Cablecom is stepping on the gas when it comes to upgrading its networks. In order to make faster progress, it is outsourcing the construction of its cable network to Swisscom and Alpine-Energie Schweiz. This affects 62 Cablecom employees, who will continue to be employed by the two companies under the same conditions. They are guaranteed their jobs for twelve months, as the network operator announced. The modalities of the transfer were agreed with the employee representatives and the communications union. The reason for the outsourcing is the scope of the network expansion and the tight schedule. By the end of 2008, one million households should be able to benefit from higher bandwidth. According to Cablecom, demand for the digital TV service is already much higher than expected. From October 1, TV broadcasts will also be offered in high-definition quality (HDTV).
The majority of network construction and maintenance work is already carried out by subcontractors. The two selected partner companies will now take over the construction of the network as general contractors. The installation and service work within the properties will also be consolidated to a greater extent in future and carried out by regional or national installation companies.

 
Sabine Galindo, publishing director of the Aargauer Zeitung, is leaving the company at the end of the year to pursue a new career. The succession plan is not yet known, as AZ Medien spokeswoman Eva Keller told Werbewoche. The search for a successor is now underway. "We hope that we will be able to fill the position by the end of the year," said Keller. Sabine Galindo joined the AZ Medien Group's magazine publishing house in 2001 as Head of "Life and Enjoyment" and was responsible for the subscription service. From 2004, she was Head of Reader Market and managed the reader service activities. These two departments were merged smoothly under her leadership. As Head of Reader Marketing at Aargauer Zeitung, she played a key role in the launch of the AZ regional format (2004) and the additional cultural and social supplement "Foyer" (2005).
According to the AZ Medien Group's media release, Galindo was appointed Publishing Director in February 2006 and was a member of the extended management board of the AZ Medien Group. In this function, she supported the development of cooperation between the publishing house and advertising sales by Publicitas from January 2006 and expanded AZ's reader marketing activities.

 As of September 1, Marco Bäumer will become the new Head of Media and Marketing Services at Edipub. He takes over from Thomas Kords, who has accepted a new challenge in the media sector, according to a press release from Edipub. In this role, he will be responsible for sales support and promotion of the Edipresse magazines Bilan, Femina, Télé Top matin and TV Guide in the advertising market. According to the media company, Bäumer was previously Head of Media and Sales Services at NZZ Media.

On August 2, Manuela Eigenmann joined the Zurich dialog marketing agency Brüngger Dialog and complements the web design and graphics team. Manuela Eigenmann holds a Master of Visual Design from the Scuola Politecnica di Design in Milan and trained as a web programmer in Buenos Aires. According to the press release from Brüngger Dialog, Eigenmann also completed a course in journalism and communication science at the University of Zurich. At Brüngger, Eigenmann will support the development of web applications under the direction of Remo Bachmann, who will join the agency as CD in October, and help shape and characterize the visual output. 

 
Schweizer Radio DRS has had its brands gently overhauled. The new look will be launched in mid-August. The main reason for the optimization of the Radio DRS brands was the launch of the new program DRS 4 News. In principle, the existing variety of logos has been simplified, as Radio DRS reports in a press release, as the handling of the logo inserts was previously too complex. The brand family as such will remain, but the program brands will only have one level in future. New are the short claims as an addition to the name, for example "DRS 4 News - Was die Welt bewegt" or "DRS Virus - Das unerhörte Radio" (the press release does not reveal whether this is self-irony or not).
The new brand family:

What had already been rumored is now a fact: Bernhard Weissberg is to become the new editor-in-chief of Blick. Ringier is also announcing further changes: The editor-in-chief of Sonntagsblick, Marc Walder, will also become Editorial Director Newspapers at Ringier Publishing Switzerland, André Grieder will be the new Head of Sport at Blick and SonntagsBlick and Daniel Steil, previously Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Heute, will head the editorial team of the free evening newspaper on an interim basis with immediate effect. Ringier Publishing Switzerland is once again being reorganized. Daniel Pillard, Managing Director of Ringier Publishing Switzerland, is directly in charge of the newspaper division. In the newly created role of Editorial Director, Walder will be responsible for the journalistic and strategic development of Blick, SonntagsBlick, Blick Online, Heute and Sport Magazin. He will remain Editor-in-Chief of Sonntagsblick. The 41-year-old Walder has been working for Ringier since 1991, initially holding various positions at Blick and SonntagsBlick. From 2000 to 2007, he was Editor-in-Chief of Schweizer Illustrierte before becoming Editor-in-Chief of SonntagsBlick in February.
Bernhard Weissberg, currently editor-in-chief at Blick, will take over as head of Blick on November 1. Until then, he will be in charge of the Blick 2010 project. The 48-year-old was head of Radio Canal 3 from 1985 to 1990. At Ringier, he first reorganized the Ringier Documentation Centre, and from 1992 he worked at Blick as head of sports, politics and news as well as deputy editor-in-chief. He was then Editor-in-Chief of SonntagsBlick from 1997 to 2001 and Head of the Newspaper Division from 2002 until he became Editor-in-Chief of Heute in April 2006.

Daniel Steil, until now deputy editor-in-chief of Heute, is now interim editor-in-chief of the free evening newspaper. According to Ringier Group spokesman Marco Castellaneta, the selection process for the Heute editor-in-chief will be opened; Steil is also a possible candidate for the post.
André Grieder, the former head of culture and sport at Facts, will take over as head of sport at Blick and SonntagsBlick on November 1. Since the immediate resignation of Werner de Schepper as Blick editor-in-chief in mid-March, Rolf Cavalli has been interim editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper. He will now become deputy editor-in-chief again. De Schepper, for his part, will be journalistic advisor for the Ringier magazines L'illustré and L'Hebdo in French-speaking Switzerland from September 1.

In this year's image campaign for the Swiss Pharmacists' Association PharmaSuisse, the Zurich-based agency Werbeanstalt Schweiz is focusing on the upheaval in the healthcare system and the role of pharmacies in this process. According to a press release from the agency, the fact that pharmacies provide important services for all premium payers and thus reduce healthcare costs has not been sufficiently recognized in the discussion about reforms in the healthcare system. At the heart of the nationwide campaign is the new pharmacy cross, which is integrated into various well-known objects: on a five-franc coin with the message "Health made affordable", on a Swiss passport with "Personal and genuine", on a pocket knife with "Effectiveness sharply controlled" and on a football shirt with "Fair play in healthcare". With this campaign, the Swiss Advertising Agency wants to clearly differentiate the member pharmacies of the umbrella organization PharmaSuisse from discounters that would unilaterally boost the consumption of medicines with small consultation services and high prices.
Responsible at PharmaSuisse: Marcel Wyler, Head of Communication & Marketing. Responsible at Werbeanstalt Schweiz: Strategy: Reto Dürrenberger; CD: Sarah Hiltebrand; Text/Concept: Michael Manzardo; Graphics: Sarah Erni; Consulting: Reto Dürrenberger, Sonja Geissmann; DTP: Andi Laub; Photography: Aldo Todaro; Image processing: Pixelprinz.

The campaign for the Badenfahrt folk festival, which only takes place every ten years, can only come from an agency in Baden. That's right: the S&W advertising agency from Baden took care of all communication media again this year after 1997. It is the "biggest folk festival in Switzerland", wrote the Tages-Anzeiger: for 10 days and nights, the town in Aargau is turned upside down. Around 150 operators of festival pubs, bars and stages provide entertainment and food as well as every other imaginable spiritual and physical pleasure. According to the S&W advertising agency, in addition to an extensive poster and advertising campaign, it also designed and implemented a festival newspaper, the event program, sponsor towers, flagging and people guidance systems.
Responsible on the client side: Marc Perillard, President; Urs Wiezel, Head of Communications. Responsible at S&W Werbeagentur: Urs Wiezel, CD; Jörg Krummenacher, AD; Alfredo Biffi and Martin Perini, concept and text.

 Has the decision been made to appoint Bernhard Weissberg, currently editor-in-chief of the Abendzeitung Heute, as head of Blick? This option has been circulating in the industry for some time (see ). When asked by Werbewoche, Weissberg merely stated that he could not say anything about it. His deputy Daniel Steil is set to succeed him at the free newspaper, writes the industry service Kleinreport. Steil made the same statement as Weissberg: "I can't say anything about it at the moment". However, insiders believe that these two changes will indeed take place, as Werbewoche has learned. However, the Ringier media office does not want to confirm anything: "We do not comment on rumors".

 Werbewoche editor Christian Lüscher was looking forward to his interview with Google on Wednesday. He was at Freigutstrasse 12 in Zurich at 11 a.m. on the dot. There, however, he did not encounter the much-cited perfect Google world, but a situation that he only knows from the CSI crime shows. The Zurich city police were about to storm the Googleplex with their anti-terrorist unit. The scene was cinematic. "Get away!" hissed a John McClane wannabe in a bullet vest, helmet and with a machine gun. "Sorry, what did he say? I don't speak German," said a Google employee. The man made a very frightened impression. The world is not just made up of zeros and ones. Ten minutes later, the all-clear is given. No bomb, no terrorist, no virus. A pregnant employee at reception was to blame. Her arms accidentally triggered the hold-up button. Did her belly protrude too far?

During the summer vacations, Juventus students demonstrated publicly in Zurich "for fewer school vacations". A commercial was made of the demonstration, which has been shown on TV in recent weeks. Next Monday, school starts again in the canton of Zurich. The pupils at Juventus cannot wait for this, according to a communiqué from the Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett agency. They wait days in advance for school to start. True to the new Juventus motto: "A school that people enjoy going to." The advertisement will appear in 20 Minuten on Friday.  
 
Link Responsible at Juventus: Stephan Ogg (Rector), Silvia Bärle (Marketing Assistant). Responsible at Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett: Barbara Hutter (Text), Cornelia Wenk (AD), Martin Spillmann (CD), Dominik Mätzener (Consulting), Sebahat Derdiyok, Bettina Sorg (Art Buying). Photography: Nico Schärer.

 As in July last year, many companies have sent their Google AdWords campaigns into the summer break this year. This is reflected in the click prices, which have fallen again for the first time in months, as the July figures just published by Swiss Adex Angelink show. The trend of recent years is consolidating: In June, people are still booking on Google for all they're worth, followed by the summer lull in July. As the Swiss Adex from Angelink yourposition reveals, the number of advertising spaces booked fell from an average of 19 to around 15. According to the press release, the campaigns from the tourism industry have declined the most, with only 26 companies from this segment still present; 17 fewer than in the previous month. If the trends of the previous year continue, the lull is not expected to be over until September.
Click prices became cheaper again in July for the first time since April. They had remained at an average of two francs for months, but have now fallen to 1.90 francs, although they are still 20 percent higher than in the previous year.
The monthly Swiss Adex published by Angelink yourposition measures how search engine marketing with Google AdWords is developing in Switzerland. All prices are based on the click prices that Google offers potential advertising customers online.