Last year, the Aargauer Zeitung reported on the criminal complaint filed by a private individual against Aargau SVP National Councillor Lieni Füglistaller. It did not omit any important information, according to the Swiss Press Council. The committee therefore rejected a complaint against three reports in the regional edition of the Aargauer Zeitung (AZ) for Freiamt. The complaint came from the same person who had filed the criminal complaint in question. In it, violations of the regulations of the canton of Aargau regarding the erection of election posters were reprimanded. The public prosecutor's office has since discontinued the proceedings.
The complainant complained to the Press Council that the AZ had not reported on all the violations mentioned in the criminal complaint. For example, it was omitted that the SVP posters for the federal elections had also been put up outside the prohibited zone.
The Press Council takes a different view: an essential part of journalistic activity consists of processing the available information and putting it into a comprehensible form. This process is "inevitably associated with a restriction to the core of the facts and the omission of details". The selection of information is basically at the discretion of the journalist.

Ruzicka trial Aleksander Ruzicka's companies were commissioned by Aegis Meida via the barter company Emerson FF.
Joachim Lüdeke, the managing director of Emerson FF, testified on Monday, January 28 in the trial against Aleksander Ruzicka and Aegis Media in Wiesbaden. Lüdeke is regarded as a key witness: according to the indictment, free spots worth 40 million euros are said to have flowed into the pockets of the defendants via the barter company he managed, and Lüdeke described the barter business as an integral part of various economic sectors. For his Emerson FF, this also included unbooked spots in TV commercials. 80 percent of the payment is made through media services such as advertisements or TV commercials.
In 2003, after initial discussions with Aleksander Ruzicka, the CEO of Aegis Media at the time, he founded the company Emerson FF. Because of Aegis Media, but not with Ruzicka, says Lüdeke. Like many other media agencies, Aegis Media was looking for new sources of income at the time due to declining budgets. After a presentation of the Emerson FF barter model to the then Aegis Media Worldwide CEO Doug Flynn in London, Ruzicka was commissioned to set up a Europe-wide barter network. Emerson FF received an annual budget of 250,000 euros from Aegis Media and became a "preferred partner". A further 50,000 euros per customer and year had been agreed. Lüdeke then presented the model to all Aegis country managers across Europe. Aegis wanted to try out the barter model, but did not want to bear the risk itself.
Lüdeke then concluded contracts with the companies Camaco and Watson, which were presented to him by Aleksander Ruzicka. "Of course these contracts were also signed," he contradicted the statement made by Ruzicka's successor Andreas Bölte. At the beginning, the contracts with Emerson FF even stated "Aegis/Camaco" or "Aegis/Watson". This is not the only reason why he assigned both companies to the Aegis Group: "Where else would the free spots come from?" said Lüdeke verbatim. The TV advertising time marketers, on the other hand, had testified the previous week that they never had any customers named Camaco or Watson. Accordingly, neither company was able to obtain any free spots directly from the TV stations. Lüdeke assumes that Aegis Media had transferred small parts of the agency-related free-spot contingents to Camaco and Watson for capitalization.
Via Camaco and Watson, free spots with a total value of around 40 million euros came to Emerson FF between 2003 and 2005 - which would only correspond to a small part of Aegis Media's free spot contingents, according to Lüdeke. When questioned by the judge, the witness explained that 25 percent of Emerson FF was held by Emerson Communications, a further 25 percent by the company Life2Solutions and 50 percent was held in trust. It had been planned that the 50 percent would later be taken over by Aegis Media. Life2Solutions was a kind of controlling company at an operational level. Emerson FF sent all reports and ex-post analyses to this company. According to Lüdeke, Aegis Media must have been involved, which is why Aegis Head of Purchasing David Linn was also responsible. Emerson FF always sent confirmations of transmission, invoices and incoming invoices directly to Aegis Media or to the managing directors of the Carat and Vizeum brands.
Lüdeke had handed over extensive notes, minutes of meetings, emails and correspondence about the Aegis board meetings, the implementation and the presentations to the public prosecutor's office. Rather casually, it became known that this was not just a file folder, the contents of which are in the court file. Lüdeke submitted a handover protocol according to which he handed over 20 folders to the public prosecutor's office on November 26, 2006. Ruzicka's defense attorney Marcus Traut saw his request for a stay of proceedings confirmed: 19 file folders had again been concealed from the defense. According to Traut, you can only inspect something that you know about. The defense also insinuated that the public prosecutor's office was acting under pressure and at the behest of Wiesbaden's largest business tax payer, Aegis Media.
Public prosecutor Jördens sharply rejected this claim: "This has no basis whatsoever." Jördens requested the dismissal of all motions for evidence. These would only serve the purpose of concealing the true subject matter of the proceedings, publicly discrediting and damaging Aegis Media. The questioning of the witnesses named by the defense was superfluous and useless. The procurement of agency agreements is also superfluous, as the content "is irrelevant for the court's decision". The German authorities had searched for the documents "that were needed for the indictment". According to Jördens, the investigation file contains all documents "that are important in the opinion of the public prosecutor's office". For public prosecutor Jördens, the "anonymous" criminal complaint by lawyer Gaedertz and Ruzicka's successor, Aegis Media CEO Andreas Bölte, was "just any piece of paper". The charges go far beyond that. It is not important whether Andreas Bölte was aware of the complaint, but rather wanted to clarify criminal offenses. The timing of the complaint is just as irrelevant as the fact that Aegis Media stood idly by for 15 months afterwards. "Aegis Media wanted to clear things up," said Jördens. The motions for evidence should be "rejected due to their insignificance". Ruzicka's lawyer Traut confirmed the relevance of the named witnesses and evidence: "You just have to recognize them", Traut said verbatim.
A letter from Aegis Media CEO Andreas Bölte dated January 28, 2008 was read out by presiding judge Jürgen Bonk. Despite his desire for clarification, Bölte did not release his company lawyer Eckart C. Hild from his duty of confidentiality - should he be questioned as a witness.
Ruzicka's defense lawyer requested that the ambassador of the Republic of South Africa in Germany be summoned as a witness. He was asked to confirm that his client did not have a passport from the country. Gaedertz and Bölte had invented this in the criminal complaint in order to provide a reason for his client's arrest - risk of flight.
Once again, no decision was made on the defense's motions to preserve evidence and to stay the proceedings.
Michael Ziesmann, Wiesbaden
Unbelievable dimensionsLocal media specialists are following the trial surrounding the former CEO of Aegis Media, Aleksander Ruzicka, who is accused of diverting benefits amounting to around 52 million euros, which were actually due to Aegis, with great interest and sometimes with mixed feelings. In the neighboring country, an entire industry is suspected of operating with criminal business methods. Well-known advertising clients have already withdrawn their orders and tax investigators are systematically combing through the books of well-known media agencies. It is not yet possible to estimate the extent of the damage to the company's image, nor whether it will be felt in Switzerland. After all, the major media agencies operate internationally.
The linchpin of the process
are the so-called freespots. Freespots are also traded in Switzerland. But in this country - at least according to the agencies contacted by Werbewoche - everything is done in accordance with the law on contracts, as regulated in Article 401 of the Swiss Code of Obligations. The client is informed at all times about bonuses to which he is entitled. There is also a landmark Federal Supreme Court ruling according to which so-called retrocessions always belong to the client. In the so-called principle market, on the other hand, which is common in the German media business, clients do not receive a transparent invoice from the media agencies that breaks down the benefits that the agency has negotiated with a medium.
Andy Lehmann, CEO of Aegis Media Switzerland,
does not wish to comment further on the case or on its former boss Ruzicka, who led a life of luxury. Stephan Küng, Managing Director of Initiative Media, on the other hand, is looking to Germany with excitement: "The case has taken on incredible dimensions." People in Switzerland live in a completely different world. "It's simply unimaginable here." The case has had no consequences for his agency. Urs Schneider, Managing Director of Mediaschneider, also speaks of an embarrassing case that he had not expected on this scale.
"We are closely following what is happening in Germany",
says Jürg Siegrist, Director of the Swiss Association of Advertisers (SWA). Siegrist is also in contact with Joachim Schütz, Managing Director of the OWM, the German organization of advertisers. He recently presented a new model on how the media business in Germany could be defused (albeit in contradiction to the second industry association OMG, which wants media agencies to be classified as a separate economic level). According to Schütz, in future agencies should only be allowed to be paid by the clients themselves. Siegrist supports this proposal. The SWA Director also sees certain consequences for Switzerland. The trilogy of client, media and marketer should be maintained, but: "As a result of the last few years, we need to have a structural debate," he explains. The SWA wants to fight for transparency and is currently examining net-net billing. This should then also bring up for discussion the consultant commissions and annual sales bonuses. Although the situation in the media business in Switzerland is fundamentally different to that in Germany, there are still individual cases in this country where a media agency, out of ignorance, makes arrangements where there are the most free spots and discounts, says Siegrist.René Worni

 The Swiss Press Council has partially upheld a complaint against the Tages-Anzeiger. In two articles about allegedly collapsing balconies in Wädenswil, Zurich, the newspaper breached its duty to consult and its duty to tell the truth. The duty to consult was breached because the newspaper published the serious allegations about construction defects without first consulting the company concerned. The Press Council stated in a press release that it had previously been assured that the managing director would be contacted after his return from vacation.
In terms of the duty to tell the truth, the Press Council criticized the title of an article. "Further balconies in Wädenswil in danger of collapsing must be renovated" was exaggerated and factually incorrect. The articles in question appeared in March 2007 in the regional edition for the left bank of Lake Zurich and in the main edition.

The legal dispute between the Beobachter and a Thurgau construction company has now also reached the Federal Supreme Court. It has ruled in favor of the consumer magazine. However, the legal dispute is not yet over. The Beobachter denounced the construction company's business practices in articles in 2004 and 2005. Following a lawsuit by the building contractors, the Arbon district court prohibited the Beobachter from publishing the allegations in 2006.
However, the Thurgau High Court came to the conclusion the following year that the disputed statements were permissible and that there was no violation of personality rights or disparagement under fair trading law. The building contractors appealed against this decision to the Federal Supreme Court, which has now dismissed their appeal. The appellants were ordered to pay a court fee of CHF 5,000. They must also pay compensation of CHF 6,000.
However, this is by no means the end of the dispute between the building contractors and the Beobachter. In 2006, the President of the Arbon District Court issued a further publication ban, which he confirmed on Tuesday (
). As the Observer announced on Wednesday, it intends to appeal against the two decisions made on Tuesday.

 
PubliGroupe I The head of Publicitas Switzerland has stopped the bonus for P Basel, which has caused unrest. 
"A report in Werbewoche on account bonification at the P branch in Basel has caused some unrest in the market. Some publishers have even contacted us to find out whether or not we are fulfilling our obligations in terms of loyalty." These are the opening words of an email that Thomas Bargetzi, CEO Sales Switzerland, sent to several publishers on January 25. He was responding to a WW article published the day before, which reported on a new type of loyalty bonus ("account bonus") from Publicitas Basel: Depending on turnover, it promised its existing customers a rebate of up to 3 percent on all advertising orders placed via P Basel. To this end, it concluded corresponding agreements.
Bargetzi emphasized that "doubts regarding our contractual compliance are unfounded". However, in order to avoid any misunderstandings, he had "decided immediately after becoming aware of and reviewing these agreements that we would no longer offer account bonification in this form".
The e-mail is revealing in several respects. It shows that the new man at the helm of Publicitas Switzerland can intervene quickly and courageously. However, the fact that he only did so after the WW article appeared, even though he had been contacted by WW a week earlier, indicates that Bargetzi learned the wording of the agreements from the article. Because he only acted after it appeared: On the morning of January 24, he declared the matter P-intern "a matter for the boss" and instructed his employees not to provide any more information. A few hours later, he ordered the bonus to be stopped. The reason can be guessed: Bargetzi, currently primarily occupied with the restructuring of P, probably only realized on 24 January that the text of the agreement did not meet his expectations. In any case, he admits in his email "that the agreements on account bonification were not implemented as originally intended".
Bargetzi's criticism of the implementation casts a skewed light on Jürg Räber, previously Director of P Basel, and his deputy Otto K. Walter - they had implemented and also signed the agreements. But it would be too cheap to hold the two long-serving employees solely responsible. After all, PubliGroupe's top management had been aware of the P Basel agreement since the end of November. Its CFO Andreas Schmidt, who is also a member of the Board of Directors of Basler Zeitung Medien (BZM), was confronted with the agreement by the BZM Board of Directors at the time. However, according to BZM CEO Beat Meyer, PubliGroupe has yet to respond. In short: Schmidt was informed, but he and the PubliGroupe management do not seem to have taken the matter seriously. But perhaps PubliGroupe is too busy with "more important things" and has lost its grip on the situation.
Either way, Bargetzi feels compelled to make it clear in his e-mail that the backdown on the bonus should not be understood as a withdrawal from Basel.
Incidentally, it is unclear how many publishers received Bargetzi's mail. But Werbewoche knows that both the recipients and those who have not been contacted include own titles and titles on P leases. It is also clear that BZM, which has been waiting a long time for an answer, has not yet been informed by Bargetzi. However, it remains to be seen what the customers who signed the contract with P Basel have to say about Bargetzi's e-mail. According to the text, the bonus agreement can be terminated at the end of 2008 at the earliest.
Markus Knöpfli

 
Market research Four times a year, the Advertising Index reveals which advertisements are particularly popular with the public. The results for the 4th quarter of 2007. 
In collaboration with the market research institute Demoscope, Publimedia presents readers of Werbewoche with an extract of the results from the Advertising Index (AX-Print) five times a year. This index is a module of the Market Radar and measures the popularity of advertisements. The three subjects that performed best in the entire sample, i.e. in all four target groups, are shown under the title "Top Three". (ww) 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Advertising Index for print advertising provides binding performance data on advertising as a whole year after year. The 500 interviewees per survey wave are psychographically calibrated. Their value orientations range from north (progressive) to south (conservative) and from west (outward-looking, materialistic) to east (inward-looking, idealistic). This shows time and time again that the different target groups are addressed very differently by the advertising campaigns. For further information on the Advertising Index and the Market Radar, please contact Demoscope on 041 375 40 00 or via www.demoscope.ch. Publimedia provides planning support with the Advertising Index, the Market Radar and the Print Advertising Monitor (PAM). (ww)?
 
 
 

PubliGroupe II On March 5, 2007, PubliGroupe was fined 2.5 million Swiss francs by the Competition Commission (Weko) «for abuse of its dominant market position.» However, as has only now come to light, PubliGroupe did not accept the Weko’s ruling. «PubliGroupe has appealed this decision to the Federal Administrative Court and continues to maintain that its conduct was never unlawful,» Thomas Bargetzi, CEO of Sales Switzerland, stated in an email to Werbewoche.Weko spokesperson Patrick Ducrey confirms that the advertising giant has appealed the case to the next higher court. In its appeal, PubliGroupe denies that it holds a dominant market position or acted abusively, he says. Consequently, PubliGroupe also considers the sanction to be unjustified. Furthermore, the case can still be appealed to the Federal Supreme Court as the court of last resort, according to Ducrey.
In the case in question, following a complaint filed by the small advertising broker Ad.X, the Weko had determined that PubliGroupe held a dominant market position with regard to the placement of advertisements in print media. According to Weko, PubliGroupe abused this position by compensating other brokers for acquiring advertisements in its own publications only if those brokers adhered to PubliGroupe’s own guidelines. However, these so-called VSW guidelines were worded in such a way that, in the Weko’s opinion, they violated antitrust law. It therefore classified PubliGroupe’s conduct toward the other brokers as generally restrictive and discriminatory.
Meanwhile, PubliGroupe has amended the VSW guidelines in agreement with the Competition Commission. They now comply with antitrust law. PubliGroupe apparently accepts this as well. In any case, Ducrey found nothing in the complaint that would call into question the reformulation of the VSW guidelines. «PubliGroupe’s complaint is primarily directed against the fine,» said Ducrey. «It contains no mention of the mutually agreed-upon solution, which has already been implemented.»
Markus Knöpfli

Placements Sometimes (due to the editorial content) advertisements are placed in positions that could not be better, even if they were booked intentionally. The telling synergy in the SonntagsZeitung of January 20 was striking. In addition to an article on the "Ospel succession" with the core statement that the Board of Directors "underestimated the loss of trust", an advertisement for Fernet-Branca appeared with the headline "Quite bitter". Naturally, this unplanned placement also appealed to Rotor, the Zurich-based communications agency responsible for the Fernet-Branca budget of its client Campari. "Mr. Ospel is the perfect brand ambassador," says Luca Santarossa. (pan)

Gemi In the Goldbach Index (Gemi), TV advertising pressure continued to grow significantly in December, rising by 5 index points to 425 (420) and setting an annual record with a total increase of 67 index points. Radio achieved a slight increase of 1 index point to 255 and an annual result of plus 3 index points. Teletext remained at 133 index points, but fell by a total of 11 index points in 2007. Following a sideways movement and the absence of data from an online marketer, Internet recorded overall growth of 24 index points to 255 in December 2007. In the month under review, the electronic media recorded an increase in advertising pressure of 3 index points to 404 (401), and a full-year result of 51 index points. The total of all media covered by Media Focus did not grow in the last month, but still increased by 16 index points to 196 in the past year.
 
 

Advertisements The dust that the P Basel account bonification raised among publishers has already settled. But some questions remain: the account bonification with which Publicitas Basel wanted to bind its customers to itself has been called off. In this respect, it would actually be superfluous to reproduce the statements that Werbewoche obtained from the surprised publishers. However, we still consider some opinions, questions and concerns to be important. Important enough, at any rate, to take them on board before the next avalanche of hasty measures and countermeasures is unleashed: none of the publishers we asked, regardless of whether they are owner-operated or leased publishers, were positive about the new bonus. Susanne Lebrument, for example, found it "basically good that the P is finally reacting to the direct booking compensation for self-published titles". However, the head of Südostschweiz-Publicitas, which has its title under partial management, is still not happy about the "power struggle between the publisher and P". "The customers' needs are being completely ignored," she criticized, adding: "It's high time everyone sat down at the same table."
Markus Ehrle, Head of Advertising Market at the NZZ, was not overly concerned. He considered the bonus - apparently rightly - to be primarily an outgrowth of the local dispute between P Basel and Basler Zeitung Medien. However, he also warned of the possibility of a "national conflagration".
The self-directed publishers were primarily concerned about their price sovereignty - and that customers could once again increasingly order via the P. The latter would cause additional costs. The latter would result in additional costs for the owner-managed publishers. This is because the commission they pay P for each advertisement it acquires is generally higher than the compensation they pay to customers who book directly. Franziska von Weissenfluh from the Berner Zeitung was therefore not happy about P's new bonus: "It's unfair. Until now, everyone has stuck to the tariffs. But with the bonus, the P would significantly undercut the prices," said the publishing director.
Marcel Siegenthaler, Head of Advertising Market at Edipresse Switzerland, has two souls in his chest. After all, Edipresse runs its own magazines, while the newspapers are leased. But Siegenthaler also spoke out against the bonus. Because as an old hand in the industry, he knows: The agency commission paid by P's own-account publishers is higher than the 3 percent bonus in most cases. But not everywhere. One or two self-publishers pay less. Nevertheless, P Basel would also have paid up to 3 percent bonuses for orders placed with these titles - and thus made a profit. "But where would it get the money for the bonus?" asked Siegenthaler - and gave the answer himself: "From the self-directed and leased publishers, of course, who pay a higher commission". However, this would lead to a "mixed commission calculation", which he disapproved of. "Publishers with a higher sales or leasing commission would then be subsidizing those with a lower one," he criticizes. For him, this would raise the question of "whether the leased titles in particular are paying P too high commissions if it can still give something back to its customers".
Markus Knöpfli

Magazines The first issue of the newly designed Du will be published at the beginning of February. The new publisher of the traditional cultural magazine is Oliver Prange. But the new editor-in-chief of Du is also no stranger: Zurich native Walter Keller has made a name for himself in the cultural sector as publisher of Scalo, as initiator of the Winterthur Photo Museum and as editor of various bestsellers such as "Dumm und dick". Euro RSCG shows just how many creative surprises there are in the new you with another really lively poster. 

 
Mediafocus Compared to the previous year, advertising pressure rose by 2.8% in December 2007; 8.8% cumulatively for 2007. The energy advertising market saw the strongest growth (+92.4%). Cosmetics grew by 33.6 percent in December. The financial sector lost 15.9 percent. The biggest negative trend was recorded in the image sector. Unimpressed by the mortgage crisis were: Investment products (+12.6 percent); Insurance (+60.0 percent) and Pension products (+139.3 percent). Political campaigns (+34.3%) showed a clear increase. TV and radio saw above-average growth. Accumulated for the whole of 2007, TV and the Internet also increased.