and Geneva, has brought four new heads into the team: Urs Grob, Susan Zimmermann, Virginie Bonjour and Angelika Kren. Urs Grob will support the Public Affairs consulting segment at the Zurich office as a consultant from February 1. He previously worked for several years as a PR consultant at Prime Communications. Grob studied philosophy in Zurich.
Susan Zimmermann will also be joining the Public Affairs team as a consultant. She will strengthen the advisory capacity for mandates at the interface between business and politics. After studying political science and business administration, she previously worked as a consultant at the PR consultancy Communicators (formerly Piar and Vipr).
Virginie Bonjour will be working as an associate on the national and international mandates of Burson-Marsteller's Geneva agency, which is celebrating its first anniversary this year. Bonjour studied philosophy and English and then worked as an account manager at Rochat & Partners.
Finally, Angelika Kren will join the Health Care & Science Communications segment as a research associate based in Bern, where she will take on mandates in the area of biotech communications. She holds a doctorate in biochemistry and has worked in recent years as a scientific editor and as a member of staff at the press office of the German Cancer Research Center and the European Parliament in Brussels.

 Google is also ahead in Switzerland when it comes to user tracking: out of 168 websites surveyed, 70 use the free Google Analytics service. The major media companies also use this tool. This is the result of a study by the search engine marketing agency Angelink Yourposition. It included all websites included in the Net-Metrix panel in December. According to the study, all media companies participating in this panel use Google Analytics. At Edipresse, however, the tool is only used sporadically alongside the competitor product Xiti, while Tamedia uses the Google product without exception, according to the study, and at Axel Springer only the Beobachter does without it. Ringier and SRG use a combination of different products. Despite the publishers' protests against the aggregation of content on Google News, the publishers are apparently unable to resist Google's free offer, Angelink Yourposition concludes. Even if the media companies provide the internet giant with detailed information about their visitors. Overall, the tool is used by almost exactly half of all media sites in the Net-Metrix panel. The panel includes Tamedia with 14 sites, Ringier with seven, Axel Springer with four, SRG with 13 and Edipresse with six.
However, Angelink Yourposition's investigation only covered the tools used on the user side. What is in operation on the server side cannot be seen from the outside. The study analyzed a total of 168 websites. 87 websites use a tracking tool on the client side, in seven cases several tools are used at the same time. 81 websites do not use such a tool and rely on the Net-Metrix figures or a server-side service. In addition to the 70 websites using Google Analytics, other products are at the bottom of the rankings.

 So now the infamous Danish Muhammad cartoons have made it to the museum. The twelve drawings published by the newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005 will be on display in the permanent exhibition of the Media Museum in Odense. Initially, only the newspaper print will be exhibited as an example of problems in the exercise of freedom of expression, according to the head of the Danish Museum, Erwin Nielsen.
According to SDA, eleven of the twelve original drawings will later be purchased either by the Royal Library or the Media Museum itself. Incidentally, the twelfth has already been sold at auction for the equivalent of 3270 francs.
Several months after their publication, the cartoons triggered bloody mass protests in large parts of the Islamic world. We can only hope that the calm in the halls of the media museum will not be disturbed.

The agency Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett has developed a poster campaign for the Competence Center for Intercultural Conflicts Tikk. On sports billboards, SFLB pits people from different cultures against each other, according to a press release from the agency. The result is a draw on all the boards. The Tikk competence center in Zurich is dedicated to the prevention and mediation of intercultural conflicts on behalf of schools, youth centers, authorities, companies and private individuals.
The posters can be seen from February 4, 2008 in Zurich, St. Gallen, Frauenfeld, Schaffhausen, Bern and Basel. Some of the subjects will also be shown on the e-board at Zurich main station.

Responsible at Tikk:
Hanspeter Fent (Managing Director), Peter Binz, (Association President). Responsible at Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett: Barbara Hutter (text), Karin Estermann, Katja Pucco (AD), Martin Spillmann (CD), Ivana Giannakis (consulting), Susanne Meures (art buying), image editing (Markus Graf).

The local press landscape has gained another title: the free magazine Albsuisse, which was launched at the beginning of the year, is aimed at migrants in Albanian and German on a monthly basis. The second issue of the magazine was published on Thursday with a circulation of 25,000 copies. It is published by the Balkan Migration Center (Bamiz). According to editor-in-chief Pal Shtufi, the magazine provides information from the community of around 250,000 Albanians living in Switzerland. The magazine focuses on social and educational issues as well as health concerns, according to a press release. The aim is to support the integration of migrants from the Balkans. Albsuisse also strives to work closely with all institutions that deal with migration and integration. Albsuisse is a non-profit magazine and is mainly financed by donations and sponsorship. It is distributed by post to around 17,000 Albanian-speaking households in Switzerland as well as via airlines, travel agencies, associations and companies.

 The Publisuissini collection campaign ended on Thursday. Anyone who could present a full album with the likenesses of agency dribblers was entered into the final prize draw. By lunchtime, it was clear who had been lucky. Surprisingly, even though football may be a testosterone-charged sport, three ladies were the lucky winners of the Publisuisse marketing campaign. The first prize, a VIP invitation to the Euro opening game between Switzerland and the Czech Republic, goes to Sarah Laukemann, advertising consultant at the Zurich agency Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett. A flat screen goes to Linda Nelson, media buyer at Mediacom in Zurich. And the coveted Töggeli box as third prize went to Silvia Welti, media consultant at Mediaschneider. Congratulations from Werbewoche!

Snacks In Germany, Corny is the clear number 1 and now Hero is launching the cereal bar in Switzerland. Inhalt & Form created a romantic TV commercial, the website and the accompanying promotional measures. Over the past eight years, Hero Switzerland has adapted the German commercials as required. Now, for the first time, the company has produced its own TV commercial again, as Jürg Meyer at Inhalt & Form is pleased to report. The agency won Corny's communication budget in a competitive presentation. The commercials were shot by Rosas'n'Co in South Africa.