In Italy, large companies such as Coca Cola, Pepsi, Unilever and McDonald's will no longer be allowed to use cartoon characters for advertising purposes to get children under the age of twelve interested in their products. This was announced by the Italian agricultural association Coldiretti on Wednesday, according to SDA. The aim of this measure is to combat childhood obesity. Companies will only be allowed to use cartoon heroes such as Mickey Mouse, Shrek, Disney princesses or Winnie the Pooh in advertising for products with a high nutritional value. The reason for the decision is international studies which show that television advertising for food has the effect of encouraging children to eat twice as many sweets as usual.

 The Jung von Matt/Limmat agency, commissioned by the official sponsor SBB, has produced three trailers for the Swiss game show «5gegen5,» which will air before and after the show.In the trailers, the contestants—who compete in the show in two groups of five—meet as puppets at the «Leutschenbach Puppet Station.» To bring the puppets to life, the agency enlisted the help of mime specialists, according to the press release.
On the show «5gegen5» on Swiss TV Channel 1, two teams of five people each compete every day for up to 30,000 francs. It is hosted by Sven Epiney.
 
 
 

 The Board of Directors of the US media group Dow Jones has voted by a large majority in favor of selling its own company to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. and is looking forward to a cooperation. It will support the original purchase offer of five billion dollars and recommend it to the shareholders for acceptance, as reported by SDA. This brings Murdoch closer to the takeover of the Dow Jones publishing house and thus the Wall Street Journal, which was already announced in May (see ) It now remains to be seen whether the Bancroft family will agree to this agreement. They hold a total of 64 percent of the voting rights in the publishing house and are anything but united; concerns have repeatedly been expressed within the family that a takeover of the Wall Street Journal by the arch-conservative Murdoch would damage the newspaper's reputation. Murdoch is often criticized for turning his private opinion into the opinion of his newspapers and television stations and for interfering in journalistic decisions. Many editors of the Wall Street Journal are therefore also against a takeover; at the end of June, around a third of journalists stayed away from work for a day in protest.
Murdoch's offer to buy the Dow Jones publishing house has been in place since the beginning of May, when he offered a 65% premium on the share price, which skyrocketed after the offer was announced. Today, Wednesday morning, the share price stood at 56.45 dollars, only slightly below Murdoch's May offer of 60 dollars per share.

 Unic Internet Solutions has optimized the entire information architecture of Suva.ch. According to a press release from the company, the navigation now leads to the destination more quickly, offers and promotions are arranged more clearly and designed in a more web-friendly way. In addition to the standard navigation, Unic has implemented alternative access points to the website content. In particular, access to the four main Suva areas has been simplified by a Flash animation, and important tools such as the agency search or quick links are prominently placed. A clear teaser concept runs through the entire website.
The presentation of the most frequently visited content in the form of a word cloud (tag cloud) also reflects the spirit of the times - it is intended to promote direct interaction with customers and visitors to the Suva website. All the latest news can now also be subscribed to as RSS feeds.
Switzerland.

 The last issue of the weekly title Cash was published at the end of June. Ringier had defined a solution for two thirds of the 46 employees affected by the discontinuation as its goal. Christoph Bauer, Head of Business Media at Ringier Verlag Schweiz, announced on Tuesday what the situation looks like so far. According to Bauer, a solution has been found for 36 of the affected employees: Fifteen employees have opted for a new permanent position with Cash daily or other Ringier titles and eight employees have found a new external job. Five employees are taking early retirement and four had already resigned before the closure or at the same time. Finally, four employees would like to change career direction by continuing their education or moving abroad, according to Ringier.
Of the ten remaining employees who have not yet found a definitive solution, four will continue to work for Ringier on a temporary basis. Six are still looking for a suitable new role.
The goal communicated by Ringier when the weekly magazine Cash was discontinued has therefore been achieved. However, the work continues for Ringier: "For all vacancies that could come into question for the six remaining employees, we first contact them before we look for external candidates. However, some of our offers have already been rejected," Bauer is quoted as saying in the Ringier press release. Bauer attributes the fact that a solution has been found for two thirds of the affected employees to the current job market and the good training of the Cash employees.

 The congress section of the industry event for audiovisual media "Screen-up & Congress" will be given additional weight this year. In 2007, the electronic media interest group is organizing the entire congress section itself.  
For the organizers of this year's "Screen-up & Congress", Cinecom, IP Multimedia, Publisuisse, RTL Group and SevenOne Media, the additional partner is a further enrichment of the event, according to a press release. While the organizers of the Swiss industry event for
While the audiovisual media focus on their core competencies, the Interessengemeinschaft elektronische Medien (Igem) offers specialist know-how in the congress section. The industry meeting in Switzerland will take place this year on Wednesday, October 17, 2007 in the Arena Filmcity in Zurich's Sihlcity.
In addition to the traditional Igem Talk, this year the interest group is also responsible for the presentations. The specialist congress is an ideal platform for them, says President Stephan Küng. For visitors, the collaboration means an expansion of the range of offers. This year's current conference theme and the speakers will be announced soon on the Screen-up.ch website.
Following the traditional screenings, prominent experts from Switzerland and abroad will speak and discuss their visions for the Swiss TV market and current trends in the international electronic media world in the congress section. After a break of a few years, this year's event will be followed by a celebration.

 The Biel-based agency Orange8 has developed an online magazine for the financial services provider Financialmedia that aims to present financial information in a lively and entertaining way. Investchannel.ch aims to emphasize that investing has a lot to do with emotions, without losing sight of the facts for investors. Multimedia content such as videos or slideshows support the communication of content in the magazine. Web 2.0 elements such as comments and ratings are designed to encourage user involvement. The content can also be subscribed to as an RSS feed. Banner management is operated with the ad management server from Orange8 Interactive.

 From July 24, the Teleclub program will also be distributed via the digital TV platform of network operator Cablecom. From this date, the Teleclub program will be marketed jointly: subscriptions for pay TV can be taken out directly with Cablecom. Customers will only need one reception device to receive the two program offerings. The Teleclub program comprises a total of 17 channels. The basic program costs CHF 39.90 per month. To order the offer from Cablecom, the rental or purchase of a receiver is mandatory.

 Assai supports the EKZ Naturstrom campaign, which is managed by Wirz Werbung, with an invoice insert. The presentation of the insert with the gift design is also included in the material concept, with a tear-open mechanism and content that can be removed. The aim of the insert is to increase awareness of EKZ's natural electricity products Solar, Blue and Azur. These are certified energy products that are generated from the sun, water or biomass. Recipients have the opportunity to order one of the natural electricity products directly via the reply card integrated in the invoice insert. Every new customer receives an attractive doormat from EKZ with the inscription "You are entering natural electricity territory" as a thank you. 

 Far back, behind the mountains of words, far from the countries of vowels and consonants, live the blind texts. They live in seclusion in Buchstabhausen on the coast of the Semantik, a large linguistic ocean. A small stream called Duden flows through their village and supplies them with the necessary Regelialien. It's a paradisiacal land where fried sentences fly into your mouth. Not even the almighty punctuation rules the blind texts - an almost unorthographic life.

 The research company Media Focus and the Swiss Advertisers Association (SWA) have decided to jointly develop the Swiss TV and print advertising statistics. The cooperation comes after the SWA approached the research company in May and demanded better information from it. The reason for its action was a study that had revealed that the data on TV and print advertising supplied by Media Focus should contain more detailed information in order to increase the usefulness of the information for advertising clients (see
). The SWA therefore proposed setting up a control board to define and monitor binding conventions and guidelines for advertising data in Switzerland. According to the SWA press release on Tuesday, Media Focus responded very positively and expressed interest in a joint and permanent solution to the issues at hand. As a result, the SWA Media Focus User Commission was created with the significant involvement and co-responsibility of the SWA. It will represent the interests of the various Media Focus customer groups. For this reason, the media and media agencies will also sit on this User Commission alongside the SWA.
The first contacts with potential members will be made shortly, the press release continues. The most important goal is the joint improvement and further development of Media Focus advertising pressure statistics - particularly in the TV and print sector - in the interests of all market participants. SWA Director Jürg Siegrist commented on the founding of the commission in the press release as follows: "We are delighted that we were able to reach agreement with Media Focus very quickly on the founding of the joint User Commission and look forward to constructive cooperation in this new body."

 The new Swiss agency for the Mercedes-Benz passenger car, Smart and Maybach brands is Jung von Matt/Limmat. Following the appointment of Jung von Matt as lead agency for Mercedes-Benz in Germany, the change has now also been completed in Switzerland. In addition to the Mercedes-Benz brand, the Swiss mandate also includes the Smart and Maybach brands. Jung von Matt/Limmat is responsible for strategy development and consulting for the Swiss market as well as for the development of national and regional communication measures.