The Austria Press Agency (APA) and the Swiss News Agency (SDA) are taking over the Swiss picture agency Keystone. The previous main shareholders of Keystone, Walter Grolimund and Thedy Hummel, have agreed to a sale as of January 1, 2008. The purchase price was not disclosed. The current CEO Walter Grolimund will remain with the photo agency as operational Chairman of the Board of Directors. The Austrian APA is taking over 60 percent of the shares in Keystone, SDA 40 percent. "The fact that we are only taking over a minority stake is ultimately a financial issue," said SDA editor-in-chief Bernard Maissen when asked by Werbewoche. APA has a completely different strategy and has been growing for several years through acquisitions, but so far on a national level. "We have regulated our concerns contractually with APA," says Maissen. In addition to the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Walter Grolimund, two members of the management of SDA and two members of the management of APA will sit on the Board of Directors of Keystone in future. "This will allow us to exert influence," explained the SDA editor-in-chief. In addition, a partnership-based relationship is maintained with APA.
The two news agencies have agreed to continue Keystone as an independent company with the current management and staff. With this takeover, SDA wants to secure its entry into the image business, while APA wants to continue its international growth strategy. Both agencies are convinced that the image will continue to gain in importance in the future.
Thanks to the takeover of Keystone, SDA intends to give "very serious thought" in future to whether it also wants to become active in the area of video for online portals, as Maissen went on to explain. However, it is not conceivable that the video offering will take on the scope of the basic service for the media. "That would only be a small part of our offering," said Maissen.
The Keystone photo agency was founded in 1953. In 1990, Thedy Hummel and Walter Grolimund took over the majority of shares. Walter Grolimund has headed the agency as CEO ever since. Keystone supplies almost all Swiss media and also counts advertising agencies and companies among its clients. It also includes the press photo service Photopress. According to Keystone, it generates sales of around CHF 15 million with 90 employees at eleven locations.
Hans-Heinrich Coninx, former Chairman of the Tamedia Board of Directors and current Chairman of the SDA Board of Directors, is satisfied with the acquisition: "This takeover is very important for SDA and the Swiss media, and we are very happy with this solution."

Since early summer, the insurance company Axa Winterthur has been advertising with the brand message "You love it. We insure it". The Zurich agency Krieg Schlupp Bürge/Springer & Jacoby derived a hug concept from this: for example, a car enthusiast hugs his horsepower sled. The embrace is now open to everyone: Ads and radio spots invite people to take pictures of the object of their love and upload them to the website Sie-lieben-es.ch. "The response to this cross-media campaign has been very good," says Uwe Schlupp from KSB/SJ. After a week, the online gallery contains around 500 hug pictures from around 600 users who have registered from all over Switzerland. "The photos are great proof that the campaign is well known and popular with the public," says Schlupp.
Strikingly, while the KSB/SJ ads advertise unusual objects of love such as punching bags or cars, consumers mainly upload pictures of loved ones or animals to the website. "To attract attention, we naturally had to focus on surprising objects for the campaign. However, it is to be expected that people are particularly interested in their loved ones or pets," explains Schlupp.
The photos can be rated by users, with the ten most popular winning CHF 1,000 and being published on a national double-page ad in mid-December. The campaign will run until December 6 and will be accompanied by two radio spots, national advertisements and online advertising. In addition, special advertisements can be seen in free newspapers: A heart appearing prominently in the editorial section, simply labeled with the address Sie-lieben-es.ch, is intended to attract readers to the photo page.
Responsible at Axa Winterthur:
Markus Keller (Head of Marketing), Mélanie Diserens (Head of Advertising and Branding), Linda Demuth (Junior Manager Advertising and Branding). Responsible at KSB/SJ: Uwe Schlupp (Creative Direction), Robin Strebel (Art Direction), Beat Egger (Text), Christoph Bürge (Consulting Management), Ray Immoos, Monika Gut (Consulting), Nadia Bachmann (DTP), Mathias Zuppiger (Photo), Technical Implementation: Include 7, Lithographer: RTK Kloten, Media: Initiative Media Western, Radio production: Jingle Jungle.

 The SDA news agency has struggled with financial difficulties in recent years. "Things are now looking up again," editor-in-chief Bernard Maissen told Werbewoche. "Last year we were able to report more pleasing figures, and things don't look bad for 2007 either. But we also have two massive cost-cutting programs behind us." SDA's good customers are the growing number of free newspapers. "They are customers that we value highly, but we always have to position ourselves in such a way that we can manage without a particular customer," says Maissen. Blick and Sonntagsblick canceled their subscriptions in 2005, but the news agency has now recovered. Nevertheless, times are not all rosy for SDA: the falling circulation figures for newspapers are causing it problems, as the remuneration for services is also based on circulation. "The free newspapers act as a positive counterbalance here, but they do not account for the lion's share of sales," said Maissen. He sees the media's online offerings as having a promising future. SDA has already been offering online services together with Keystone. Thanks to the acquisition of the minority stake in the picture agency, SDA will probably expand its offering in this area (see ).

 The Walder, Werber advertising agency in Uster has added two new accounts to its portfolio. In a pitch, it won the overall mandate from Beat Odinga Holding - Blickpunkt Lebensraum. The company realizes housing developments and villa projects. Walder, Werber is now in charge of the entire mandate, which also includes media. The first works, including an 80-page reference book, will be on display from January 2008. The agency was also successful in a pitch for the new knowledge, action and fun magazine for all stationery, printing accessories and retail outlets. The publisher and initiator of this pitch is Ecomedia AG. The first magazine will be available in all sales and retail outlets throughout Switzerland from the beginning of February.
Thanks to the two new mandates, the agency is gaining reinforcements: from December, consultant Daniel Wegmüller and polygrapher Michael Vetterli will be part of the extended team. After graduating from high school and studying journalism, Daniel Wegmüller worked as a freelance journalist and for the last three years as a copywriter/concept developer and project manager at Arbel Film- und Fernsehproduktion in Basel. Michael Vetterli has joined the prepress team.

 Revue Schweiz is handing over advertising management and production to Zollikofer. The specialist magazine on hiking, culture and nature in Switzerland will be managed by Peter Schwager from January 2008. Schwager, who hails from eastern Switzerland, has many years of experience in looking after advertising customers and has already acquired a great deal of expertise in the tourism industry during his previous employment with Finnair.

Bilanz uses golden sheep to advertise its "Gold Edition", which shows the 300 richest people in Switzerland. The advertisement unmistakably alludes to the SVP's infamous sheep campaign - in Bilanz's version, however, the red carpet is rolled out for the golden sheep coming from outside. The advertisement was not created by an agency, but by Bilanz itself, as Ralph Büchi, CEO of publisher Axel Springer Schweiz, told Werbewoche. The marketing team led by Michael Ebnöther and Martina Hoffmann is responsible. "The sheep motif was a welcome opportunity for us to take up a much-discussed campaign," explained Büchi. "With the advertisement, we are pointing out that almost half of the 300 richest people in Switzerland have moved to Switzerland from abroad: These foreign sheep are given a friendly welcome". Büchi does not want the advertisement to be understood as a side-swipe at the SVP: "With a wink, we are using this advertisement to show that Switzerland can also smile at itself. He points out that a functioning economy needs a Switzerland that is open to the world, something that Bilanz stands for.
The advertisement also features a black sheep - the SVP had achieved dubious fame for its campaign. However, the balance sheet only shows half of the dark animal. Büchi laughs: "The black sheep is just grazing. It has found a place in the pasture."

For the fourth time, Caritas Switzerland is running a campaign and collection drive on the subject of hunger. The aim is to draw attention to a tragedy that rarely makes it into the media: malnutrition is responsible for around half of all child deaths in the developing world. This year's campaign motif by the Spinas Gemperle agency uses the shortest possible message to illustrate what hunger means for over a billion people: the loss of family members, friends or their own lives. To change this and with the statement "No one should go hungry", Caritas is calling for active participation in this year's Christmas collection. Posters, adverts, addressed mailings and unaddressed mailings will be used as advertising media. Responsible at Caritas Switzerland:
Odilo Noti (Head of Communications), Jörg Arnold (Head of Fundraising). Responsible at Spinas Gemperle: Lorenz Spinas (CD), David Köder, Susi Kammergruber (text), Sebastian Stolp, Miriam Fischer, Stephan Huwiler (AD/graphics), Gaby Füchslin, Irene Stutz (consulting).

 The Küsnacht-based advertising window operator SevenOne Media has announced several personnel changes. The subsidiary of the German ProSieben-Sat.1 Group has appointed Karin Bardohl as its new Head of Marketing, replacing Ole Rauch, who has moved to Swiss Olympic as Head of Communications. After studying law, Karin Bardohl worked for many years as a media planner at the media agency Carat in Germany and Switzerland and at the agency Mediacom. Most recently, she held various positions at Cinecom & Media, including Head of Marketing & Media and Head of Sales Administration.
Long-standing employees Barbara Heberlein as Product & Event Manager B2B and Karin Duttweiler as the new Product Manager B2C complete the new marketing team formed around Bardohl. In addition, Silvia von Arx joins SevenOne Media as the new Administration Manager.

 TBWA\Health has a new client. In a multi-stage selection process, the Zurich agency was chosen as the new advertising partner for Quisisana Pharma. The company distributes and launches generics, OTC and medical products in Switzerland and abroad. TBWA\Health is now responsible for all communication measures and was commissioned to develop and implement the entire corporate design, including the website.

 The Basel media lawyer Martin Wagner can take over the Basel local radio station Basilisk from Tamedia. This decision was made by Media Minister Moritz Leuenberger, as reported by the Sonntagszeitung. Leuenberger's department sees "no reason why the transfer or economic transfer of the Radio Basilisk license to the new purchaser should not be approved", according to the ruling dated Friday. Rumors had been circulating in Basel that Wagner could be a possible front man for the Basler Zeitung. Wagner is a media lawyer and former board member of the Basler Mediengruppe (see
Wagner leaves BZM
). According to the Sonntagszeitung, he was also initially interested in taking over the Bernese station Radio BE 1, but withdrew. "I wanted to concentrate entirely on Basilisk and the Basel area and not get bogged down," he says, explaining his decision. Radio BE 1 went to Ringier last week.

 Children are not only human creatures with expensive needs, Kinder is also the name of a popular chocolate manufacturer whose products conjure up a good mood in the home, but also holes in the teeth. To mark the 40th anniversary of Kinder chocolate in Switzerland, the packaging has now been redesigned. The children's parent company Ferrero organized a special model competition: four girls and boys were sought to replace the face of the well-known chocolate boy for a while. The young consumers selected from 4,000 Swiss children are between 4 and 7 years old and are now giving the traditional placeholder a run for his money with their beaming faces, with former American Vice President Al Gore currently acting as the savior of the planet. Having already received the Nobel Peace Prize this year, the 59-year-old continues to be showered with awards. At the end of last week, he even received an honorary International Emmy, normally reserved for television productions outside the United States. "If you look closely at an international head of state who supports the fight against global warming, you can see Al Gore behind him, pushing him," said actor Robert de Niro in his tribute. However, if you look closely at Al Gore, you can see a woman next to him who has been a vehement supporter of cultural censorship for years. Among other things, we have Tipper Gore to thank for the "Parental Advisory - Explicit Lyrics" sticker on many CDs. Let's hope that all these awards will calm the mind of Gore's apostle of purity.

 On Tuesday, Wemf will publish the Mach Radar study for the first time. This is intended to enable marketing and media professionals to analyze consumers and readers according to psychographic criteria as well. By linking psychographic criteria with consumption and media data, the study provides information on the positioning of products, brands, services, shopping channels and print media. In readership research, the integration of the radar into the Mach research system represents a quantum leap, according to a release. The study enables marketers, agencies and publishers to analyze target groups and simultaneously monitor the competition, it adds. The study's report volume costs 500 Swiss francs. The data and program download is available together with the report volume for 14,500 francs.