Criticism
Discriminatory, sexist, misleading or simply untrue. Advertising that caused a furor in 2007. 
In the battle for attention, advertisers like to break taboos. This usually makes consumers smile. Nevertheless, for a few seconds of attention, the boundary of good taste is deliberately crossed again and again. Then the consumer complains. Take the Hornbach case, for example. In June, the women's magazine Annabelle included a brochure with the innocuous name "Woman at Work". In it, women advertised drills, angle grinders and double-sided adhesive tape. On closer inspection, however, the brochure revealed countless sexual innuendos. To the annoyance of many women, who then contacted the City of Zurich's Gender Equality Office. Dore Heim recalls: "The brochure irritated many women." Sex at the top of the listAlthough the number of sexist advertisements has decreased in recent years, revealing advertisements are still the cause of most complaints. Piero Schäfer from the Swiss Commission for Fair Trading: "We had to deal with almost 200 complaints last year. The majority because of sexist advertising." Piero Schäfer cannot say which campaign subjects triggered the most complaints, as the Fairness Commission does not collect statistics on this. However, an insight into the cases dealt with shows that consumers denounce advertising when there is no clear and relevant message. "Sex sells" is not accepted everywhere. In addition to the Hornbach brochure, the subjects of the fashion houses Bernies and Burger were in the crossfire of criticism. On the Bernies posters, a woman in a bad mood pours a glass of champagne in a man's face. Burger's images were scandalous because they showed pubic hair.
In addition to sex, discrimination was also used as a stylistic device to attract attention in 2007. At the end of the year, a Red Bull commercial that poked fun at the Christmas story caused a stir. In the commercial, four instead of three holy kings suddenly appear in the stable in Bethlehem. The secret is revealed: In addition to gold, frankincense and myrrh, the fourth in the bunch just happens to have a Red Bull can with him, which gives the angels wings. According to Peter Kaufmann from the television marketing company Publisuisse, many complaints were received after the first broadcast of the commercial. "That actually happens very rarely," says Kaufmann. The reason for viewers' indignation was that the Christmas story was being ridiculed too much. The commercial is causing a stir precisely because it takes the mockery of Christianity in its stride and deliberately avoids provocations against a certain other prophet in the media and advertising. According to Kaufmann, the commercial is now being discussed at Bakom.
Passugger upsets Coca-ColaIn 2007, the traditional Graubünden brand Passugger also wanted to break out of mediocrity. The mineral water attracted attention not because of ambiguous advertising or discrimination, but because of a slogan. Allegra-Mineralquellen AG advertised with "Passugger No. 1" and annoyed the fresh water strategists at Coca-Cola. The latter filed a complaint with the Fair Trade Commission because the slogan gave the impression that Passugger was the Swiss market leader. Following the decision against Passugger, the Graubünden-based company appears unimpressed and continues to advertise with "Passugger Nr.1". If Coca-Cola wants to take action against the "misleading and untrue" advertising, the company must take legal action.
Christian Lüscher?

The communications agency Freicom is reorganizing and will in future operate in the market with the two business units Freicom Communications and Freicom Projects. Roger Tinner will take over operational responsibility for the Communications division from agency co-founder Reinhard Frei in July. Tinner has been a member of the Freicom Executive Board for seven years and has also been a co-owner since 2003. Prior to that, he was Head of Public Relations at the University of St. Gallen. Reinhard Frei remains Chairman of the Board of Directors and takes over the management of the Projects division. He will also devote himself to strategic development. Co-founder Ruth Frei will concentrate on finance and accounting. The two previous heads of Event Management and PR, Reto Küng and Marc Reinhardt, will remain with Freicom Communications and support Roger Tinner in his new role.
The aim of the reorganization is to combine areas with similar tasks, as the agency announced. Freicom Communications offers integrated communications in the areas of marketing, advertising, PR and events, while Freicom Projects includes all in-house projects, such as KMU-Campus, the Wufa regional trade fair, the Komik + Ko Fabrik Festival project, as well as the location marketing division. Both business areas are based in St. Gallen, with the back office and overall management of the Group remaining in Balgach.
Freicom emerged from the company Reinhard Frei & Partner, which Reinhard and Ruth Frei founded 15 years ago. Following the acquisition of Fkp & Partner and its renaming to Freicom in 2002, one of the largest integrated communications agencies in Eastern Switzerland was created. The agency employs around 40 people. Last year, Freicom took over the Zurich agency AP&P and opened an office in Graubünden.
Picture from left to right: Roger Tinner, Ruth Frei, Head of Finance and Accounting and Reinhard Frei

 
From mid-January, they will be traveling through Zurich, Basel and Geneva alongside the other European Championship advertising gondolas: Lufthansa subsidiary Swiss will have a streetcar decorated with cheering football fans in each of the three cities. It wants to get the population in the mood for the 2008 European Football Championship and also promote itself as the "Airline For All Fans". It flies to all the countries that have qualified for the finals. For the photos, Swiss employees posed in front of the camera in fan outfits of the participating football nations. On January 14, the Geneva streetcar made its maiden voyage on the city's network. The other two streetcars were inaugurated on January 15: In Zurich, the city president Elmar Ledergerber was the godfather, while Basel's "Drämmli" was christened by Ralph Lewin, member of the Basel cantonal government. In Geneva, the streetcar runs on various lines, in Basel on line 15 and in Zurich on line 3. In addition to the streetcars, a Swiss "Hopp Schwiiz" plane has been on a similar mission in Europe since the beginning of December.

 A product film produced by Futurecom and Frame Eleven for IWC's new Da Vinci has been a success in New York: as one of two Swiss entries, it is a finalist in the Film & Video Competition 2008. The film has already received a gold and finalist award at the World Luxury Awards as well as a shortlist place at Edi.07. It is used on the IWC website, in point of sales displays and in IWC's interactive training tool worldwide. It celebrated its premiere this spring in Geneva. Futurecom was responsible for the concept and direction, Frame Eleven for production and animation.

 
As of July 1, 2008, the printing companies Birkhäuser+GBC and Birkhäuser+GBC Spezialprodukte, which previously operated as independent subsidiaries of Basler Zeitung Medien, will be merged into one company. The market presence will be under the traditional company name Birkhäuser+GBC and will include the entire range of products and services of both divisions. According to a press release issued on Tuesday, the merger is the logical consequence of a development that has been underway for some time at an administrative and operational level and has proven to be very successful. Management will remain in the hands of the two current directors Daniel Merkel (Birkhäuser+GBC) and Marcel Häsler (Specialty Products) at the Reinach site in Baselland. In the future organizational structure, Merkel, as Technical Director, will be primarily responsible for production as well as control and logistics, while Häsler, as Sales Director, will be responsible for marketing and sales.

 
In addition to traditional advertising for Michel, Euro SRCG Zurich is now also organizing below-the-line measures for the fruit juice manufacturer. The image opposite is part of a three-stage online presence for the launch of Michel Power CoffeeBerry, a new energy drink with caffeine.
Responsible at Michel: Michael Brodbeck (Head of Marketing), Fabien Morf (Product Manager) and Pascal Freudiger (Junior Product Manager). Responsible at Euro RSCG Zurich:
Jürg Aemmer (CD), Charles Blunier (AD), Barney Rees/Grit Böhme (graphics), Christian Schirmer (text), Andreas Sedmak and Desirée Guzman (consulting), Roman Emunds (strategy), Maya Iseli (art buying), Maxomedia (online) and Frank Bodin (overall responsibility).

 
Six months after the takeover of the titles Tele, TV2 and TVvier and their merger with TV-Star and the Swiss edition of TV Digital, Axel Springer Switzerland has announced that the organizational and personnel changes in the TV magazine division have been completed. As previously announced, Editor-in-Chief Gion Stecher (see ) is responsible for the overall management of the TV guides. His deputy for the entire division is Urs Padel, who is also Tele Editor-in-Chief. Deputy Editor-in-Chief Roger Kuster has taken over the management of the newly created Entertainment department, which produces content for all five titles. In addition, Roger Baur was appointed Deputy Editor-in-Chief as of January 1, 2008. He is also responsible for the new Infotainment department. This department works primarily for the flagship Tele.
Since the beginning of January, the editorial management has also included Christof Auer, who as art director is responsible for the visual appearance of the TV magazines, and Mathias Neu, who is head of copywriting for all titles. Christof Auer is responsible for the central graphics and photo editing departments, while Mathias Neu is in charge of proofreading and central program editing.

 
The new Internet pages of Swiss radio DRS have been online since Sunday. DRS 4 News and the DRS Wissen platform are now also prominently represented on the Internet. With Wissen.drs.ch, SR DRS has launched a broad range of knowledge topics that is being continuously developed. All programs can be heard live, and contributions from the archive are also available on selected topics, according to a statement on Tuesday. Last but not least, listeners can communicate with the program makers in a simple way, via direct mail to the studio, with quiz and contest entries and polls. The new Drs.ch website is designed to be clearer, more intuitive, richer and easier to use. The program content is now organized not only by program, but also by topic. The websites of the individual programs can be accessed directly at Drs1.ch, Drs2.ch, Drs3.ch, Drs4news.ch, Drsmusikwelle.ch and Drsvirus.ch. All pages contain a lot of supplementary information for further reading and listening, for example in the form of picture galleries and fact sheets. Users also have the option of browsing through the music played in the programs up to six days back

 These days, it's not only the Advertising Week that is present at Zurich's Kaufleuten, namely with the Advertising Personality of the Year party, but also the ADC together with Publisuisse. On Tuesday afternoon, the two presented the ADC Predicition, which was sponsored by the marketer. Publisuisse CEO Martin Schneider and ADC President Jean Etienne Aebi welcomed visitors to the ballroom. Afterwards, it was time to film the 120 or so TV commercials that had been submitted for the ADC judging. The visitors were able to give their tips as to which works deserved a place on the shortlist or even a cube. After the two-hour viewing marathon, the results were positive: The submissions were for the most part of a pleasing standard. The commercials for Aquapower, an offer for electricity from hydropower, were hilarious: they captivated viewers with a wife taking a shower and a gentleman of creation who provided "Aquapower" in the quiet bathroom. And if there was a prize for the longest commercial, Puma and Billag would be hot contenders. The sporting goods giant surprised viewers with two young people chugging through green landscapes on bicycles completely unclothed. Billag, on the other hand, entered the competition with an animated commercial in which electrical appliances come to life.
All works submitted for the ADC judging will be on display at the World Trade Center Zurich-Oerlikon on January 21 from 6:00 to 9:00 pm. Who the jury will shortlist or even award with precious metal will be announced at the award ceremony on January 26. It will take place in the Toni Molkerei bottling hall at Förrlibuckstrasse 109 in Zurich. The award ceremony is open to the public and registration is not necessary. The subsequent party, however, is already sold out.

The management of the Erlenbach-based agency Eclat has filled the newly created position of Chief Operating Officer (COO) with Beatrice Elsener as of the beginning of the year. Elsener has been with Eclat since 2000 and was most recently Head of Project Management. She previously worked in the advertising department at Sulzer International. In her new role, she will relieve Managing Director Daniel Zehntner. He will devote more time to creative management and strategic development, according to a press release. The reorganization was necessary because the agency, which specializes in brand consulting and communication design, has been able to significantly expand its client portfolio in recent years. Recent budget wins include Conzzeta Holding, Bâloise-Holding and Basellandschaftliche Kantonalbank in the Business Reports division.

 Publicitas is bringing in reinforcements for the greater Basel area. René Gehrig, formerly a senior executive at Tamedia, is taking over the Basel branch. Daniel Sommer, a long-standing member of the Executive Board of Basler Zeitung Medien (BZM), will soon be in charge of the Liestal branch. These new appointments are interesting in view of the fact that Basler Zeitung (BaZ) has terminated its management contract with "P" and has been operating independently since the beginning of the year. However, the intermediary obviously does not want to bury its head in the sand: "We want to send a signal that we are by no means closing up store in Basel, but are continuing to work this market very actively," says Thomas Bargetzi, CEO Sales Switzerland at the reorganized Publicitas.
However, Bargetzi added that he did not want the new appointments to be seen as a challenge to BZM: "We are simply adapting to the changed conditions. He does not want to make negative comments about the former partner on the market, "but I am not afraid of competition. May the best man win!". It had already been announced in December that Publicitas was participating in the RBB radio project, with which Christian Heeb is competing against the BZM station Basel 1, among others, in the current concession award.
René Gehrig, who will be at the helm in Basel, will take over as branch manager from February 1, initially on a part-time basis. He will be in office full-time from May. Gehrig was a member of the Tamedia management board until 2002 and has worked independently for the last five years. Daniel Sommer will also be working in Liestal from February 1. He replaces Peter Kaiser, the previous branch manager in the capital of Basel-Landschaft, who is retiring. With Sommer, Publicitas is bringing a BaZ expert on board: he was the paper's publishing director for nine years. He then worked at the Zehnder media house for almost a year. He is also already familiar with Publicitas, having worked for them before moving to BaZ, including as Publimag Director.

 
The Zurich agency Mitlinks has won the pitch launched last year by the Lake Zurich and Oberland public transport company (VZO) for the redesign of its website. The layout concept is based on the motto "Bi Land und Lüüt" and aims to adapt to people and their natural behavior, according to a press release issued on Tuesday. The content, design and functionalities are designed to be user-friendly so that visitors can find their way around quickly and easily. Mitlinks already has experience in the public transport sector. Clients such as VBZ, Zürcher Verkehrsverbund, Forchbahn, Düsseldorfer Rheinbahn and Hamburger Verkehrsverbund are among its long-standing customer base:
Adrian Suter (Marketing / Project Management). Responsibility Co-left:
Patrizia Lehmann (project management) and Lorenzo Mutti (design).