Daniel Brüngger will mit der eigenen Agentur durchstarten: Am 29. Juni gründete er in Zürich die Brüngger Dialog Werbeagentur. Die Brüngger Dialog versteht sich als Full-Service Werbeagentur mit Spezialgebiet Dialogmarketing im Offline- und Online-Bereich.  
Die Startformation der Agentur zählt fünf kreative Köpfe: Geschäftsführer Daniel Brüngger (Konzeption und Beratung), Liv Bianchet und Noëmi Fretz (Beratung), Manuela Eigenmann (Grafik und Online-Programmierung), sowie Christoph Bohn als Freelance Creative Director. Im Verwaltungsrat sind neben Daniel Brüngger mit Martin Steiner und Guido Giacchino zwei weitere ausgewiesene Kommunikations-Profis vertreten. Im Oktober stösst Remo Bachmann als Partner und CD zur jungen Agentur. Bachmann ist ein Weggefährte des Branchen-Doyens Gilbert Fisch und ist derzeit Creative Director bei Fisch.Meier.Direkt, der führenden Dialog-Agentur der Schweiz. Sein Leistungsausweis umfasst alle Legierungen von metallenen Awards in der Schweiz und zahlreiche Auszeichnungen ausländischer Werbe-Festivals.
 
Wie es in einem Communiqué vom Freitag heisst, will sich die Brüngger Dialog in der Schweizer Dialogmarketing-Szene rasch einen Platz in den vorderen Rängen sichern. Um dieses Ziel zu erreichen, will die Agentur strategisch abgestützte Kreativ-Konzepte entwickeln, die sich in allen Medien umsetzen lassen und die Marken- und Marktbearbeitungsziele der Kunden ins Zentrum aller Überlegungen stellen. Dabei werden Sorgfalt und Stil in jeder Hinsicht hochgehalten: «Wir bieten nicht alles, sondern nur was wir beherrschen», fasst Brüngger die Maxime seiner Agentur zusammen.
Bild: Liv Bianchet (Beratung), Christoph Bohn (Creative Director freelance), Noëmi Fretz (Beratung), Daniel Brüngger (Geschäftsleitung)

 Nobody thinks faster than Walker at the moment: on Friday morning, at 2.15 a.m., it was announced that UBS Group CEO Peter Wuffli would be replaced by his deputy Marcel Rohner. At around 3 p.m. on the same day, a special team from APG had already put up this news at the behest of Walker's creative team - in other words, thanks to Maxiprint's printers, the advertisers were faster than the editors of Heute. The campaign illustrates and proves the Zurich agency's claim "Nobody prints faster than Maxiprint". The response was excellent, said a very cheerful and not at all exhausted Pius Walker on the phone on Friday afternoon. This was confirmed not only by the coverage of the posters in the Tagesanzeiger and Blick newspapers, but also by the steadily increasing click rates on Maxiprint's homepage. Marianne Friedli was responsible for the campaign as art director, Christian Bachofer was in charge of the graphics and Pius Walker was responsible for the text and creative direction, whose respect for the work of journalists has grown considerably as a result of this campaign, he said.

 Respectance is the name of a new social networking platform. It is a kind of MySpace for the deceased, where the bereaved can mourn together online.  
As with MySpcace, profiles can also be created in the virtual cemetery. However, the people portrayed are dead people who are commemorated with texts, pictures and videos. The operators of the service believe that it is important to help people grieve, especially at a time when society is getting older and older. People must be given the opportunity to express their feelings to others. The service is also aimed at people who are simply unable to attend a funeral. As Pressetext reports, users not only remember personal relatives, but also their idols. One of the most visited profiles is that of the late grunge hero Kurt Cobain. But unknown people are also presented prominently on the homepage via a window showing new additions. The service is currently free of charge and Respectance does not use advertising

 Rüdi Steiner is the name of the new Editor-in-Chief of the Cash media network. In this role, he is responsible for the journalistic content of Cash daily, Cash.ch and Cash Mobile. Furthermore, Patrick Baumberger has been appointed the new Head of Advertising Market, and Manuela Schranz is now Head of Publishing Services. Rüdi Steiner was Head of Business at Blick until September 2006, when he became Head of Editorial at Cash daily. His deputy at Cash Medienverbund is Daniel Hügli, previously deputy editor-in-chief of Cash daily. Together with their team, the two have built up the free paper Cash daily in recent months. According to a media release from Ringier, Cash daily has over 100,000 distributed newspapers and 27,000 livepaper users. This makes it the country's most widely read business newspaper.
The new Head of Advertising Market, Patrick Baumberger is responsible in his new role for all activities in the advertising market of the Cash Media Group. Baumberger has been with the Cash Group since May 2005, and has held the position of Head of Multichannel Management since July 2006. Prior to that, he was Head of Marketing at Mövenpick Switzerland.
Manuela Schranz, the new Head of Publishing Services, is now responsible for marketing, sales and sales support for the entire Cash Group. Schranz has been with Cash since 1998, most recently as Head of Marketing. Previously, she was responsible for direct marketing of magazines at Tamedia.
 

 This year's Namics Art Prize for New Media goes to Swiss artist Elodie Pong for her video work to date. The winner was judged at Art Basel and won the prize of 20,000 Swiss francs. In her works, 41-year-old Elodie Pong deals with interpersonal tones, psychological phenomena and the image of women in modern society. As the organizer of the jury, the PubliGroup company Namics, announced on Thursday, Pong stood out above all with her work "Secrets for Sale". Over the course of several years, she collected several hundred secrets, which she bought from the respective owners for an agreed price. With this prize, the IT and web service provider Namics promotes Swiss media artists whose work is characterized by high artistic quality, innovation and meaningful content. The art prize has already marked the beginning of an internationally successful career for a number of artists, such as Etoy.

Federal Councilor Moritz Leuenberger has appointed Philipp Metzger as Vice Director and new Head of the Telecom Services Division at the Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM). The 43-year-old lawyer and former Director of Trade Relations at EFTA in Geneva will take up his new position on 1 November 2007. Within OFCOM, the Telecom Services Division is responsible for parliamentary, Federal Council and departmental business in its specialist area. The division also prepares and implements the decisions of the Federal Communications Commission (ComCom), such as the licensing of mobile operators, interconnection and, in the near future, unbundling of the last mile.
After obtaining the Bernese advocate's license, Metzger worked first in a Geneva and then in a London law firm. From 1996, he worked as a lawyer and then as director of trade relations at the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) in Brussels and Geneva, with a brief interruption in 2002 when he spent a year working for an American IT group in Amsterdam. Metzger holds a Master of Arts in European Studies from the Collège d'Europe in Bruges and Warsaw.

After the agency Initiative was eliminated in the first round of the pitch, the Media Planning Group was awarded the contract to manage the global Credit Suisse account. However, Initiative Switzerland will continue to look after the Swiss CS. The Media Planning Group has landed a big fish. According to Campaign magazine, the agency network is now looking after Credit Suisse worldwide, except in Switzerland. The account includes advertising for the First Boston brand as well as for Credit Suisse's Investment Banking, Private Banking and Asset Management divisions. The London branch of the Media Planning Group is in charge of the CS account. According to Credit Suisse, however, this does not change the situation in Switzerland. The relationship between the 180-strong marketing team and Initiative is excellent and there is no intention of ending the good cooperation. So Switzerland remains an isolated case. According to Credit Suisse, the Media Planning Group's bookings for CS worldwide and those of the Initiative for CS Switzerland will not overlap.

 The Zurich agency Assai produced a mailing for cable TV provider Naxoo, informing households with a cable connection in Geneva and the surrounding area about the upcoming work on the cable network. Assai also used the opportunity to make attractive offers to potential customers. With success, as Assai writes in a press release on Thursday. Numerous orders have already been received thanks to the combined mailing with its youthful, fresh look. Those who were already aware of the advantages of the Naxoo offer were told in the mailing which network reprogramming and analog switch-offs had to be carried out and why and when. Assai worked together with Label Communications on the order.

 Dübendorf-based Goal AG für Werbung und Public Relation already helped the FDP and SVP to win the cantonal elections in Zurich. It was therefore no surprise that Goal won the pitch for the advertising campaign of the two parties for the Zurich Council of States elections. In the field of political communication, Goal is on the upswing: the agency reports that it has been commissioned by the SVP to manage the election campaigns for the National Council elections both at federal level and by various cantonal parties. Goal has expanded its team to cope with the increased workload: Rebecca de Silva is now on board in the PR consulting division, while Christine Wiedmer has joined the production division.

 Because one with BB (Federal Councillor Blocher) the attention is certain, many medium-creative all the same of which opinion used the irritant figure still so gladly for a headline. The subject refers to an anecdote spread by BB himself, according to which he recently burned his fried eggs to such an extent that the fire alarm in his apartment in Bern sounded the alarm. Probably everyone has burned something in his or her life, but if BB burns his eggs, then that must be used. Admittedly, the phenomenon is annoying, but it also has its hidden charms. For example, you can think up great analogies like: BB equals naked woman, because at least media-wise it has the same effect. If you want attention, then show tits on the cover - or write "The Blocher Principle" on your cooking newspaper advertising. The phenomenon also contains such fascinating paradoxes that BB stands for the mean-spirited, racist, ugly original Swiss man like no other, but still represents the most un-Swiss known Swiss, because he is so not average at all. Everyone blasphemes and bickers, but without him it wouldn't be quite as entertaining. So in the end BB is something like the Eminem of the Swiss political scene. Because as Slim Shady once rapped: "Everybody just follow me, because we need a little controversy, because it feels so empty without me."

The Tamedia/Espace Media Group is coming under fire. Just a few weeks after the Zurich-based Tamedia took over the Bern-based Espace Media Group, the first effects of the merger are being felt on the Swiss press market. The publisher Vogt-Schild Medien points to price dumping in the canton of Solothurn. The publishers of Vogt-Schild Medien are outraged. In their statement, they draw attention to the fact that parts of the canton have been covered by an advertising mail offering a combined subscription to the Solothurner Tagblatt (Espace Media Group) and Sonntagszeitung (Tamedia) for 100 francs a year. However, both subscriptions together cost CHF 501 according to the original subscription prices!
According to Vogt-Schild Medien, the Solothurner Tagblatt has been languishing unsuccessfully since it was launched by Espace Media Groupe almost six years ago. The special offer shows that trust in the editorial performance of this newspaper has obviously been thoroughly destroyed. Now the money cannon is being used: The CHF 100 for the combined subscription is not even enough for the paper of the two newspapers, let alone for the additional expense of Sunday distribution, Vogt-Schild Medien railed in its statement, which reached the media on Thursday. In other words, Bern and Zurich are accepting an additional loss with every such subscription just to take subscribers away from the Solothurner Zeitung and the Grenchner Tagblatt. This is typical of Martin Kall: where the spirit doesn't work, try money! And this despite the negative experience with Facts, where huge sums were invested in marketing, but where he was never able to create a successful product.
The fact that the Weko has not yet given the green light to the merger of Tamedia and Espace Media Groupe is a reason for hope for Vogt-Schild Medien. The publishing house sees this as an opportunity to stop the impending incorporation of the Berner Bund into the Tamedia/Espace Media Group giant, in order to put a stop to the "press-political call and clear-cutting".

 Let someone else say that e-commerce doesn't work: Migros' online supermarket LeShop is reporting growth rates of over 40 percent for the seventh time in a row. The product rating system for customers, which was introduced in May, is also proving to be a success. LeShop, the market leader in Swiss online grocery retail, has been enjoying a veritable growth spurt for the past seven semesters. As LeShop announced on Thursday, it recorded an increase of 45.3 percent in the last six months and achieved sales of 47.5 million Swiss francs. The growth in new customers was even stronger: 24,000 people made new purchases at LeShop, which corresponds to an increase of 53.8 percent. The SportXX, Globus Delicatessa and Boots cosmetics lines were added to the range during this period. LeShop customers spent an average of 225 francs per order.
For the first time in Europe, LeShop customers have been able to rate over 8,000 products online since May. This was LeShop's response to "the growing need for opinion networking", as Dominique Locher, Director of Marketing and Sales, is quoted in the press release. Customers can now share their experiences and recommendations, whether positive or negative, with fellow shoppers quickly and easily. This also has advantages for the company, particularly in terms of quality assurance and knowledge of customer wishes.