Jung von Matt/Limmat has been awarded the contract to manage Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts following a competitive presentation. As of January 1, 2008, the Zurich-based agency will take over the lead for brand management and implement a global image campaign, which will be deployed from the second half of 2008, according to a press release issued on Wednesday. Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts is an international Swiss hotel chain in the market for 4- and 5-star resort hotels and business/airport hotels. Steven Nikolov, Senior Vice President Sales and Marketing, is looking forward to the collaboration with JvM/Limmat, which was unanimously chosen. The work was convincing with its strategic use of Swissness. The hotel chain would like to interpret Swiss values such as hospitality, service, safety and high quality in a modern way and use them to its advantage.
 
According to the press release, the first works will be on display from January 2008. 

Marc Jäggi will present the morning show on Radio 1 together with Irina Hollander (see ). Jäggi has been a producer at DRS 1 since 2007 and was previously a presenter and head of presentation at Radio 24. Roger Schawinski comments on this new addition: "I have long hoped for such a dream combination: two experienced, witty and savvy presenters who will drive each other to peak performance. "According to a press release on Wednesday, Jäggi will take up his post on March 1, 2008 and will therefore be in time for the official start of broadcasting on March 17.
 
Oli Dischoe is also joining the station. The 24-year-old has worked at Radio 24 for the past two years. He gained his first radio experience as an editor at Radio Top. Schawinski is also looking forward to this new face: "At just 24 years old, Oli Dischoe has a remarkable wealth of radio experience. He brings an additional element to our editorial team."
Gina Kern will also support the editorial team on a part-time basis. She has worked at Tele Züri, Blick, Sonntagsblick and most recently at Radio Argovia. Schawinski: "I'm looking forward to working with Gina again, who already did an outstanding job years ago."
 
 

 After the internet giant Google announced a few days ago that it would be venturing into the field of internet encyclopaedias and thus challenging Wikipedia for the throne (see ), the user-fed knowledge disseminator is now striking back. Wikipedia is planning to launch its own search engine. "I want to develop a search engine whose algorithm is accessible to everyone," Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales told Die Zeit. At the moment, all search engines are closed systems, each owned by one company. These companies decide for themselves how they rate websites and therefore influence how we should see the world. As users, we have no idea how this happens. That is why Wikipedia now wants to involve Internet users in the work on a wiki search engine. If users are not satisfied with the search result because the pages listed at the top are poor in terms of content, they can mark the page as spam in future. If the page is marked in this way by several people, it will then end up in the trash. Wales said that this would gradually improve the search engine.

 In the meantime, the news has reached even the furthest reaches of the valleys: Switzerland has a new Federal Councillor. Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, a former member of the cantonal government of Graubünden who until recently was completely unknown to the majority of the Swiss people, accepted her election to the highest Swiss political body last Thursday after a deliberation period of around 18 hours. Since then, her profile has risen by the minute. This is not only due to her television appearances and press interviews, but also her proactive behavior in modern social networks. On Facebook, for example. Only around three hours after Widmer-Schlumpf was elected as the successor to Justice Minister Christoph Blocher by a majority of the united Federal Assembly on Wednesday, the woman from Graubünden already had her own Facebook profile, complete with full contact details and generous contact behavior. In no time at all, the woman from Felsberg had built up an impressive circle of virtual friends. Of course, everyone suddenly wanted to be friends with the new Federal Councillor. However, her new hobby harbors a risk that should not be underestimated: Facebook is already costing the British economy more than 200 million euros a day (see ). Hence the question: what consequences does a member of government addicted to the community network have for the Swiss economy? Have Blocher's voters smurfed themselves an economic problem with Eveline Widmer? Or is Papa Schlumpf Leon behind the action? Or perhaps the Gargamels and Azraels of the Zurich SVP? Questions upon questions.

 The volume of advertisements in Swiss daily newspapers fell by 3.5 percent to CHF 105.99 million in November, as reported by Wemf on Wednesday. While advertisements fell by 7.4 percent, job advertisements increased by 7.2 percent compared to the same month last year. The Sunday press recorded a 15.7 percent increase in advertisements. The financial and business press saw an increase of 17.4 percent.
The volume of advertising in the general press was 8 percent down on the previous year in franc terms. The specialty press and the trade press each recorded a 3.5 percent drop in volume.

 The European Excellence Awards were recently presented in Berlin. This award, organized by the trade magazine Communication Director, is presented by a jury of 30 communication specialists to the best European work in the field of communication. Among other things, the Agency of the Year was chosen from around 600 applicants. This prize was won by the international public relations and public affairs agency Burson-Marsteller. The global network comprises 57 branches and 46 affiliated offices. The company was founded in the USA in 1953 and is represented in Switzerland with offices in Zurich, Bern and Geneva.Hear the World magazine, published by the Swiss hearing and radio system manufacturer Phonak, also won an award. The magazine is the first lifestyle magazine on the subject of hearing and won the prize for "External Publication". Hear the World is a global initiative by Phonak to raise awareness of hearing and hearing loss. Since January 2007, the magazine has highlighted various facets and the fascination of hearing.

 The succession plan for Tarkan Özküp and Marco Genepretti at Radio 24 and TeleZüri has been determined: Andrea Hämmerli-Ott will take over the commercial management, Philip Hofmann will become sales manager. Andrea Haemmerli-Ott will take up her post on February 1, 2008. She will be responsible for sales and marketing and will report directly to Rolf Bollmann, Head of the Media Zurich & North-Eastern Switzerland division. Haemmerli-Ott worked in various functions for Eurosales and Eurosport from 1992 until the birth of her daughter in 2004, according to Tamedia. Among other things, she managed the Zurich branch of the television broadcaster, built up a Europe-wide marketing organization for interactive media and took over the management of the Eurosport branch in Munich in 2002. Philip Hofmann will be responsible for the sale of Radio 24 and TeleZüri from February 1, 2008. Hofmann worked at IP Multimedia in Küsnacht from 2003 to 2007, most recently as Head of Account Management TV. Before that, the 31-year-old worked as Key Account Manager for Goldbach Media and for the TV station TV3. Hofmann already knows Tamedia from his commercial apprenticeship, which he completed from 1994 to 1997 at the former TA-Media AG.
In November, it was announced that Tarkan Özküp, the previous Head of Marketing and Sales, was leaving the two channels. Shortly afterwards, station marketer Belcom also had to accept the announcement of Marco Genepretti's departure. He had taken over as Head of Marketing and Sales ad interim (see
).

 Since mid-November, AOL has been offering a regional portal in Switzerland with free web services and news. The Goldbach Media subsidiary Adlink Media Switzerland is now marketing the Aol.ch online platform exclusively. In addition to classic display advertising, it is also possible to advertise in AOL's Instant Messenger or in the Photo Service area, for example. Adlink Media is also active as a marketer for AOL in Austria, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands. AOL Europe offers online services in eleven European countries in the areas of entertainment, community, e-mail, free software and news.

 The publisher-owned television network PresseTV and Ringier are following through on their threat to sue the program «Kassensturz»: The two parties have jointly filed a complaint with the ombudsman’s office. They had already announced in late November that they were considering legal action (see ). According to a press release, PresseTV and Ringier have now determined, following a thorough review, that a licensing violation has occurred. They object that the «Kassensturz» episode aired on November 27, 2007, misled viewers regarding the Swiss Cancer League’s financial involvement in the «Cancer Gala.» The report also falsely gave the impression that Ringier had enriched itself in an unethical manner at the expense of a charitable organization. PresseTV and Ringier allege that the principle of accurate reporting was violated and that they were thereby harmed and discredited by false claims. As a result, «Kassensturz» caused the Cancer League serious financial damage overall.

 
The Valora management, which is under fire from shareholders, could see further changes in leadership if a majority of shareholders follow the brash course of Adriano Agosti's group. Since taking over a large block of shares in mid-October, the Group has already managed to get Chairman of the Board Fritz Ammann to resign at the end of November under increasing pressure. However, the Board of Directors apparently does not want any further personnel changes, as it announced on Monday that it would not support Agosti's election to the Board of Directors at the upcoming Annual General Meeting. According to an interview with Bilanz on Tuesday, however, Agosti is sticking to his goal of being elected to the BoD, along with the two candidates he has put forward, Rolando Benedick and Markus Fiechter. "My goal is to be on the Valora Board of Directors." He added that he and the two other candidates complemented each other in terms of their expertise and believed that the three candidates would receive broad support from shareholders. When asked about CEO Peter Wüest, Agosti said that the position of CEO should also be questioned. "The company has had operational problems for years, which has to do with the Board of Directors and top management, among other things." Contact has already been made with potential top managers. The new Board of Directors of the Bern-based kiosk group Valora will be appointed at the end of January.

 
In November, the international "Ziegler's Best Art & Print Work" award was presented for the fourth time. The award honors print objects that were realized wholly or partially on the creative papers of the Swiss company Ziegler Papier during the past year. This year, the jury judged over 200 works. The award ceremony took place at the AVO Session Club in Basel. The Startbahnwest agency provided communications support for the entire award, from February 2007 to December 2007, and also implemented the award ceremony event. The "Art & Print" logo of Ziegler Papier was at the center of the communicative implementation.
Responsible Ziegler Paper:
Susanne Imber. Responsible at Startbahnwest: Hartmut Vetter (Strategic Planning), Zoe Maritz and Yves Burgener (Consulting), Rüdiger Flothmann (CD), Christine Manger (AD), Stefano Di Giusto (DTP). Partner: Alex Colle (photographer).

 
Since December 18, Abendzeitung Heute has also been offering its community services for mobile devices. Heute users can access over 19,000 user profiles, send and receive messages and send a message to singles from the newspaper not only via the Internet, but also via cell phone. The new service works without any annoying additional software or hidden costs, according to the press release issued on Tuesday. Only the data transfer costs of the mobile phone provider are incurred. An Internet browser is required on the cell phone. Anyone who is logged into the Today community with their cell phone can also immediately see which users are currently online. A message can be sent to any user - whether online or offline - via cell phone; if the recipient is not online, the message is saved.