As of 2008, Publigroupe has defined the new management structure for the Media Sales division, which has been redesigned as part of the strategic realignment. Under the leadership of Robert Schmidli, all sales activities of Publipresse (Publicitas, Publimedia, Publimag, Mosse Media), the international Publicitas Promotion Network and the electronic and interactive marketing activities (Cinecom, Radiotele, Web2com, Crossmedia) will be combined and bundled within Media Sales. The newly defined management organization is based on the four operational business divisions Switzerland, Europe, Asia/Pacific and Americas, which are organized according to geographical zones. It is supplemented by the Group staff departments Media Partners Relations & Marketing, Business Engineering, Strategy Development Media Sales, Finance & Controlling and Human Resources. The newly formed Executive Board Media Sales will take up its duties on January 1, 2008.
The heads of the four business divisions Thomas Bargetzi is taking over responsibility for Switzerland as CEO/Sales Director. In this role, the 47-year-old will be responsible for all sales activities in Switzerland. Thomas Bargetzi has been an independent entrepreneur for more than six years. He has broad-based, international management experience in marketing and sales in a wide range of industries, according to a Publigroupe press release. In recent years, he has worked for Süddeutsche Zeitung in Munich and Europa Fachpresse-Verlag, among others. At Publigroupe, Thomas Bargetzi is jointly responsible for the "Dynamic Pricing" project on a mandate basis.
Grace Palacios will take over management responsibility for the Americas region. The 48-year-old was previously Head/CEO of Publicitas Latin America. From January 1, 2008, she will also assume management responsibility for all Publicitas units in the USA and Canada.
Anthony Turner (53) and Moritz Wuttke (42) will retain their current roles as Head of Europe and Head of Asia/Pacific respectively.
Christian Gartmann takes over as Head of Marketing Christian Gartmann takes over as Head of Media Partners Relations & Marketing. The 42-year-old Gartmann has been Head of Electronic/Digital & Interactive Media at Publigroupe since the beginning of 2007. In his new role, he will be responsible in particular for the entire marketing activities of Media Sales and for contractual relations with all media. He will also coordinate the international growth of cross-media activities.
The Business Engineering division will be managed by Markus Bieri (41), previously CEO of Publiconnect. His new role involves aligning and developing processes and IT systems with the strategy of the Media Sales division and managing the portfolio of defined business engineering projects.
Lionel Flückiger will be responsible for Finance & Controlling from January 1, 2008. The 39-year-old is an internationally experienced financial expert who joined Publigroupe in July 2001; he has been CFO since September 2003 and COO of Publicitas Promotion Network since January 2006.
Thierry Schmid is taking over responsibility for Human Resources. He joined Publigroupe subsidiary Consultas in May 1999, where he is currently responsible for Human Resources and Administration as a member of the Executive Board.
Tim Dührkoop will be in charge of the Media Sales Strategy Development department. He worked for the Publigroupe subsidiary Namics from May 1997 to August 2006 - most recently as Head of Market Switzerland - and has been working for Publigroupe in the USA since September 1, 2006.

Caotina is the premium chocolate drink from Wander. It brings irresistible drinking pleasure to everyday life - so irresistible that just remembering it is a treat in itself, according to a communiqué from Advico Young & Rubicam. In a TV commercial, the agency shows a wide variety of people who have one thing in common: They lick their lips with relish at the thought of the Caotina they have just drunk. The commercial can be seen on TV from the beginning of September 2007. Responsible at Wander AG: Arnold Furtwängler (Head of Marketing and Sales), Björn Roncoroni (Marketing Manager), Bettina Marthaler (Junior Product Manager). Responsible at AY&R: Urs Schrepfer, Daniel Comte (Creative Director), Roland Scotoni (Art Director), Florian Birkner (Text), Marie-Theres Ott (Consulting), Daniela Berther (FFF Production), Ivo Mosterman (Director), GAP Films Munich, (Production), NJP Tonstudio AG (Sound/Music).

 Clear Channel Outdoor has been awarded the contract to market outdoor advertising in the St. Gallen Shopping Arena. According to a press release, this is the largest shopping and leisure center in Eastern Switzerland and the entire Lake Constance region. The Shopping Arena is attached to the AFG Arena football stadium, which is currently being built at a cost of CHF 340 million. The total of 50 stores and restaurants and the adjoining leisure center are expected to attract 4.5 million people a year once it opens next year. There will be 1,100 to 1,300 parking spaces for visitors to the football stadium and the shopping arena. Clear Channel will market 56 frontal, largely illuminated billboards in this environment. Most of the spaces can already be booked from September 2007.

 Advertising pressure rose by 4.7 percent year-on-year to 214.7 million Swiss francs in July 2007. Accumulated advertising expenditure in the first half of 2007 rose by 7.9 percent to around 2.2 billion Swiss francs, as reported by the market research institute Media Focus on Monday. The media groups of consumer magazines, daily newspapers, cinema and television were able to achieve above-average growth in July. On a cumulative basis for the data months January to July 2007, the television media group grew faster than the growth average. Some advertising markets have developed conspicuously in July compared to the previous year: With a year-on-year increase of 81.9 percent, the food sector is the clear monthly leader. However, there was significantly less advertising in the key market of furniture, home & garden. Here, advertisers invested 29.0% less in communication than in the same period last year. The top five advertisers in the product market - Ikea, Pfister, Hubacher, Coop and Migros - recorded a drop of between 28 and 88 percent.
The strongest monthly growth in the current year to date was recorded in the vehicles sector, with an increase of 22.1% compared to the same period last year. True to the rainy summer weather, gross expenditure on convertibles fell year-on-year (-31.9%). Unimpressed by the (political) climate, advertising expenditure for SUVs increased by a whopping 217.3%.

Since the beginning of July, Michael Bossard has been strengthening TBWA Switzerland in Zurich as the new Unit Director. Together with his team, he is responsible for the McDonald's Switzerland mandate. After his positions at Seiler DDB, Fisch.Meier, Lowe and Bossard Kommunikation in Lucerne, the TBWA offer to take over as Unit Director came at exactly the right moment. Michael Bossard says in the communiqué, in true McDonald's style: "I'm lovin' it."

 The publishing house of Süddeutsche Zeitung is up for sale. There are 35 interested parties vying for the publishing house, including newspaper groups such as Holtzbrinck, the WAZ Group and Madsack as well as a large number of financial investors. The mandated bank Credit Suisse is currently sounding out offers from 22 potential buyers for the shares of the four owner families willing to sell, who together hold 62.5 percent. If the sales negotiations go according to plan, the deal could be completed by the fall. According to Spiegel, the sellers' circles say that the future major shareholder must not only accept a purchase price of one billion euros, but must also contractually commit to continuing to invest in the Süddeutsche Zeitung publishing house. There are plans for a Sunday newspaper and an expansion of the online portal.

 Advertising on mobile Internet and TV services is not well received by consumers. As a recent study by the agency Universal McCann shows, 61 percent of respondents strictly reject advertising on websites designed for mobile devices. However, advertising is only accepted by users if it brings an advantage, for example if it contains additional content, explains Tom Smith, Research Manager at Universal McCann, to Pressetext. Coca-Cola succeeded in such a marketing campaign by giving away songs on iTunes, for example. According to the current study, for which 9,500 people from 21 different nations were surveyed, consumers particularly reject mobile advertising if they feel it interrupts their activities in any way. An interruption is possible and accepted in traditional media, but not in this area, where users have so many options to choose where they get their content from, says Smith.
Another thought-provoking message for all those who believe in mobile advertising as "the next big thing" comes from the latest Kommtech study by Publica Data: very few of those surveyed think mobile TV is important. So the industry first has to persuade users to watch TV on their cell phones - and then make advertising appealing to them. But this is not the time to be complacent: After all, who would have believed a few years ago that they would one day find it indispensable to laboriously type messages on a telephone keypad and send them to their loved ones?

 The Swiss Milk Producers Association (SMP) has chosen Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett as its new advertising agency for butter. The agency impressed with a new strategic direction and a fresh campaign approach, Charlotte Hofstetter, Head of Advertising and Media at the SMP, is quoted in a press release from SFLB. The new approach is intended to replace the long-standing Butterfrau and will also increasingly appeal to the younger segment in future. "SFLB and the campaign particularly impressed me because both are bold enough to guarantee an attention-grabbing effect," says Hofstetter. The campaign will be shown in the fall.

 At its next edition, the Zurich Film Festival will be welcoming a distinguished guest in the form of director Oliver Stone. Stone will personally accept a "Golden Eye", as the Zurich festival awards are called, at the awards ceremony on October 6, 2007 in Zurich. Stone became famous with films such as "Platoon", "Born on the Fourth of July", "Wall Street", "JFK", "Natural Born Killers" and "World Trade Center". The Zurich Film Festival, which takes place from September 27 to October 6, will present the best-known films in which Stone critically examines and questions American society. According to a press release, Stone has not only reflected and portrayed politics, but has also significantly shaped it through his works and the discussions they have triggered. Stone sees his entire oeuvre as an intensive preoccupation with the personal war of man: War with society, with the lies of politics, with oneself.

 The Pleon C-Matrix agency now also offers its clients advice on communication in legal disputes. Litigation PR covers press and public relations work during legal disputes. This can involve trademark, copyright, competition or patent law, for example. Product recalls or voluntary withdrawals are also often associated with the risk of a legal dispute or a lawsuit, according to a statement from the agency. If a court case cannot be avoided, it must be accompanied by the right communication strategy, as damage to the company's image cannot be ruled out, it continues. Companies involved in legal disputes are increasingly making the painful experience that it is not facts but preconceived opinions that are important. Ulrike Weber has joined the Litigation PR department. The 33-year-old lawyer completed her legal training in Tübingen, Munich and Leiden (Netherlands) and is also a qualified PR consultant. In addition to litigation PR, she will support Pleon's clients primarily in the automotive sector. Weber worked for six years as a press officer in the Global Communications department at DaimlerChrysler headquarters.

 The Aarau agency Gutzwiller Kommunikation und Design has transformed the names of employees into imaginative anagrams for the printing company Keller Druck. Seemingly strange headlines such as "The Nature Animal", "Councillor Tutu" or "Sciatica Fitter" adorn the new poster campaign. These are anagrams of the names of the Keller Druck employees whose portraits appear on the posters. According to the agency's press release, the underlying message is as follows: The possibilities of digital printing are as unique as people and as unique as their anagrams. For example, mailings can be completely personalized, adapted to the characteristics of each individual recipient.
The poster campaign is complemented by the corresponding website and, in a second phase, by a customer mailing. Each customer receives their own personal anagram and has the opportunity to take part in a competition.

 The Walker advertising agency is flying high: Rega, recently named Switzerland's most respected brand by market research company IHK-GfK, has entrusted its communications to the Zurich agency. Walker prevailed in a demanding evaluation, as detailed in a press release. The creative agency was able to convince Rega's management during a strategy presentation. Walter Stünzi, Head of Communications at Rega, is quoted in the press release as saying: "This campaign makes the value of Rega patronage clear in a plausible and playful way. Starting in French-speaking Switzerland, this communication will further anchor patronage nationwide." The first works, including a cinema and TV commercial, will be shown this fall.