Swisscard has restructured its organization and divided the former Marketing&Sales division into the "Consumer Business" and "Commercial Business" divisions. Guido Müller has headed the Consumer Business since October 2007 and is now a member of the Executive Board of the financial services provider based in Horgen. He is responsible for all consumers and partners. Müller joined Swisscard in 2003 as a manager in the CEO Office. As Senior Manager, he headed Product Management in 2004 and was responsible for the marketing of American Express private cards in the Marketing & Sales division in 2005/06. Since the end of 2006, he has been Head of Marketing Management for the Swisscard credit card portfolio and responsible for the development and execution of the marketing plan. Before joining Swisscard, Müller was a member of the management board of a communications agency and a management consultant at McKinsey & Company.

 The Screen-Up Congress will come to a rousing end with a huge party on the evening of October 17 at Zurich's Rohstofflager club. In addition to Zurich's top DJs Dani König, Minus 8 and Muri, an absolute world-class act will also be performing there. Marquess, interpreters of the summer hit "Vayamos Compagñeros", will do the honors and ensure a worthy conclusion to the only Swiss industry event for audiovisual, electronic media.

The Zurich agency Publicis is in the running for medals at the London International Awards with four nominations. Nominated in the "POP" category are a piece of work for Wilson Distance Driver and a campaign for Schauspiel Haus Zürich in the "Film" category. Two works for Pastorini are also in the running for a medal in the "Print" category: "Pastorini Rakete" and "Pastorini Walkie Talkie". The award ceremony will take place in London on November 12.

 The software company Axes Systems from Alpnach has decided to work with Jenni Kommunikation. The agency's new client develops GIS mapping software. The technology is well established with map manufacturers, and now it should also become known to a broader market. This is one of the reasons why the company wants to work with Jenni Kommunikation in future, the CEO of Axes Systems is quoted in a press release. Jenni Kommunikation's main task is to provide technical advice and implement the communication strategy.

 The Swiss cinema portal Cineman.ch will soon be working closely with the film magazine Film. From October, the top ten of the Cineman Movie Charts with ratings and comments will be printed in every issue. The collaboration is characterized by the cross-media networking of print, online and mobile, and all film titles in the magazine will now be provided with a voting code that readers can use to send in their ratings directly from the cinema foyer by SMS and also check them by cell phone.

 The air is getting even thinner for smokers and tobacco advertisers in Switzerland. According to the head of the FOPH, Thomas Zeltner, the Federal Council is planning to join the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. This means, among other things, a tightening of advertising laws. As Director of the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), Zeltner took part in the media conference on the 4th European Conference "Tobacco or Health". As he said, he wants to expand tobacco prevention and make Switzerland one of the top ten European countries in this respect. According to a study by Luk Joossens, Switzerland is currently in 18th place - two years ago it was still in 24th place.
To further reduce the smoking rate, Zeltner wants to enforce interventions and bans. The head of the FOPH knows he has the backing of the Federal Council. The Federal Council wants to sign the World Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention in the next legislative period. If Swiss law is to meet its requirements, it will have to be tightened. To this end, tobacco should be removed from the Foodstuffs Act and regulated separately.
In concrete terms, this would mean a ban on posters in public spaces, a ban on cinema advertising and restrictions on sponsorship. Exactly what the latter will look like remains to be seen, said Zeltner, referring to major events such as the Davidoff Swiss Indoors tennis tournament or the AVO Session concert series in Basel. There will be transitional periods.
The price is the most effective factor in curbing consumption, said Joossens. In addition, bans and other measures such as blatant warnings are also effective. The EU is also aiming to reduce subsidies for tobacco cultivation. In Switzerland, all attempts to do this have so far failed, said Zeltner; nothing is happening at the moment.

In a new advertising campaign, the Zurich advertising agency Jung von Matt/Limmat emphasizes the advantages of the new lighting system from Mercedes Benz. The Intelligent Light System always distributes the light where it is needed most, depending on the weather and traffic situation. The advertising motif symbolically illustrates the advantage of the new technology: two divination crystal spheres represent the characteristic round headlights of the E-Class.Jung von Matt/Limmat has been the main agency for the Mercedes-Benz brand in Switzerland since the beginning of this year.
Responsible at Daimler Chrysler Switzerland: Diego Tomasini (Director Mercedes Car Group), Doris Lengwiler (Head of Marketing Communications Mercedes Car Group).Responsible at Jung von Matt/Limmat: Alexander Jaggy (CD), Livio Dainese (text), Fernando Perez (AD), Christina Bäriswyl (graphics), Barbara Schmassmann, Mara Bonorand, Felix Schröder (consulting), Ilonka Galliard, Erasmo Palomba (art buying), Hans-Jörg Walter (photography), Lukas Gloor, Pictura (image processing).

 To mark its two-year anniversary, the Piazza.ch internet platform has revamped its website. User-friendliness and the visual appearance in particular were the focus of the new features, which were implemented by the Glattbrugg web agency Insign under the direction of the Zurich multimedia agency Reflexivity. The range of advertisements is now spread across 130 different city platforms. To enable users to search for goods and services in their immediate vicinity, all offers are now shown on a Google Maps map. The website Piazza.ch, which belongs to the Tamedia Group, plans to further strengthen its role in the classifieds market with these changes. 

 The issue of "folk music on the radio" has not yet been resolved: the Swiss Folk Music Association has launched a petition to ensure that folk music continues to be broadcast by Radio DRS on FM. The petition demands that Parliament, the Federal Council, the SRG and Radio DRS take all necessary precautions "to ensure that a wide range of folk music continues to be broadcast on an FM frequency in the future". Otherwise, folk music fans would be forced to switch to DAB before nationwide coverage is guaranteed.
The petition is supported by broad sections of the folk music community, as the association announced on Thursday. For example, Ruedi Rymann, Peter Zinsli and Kurt Felix have backed the petition. The petition has received political support from SVP President Ueli Maurer and St. Gallen SVP National Councillor Toni Brunner.

For Swisscome Mobile, the Bern-based communications agency Bern is taking a humorous approach to the National Council elections. In a campaign for a special Swisscom promotion in which customers can vote on which cell phone will be available for one franc in the future, the devices are presented like candidates. The advertisement, which calls for SMS voting, shows the six Nokia candidates in shirts and jackets, with ties or foulards and the identical election slogan across all parties: "Vote for me!"Responsible at Swisscom Mobile AG: Germinal Lopez (Team Leader Product Communication), Marco Laffer (Promotion Manager) and Manuela Crippa (Product Communication Officer).Responsible at Contexta: Bene Abegglen (CD), Daniel Müller (text), Ibrahim Zbat (AD), Sam Divers (graphics), Nadine Borter (overall responsibility), Sarah Dovlo and Ivo Sonderegger (consulting); photography/image editing: Fotostudio Spengler, Jonas Spengler.

 Business IT specialist Urs Hofmann has been Project Manager Research at SPR+ since October 1, 2007. Hofmann had previously worked as Head of IT and Databases at the research institute for a year. He will take over the operational management of the research projects, while the strategic and scientific management will continue to be carried out by Managing Director Felix Mende in consultation with the Advisory Board. Under the leadership of Urs Hofmann, the object pilot study was launched in August 2007, SPR+ announced on Thursday. The aim of the new division of responsibilities is to put SPR+'s research activities and services on a broader footing in order to be able to react more quickly to market requirements and technical developments.

 ProSiebenSat.1 marketer SevenOne Media announced a new media model in Germany on Thursday. With it, the company is breaking new ground after the antitrust fine (see ). With the new model, SevenOne Media wants to offer its market partners planning and legal certainty, according to Werben und Verkaufen. In the future, the marketer will award discounts exclusively to advertising customers; agencies will no longer receive discounts. Instead, they will be paid in the form of fees for planning-neutral services they provide to SevenOne Media. The general agency commission remains in the new model. Volume discounts to customers are now given only as cash discounts. The model is based on the requirements of antitrust law for discount systems. In the future, a discount or fee will always be matched by a clearly defined service from the market partner that leads to cost savings or efficiency gains for SevenOne Media.
In Switzerland, the model has no impact at all, as Mike Gut, managing director of ProSieben (Switzerland) and Sat.1 (Switzerland), told Werbewoche: "Everything is handled quite differently here." One difference from Germany is that SevenOne Media does not market directly in Switzerland, but works with IP Multimedia for ProSieben and with Cinecom for Kabel eins and Sat.1. "Besides that, the market situation in Switzerland is quite different. In addition, the antitrust conditions in Germany are different from ours," Gut added. He said he has not received any negative reactions to the antitrust fine ProSiebenSat.1 has to pay in Germany: "No Swiss parties are affected: no agency, no marketer, no customer. It's a completely different world," Gut explained.