Bild-Zeitung is currently promoting its new cell phone information offer with a package contract. For just under ten euros, the daily newspaper is now offering a prepaid cell phone card that gives users access to a wide range of news, sports and social information in addition to telephone services. Axel Springer Verlag, the parent company of Bild-Zeitung, announced on Friday that 40,000 of the new prepaid cards had already been sold in the first two days. Due to the huge rush, there were even brief bottlenecks in activating the SIM cards.

Zanox, a global multichannel commerce company in which Publigroup holds a stake, has made its website more user-friendly and easier to navigate. The new websites have already gone online in 13 languages worldwide, according to a press release, and the new Zanox Web is intended to enable both advertisers and publishers to generate higher online revenues and tap into new sources of income with immediate effect. Users will have access to Zanox's global network, offers and know-how and will be able to establish the Internet as a continuous profit generator.
In addition to a new beginners' area, Zanox has created space for video content on its websites. The new Zanox Web also includes four segments for professional publishers, which are Search Engine Marketing, GAP (Global Alliance Partners), Portals & Content Sites and E-Mail & Incentivized Offers, and four new advertiser websites, which are divided into the four sectors T.I.M.E.S (Telecommunications and Entertainment), Travel, Retail & Shopping and Financial Services.
Zanox has been part of Axel Springer and Publigroup since July 2007. The Berlin-based company cooperates with over one million sales partners in more than 190 countries.

Swiss companies can order parcels full of Swiss fruit on the Freshbox.ch website. SFLB illustrates the claim "Just on the tree, soon in the office." with a new motif The latest motif developed by SFLB is intended to show that the fruit delivered by Freshbox.ch is "as fresh as if it landed directly in the box before it was even harvested." SFLB therefore decided to illustrate the claim "Just on the tree, soon in the office" with trees hung with vitamin boxes instead of fruit. According to the communiqué, Freshbox.ch, with its seasonal fruit and fruit box contents, is intended to provide Swiss companies with vitamin C instead of vitamin B.
Responsible at Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett
Martin Spillmann (Creative Director), Raul Serrat (Art Director), Diana Rossi (Text), Martina Glaser (Consulting), Andrea Vedovo (Photography), Rohner Retouche (Image editing)Responsible at Freshbox.ch
Georg Twerenbold (Managing Director)

 According to a press report, new major shareholders have joined the kiosk operator Valora - but it is not Axel Springer, as was previously rumored. According to the business magazine Bilanz, a group led by Adriano Agosti has acquired an 11.01 percent stake. The group of investors includes Agosti's financial company GoldenPeaks Capital Partners in Zug, the two private banks Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch and Pictet as well as the small cap specialists 3V Asset Management, as Agosti confirmed to Bilanz. According to the business magazine, the Ticino-based investor Tito Tettamanti, who was active together with Agosti at SIG, where he brought about a takeover of the packaging group, is not involved. The new major shareholders are also likely to ultimately aim for a takeover of Valora, according to a press release from the magazine, which is itself published by Axel Springer. The Tamedia newspaper Finanz und Wirtschaft recently reported that Axel Springer wanted to take over Valora; this assumption has not yet been confirmed. At the end of August, Valora published surprisingly weak half-year results, with the previously stable kiosk business being particularly disappointing. After the share price had halved since the beginning of the year, it has recovered in recent days on conspicuously high volumes.

 According to the latest figures from Media Focus, September was a very good month for advertising: advertising pressure rose by 11.6% in September 2007 compared to the same period last year. The cumulative increase since the beginning of the year is 8.5 percent. As expected, the key market "political campaigns" recorded the strongest monthly growth with an increase of 139.3% compared to the same period last year in the final spurt of the election. With advertising expenditure totaling CHF 10.7 million, the parties communicated their political views and promoted their candidates last month.
With an increase of 32.1%, or CHF 12.1 million, compared to the same period last year, the key market of finance also had a strong advertising month in September. Image advertising was also one of the monthly winners across all product markets. With growth of 27.3%, CHF 17.5 million was spent on non-product-related advertising in September.
By contrast, expenditure on printed advertising for beverages (-1.0%), furniture, home and garden (-0.5%) and pharmaceuticals/health (-0.5%) fell slightly. Expenditure on tobacco advertising fell by a further 16.8% to CHF 1.7 million: For the year as a whole, they are now almost two thirds down on the previous year.

 Advertising pressure rose sharply last month, mainly thanks to political advertising, as the figures from Media Focus show (see ). The parties spent a total of CHF 10.7 million on advertising in September. It is interesting to compare the advertising share of the Federal Council parties with the current political distribution in the National Council: the SVP's advertising share is 25 percentage points higher than the percentage share in the National Council. This comparison is the opposite for the SP: its share of advertising is 13 percentage points lower than its percentage share in the National Council. For the other Federal Council parties, this comparative value is more in the middle according to their political orientation. In percentage terms, the FDP spends more on communication than it does in the National Council (plus 10 percentage points) and the CVP achieves a higher percentage in the National Council than in election advertising (minus 4 percentage points).

Exxtra Kommunikation launches a print campaign and a poster display for Soft Deluxe toilet paper from Migros. The major distributor is now offering a new luxury toilet paper for small and large businesses: the six-ply Soft Deluxe Velvet, which also has a gentle caring effect thanks to its treatment with jojoba lotion, according to a press release. Migros has already made a name for itself with its Soft Deluxe range of toilet paper for discerning customers. To draw attention to the latest addition to the product line and the existing range, Exxtra Kommunikation created an advertising campaign and a corresponding poster display. The image of a rabbit, cat or lamb on the toilet roll holder is intended to show that Soft Deluxe products are particularly fluffy. The agency took into account the fact that the campaign would trigger a certain "yay effect" - after all, it is a much-used tool in this market segment. As a secondary message, it was important to communicate that Soft Deluxe products are certified with the FSC label and that the paper therefore comes from sustainable forestry.
Responsible at Migros-Genossenschaftsbund, Zurich:
Beat Mühlemann (Head of Marketing Communications), Marcel Frauchiger (Head of Category Management), Katja Lehner (Category Manager). Responsible at Exxtra Kommunikation, Zurich: Dieter Hofmann (CD), Andrea Dübendorfer (Art Director), Nina Treml (Text), Désirée Strassmann, Kathrin Steiger (Consulting).

The "No Anoressia" campaign, which is supported by the Ministry of Health, shows pictures of French model Isabelle Caro, who has suffered from anorexia for 15 years and weighs just 31 kilos. The posters, in which the red-haired anorexic looks naked and lost in the camera, are to be removed, the Italian advertising control authority has decided, according to an SDA report. Toscani's pictures may no longer be printed in newspapers and magazines, and the authority justified its decision by stating that Toscani's photos contradict Article 10 of the Code of Self-Discipline for Advertising. This article stipulates that advertising must "respect the dignity of the human person in all its forms and expressions".
The president of the authority, Giorgio Floridia, is of the opinion that the image is shocking, especially for the sick, and that Isabelle Caro is being exploited for commercial purposes. Toscani complained about censorship.

Publigroupe announced further steps in the restructuring of the Allmedia sales organization under the name Publicitas and revealed more details about the new structures of the staff units and the sales organization in Switzerland. Cinecom CEO Matthias Luchsinger will be leaving the company and, according to the press release, the company intends to focus on three topics on the way to the global sales organization of the "new Publicitas": "Strong sales across all media types, effective processes and a fundamental cultural change", as future Publicitas CEO Robert Schmidli explains in the press release.
Under the leadership of Thomas Bargetzi, the sales organization in Switzerland combines the previous units Publicitas, Publimedia, Publimag, Mosse, Publiconnect, Radiotele, Cinecom and web2com. The aim of bringing the individual units together under one roof is to focus even more strongly on their market performance without losing their specialist expertise.
The two regions in French-speaking Switzerland will continue to be managed by Urs Donatsch and Patrick Cuénoud. Under the leadership of Moreno Cavaliere, the Mittelland region now includes the areas of Aargau, Solothurn, Bern and Biel, but no longer Ticino. The managers themselves will also take on operational tasks. The Zurich, St. Gallen, Lucerne region will now be managed by Thomas Bargetzi. The Basel advertising market will be managed by Jürg Räber, who will report directly to Thomas Bargetzi until further notice. Media Sales CEO Robert Schmidli is also taking on a role on the sales front: he will manage Südostschweiz and Ticino.
With Daniel Strobel (Publimedia), Ueli Weber (Electronic and Interactive), Markus Bucher (Publiconnect) and Hansruedi Bichsel (Publimag & Mosse), proven experts have been recruited within the Group. Cinecom CEO Matthias Luchsinger will be leaving the company at the end of the year to take on a new challenge.
The tasks of the Business Engineering & Operations support unit can be summarized as processes and systems across all media and for all countries. Under the leadership of Markus Bieri, over 130 employees ensure that today's processes are in place and provide technological support for the units and their respective businesses.
Media Partner Relations & Marketing, headed by Christian Gartmann, deals with relationships with media owners around the world (Alexandra Kasper), marketing services (Michael Schaefer) as well as PR and internal communications. The head of the Market Development department is still vacant.
In their new structures, Human Resources and Finance & Controlling are also geared towards global needs as well as national and regional business in Switzerland. Personnel training and development will also play a central role here.
Tim Dührkoop heads the Strategy Development support unit. He coordinates the work of the new Executive Board and its projects and is responsible for mergers & acquisitions and key projects such as incentivizing around 1900 employees worldwide.

 Intel, the world's largest chip manufacturer, has come up with an unconventional solution to improve internal communication: e-mail-free Fridays. 150 engineers at the world's largest chip manufacturer have launched the "Zero E-mail Fridays" pilot project. By foregoing electronic mail, the IT company's technicians want to improve internal communication, as the newspaper USA Today reports.
There is no absolute ban on e-mail. However, anyone who joins the initiative should avoid e-mails if possible and communicate in person or by telephone on this day.
More direct communication should improve the exchange of ideas. Concentration on the actual work should also increase: People who frequently check their emails need up to four minutes each time they are interrupted to be able to concentrate on their original activity again.
The reason for the initiative is the growing flood of emails: worldwide, 39.7 billion emails are sent from person to person every day, plus 17.1 billion automatically generated messages and 40.5 billion spam emails, the newspaper quotes market researcher IDC. Coping with this mass of communication costs companies huge sums of money.

 Ingrid Deltenre, the director of Swiss Television, is convinced of her station's program. In an interview with the Mittelland Zeitung on Thursday, she said that Swiss television is well on the way to successfully asserting itself in the new television world. Despite her conviction and despite last weekend's dream ratings, she was also self-critical, especially when it came to programming. "We set too fast a pace. A slightly slower approach would have been better, so that we would have had a little more time to develop the programs." She also emphasized that Swiss television is never exclusively about high ratings. "We are not only financed by advertising, but also by license fees. This is a privilege, but also an obligation: we make a program for everyone, for majorities and minorities alike, who are interested in a differentiated range of information and culture."

The Zurich-based Walker advertising agency is delighted to have won awards at the Golden Drum Festival. According to the festival organizers, the "Not here but now" campaign for Amnesty International was awarded a Golden Drum in the "Media" category. The same campaign also won a "Golden Watch" in the "Advertising campaigns" category.