On Thursday, Martina Hingis shocked everyone by announcing that she was suspected of having used cocaine. Before the evening press conference, she was still in front of the camera during the day in a commercial shoot for the household appliance manufacturer V-Zug. This was revealed to Werbewoche by insiders. V-Zug has now suspended all advertising featuring the tennis player with immediate effect. Company boss Werner Rellstab told Energy Zurich: "It's a tiresome story for me. But I would like to make it clear: The presumption of innocence still applies to me. I got to know Martina Hingis as a great person and an impeccable sportswoman."
Publicis, V-Zug's advertising agency, did not want to comment on the whole matter. They referred the matter to the household appliance manufacturer's spokesperson. At the request of Werbewoche, she confirmed that the Hingis advertisement will not be shown for the time being.
Incidentally, Euro-RSCG boss Frank Bodin assumes that Hingis' other sponsors will stop their involvement if the tennis player is convicted by the International Tennis Federation, as he said in an interview with the Sonntagszeitung. However, he also believes that the whole story will not overshadow Hingis' life for too long: "If she wants to continue earning money with advertising and remain present in the media, opportunities will arise." Hingis is well-known and stands for top performance, which are two important factors for marketing. "She just needs to work on her personality profile," says Bodin.

 SRG and the union Schweizer Syndikat Medienschaffender (SSM) have apparently reached an agreement in the negotiations on wage increases: For 2008, SRG will grant its employees with a collective labor agreement a general, inflation-oriented wage increase of 1.1 percent. This will be supplemented by an average of 0.8 percent for individual wage adjustments. The result of the negotiations takes into account the "difficult financial conditions of the company and the concerns of the staff in equal measure", according to a statement from SRG. With the increase of 1.9 percent, the negotiation result is in line with the average for the media industry. Compensating for inflation and maintaining purchasing power are important concerns for SRG.
In addition, 0.7 percent of the payroll is available as a variable benefit component, which can be used individually for one-off, uninsured premiums. In addition, child allowances will be increased by around 4 percent. The result of the negotiations for CLA staff will be implemented as of January 1, 2008, but still has to be definitively approved by the SRG Board of Directors.

 Swiss International Air Lines now flies from Berlin-Tegel to Zurich at 6.15 am. To communicate this connection, Jung von Matt/Limmat has a lively cab driver call Swiss in a radio campaign. The spots are the second part of the "Taxi Turk" campaign, in which a Turkish cab driver from Berlin tries in vain to influence the airline's offer. In the four current commercials, 6.15 a.m. is clearly too early for the cab driver. He calls the Swiss hotline and tries everything he can to convince the operator to postpone the departure time until later. Unfortunately, despite using all his charm, nothing can be done. The commercials have been on air on all high-reach radio stations in the greater Berlin area since mid-October.
 
Responsible at Swiss:

Priska Heger (Head of Marketing Communication), Christine Moch, Corinne Weishaupt (Advertising). Responsible at Jung von Matt/Limmat: Michael Rottmann, Alexander Jaggy (Creative Direction), Alexander Holtz (Text), Felix Schröder, Dominic Daeppen, Ariane Sonderegger (Consulting), Simone Künzler (FFF) Audioforce (Sound Studio).

Martin Killian, America correspondent for the Tages-Anzeiger, will be reporting on the United States and the American elections in particular in a blog on the Tagi website from Thursday. He is thus combining print and Internet. He will also have his say in the form of video contributions, as the Tages-Anzeiger reported on Thursday. Kilian will produce the contributions himself, the technical equipment will be made available to him and he has been introduced to the art of video filming in a crash course, said Sandra Manca, Head of Tages-Anzeiger Online, when asked by Werbewoche. As a layman in the field of filming, the foreign correspondent will not always deliver technically perfect images, but this will make the films appear all the more authentic. According to Manca, how often Kilian will speak is up to him. Whenever he has something to report, he will be seen and heard from. However, two to three blog posts per week are expected. At irregular intervals, his experiences in America are also published in a column in the print edition of the Tages-Anzeiger.
 
According to Manca, it remains to be seen whether other print journalists will take up blogging in the future. Although the concept was developed specifically for Kilian, it cannot be ruled out that other print journalists will soon be reporting on what is happening in the world via the Internet.

The Xaver Award, which has honored outstanding achievements in Swiss live communication since 1999, is returning as The Swiss Live Communication Award. In addition to the new name, there are also changes to the content, as announced by the Expo and Event Swiss Association organization. Three new categories have been added to the existing Best Expo and Best Event categories: Best Live Communication Campaign, Best Promotion and Best Supplier. The assessment criteria will now be evaluated by the jury in two rounds - in a first step, general criteria such as initial situation, objectives or implementation control will be assessed. In the event of a nomination, criteria such as material mix, functionality, creativity or originality are then added. Also new are the Xaver.08 Audience Award and the Xaver of the Year: visitors to Xaverawards.ch can choose their personal favorite from all the nominees in a competition at the beginning of 2008 and thus award the Audience Award. In contrast to the prizes awarded in the individual categories, the honorary prize Xaver of the Year is not awarded to an agency, but to a personality. The selection in this category will be made by Expo and Event Swiss Association.
The closing date for Xaver.08 entries is December 31, 2007, and now only an online questionnaire needs to be completed, which will be supplemented with photos. The gala evening and award ceremony will take place on April 9 at the Kaufleuten in Zurich.

 Energy Zurich is expanding its online offering and launching the radio portal "Energy Radio". In addition to the main program, listeners can now choose from ten channels with different music genres. With the launch of the portal, the station is responding to the great demand for music on the Internet and the resulting change in user behavior. "Radio is facing a major change," said Managing Director Dani Büchi to Werbewoche. Just under a year ago, Energy Zurich launched four channels in addition to its main program. "We have diametrically different audience growth on the net than on FM," says Büchi. However, he vehemently denies the question of whether traditional radio no longer works: "The main program still has the largest number of listeners. We also assume that we will gain new listeners on FM thanks to the online portal." The station creates its own attitude to life and the aim is to keep the audience in this Energy universe.
There are no traditional advertising blocks in the channels, but they will be allocated exclusively to individual partners as a branding platform in the coming months. "This means that the respective channel on our portal will feature the customer's logo. The banners in the music player will also carry the customer's logo". The sponsors will also be named in the individual channels.
Research must keep pace Internet radio still faces certain problems in terms of measurement due to the current research situation. Energy is deliberately reluctant to communicate the listener figures for streaming radio, as it is not yet possible to determine binding figures based on research. The figures that Net-Metrix can measure are collected by the broadcaster. "Based on our own surveys, I can also say that we can report 80,000 unique users on the portal." Büchi assumes that research will also adapt to the changed circumstances and be able to provide reliable data on the use of web radio as soon as possible.
The new channels are intended to include music genres that are often neglected in the Swiss radio landscape. In addition to the main program, there are now channels called "Energy Hot", "Energy Black", "Energy Love", "Energy 80's", "Energy 90's", "Energy Dance", "Energy Girl", "Energy Rock", "Energy Soundtrack" and "Energy Special". So if you're in the mood for love songs, click on "Love"; if you're more in the mood for a party, click on "Hot". "Listeners want to vary the music depending on their mood. Instead of them choosing a foreign station on the Internet, we now offer this ourselves," explained Büchi. However, pure music programs like the channels do not work in all situations, according to the station boss. When driving in the morning, for example, the audience wants to fall back on conventional radio. This is another reason why he does not see classic radio in danger.

However, he clearly sees the future in the Internet. Within the Energy broadcasting group, the Zurich channel is a pioneer in web programs. "Germany has also adopted our channels. That naturally makes us proud," explained Büchi. Radio on demand is a big topic for him. However, making spoken contributions available for download is not yet planned "today or tomorrow". "That's very time-consuming again" - but we also want to tackle this possibility.
Carole Scheidegger

 Swisscom has decided to definitively end the Betty TV interactive TV remote control. Operations were recently outsourced to Germany (see ). Only Switzerland is affected by the discontinuation, but not Betty TV's activities in Germany, said Swisscom spokesperson Carsten Roetz in response to a corresponding report in the online edition of Abendblatt Heute.
"The results of Betty TV (Switzerland) are well below our expectations, which is why a continuation of the Betty service is no longer justified from a business point of view", according to a letter from Swisscom to customers. As of December 1, 2007, Betty events will no longer be available on the Betty remote control.
The interactive TV remote control, which allows TV viewers to take part in competitions, votes or surveys, is proving to be a big flop. Since its launch in June a year ago, the remote control has only gained 10,000 customers in Switzerland and 100,000 customers in Germany, according to earlier figures. Swisscom CEO Carsten Schloter had expected much more. The Group had 300,000 such remote controls produced, which resulted in high costs. On balance, Betty TV tore a hole of CHF 60 million in the operating result of Switzerland's largest telecommunications group in the first half of the year.
Following the huge loss, Swisscom pulled the emergency brake at the end of August and relocated operations in Switzerland to Germany. 35 employees were made redundant. Swiss customers were then looked after from Munich.
But now Swisscom also wants to get rid of Betty TV in Germany. "We are looking for an investor," said Roetz. There are already various interested parties. He could not name any names.

 The commuter newspaper 20 Minuten wants to realign its communication and advertising and has awarded the advertising budget to the young agency Rod Kommunikation following a competitive presentation. The agency in Zurich-Enge was founded in 2007 by the three partners Regula Fecker, Oliver Fennel and David Schärer (see ). The new communicative orientation of 20 Minuten pursues the goal of strengthening differentiation from the competition, making the relevance in the target group visible and emphasizing the consistency of the brand, announced Managing Director Marcel Kohler on Wednesday. The new website will be launched in January 2008.
 
The creative team at Rod are delighted with their new client. The agency won the pitch against well-known competitors, namely Wirz Werbung, GGK and Next. "We are super proud of this win and very happy about this client. Because we have the feeling that we tick in a similar way to 20 Minuten and can identify with the brand," explained Regula Fecker when asked by Werbewoche. "A cross-media brand like 20 Minuten must also be cross-media in its advertising, and we want to make sure of that," said Fecker. Rod Kommunikation has won its biggest client to date with the commuter paper. The agency, which was founded three months ago, currently employs six people, but now wants to expand.
 

The Board of Directors of Euroforum Handelszeitung Konferenz, a 50:50 joint venture between Axel Springer Schweiz and Euroforum, Düsseldorf, has appointed 40-year-old Christian Zehnder as the new Managing Director. He succeeds Samuel Dubno, who left the company at the end of August. Zehnder will take up the position at the beginning of 2008. He is currently Infrastructure Sales Manager at IBM Switzerland. He was previously head of the business department at Swissmem, the Swiss Engineering Federation.

 Shaken and stirred - that's how the Internet appears when you let it swirl through the shuffle that the Erlenbach-based agency Eclat has devised in collaboration with media artist Marc Lee. The Flash-based program sucks information from the Internet for any keyword and reassembles the images, news, texts, videos and sounds like a kaleidoscope. And that's not all: The search engine, which is an adaptation of Lee's "Breaking the News" project, can be set to be more factual or entertaining as required. The fact that Eclat does a bit of advertising for its own customers en passant is a welcome bonus - five companies from the portfolio have already gone through the shuffle. A test run with your own name is always worthwhile. The only problem is that some of the images of your own likeness slumbering in the vastness of the Internet are no longer something you want to see shuffled and in media art...

Coop has been committed to sustainable projects since 1993. What began back then with the Naturaplan label now includes many other labels. The commitment to ecology and ethics is also an increasingly important part of the "For me and you" communication platform. The wholesaler is now launching a second wave of the sustainability campaign, for which the Zurich agency Krieg, Schlupp, Bürge/Springer & Jacoby (KSB/SJ) is responsible. The focus is on the slogan "For the only world we have." According to the press release, the subjects have attracted a lot of attention, with around 5,000 Coop customers already taking part in the competition "The first competition in which the whole world wins".
Another highlight was Coop's communicative appearance at the LiveEarth music event, which took place in the Hallenstadion this year. Coop was the main sponsor and showed a film with dinosaurs, an impacting comet and the striking slogan "Not every species has such a good excuse". This film was shown on all the stadium screens and monitors. There were also posters with the same message.
The film material comes from the movie "Jurassic Park". According to the communiqué, Steven Spielberg personally gave his approval to support the LiveEarth project in Switzerland. The poster illustration was created by dinosaur illustration specialist John Hughes.
 

Sustainability campaign:

Responsible at Coop:
Jürg Peritz (Head of Marketing/Procurement), Christian Waffenschmidt (Project Manager Coop Naturaplan), Lydie Goltdammer (Head of Advertising Realization). Responsible at KSB/SJ: Flo Wacker, Daniel Krieg (Creative Direction), Beat Egger (Text), Christian Kahl (Art Direction), Sabina Meyer (Graphics), Dany Kielholz, Christoph Bürge (Consulting Management), Sabrina Arthur (Consulting), Caesar Eberhard (DTP), Lilo Killer (Art Buying). Ferco Dregelyvari, Detail AG (photo/image processing subject "70s"), Getty Images (stock images subject "70s"), Stefan Minder (photos subjects "CO2-Bio-Bauer" and "Partner"), Mathias Zuppiger (photos subjects "Competition"), RTK (litho), Coop Media and Initiative Media Western AG (media). LiveEarth project:
Responsible at Coop:
Jürg Peritz (Head of Marketing/Procurement), Barbara Irniger (Head of Public Relations), Sylvia Filliol (Head of Sponsoring), André Deiss (Project Manager Sponsoring), Lydie Goltdammer (Head of Advertising Realization). Responsible at KSB/SJ: Flo Wacker, Daniel Krieg (Creative Direction), Christian Kahl (Art Direction), Andres Blumenthal (Text), Dany Kielholz (Consulting Management), Sabrina Arthur (Consulting), Caesar Eberhard (DTP), Lilo Killer (Art Buying), John Hughes (Illustration), RTK (Litho). Production company: Onfilm; Producer: Universal Studios Media Licensing (Roni Lubliner / Steven Spielberg); Director: Flo Wacker, Steven Spielberg; Research Material: Haisch Hunter GmbH; Editing: Marcel Ramsay; Music: Spacetrain; Sound design: Peter Bräcker; Sound studio: Hastings; Postproduction: Online.

Web2com is launching "Premium Network", a new advertising network of Swiss websites, according to a press release from the Publigroupe subsidiary. In this network, Web2com sells traffic from websites such as Pro7.ch, Students.ch and Comparis.ch. The two product lines Premium Reach and Premium Profile are available to advertising customers within the offer. With Premium Reach, advertising customers now have the opportunity to maximize the reach of their online campaign. With Premium Profile, customers can book specific user profiles. To create profiles, Web2com draws conclusions about users' interests and socio-demographic characteristics based on their surfing behavior. The insights gained from this are supplemented with information from Swiss Internet research Net-Metrix-Profile and the login data of registered users. This method goes one step further than classic behavioral targeting and ensures a very high validity of the user profiles, according to the press release. Web2com adheres strictly to the applicable data protection guidelines.