The Swiss advertising agency Walker shone at the first edition of the international advertising award The Cup in Valencia. With their work for Amnesty International, the team led by agency boss Pius Walker took home two of the coveted gold trophies. Walker received the top award in the categories "The Best Poster" and "Best Social Engagement" for the "Not here, but now" campaign. This came after the agency had been nominated four times previously for its work for Amnesty and Fleurop (see ).
  
A total of 30 winners were chosen. In the end, the jury of creative greats such as Marcello Serpa, Dave Droga, John Hegarty, Mark Collis and Akira Kagami selected a Nike campaign from Argentina as the best creative work of the year.

 Next Wednesday, the Federal Council will also decide on the future of the information channel SF info with its decision on the new SRG draft license. After it was announced in June that the new draft license for the channel provides for the end of the advertising ban (see "Advertising ban on SF Info falls"
), the competition is now increasingly afraid of what all this could mean.
 
 If the government approves the draft, the repetition and information channel will become a third national broadcaster in one fell swoop, according to many concerned competitors. As the NZZ am Sonntag reports, it is then quite possible that, in addition to broadcasting important events such as the WEF in Davos or other events of national importance, the wishes of SF entertainment director Gabriela Amgarten, for example, will be followed and live sports programs will be moved from SF zwei to SF info. Logically, the operators of private Swiss television stations are not at all pleased about such regulations. In the consultation on the new SRG concession, Pro Sieben Schweiz writes that the first broadcasts and the sponsorship and advertising license make SF info a fully-fledged channel. The provisions on SF info were therefore moving further and further away from the originally defined purpose of this channel. Christoph Zimmer, media spokesman for Tamedia, is also extremely disconcerted by Swiss Television's plans: "If advertising is permitted on SF info, the private regional stations will be cut off. SF info was introduced as a channel without advertising and as a pure replay channel."
 
 
SF Info was initially launched in 1999 as a field test in the Zurich area. In 2001, the project was extended to the whole of German-speaking Switzerland.

 Three Swiss agencies were category winners at this year's Epica competition in Paris. Publicis won the Dairy Products category with its Emmentaler poster, while Advico Young & Rubicam scored in the Business-to-Business Professional Services category with an ad for the NJP recording studio. The birthday spot for Fleurop by Walker Werbeagentur won in the Retail category. 
47 countries with a total of 5,640 entries took part in this year's Epica competition. Of these, 316 were from Switzerland.

 Switzerland usually advertises its advantages abroad. The unique nature, the alpine panorama, the products of the local watch industry, delicious chocolate or spicy cheese are used to point out the attractiveness of our country. Well-paid tourists are supposed to leave their money in the home of Hayek and Heidi. The situation is different with less financially potent guests, for example from Africa. As the Sonntagsblick has now uncovered, the Federal Office for Migration is making negative publicity for Switzerland in TV commercials there. During the half-time break of the football match between Switzerland and Nigeria, Nigerian television ran a
which is supposed to scare emigrants away from Switzerland. It shows a young student calling his father in Nigeria from cold, rainy Switzerland. While he assures his father that everything is going well with his studies, job and apartment, images are intercut to show his true situation: In poverty, as a beggar, pursued by the police. "We have an obligation to show these people what consequences fleeing can have for them," says Eduard Gnesa, the director of the Federal Office for Migration, explaining the campaign. Federal Councilor Christoph Blocher has already spoken positively about it. With a few biting words from his faithful Christoph Mörgeli, it would certainly have been much more effective.

 An article entitled "Hahn: Three times bankrupt" was published in Werbewoche No. 40/07 on November 8, 2007. The title caused confusion, for which the editors apologize. However, as correctly mentioned in the article, only one company (rh media GmbH) has been declared bankrupt, while the bankruptcy of a second (Vierwaldstätter Verlag GmbH) has been opened but not yet decided. Rüdiger Hahn was only a member of the Board of Directors at Printmedien Schweiz AG, which is also bankrupt. He resigned from the Board of Directors in February 2007. (red)

 The fact that England lost to Croatia and will therefore not be able to take part in the upcoming European Football Championship is not only saddening for England fans: the British economy is losing out on around one billion pounds due to unrealized advertising and sponsorship income, shirt sales, TV rights sales and promotions. This is how much was lost during last year's World Cup, as calculated by the British Retail Consortium. The sporting goods manufacturer Umbro, which sells the shirts of the British national team, has already had to issue a profit warning. As Werben und Verkaufen writes, the share price not only plummeted at Umbro, but also at the Sports Direct chain of stores, which has a stake in Umbro and lives from the merchandising business.

 
The Federal Council has issued a negative statement on the motion by Bruno Zuppiger (SVP/ZH) to abolish the permit requirement for political field advertising. Commercial as well as political advertising must always be approved next to freeways and roads due to the risk of distraction. In his motion, which was supported by 37 other members of parliament, Zuppiger wrote that political advertising on private land is important for financially weaker parties and groups. In addition, field advertising offers a new income opportunity for farmers. According to SDA, the Federal Council counters this by stating that a permit requirement is still necessary for political field advertising for reasons of traffic safety. In addition to freeways and roads, the general ban on advertising must be maintained.

 
Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett is nominated four times for the finals of the New York Advertising & Marketing Effectiveness Awards. Twice with the Mary Woodbridge campaign for Mammut in the "Sporting Goods" and "Internet" categories. And twice with the Switzerland Tourism campaign Football World Cup Alternative for Women in the "Public Service" and "Tourism" categories. Whether it will be enough for gold, silver or bronze will be decided in December.

With a campaign by Heads, the Tages-Anzeiger communicates that for ten years now you have been able to read a subscription newspaper for free. Four advertisements show exhausted but happy readers. They communicate that anyone who uses the Carte Blanche discount card and goes out diligently reads the Tagi for free. After all, the Carte Blanche offers discounts that could easily recoup the subscription price, according to a press release. Tamedia demonstrates this on the Gratislesen.ch website: a "subscription calculator" can be used to work out how the subscription price can be reduced depending on how often people go out. "The campaign is not intended to promote the Tages-Anzeiger as a free newspaper, but to draw attention to the Carte Blanche as an integrated component of the attractive Tages-Anzeiger power package," Tagi advertising manager Dominique von Albertini told Werbewoche. "We are not positioning the Tagi as a free newspaper, but saying that you can read it for free if you offset the subscription price with the discounts." The Carte Blanche is a competitive advantage that they want to make more visible. "However, the Tagi will always remain a paid newspaper. Refinancing through Carte Blanche is associated with an investment," says von Albertini. With the new campaign, however, the market discussions regarding free newspapers have certainly been taken up. The planned second part of the campaign will focus on the Carte Blanche offers. Incidentally, Heads is only responsible for advertising Carte Blanche. The lead agency for the Tagi is SFLB. According to von Albertini, this will not change.

Responsible at Tamedia, Tages-Anzeiger:
Dominique von Albertini (Head of Marketing Communication); Cyrill Hänggi (Assistant Marketing Communication). Responsible at Heads Corporate Communication: Marco Simonetti (Creative Direction); Ralph Hermann, Simon Smit (Text); Donovan Szypura (Graphics); Ralph Hermann, Nadia Francioso (Consulting). Photos: Tom Haller. Styling: Fabienne Arrigoni. Hair/Make-Up: Katerina Carambellas. Casting: Nadja Putzi. Web programming: Instanz AG.

 
Nokia plans to use megaposters in various Swiss cities for the launch of the N95 8GB multimedia device. The posters, which are up to 140 square meters in size, will complement traditional and online measures at locations in Zurich, Basel, St. Gallen and Geneva in December and will primarily appeal to an outgoing and mobile target audience. The focus is on entertainment, according to a press release. In addition to the large posters, target group-specific print titles and roll-up posters in train stations were also used. An online concept will also be implemented on music and lifestyle-related websites and the campaign will be supplemented by mobile marketing measures. Test persons are also being sought to publish their experiences with the new device in a blog. The campaign is being implemented by various agencies: Grey (advertising), Mediacom (media planning), Online (creative media) and Dimoco (mobile marketing).

According to the latest information, the successor to Spiegel editor-in-chief Stefan Aust will not come from within Spiegel's own ranks. As the Financial Times Deutschland online portal reported on Friday, neither Gabor Steingart, the former head of Spiegel's Berlin office, nor Mathias Müller von Blumencron, currently editor-in-chief of Spiegel Online, have a chance of winning the post. Steingart is close to the outgoing editor-in-chief, while Müller von Blumencron lacks a political profile.
 
Giovanni die Lorenzo, editor-in-chief of Die Zeit, and Uwe Vorkötter, editor-in-chief of Frankfurter Rundschau, are currently being touted as hot candidates in society circles.
 
The previous editor-in-chief Stefan Aust only found out about his dismissal a week ago Thursday after 13 years. His deputy Joachim Preuss informed Aust, who was on vacation, on his cell phone that a successor was already being sought. The representatives of the employees' company (KG), which holds more than half of the shares in the publishing house, had secretly dumped Aust. Franziska Augstein, the daughter of Spiegel founder Rudolf Augstein, had also been an enemy of the editorial director for years.
 
Deputy Joachim Preuss will now leave the publishing house together with his former boss. "If they cone Aust out of here, I'll go after him," Preuss told Kress.de. Preuss, who has worked at Spiegel for 30 years, says he does not want to have to witness another dismantling of an editor-in-chief like that of Hans-Werner Kilz 13 years ago. The management of Mitarbeiter KG, which consists of members of the editorial team, wants to get rid of Aust, as was announced last week. He must leave by the end of 2008 at the latest. Preuss told Kress.de that the actions of the Spiegel publishing partners were "stupidity of the first order". Aust is said to have learned of his impending dismissal by noticing that the management was already eagerly looking for a successor. The Spiegel editorial team has been in turmoil for some time; the Süddeutsche Zeitung, for example, not only speaks of a leadership crisis, but even of an internal civil war. The basic problem lies in the fact that, according to the newspaper's statutes, the employees are also the management. So even after the departure of Aust and Preuss, peace still seems a long way off at the Hamburg newspaper company.

 Swiss Post may increase the rates for the transportation of small and medium-sized local and regional newspapers by 4.4 percent at the beginning of 2008. This is intended to enable Swiss Post to pass on the inflation that has accumulated since 2004. The new press promotion system provides for the Confederation to reduce postal rates for regional and local newspapers with a circulation of up to 40,000 copies by a total of CHF 20 million (see
). In June, Leuenberger assured Parliament that the current rates for these papers were "guaranteed in any case". Now, however, the Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Telecommunications (DETEC) has approved Swiss Post's application for a 4.4 percent rate increase as of January 1, 2008, as confirmed by DETEC and Swiss Post in response to an SDA inquiry.
The Swiss Press Association criticized the decision, saying that it was "offensive" after the assurances given in parliament. In addition, Swiss Post emphasized that a rate increase or inflation adjustment would not be necessary in the coming years because transport costs could have been reduced by tens of millions thanks to the logistical cooperation between publishers and Swiss Post.
The response from price watchdog Rudolf Strahm to a petition from the association and affected publishers is still pending. The submission is directed against Swiss Post's announcement that it will increase the transport prices of large and medium-sized titles that will no longer be promoted in 2008 by around CHF 20 million.