The criticism of the new Monday evening quiz "Zart oder Bart?" has consequences: Presenter Tania Kummer is throwing in the towel. This was reported by the TV magazines TV-Star and Tele in an advance report. Just two weeks ago, SF announced drastic changes to the quiz, but the presenter was to stay on - with a reduced appearance. Now she is pulling the emergency brake herself. "I have realized that working in front of the camera is not the right thing for me," she tells the two TV magazines. However, she will continue to work for the show in the background. Swiss Television confirmed the announcement in a communiqué on Wednesday morning. SF is also making some other changes to the show: In future, only four instead of six candidates will compete for the day's win. The maximum prize money is now 40,000 francs. There will also be a different game mode. The changes are a reaction to the lack of success with viewers, SF announced.

 
With regard to the new round in the battle of the free papers, media experts agree that sooner or later one newspaper will fall victim to the fierce competition. Sacha Wigdorovits, publisher of .ch, is of the opinion that there is only room for two free newspapers in German-speaking Switzerland. He is convinced that only .ch and 20 Minuten can survive. These are the two best products. According to SDA, he therefore assumes that the competition from News, which has been published since Wednesday, will primarily affect 20 Minuten. This is due to the fact that they have the same distribution channels in the centers of public transport. .ch, on the other hand, is also displayed in front of private house entrances.

 
Games Viral marketing is used to spread advertising like a virus, but this is no longer enough for advertisers - new ideas are needed. 
You've seen it before. An email lands in your inbox with a link to a funny video. The content makes you smile and is immediately forwarded to friends. It's all just advertising. The often poorly shot 30-second films are basically clever commercials that spread like a virus due to the way they are made. That's where the name of this form of advertising comes from: viral marketing - the random distribution of such films is no longer enough for advertisers, as users are literally flooded with so-called virals. Viral inflation has made many users immune. Now the viralists among the advertisers are looking for new ways to infect the masses with advertising. They are pinning their hopes on the still young genre known as Alternate Reality Gaming (ARG for short) (see:
Robbers and gendarme
An ARG is basically a clever information scavenger hunt that takes place both on the web and in the real world. As many media as possible - from posters to telephones - are included in the game. The boundaries between reality and fiction are fluid. So far, such campaigns have only been launched in the USA. Gradually, however, advertisers in Europe are also discovering the game, which draws on various media. One of them has been causing a stir in the German-speaking Internet world for a few days now.
Hidden USB stick in pizza
Matthias Schlecker recently had a pizza delivered even though he hadn't ordered one. Between the salami and extra cheese, the university lecturer finds a USB data carrier and becomes suspicious. It shows him an elaborately produced movie without a plot on his laptop. A reference to the Internet site Push11.com leads him to a sequel to the movie. This in turn refers to a room in a Berlin city hospital. Matthias Schlecker is not the only one to be shown a glimpse into a confused world. Eleven others are currently receiving this unexpected gift. It is interesting to note that all the recipients are active on internet blogs and write about crime novels.
The story surrounding the mysterious video is becoming increasingly bizarre. New clues emerge. The sender of the messages is now also known: a boy suffering from a brain tumor with the pseudonym Horatio. His short messages set the web community's brains racing. With an invitation to his birthday party, the mysterious character even keeps the players in suspense.
real world on the go.
Tracks to Switzerland
The story of the mysterious boy fills hundreds of websites within a few days. The insights into his life mobilized people to discuss the boy's fate on forums. In the meantime, the traces even lead to Switzerland. Dr. Johann Tiefensee, reincarnation researcher and guest lecturer at the Psychological Institute of the University of Zurich, treats the patient. The website Wer-bin-ich.org provides information about the work of the German researcher. Interestingly, the researcher works together with the Swiss advertising agency Angelink. They developed the Hypnotizer for him, which they describe as a tool for depth psychology. Not entirely unimportant: Angelink is regarded as a leading agency when it comes to viral marketing.
What reads like a thriller here is actually an alternate reality game. A cleverly staged marketing campaign in the form of a multimedia scavenger hunt. The web community doesn't mind that advertisers have their fingers in the pie. Although it is clear to the amateur detectives that "Push11" is a fictitious story, which in principle quietly and secretly advertises something, people puzzle over it every day. Forum and weblog entries suggest that "Push11" must be the launch of a new movie or crime thriller.
Angelink Managing Director Markus Gabriel is enthusiastic about the game. The online expert says: "It's a very interesting approach that we are seeing in this game. The campaign is in line with the current of the participatory web." The viral specialist knows whose handwriting the "Push11" project bears, but doesn't want to be a spoilsport and give the creators away. He and his team contributed the Hypnotizer to the campaign. Gabriel sees new opportunities for advertising in alternate reality games because the game format, which has become popular in the USA, plays on the entire media keyboard: "In principle, there are no limits to creativity." However, he assumes that such scavenger hunts will only become an issue in Switzerland in two years' time. Gabriel: "Unfortunately, Swiss companies are not yet ready for such activities, even though they could easily finance them from their expense accounts."
Christian Lüscher
Status quo of viral marketingThe power of viral spots is waningA year ago
there was a gold-rush atmosphere around the term viral marketing. Advertisers saw low production costs and many times lower media costs in the crazy 30-second films. Today, advertisers are more critical of the discipline that can apparently bring advertising content to the people so easily and cleverly. Viral marketing specialists speak of inflation, as video platforms such as YouTube are virtually bombarded with thousands of commercials every day. The majority of these films end up as so-called clip corpses without having attracted any attention. 
As the expert Dan Ackerman Grennberg
writes on the Techcrunch web blog, viral marketing has now become a tough business. Advertisers often use questionable methods in the daily battle for attention. Users are deceived under pseudonyms, forums are manipulated or credible bloggers are bought for recommendations. Deceptive maneuvers are the order of the day. Roland Kühl von Puttkamer of the advertising blogger team summarizes the development: "Viral marketing threatens to become a dirty advertising bomb. Advertisers should not be surprised if consumers no longer trust not only online advertising, but also the producers of Web 2.0." Markus Gabriel from the Angelink advertising agency
who specializes in viral marketing, says: "Top Swiss agencies and clients still know little about viral mechanisms." It is naïve to think that uploading a funny little film to a video platform has anything to do with viral marketing, summarizes Gabriel. User Generated AdvertisingSupervirals.com does that

what an advertising agency does for a living. They conceive and realize good ideas. Companies can post a briefing for a viral campaign on Supervirals.com. Anyone who feels inspired to realize a spot can take part in the competition. If the original idea meets the requirements of the briefing, the winning entry will receive a prize. The German-language version of this idea is called Moviebakery.com. Instead of prizes, however, the video bakers from Cologne reward the amateur directors with money. The results of such platforms have already caused brand strategists a lot of stomach ache. Last year, a participatory campaign by Chevrolet went completely off the rails. Environmental activists did not miss the opportunity and produced several cynical commercials, which led to heated debates and hot heads about the sense and nonsense of such advertising experiments. (cl)

 
Column Are we ready to sacrifice our enthusiasm for sport on the altar of moral indignation? Now should be the time for the last remaining therapeutic proposal. 
Morally, we are becoming more and more indignant about exposed doping offenders. Recently, the "end of a princess" in tennis (NZZ am Sonntag) spoiled at least our weekend. In cycling, we suffer months of endless horror and fear the boredom of next summer without the Tour de France in the mass media. And what happens when, in the battle between China and the rest of the world, clean sport will predictably only ever run behind? Why are the athletes doing this to us? Why doesn't sport do anything about it? Why do companies still sponsor sport despite all this? Let's start with the answer to the last question: because sport sponsorship works. It is an effective communication tool for brands in competition. There is hardly a cheaper way to achieve high reach. And in no other environment is brand communication so well received by the target groups. They place more trust in brands that successfully engage in sports sponsorship, turn into more satisfied customers and even buy more. A recent scientific study by the University of Basel confirmed this beneficial relationship for brands.
Of course, there are conditions for such success that can be summarized under the title "professional strategic sports sponsorship": A positive relationship between the brand and the sponsored party as well as comprehensive and broad utilization of the commitment. And then there is the positive assessment of the sponsorship by the target groups addressed. If we start here, our moral indignation could of course curb the enthusiasm of the sponsors. There are also isolated cases of individual sponsors pulling out in a hurry. In general, however, a well thought-out and differentiated reaction over a longer period of time prevails. Why is that? Because sports sponsorship has equally attractive effects that cannot and should not be relinquished lightly. Essentially, because moral consternation has by no means had any effect on the behavior of all of us.
We prefer to make do by looking at others. The term "doping offender" is the most digestible way out. The individual offender frees us from any compulsion to act. Once the individual sinner has been caught, we can turn our attention back to collective pleasure. We devote our attention and enthusiasm to the good athletes. And we are still doing this in growing numbers with increasing economic effects. At the regulars' table, everything is back to normal.
However, if the individual cases of sin accumulate to such an extent that even a massive turning of the blind eye does not help, then we continue the discussion in the talk shows. The athlete mutates sympathetically from perpetrator to victim. We then pillory the sports organizations. They simply do too little to keep the evil at least far enough away from us so that we can pursue our pleasure largely undisturbed. Sports bureaucrats with their inability or unwillingness are the problem. This is certainly a rewarding perspective, because there is hardly any evidence to prove the opposite of their inability or unwillingness. But little helps little.
Then all that remains is for the state to enable us to continue enjoying clean sport in the future. We are probably in this therapeutic phase right now. The optimism with which this solution is viewed is astonishing. Astonishing, because at least one or two states have long since been convicted of systematic collective doping. All history? Everything only possible in the former Eastern Bloc? Shouldn't one or the other state really also be of the opinion that the end (winning the national competition) justifies the means, and therefore benevolently tolerate performance-enhancing means as a contribution to ensuring fairness in international competition? In any case, this therapeutic approach will have to undergo a dramatic endurance test at the latest with the opening of the Olympic Games in China.
So there is a danger that we will end up back with ourselves. Are we even prepared to sacrifice our enthusiasm for sport on the altar of moral indignation? Our seemingly escalating indignation over the supposedly excessive payment of athletes is obviously fueling our consumption of sport. We don't let the outrage about violence in sports arenas stop us either; we simply ask for police protection on a scale that is obviously reaching its limits. So now should be the time for the last remaining therapeutic proposal on the subject of doping, which is also put forward from time to time by individual outsiders, albeit usually behind closed doors: "Legalize it!" Effect instead of morality.
Jürgen Häusler is CEO of the Interbrand, Zintzmeyer and Lux Group and an honorary professor at the University of Leipzig.

 Another canton has expressed its disapproval of free advertising spots from political parties. Granting free airtime is not a suitable measure for ensuring a fair referendum campaign, the Nidwalden cantonal government wrote in a press release on Wednesday. Free airtime is an indirect form of party funding and only covers radio and television, the government continued. It also fears that the parties could demand that the cantons provide means of communication free of charge. The statement refers to the proposal of a National Council committee to grant free airtime for short advertising spots on certain radio and television programs to parties with a strong faction in the Federal Assembly as well as to initiative and voting committees.

 On December 3, four institutions founded the sponsoring body for the new federal certificate "Text and Concept Specialist". The aim is to enable a standardized professional examination in the Swiss advertising copywriting world. The initiators are the Swiss Advertising Association SW, the Swiss Copywriters' Association Script, the cantonal vocational school for further education EB Zurich and the Fédération romande de publicité et de communication FRP. The newly founded organization must present its national anchoring with a package of documents to the Federal Office for Professional Education and Technology OPET in Bern. This is the contact point for new projects in the area of occupational profiles. In the second phase, various experts develop the new examination and implementation regulations.
The job description has great potential, writes Swiss Advertising in a press release. Advertisers and clients in the advertising, communication and marketing industry are looking for qualified specialists. The Swiss Advertising SW office is the hub for the development of the specialist certificate planned for 2010.

 The regional broadcaster Radio Basilisk submitted an application for a new broadcasting license to the Federal Office of Communications (Bakom) on Wednesday. As the most listened to private broadcaster in the region of northwestern Switzerland, the chances of renewing the license are good, writes Radio Basilisk in a statement. The channel, which has belonged to Martin Wagner since recently, already fully complies with the provisions of the new Radio and Television Act and the requirements of the Bakom. Bakom is issuing new invitations to tender for three licenses in Basel: Two with performance mandate for commercial radio, one with performance mandate and fee share for a complementary, non-profit program.

 
Marketer Ringier is set to become PubliGroupe's main competitor in the online sector. According to CEO Martin Werfeli, Ringier is killing three birds with one stone with the takeover of the Media Swiss Group: Firstly, the largest Swiss media company is now playing a leading role in the Swiss online market, he said on his own website. Secondly, Ringier will become the leader in the classifieds market. And thirdly, Ringier could use its new know-how to expand internationally. What Werfeli does not say is that as a media company that previously only marketed its own media, Ringier is now taking a major step into third-party business - primarily online, but also in the print sector. The large PubliGroupe group is thus stepping into the garden. This is likely to change the market order in Switzerland.
But first things first: The Media Swiss Group, which Ringier is now acquiring 80 percent of, will generate sales of around CHF 75 million this year. It is based on three pillars: Firstly, there is the wholly-owned subsidiary Media Swiss AG, which is active in the search sector and produces advertising-financed location and city maps. The second pillar is the wholly owned subsidiary XMedia, which develops online marketplaces and offers the online-to-print tool Mediamanager for publishers in particular. It is one of the most important competitor tools to PubliGroupe's Publisherconnect. The third pillar is Scout24's online marketplaces, the group with the highest turnover and earnings in this area in Switzerland.
The Media Swiss Group holds 49.9 percent of this, with Deutsche Telekom owning the remainder. Thanks to around 85 white label partners and the "family members" AutoScout24, ImmoScout24, JobScout24 and FriendScout24, the Scout24 Group has an enormous reach. Via Mediamanager, there are also connections to all major publishing houses, from large daily newspapers to small advertisers. The network is therefore as broad as that of PubliGroupe. In future, Ringier will skim off a portion of the (online) classified advertising revenue of all affiliated publishers, which is likely to put more than just P-related publishers in a dilemma.
And another advantage for Ringier: the Media Swiss subsidiaries Xmedia and Scout24 have never published their own print products. This has always been the core business of the publishing houses. Ringier now has this opportunity wherever there is a print gap in the classifieds market.
Markus Knöpfli

 In Basel, too, a fierce battle is emerging for the radio licenses to be redistributed. Former Radio Basilisk founder Christian Heeb is now also in the race. His concept envisages a local radio station with a 50 percent share of spoken word and a round-the-clock editorial team. "RBB - Radio that offers more Basel" is the claim that Heeb presented at a media conference on Wednesday. With his concept, he is applying for one of the two concessions put out to tender in Basel for a local radio station with a performance mandate without fees. According to the license application, RBB is to be a radio station for a "responsible audience". The core task is the procurement, processing and dissemination of information, and the financing of the station, for which the former editor-in-chief of the Basellandschaftliche Zeitung Franz C. Widmer and former Ringier TV boss Hans Jürg "Fibo" Deutsch are also involved, is to be financed exclusively through advertising and sponsorship income. PubliGroupe, which is responsible for generating these revenues, holds a 25 percent stake in the parent company "Medien für Erwachsene".
The current license holders in the Basel region are Radio Basilik and Radio Basel 1. When asked by SDA, Basilisk program director Raphael Suter was unimpressed by Heeb's proposal: "We have a track record," he said dryly.

  The private broadcaster Tele Ostschweiz (TVO) has submitted a license application to the Federal Office of Communications (Bakom) for the coverage area of Eastern Switzerland. The broadcaster, which belongs to St. Galler Tagblatt AG, is hoping to receive a fee share of CHF 2.2 million from the license. The license application comprises 350 pages, as Tele Ostschweiz reported according to SDA. The broadcaster has completely overhauled its program concept. During prime time between 6 and 7 p.m., it will only broadcast in-house produced programs from the region.
The supply area of Eastern Switzerland comprises the cantons of St. Gallen and Appenzell as well as the Thurgau districts of Arbon and Bischofszell.
According to the new Federal Radio and Television Act (RTVA), only one license is granted per region. The license is linked to a performance mandate.

 
Shadow economy The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco) has launched a major campaign against undeclared work with cR Basel. 
The student from Romania is very nice and uncomplicated. She spruced up the apartment on the Zürichberg for the expected guests in three hours. The sprightly pensioner from Emmental knows a thing or two about nature. He cuts the trees for the whole neighborhood every autumn.
Such subtle but not always small-scale undeclared work is part of the shadow economy, with which around CHF 39 billion or 9 percent of Switzerland's gross domestic product is smuggled past the tax authorities and social security funds every year. Too much, says the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (Seco). This is why the law to combat undeclared work is needed. This will come into force on January 1, 2008.
The new law will be introduced and then accompanied for at least three years by a broad-based awareness and information campaign. This was personally recommended to the media at the beginning of this week by the Federal Councillor responsible, Doris Leuthard. The cantons, associations and trade unions are also actively involved in the information campaign. The campaign is being designed by cR Basel. The agency won the contract following a multi-stage pitch in which Seco initially invited 20 agencies. The budget for the three-year plan is CHF 3.5 million. Thanks to the federal government's 50 percent discount with the Swiss media, the campaign will have a projected value of around CHF 5 million. The strategy also requires the campaign to use the media as a multiplier. The advertisers at cR Basel have therefore not only "invested extremely heavily in PR", but have also designed their ideas in such a way that they can trigger suggestions for further reports in the press and on radio and television. This is expected to have an informative effect similar to the major Stop AIDS campaign. With this combination of social marketing and "marketing thinking", cR Basel probably has the best reference for this federal mandate. "We sell education against undeclared work like a product," say Managing Directors Peter Frey and Daniel Bürgi. In this case, this product is called "legality" for the advertisers.
cR Basel is responsible for the concept, editing and web design of the campaign against undeclared work. Various posters, advertisements, banners, brochures and logos were realized. The website www.keine-schwarzarbeit.ch serves as the central hub for all further activities relating to the campaign. This was realized in collaboration with the Federal Office of Technology.
Undeclared work is not a trivial offense, although it is practiced in all circles. Those who work illegally are cheating themselves, as they are forgoing the wages they are entitled to and the protection of social insurance, said Leuthard. Anyone who works illegally or employs illegal workers is also defrauding the state, society and legitimate competitors.
Despite this explosive issue, the campaign does not want to point a warning finger. The law works with a mixture of incentives, repression and education and obliges the cantons to set up a cantonal control body. For example, a simplified accounting procedure is introduced for small salaried incomes. This is intended to lower the inhibition threshold for whitewashing undeclared work. The campaign also aims to build a bridge to new action. To this end, cR Basel works on three levels: Raising awareness, education, action.
It was clear early on that the complex problem could not be solved with a visual idea. The creative team therefore opted for purely textual communication, concentrating on the poster. Concise, but without slogans. A "freestyle language" must be able to transcend all forms. Printed on numerous gadgets such as caps, double meters or pencils, the texts should also find their way to the audience.
It is also important that associations such as Unia or Gastrosuisse can click into the campaign. For them and for Seco, cR is not just an advertising agency, but also a strategic partner.
Andreas Panzeri

One week before the Federal Council elections, the WOZ resorts to special satirical means: The fictitious SVP newspaper Der Schweizer appears as a "Sonderbund". The WOZ is thus picking up on the SVP's statement that it will launch a daily newspaper if Christoph Blocher is voted out of office. Now that the first edition of this newspaper is already on the market, nobody has to fear Blocher's departure, says the WOZ. What's more, everyone would benefit from it: The SVP could save itself the trouble of launching the newspaper, the parliamentarians would be spared the threat and the population would be spared another Blocher term of office. The Schweizer is the first Bund to be enclosed with the WOZ and can also be bought at newsstands - and some buyers will be surprised when the WOZ appears behind the right-wing paper. The eight-page supplement deals in woodcut style with topics such as "climate-friendly nuclear power plants", a new Red/Green damage list, secret camps of Romanian thieves and working mother Sandra Studer. Authors with illustrious names such as Traugott Hösli, Silvia Heidi Blöchlinger and Henriette Hunkeler were at work. In the best Weltwoche style, a "Diary of the Editor-in-Chief" is emblazoned on the last page. The newspaper appears complete with abotalon and advertising for an initiative calling for the "abolition of foreign countries".