Podcast user generated or user ignored content? Goldbach Media explored this question on Podcast Day. 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Will Steger had exciting things to report this year. The climate researcher reported directly from the Arctic on a weekly basis. Despite the icy cold and snowstorms, Steger used his satellite phone and laptop to provide his listeners with information about his expedition. That was between February and May of this year.
"Global Warming 101 Expedition", the name of Steger's show, is a podcast, a radio program from the Internet. Steger is not alone. Thousands of such amateur programs can be found online. According to the podcast portal Podcast.de, there are around 5,000 in German-speaking countries, which anyone can subscribe to free of charge and have automatically transferred to their MP3 player with the right software.
Three years ago, the format produced by many broadcast-conscious people in their spare time was celebrated as the new medium par excellence. A trend was underway that would turn the radio industry on its head, wrote Businessweek, for example. Without licenses or frequencies, ordinary people could make their own radio shows. But the "hottest trend in radio", as Steve Jobs from computer manufacturer Apple once said, has not turned the industry on its head. On the contrary. Podcasts no longer have the media presence they once had. The digital feast for the ears has remained a niche phenomenon that today tends to unsettle media planners and advertisers rather than help them.
Despite this development, Goldbach Media decided to organize a second podcast day one year after the debut. According to Jürg Bachmann, Head of Digital Projects and Trend Scouting at Goldbach Media, the topic is still highly exciting, as the scene in the USA in particular shows.
The term "podcast" is passéThe "Podcast and New Media Expo" took place in Ontario this year. Guest speaker Alex Wunschel, who runs two marketing podcasts in his spare time, was there. As Wunschel explained in Küsnacht, the US scene is undergoing major changes. Podcasts as a neologism had been abandoned there and had even been officially buried. The 2008 exhibition will now simply be called "New Media Expo". This is because the US content producers no longer see themselves as podcasters, but as digital entrepreneurs. The overseas scene is no longer convinced by the radio format, which can be subscribed to as an RSS feed. Firstly, the concept only works moderately, and secondly, it is hardly possible to earn money in this form.
The Americans want to break new ground. Alex Wunschel illustrated the podcast development using the example of wine merchant Gery Vaynerchuck (tv.winelibrary.com). The trend is towards multimedia. In addition to audio and video files, amateur producers now run their own stores. They also sell CDs and DVDs of their shows and even have their episodes produced by professionals. Alex Wunschel: "In the USA, only those who offer content professionally are successful."
In addition to content and sound quality, marketing is also being driven forward. But still with modest success. It is not possible to cash in big. The reason for this is the large number of podcasts on offer. According to Wunschel, the fragmentation means that many producers do not have the necessary reach to be attractive to companies. This is why more and more amateur producers are joining forces in content networks. As Alex Wunschel said, the development in the USA shows where the podcast movement in Europe is heading. One thing is certain: we have to say goodbye to podcasts as a mass phenomenon.
Achim Jenner from Jung von Matt/Limmat agrees. The Head of the Digital Media Unit at the Zurich agency was rather critical of radio on demand at the event. The reason: in 2006, the market research company Forrester Research published various studies which showed that only one percent of all users in the USA and two percent of European Internet users listen to podcasts. According to Jenner, these figures can be interpreted as sobering when compared with the figures forecast in 2005. In addition, sales of MP3 players are expected to increase by up to 60 percent worldwide in 2007. Despite these successful figures, however, this means a decline in sales growth compared to 2005 (118 percent).
According to Jenner, podcasts are still not very attractive for advertising agencies because the understanding of their use is still growing. "As those responsible for success, we advertisers are primarily looking for performance, but often only find potential." Nevertheless, it is clear to the advertiser that podcasts are justified when they are offered in the education sector. This is because content can be repeated and therefore processed well.
Christian Lüscher
 
 
 
This is podcasting Podcasting refers to the time-shifted distribution
of audio files via the internet. Tristan Louis, who first proposed the concept in 2000, and Dave Winer, who was the first to implement it in a slightly modified form, are regarded as the inventors of podcasting. The principle is simple: listeners can enter any podcast channels via RSS into their receiver software, for example iTunes. The channels can be retrieved and updated with a click. The artificial word podcasting is made up of the popular audio player iPod and the English word broadcasting. The term was invented by Ben Hammersley in 2004.
 
 
 
New offer on Radio DRS since November 5
DRS 4 News, the new news program from Swiss Radio DRS, is on air. DRS 4 News is a word program without music. The editorial team also produces podcasts for Internet users in the mornings, afternoons and evenings on current affairs. (cl)

 On February 1, 2008, the St.Gallen local radio station Toxic.fm will have a new management team. Natalie Häusler will take over the business administration areas of the management. She is a lawyer, has previously worked as an editor at the station and is returning to Toxic.fm after a stint at Radio Aktuell. Andy Stadelmann will become program director of Toxic.fm as a member of the management team. According to the press release, Stadelmann has been working in the radio business for seven years as a presenter, producer and music editor. He currently also works at Radio Aktuell. As the new management team, the two will replace the previous Toxic.fm Managing Director Ralph Wirth (see ).

 
Health insurance companies The new Young & Rubicam Group Switzerland has developed a new identity for the reorganized ÖKK. 
"We have to change something, otherwise we will hinder our growth," was the analysis at ÖKK, which operates throughout Switzerland, when the common "dress" for the many small but very successful health and accident insurers became too tight. The market of the former ÖKK was processed and managed from Basel and Landquart. Both groups owned 50 percent of the brand rights. They offered the same products, managed a joint web portal and also ran the same advertising. This will be history on January 1, 2008. ÖKK Basel will become the new insurance brand Sympany (see page 8). ÖKK in Landquart will retain its old name. Following a strategy pitch, the newly active Young & Rubicam Group Switzerland was entrusted with the development of the new ÖKK.
Under the strategic direction of Managing Partner Caspar Coppetti, the agency first analyzed how advertising for health insurance companies appears today - "mostly bored", as the creatives are convinced. Again and again, happy-looking but interchangeable people serve as key visuals. Once for healthy wellness. In the other example, when being together with the growing family. Hardly any of the health insurance companies have been able to achieve an outstanding unique position in Y&R's Brand Asset Valuator with such ideas. "We even found an image motif that was used in a similar form by three health insurance companies," says Coppetti.
Y&R has now looked for other ideas for the new ÖKK. First of all, they want to differentiate themselves from the wholesome world of photography with rather "evil" comic drawings. The campaign was developed by Martin Stulz and Dominik Oberwiler. The illustrator was
Y&R found this in-house with Rob Hartmann. The creative freedom with the abstract comics also opened up the opportunity for subtle verbal humor. "Premium shockitis" or "twiddling one's thumbsitis" are illnesses that should no longer exist for ÖKK policyholders in the future. In addition to the ten print subjects to date, the comic idea also opens up rewarding opportunities for TV commercials and cross-media online campaigns, and the logo was also adapted as part of the new CI. The somewhat staid blue has been replaced by a dynamic red. Various ballast in the sublines was jettisoned. The more modern appearance will also be reflected in the websites.
An important element in the communication for the new ÖKK will be a customer magazine, which has been designed by the specialists within the Y&R Group and the Zurich communications agency Brandaffairs not as a PR tool, but according to very journalistic criteria, as Peter Werder, Head of Corporate Communications at ÖKK, is pleased to announce. The staff will include, for example, NZZ writers or people from 20 Minuten.
With this first overall order for all specialists from the entire Y&R Group, the company is also pleased with the creative and uncomplicated cooperation with ÖKK - because it was carried out directly via the Board of Directors and the management.
Andreas Panzeri
More transparency in new waysÖKK is breaking new ground.
ÖKK Basel and ÖKK Kranken- und Unfallversicherungen AG (KUV AG) are differentiating their market presence: from January 1, 2008, ÖKK Basel and ÖKK Schweiz (based in Basel) will operate under the Vivao Sympany brand and as companies of the Sympany Group founded by ÖKK Basel. ÖKK KUV AG, based in Landquart, will remain ÖKK and adopt a new identity. Because both companies have grown successfully throughout Switzerland, they will no longer divide up customer service by region. At the same time as the realignment
ÖKK Kranken- und Unfallversicherungen AG is renewing its image and going on the offensive with Sympany in Basel as of January 1. It will now be known simply as ÖKK and present itself with a new logo. "Today, 40 percent of our private customers already live outside the canton of Graubünden. We will continue to grow throughout Switzerland," explains Stefan Schena. In the next few years, agencies are planned in Bern and the Zurich lowlands, among other places. The head office in Landquart will be expanded. (pan)

 
Brand development Spillmann Felser Leo Burnett communicates that ÖKK Basel is now called Sympany and shoots a commercial with Dani Levy. 
ÖKK - Öffentliche Krankenkassen Schweiz - is moving with the times and wants to be more agile in the highly competitive market in future. For this reason, the regional groups ÖKK Basel and ÖKK Landquart have split up While the insurance companies in the south and east will continue to operate under ÖKK and will be managed by the newly formed Y&R Group (see box and campaign on page 7), the insurance group ÖKK Basel is changing its name to Sympany.
The development of this new brand is being launched by Spillmann Felser Leo Burnett. SFLB won the account in a pitch. Sympany will work the Swiss market on a segment-specific basis from January 1. Before a concrete campaign follows, the advertisers only want to "raise awareness" for the new name Sympany (which was already developed before the pitch and not by SFLB), as CD Peter Brönnimann explains.
The creatives based their concept on the assumption that health insurance companies and insurers are seen as "bureaucratic, complicated and non-transparent". Consumers also tend to perceive their advertising as artificial and not very authentic.
Sympany now wants to "bring a breath of fresh air into the industry". And, of course, with its advertising. Sympany is positioning itself as the "refreshingly different" insurance company. This is intended to actively set Sympany apart from its competitors. The message: Sympany simplifies people's lives, relieves them of the tedious and frees them from the complicated.
SFLB demonstrates this for the time being with three funny commercials. These show everyday situations that suddenly become incomprehensibly complicated or laborious. For example in the "Coffee Shop" spot: a craftsman walks into a modern coffee shop and simply orders a coffee. The sales clerk asks him whether he would like an espresso, latte or cappuccino. And later, whether he wants a single latte or double latte, in short, tall or grande size, with beans from Latin America or Africa...? - Questions after questions that overwhelm the poor man who only wants a coffee. He gives up and desperately orders just a mineral water. Then comes the claim: "We think life should be simpler again. Sympany, the new insurance. Refreshingly different."
A second spot shows how a husband-to-be struggles for words at the wedding like a professionally deformed lawyer with a complex plea, when he should really just say "yes".
For these sketch-style spots, SFLB wanted a director "who knows his way around film comedies". They found Dani Levy from Basel, who has won six Lolas in Germany with feature films such as "Alles auf Zucker" and has recently hit the headlines with the wicked satire "Mein Führer - Die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit über Adolf Hitler". Dani Levy, who starred as "Pepperoni" in the first Swiss TV series "Motel" and has never shot a commercial before, agreed immediately. After all, his mother is also insured with ÖKK - or now Sympany.
While "Coffee Shop" and "Wedding" were produced by Levy and Condor, SFLB had a third spot shot by Pumpkin Film and Martin Werner "for reasons of a broader spectrum". The spots will be on air from November 9. From 2008, an extended campaign with the slogan "refreshingly different" will also be used.
ÖKK Basel (with the legally associated brands ÖKK Schweiz and Krankenkasse 57) has developed in recent years from a regional health insurance company into an insurance group operating throughout Switzerland. In future, the company wants to focus even more strongly than before on its customers and provide services in a "refreshingly different" way. To this end, the Group is streamlining its organization and operating under the Sympany umbrella brand.
With 400 employees, Sympany will serve 188,000 basic insurance policyholders and 6,000 corporate customers and generate sales of CHF 750 million, as Marketing and Sales Manager Andreas Rehmann explains.
Andreas Panzeri

With its specially designed classified ad tool "Eventbooster", the cross-media publisher Cinergy wants to make media distribution and promotion easier for event organizers and cultural professionals in the future. Cinergy has been operating the largest event database in Switzerland for years. The Zurich-based company is now adding a web tool for classified ads to its range of services: The Eventbooster is designed to make advertising for cultural event organizers not only easier, but also cheaper and more efficient. Until now, two things were missing, explains Jenny Chi, Head of the Events Editorial Department, to Werbewoche: "On the one hand, we could never give "smaller" organizers a definitive guarantee that we would be able to capture their events, simply because there really are a lot of them. On the other hand, professional organizers could only book their promotions in a cumbersome way via traditional forms of advertising, often with considerable wastage." The Eventbooster is intended to remedy both deficiencies. If an event organizer cannot find their event among those already entered by the Cinergy events editorial team, they can enter it themselves. Existing entries can also be supplemented with detailed information. Last-minute changes can also be made centrally in one place for a whole range of media. Every organizer can now book publication guarantees, highlighting and promotions in Eventbooster and pay for them online with Postcard or credit card. "These new forms of promotion differ significantly from conventional advertising options," says Martin Glauser, Head of Publishing at Cinergy. "They are also significantly cheaper. A publication guarantee costs about as much as a beer. Most of the other rates are also in the 2-digit range". This is possible because the Eventbooster has a high degree of automation and because the highlights do not have to compete with the prices of standard forms of advertising.
The classified ad tool was developed by a Cinergy working group over the past two years. The Eventbooster will be launched on Friday, November 9, 2007, and during a three-month pilot phase the web application will be further optimized based on experience and feedback.
Rona Grünenfelder
 

 Since June, the Swiss television landscape has been one tie-dyed figure poorer. Heiri Müller, known by many as "Mister Tagesschau", had to say goodbye to his well-paid announcer position at Swiss television due to his age. At the age of 61, he is being retired from Leutschenbach. According to Müller himself, however, this doesn't bother him at all. After all, he is still in the - admittedly somewhat less glaring - spotlight almost every evening. Since his departure, Müller has been trying to compensate for the loss of attention as a traveling bard and now reads out personal messages while touring through Switzerland. However, the compensation doesn't really seem to be working: "A lot of things seem artificial to me today, even the gestures," complains Nachrichten-Heiri in the current issue of the TV magazine "TV Star". He, who according to well-informed circles recorded all his broadcasts for in-depth analysis at home, also complained that too little attention was paid to the personality of the presenter. However, Müller's own personality is no longer available - perhaps also for this reason. "My departure is irrevocable," he emphasized in conclusion. Unfortunately, we will never know whether we have lost a second Kurt Felix in Müller.

 
Käse Publicis shows for Emmentaler that the cheese may now bear the AOC seal of quality. 
CD Jean-Etienne Aebi and his team at Publicis present modern commercials for traditional cheese.Emmentaler Switzerland is now AOC. The seal of quality, which is known from exclusive wines, confirms the strict promise of origin and quality of the original. The advertising agency's task was to make consumers aware of this product advantage.
The result is three TV commercials that show in a humorous way how the cheesemakers themselves react to the AOC seal of quality. As down-to-earth people, they are proud of the award, but not particularly surprised. After all, their Emmental cheese has been made from fresh raw milk of outstanding quality for centuries.
The commercials will be broadcast until the end of November in German-speaking Switzerland and with French and Italian subtitles in French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino. They were produced by Ping Pong Film and directed by Christian Aeby. The commercials will be supplemented by advertisements in the national print media.
Andreas Panzeri

 The agency Spielplatz.cc, with offices in Austria and Germany, has won the online account from Sunrise. It is implementing an interactive communication platform for the telecommunications company: Visitors to the Sunrise homepage are called directly after entering their telephone number and guided through the company's new brand world by testimonials on video.
Two weeks after the start of the advertising campaign, the corresponding microsite at
around 100,000 user accesses, according to a press release from the agency. The seamless integration of the TV, poster and print campaign resulted in a very high number of direct hits. Sunrise reallocated the advertising budget this year. Rive Gauche is responsible for the advertising campaign (see
), Heye121 is on board as the direct marketing agency.

 
Fasttrack, a subsidiary of Publicis, had the finalists of the TV show «Supermodel»—which premieres on November 6 on 3 Plus—pose for the advertising campaign. The print and poster campaign, which aims to dramatize the competition for the title of “Supermodel,” is intended to boost viewership, according to a press release issued on Tuesday. The experiences from the photo shoot will also be factored into the jury’s evaluation. The campaign will be featured in double-page ads and on F200 billboards.
On November 6 at 8:15 p.m., «Supermodel» premieres on 3 Plus with the first of seven episodes. The 16 finalists, selected from hundreds of applicants, will compete for an international modeling contract with Option Model Agency. The competition will take the contestants to photo shoots and runways around the world until the winner is crowned on December 18. The show is hosted by former model and Zurich Film Festival organizer Nadja Schildknecht. Joining Schildknecht on the judging panel are celebrity hairstylist Mike Karg, show producer Yannick Aellen, and, as a guest judge for the first episode, Sabina Diethelm, deputy editor-in-chief of SI-Style.
Person in charge at 3plus:
Dominik Kaiser, Monica Gomez. Contact at Publicis:
Markus Gut (CCO), Florian Beck (CD), Tom Zürcher (Copywriter), Thomas Berger (Graphic Designer), Suzanna Kovacevic (Art Buyer), Leo Krumbacher (Photographer), and Daniel Gerber (Consultant).

 Modern people no longer compare themselves with their fellow human beings based on the horsepower of their car or the size of their house. Instead, they use page impressions and unique clients, as an information leak about the duel between Blick Online and 20minuten.ch shows. "Well, wait until the end of the month," replied Peter Wälty, head of 20minuten.ch and designated conductor of the new online news network from Tamedia, Espace Media and Basler Zeitung Medien. In response to the following question from the weblog Medienlese.com: "You wanted to become the number 1 in Switzerland with 20min.ch, but were unable to overtake Blick Online. Will it work with the new outlet?". The end of the month not only brings payday, but also the Net-Metrix figures, the beloved and feared report card of all page-impressions juggernauts. However, the general public has to wait a little longer until the figures are published. And only then do they find out how the race between Blick Online and 20minuten.ch currently stands.
Now a comment on the Trashcan blog of Heute-online.ch sheds light on the matter, as Medienlese.com lets us know: Heute editor Thomas Benkö quotes the above-mentioned paragraph from the Medienlese interview. A commentator by the name of Norman Bates writes that Wälty's statement belongs more in the category of "prophets like you and me". And claims to know the new figures. According to this, 20minuten.ch has 1′225′000 unique clients, Blick.ch has 1′240′000. The page impressions are more piquant: Here, 20minuten.ch stands at 83 million, Blick.ch at 75 million. Even funnier: As Benkö writes on his own blog Benkoe.ch, this reference comes from a user with a Tamedia IP address. So has the free newspaper's online portal managed to overtake the tabloid's virtual presence in terms of page impressions? And couldn't Werdstrasse wait until the official date to announce the good news? The first question will be answered as soon as Net-Metrix releases the figures.

 Premiere on Tuesday in the Sihlcity cinema arena: the Walker advertising agency and sponsors Sonntagsblick, Cinecom and Rufener Events joined forces with Amnesty International Switzerland to present Walker's first AI commercial. The commercial was shown in front of a packed audience before the preview of the hard-hitting torture film "Rendition" starring Meryl Streep. The political celebrities in attendance were just as moved by the new commercial and the movie as the many creatives present. "It's not happening here. But now" is the claim for the previous poster campaign. Pius Walker has now developed this idea further. In the spot, child soldiers, torture and the trafficking of women are presented as a contrast between image and sound in our cheerful everyday television lives. In the weather forecasts, in a quiz show or in an aerobics class, the commercial has the well-known stars of these programs appear in exactly the same decor as normal. Only this time they are not talking about the weather or cooking - they are campaigning for human rights. "The TV stars were very involved," says Walker. The film was shot in the original set without any additional effort. For Switzerland, the English TV stars' political statements are dubbed into German and French.
Andreas Panzeri

 Under the chairmanship of Urs Schneider, the Swiss Advertising Audit Committee held new and confirmed elections at its last meeting. Urs Jaermann from McCann-Erickson has been appointed as the successor to Erich Baumgartner. Jaermann is predestined for this role, as he has successfully completed the Federal Advertising Assistant (now PMK) and the Federal Advertising Manager Diploma (now Communications Manager), according to a statement from SW. Erich Baumgartner, Glamour Engineering / Neutral and representative of BSW, had been a member of the examination board since 2003. He was Chairman of the Appeals Committee. Dominik Leonhardt, UBS, Chairman of the Admissions Committee, and Andreas Mossner, Advision, Visitator of the PK, were confirmed by acclamation for a further three years on the Examination Commission.