On Tuesday evening, the employees of the discontinued Facts magazine met with representatives of Tamedia management. According to a statement from Comedia and Impressum, however, the editorial staff and the unions left the meeting disappointed. The management refused to enter into negotiations on a "decent social plan", the unions write. The management only wanted to accept individual demands from those affected for consideration, the communiqué continued. In the afternoon, those affected had already announced during a one-hour protest break that they expected the meeting to result in binding negotiations on the social plan (see
). The employees therefore want to further vent their displeasure at Tamedia's Extraordinary General Meeting on Wednesday.
As Tamedia spokesman Christoph Zimmer told Werbewoche, Tamedia is accommodating its employees by, among other things, extending the notice periods or paying a wage compensation for a maximum of eight months.

Column With every publication that goes out of business, a special form of journalism disappears, and there must be some sadness when two weekly newspapers are discontinued, even if the figures speak for themselves. What a pity! What was ultimately responsible for the poor performance of the two weekly publications Cash and Facts is also a chicken-and-egg question. The fact is that Cash and Facts are two publications that have contributed to media diversity. Depending on the form of the respective editorial offices, they have enlivened the journalistic competition with more or less independent voices and refreshed the media industry journalistically. According to media theorist McLuhan, a message dies with every medium. 
Cash brought a breath of fresh air to business journalism in the 1990s. Unfettered by tradition, the paper disregarded conventions in the relationship between media and business. Journalistically, it strengthened reader guidance with a creative combination of text, graphics and images. With its tabloid touch, the "Prokuristenblick" provided information in a way that was unusual at the time, but also always provoked and irritated. Cash showed that newspaper design does not have to be limited to running text and isolated images. Storytelling meant optimally linking all information elements. Business journalism has changed fundamentally as a result. Some of it is standard today. Only the cheekiness and freshness have been lost, unfortunately also at Cash in recent years.
 
Facts was an attempt to position a news magazine in German-speaking Switzerland. After several attempts and projects had no chance of survival, Tamedia tried to occupy the market with a weekly magazine with editors-in-chief who were known from television, such as Jürg Wildberger and Hannes Britschgi. Why shouldn't it be possible to do in German-speaking Switzerland what works in Germany with Focus, Spiegel and Stern? Nervousness about the lack of success led to hasty adjustments and changes. Unlike Cash, Facts was unable to develop its own signature style. Nevertheless, it repeatedly stimulated journalistic competition, used the creative possibilities of the magazine layout and occasionally created facts.
 
Cash and Facts were children of the 1990s before the New Economy bubble burst. Anglo-Saxon titles were in vogue, the economy was on the upswing and there seemed to be no limit to growth. Influenced by the zeitgeist, they failed to establish themselves as classics. The collapse of the stock market was a problem for Cash. As long as the stock markets were a playground where everyone had the chance to make a profit, reading the business newspaper was a pleasure for those spoiled by success. After the crash, the bearers of unpleasant news became less popular. Facts became a playground for fashionable graphic and editorial adjustments - once more in the direction of Focus, once more in the direction of Spiegel - which diluted rather than strengthened the profile and were able to attract the attention of readers and advertisers.
 
What was difficult during the week, however, worked at the weekend. The Sunday newspapers are prospering. They occupy all media-relevant markets: from a journalistic point of view, they are the favorites for the placement of news, readers like to spend their Sunday morning with a newspaper and advertisers are loyal to them. On Thursday, on the other hand, Cash, Facts and Weltwoche simultaneously contested the market. At least the publications of the major distributors have shifted to the beginning of the week.
 
The two media companies Ringier and Tamedia recorded massive losses for both titles for years. This shows that it was not easy for them to close the unprofitable products. The combination of cost-cutting exercises and timid repositioning prolonged the agony. The Cash brand will live on in the Cash daily multimedia platform. Apart from the logo, however, little is reminiscent of the weekly paper. The new appearance is technically innovative and interesting, while the descendants of the weekly newspaper are focusing on brevity in editorial terms. For them to be worthy of their parent newspaper's brand, the technical development would have to be accompanied by a journalistic breakthrough.
 
Cash and facts are buried. The deceased are freeing up resources and space for journalistically sophisticated innovations: We are waiting for the birth of new media with an exciting message. 
 
Josefa Haas is head of the Media Institute and was an editor at Cash from 1995 to 1998.

Commentary The standard at this year's advertising festival was only average. However, the best spots stood out for their brilliant simplicity and the bottom line after Cannes is clear: a new hero by the name of Pius Walker. In relation to the size of the agency, no one in this country has ever won as many Lions and achieved as many shortlist placings as the Zurich-based advertiser. Walker has certainly raised the standard of Swiss entries considerably.  
However, attentive Cannes chroniclers noted that the festival as a whole was of an average standard. Among the winning works, there were more sucklattisms than in other years, and generally more fun and punchline-oriented advertising was awarded.
 
Another trend was evident in advertising for environmental causes - these works were a lot more relaxed and no longer pointing fingers, sometimes even allowing themselves ironic tones. At the same time, people didn't want to see war on the big screen - the x-Box commercial for the game Gears of War, which won the Silver Lion in the "Best Use of Music" category, was massively booed. It is striking that the other game console commercials in the running did not even find the jury's favor. In general, there were far fewer of these obviously post-production-heavy works on the podium.
 
In fact, many winning commercials thrived on their brilliant simplicity, such as the Apple commercials in which one actor plays the PC and the other the Mac in a dialog. The kind of work that could easily have been invented here. The big boxes such as the Apple 1984 commercial, the Perrier lion by Jean-Paul Gould, the football game Good vs. Evil by Tarzem, the WWF catwalk commercial with the blood splashing around or the Playstation human pyramid, which will still be talked about in a decade's time, were completely absent this year.
 
And it has to be said that the festival has clearly become more professional since E-Map took over three years ago. In addition to the noticeably better support for delegates and press representatives, this is also accompanied, for better or worse, by a striving for even greater size, which some dismiss as a tendency towards gigantism. However, this year's motto "The more you see, the more ideas you have" should not be questioned even by the worst critics.
 
It is clear that what is on offer costs something. But anyone who complains about the almost four thousand francs that have to be paid for the festival is exposing themselves. The price is justified - but you have to make active use of the program. The price is definitely too high just to watch one or two days of films and party. The festival also represents the current development of the advertising industry in and of itself. It is no longer a reservoir for paradise birds and party people, but an industry that wants to be taken seriously by other industries. 
 
Beat Fritsch, employee of Werbewoche

Packaging II Imaginative design, convenient handling, protection against counterfeiting, alternative packaging materials and an increasing degree of finishing: this is what the new age of packaging offers. Packaging protects the packaged goods from the environment (and vice versa), provides information about the contents, encourages purchases and ensures that the brand is recognized.  
The new age of packaging poses further challenges:
 
- Convenient and ergonomic opening and reclosing of seals, even on packaging that was not previously used for this purpose;
 
- Finishing to protect against counterfeiting through forgery-proof packaging features, e.g. HiFi color systems (more than four printing colors), effect coatings (metallic, Iriodin, wrinkled skin), hidden control images, radio frequency identification (RFID), lenticular images (3D and wiggly images), holograms and marking substances (DNA, registered random patterns);
 
- Added value through reusability as a storage or drinking vessel;
 
- unusual contours with a reference to the contents or origin - although there are already Swiss classics as models here, e.g. the Zytglogge-shaped fruit brandy bottles or the Toblerone folding boxes, wrappers and bags in the shape of the Matterhorn;
 
- more environmentally friendly packaging materials with better recyclability or deposit circulation rates (which is often in contrast to the "individual packaging craze" for small goods);
 
- additional incentive to buy through competitions, fun articles and lifestyle objects.
 
These new functions require new packaging technology solutions. They are created in cooperation between advertising agencies, designers, printers and material and printing press suppliers. The agencies combine conspicuousness, brand, product line design and campaigns in packaging, displays, outdoor and TV advertising. The packaging designers and material specialists in the packaging printing plants check the technical feasibility of the ideas and adapt the packaging to the product shape and properties - taking into account resistance, strength and environmental standards as well as available technology.
 
Packaging printers are highly specializedPackaging printing in its various processes - sheetfed and narrow web offset, flexographic and gravure printing as well as screen printing as an offline finishing technology - impressively demonstrates the diversity of what printing companies are capable of. It is worth asking packaging printers about their specialties, and many an untapped treasure will be found for the creative minds. The innovations in the individual companies go their own way, new combinations of processes lead to exciting results. Printing press manufacturers are constantly creating new prerequisites, e.g. options in sheet-fed offset printing for printing on foils, composite materials and corrugated cardboard or the new type of finishing with cold-applied metal foil (OFT), which can even be transferred in screened form. Unlike commercial printers, packaging printers have particularly flexible, highly automated machine configurations and a wide range of inline finishing options.
 
Coating options in sheetfed offset have multiplied in recent years. Double coating configurations, otherwise used for UV gloss coating of conventional printing inks, have proven to be virtually predestined for effect pigment coatings. Effect primers and top coats on premium folding cartons are a new addition to the classic offline finishing steps of contour die-cutting, blind and hot foil stamping.
 
Matt-gloss contrast coatings are also attractive, for which hybrid machines are particularly suitable. They allow direct UV overcoating of hybrid inks, which can dry both oxidatively and under UV radiation. The gloss contrast is achieved with partially applied matt or granulating oil-based varnish and full-surface UV gloss varnish, which remains on the areas printed with oil-based varnish on the coating form. However, particularly thick varnish layers or contour and relief varnishes can only be applied offline and are usually a matter for specialist companies.
Label as a packaging featureCost savings vs. attractiveness, smaller pack sizes vs. high information requirements - the label as the ideal compromise is taking on a whole new significance in packaging printing. Today more than ever, the label is matched to the packaging material, e.g. in-mold labels that are overmolded on the surface of the packaging plastic. Transparent film labels convey the "no-label look" and are cheaper than a directly printed bottle. Tubular labels eliminate the need for glue and can even be shrunk to fit the shape of the container. Adhesive labels are color-matched to the solid-colored hollow packaging material so that the label and packaging material remain identical in color under different lighting conditions. RFID labels give the packaging IT interactivity. Multi-page labels for scrolling or rolling up replace more expensive folding boxes with leaflets. And the Australian company Mediaconcepts has developed this idea further in an amazing way: into patent-protected On Product Publishing, in which lifestyle mini-magazines on pet bottles are inserted behind the half-foldable label.
 
Dieter Kleeberg

Daily press The Nouvelliste is about money, political influence - and ultimately about the division of the market between Edipresse and Hersant. The "combat des reines", the trial of strength between the black fighting cows in the Valais sand, is a lick of paint compared to the shareholders' war over the Valais daily newspaper Le Nouvelliste. The shareholders are fighting like cats of prey. Le Nouvelliste is, to stick with the zoological analogy, a real cash cow. The monopoly newspaper of the French-speaking Valais posted the best figures of all the daily newspapers in French-speaking Switzerland in 2006. The publisher Rhône-Média was able to increase its turnover by almost one million to 40 million francs and posted a profit of 1.3 million francs. And yet two Valais shareholder groups of practically equal strength are fighting each other for money and political influence. The main shareholders recently voted each other off the Board of Directors. Extremely active and interested spectators inside and outside the ring: Edipresse and Hersant, the two major publishers in French-speaking Switzerland.
 
It all began several years ago. The Competition Commission ordered the Edipresse Group, which was classified as market-dominant, to withdraw from the Nouvelliste Board of Directors and reduce its shareholding to below the blocking minority of 33.3 percent. According to the convention, this block of shares of just over 4 percent should have been sold to the Valais shareholder group, but they did not agree. Neither on the price nor on who was allowed to acquire the shares. Two Valais clans of practically equal strength share around 60 percent of the shares and, according to the convention, they must make their decisions with a two-thirds majority. As a result, the disputed share package is still in the hands of Edipresse today. The second conflict broke out in 2003: The then Chairman of the Board of Directors, Jacques Lathion, was voted out of office because he had made daring statements in a letter to the Competition Commission: The Edipresse Group was abusing its dominant market position in Valais with the aim of keeping its competitor Hersant out of the market. Dissatisfied with Lathion and his alleged contacts with Hersant, Edipresse used allies on the Board of Directors to force Lathion's removal. He was replaced by Jean-Marie Fournier. The very conservative Christian Democrat with the nickname "King of Veysonnaz" deals in real estate. He also has influential relatives: His cousin Jean-René Fournier is a CVP state councillor. Fournier, according to Edipresse's assessment at the time, was at least a guarantee that Hersant would stay out of the game as an old-school Valaisan.
 
Far from it. The course of opening up away from the traditional CVP paper, which editor-in-chief Jean Bonnard was pursuing, was a thorn in the side of the new Chairman of the Board of Directors. Jean-Marie Fournier wanted to lead the newspaper out of the confusion of a modern forum paper and back onto the path of true faith. To do so, he was prepared to sell his soul even to the devil, i.e. the Hersant Group, with whom he was involved in a hanky-panky. The deal, as far as it became known, would have allowed Hersant to get a foot in the door of the Nouvelliste in return for Jean-Marie Fournier gaining more influence over the editorial line. At the time, Fournier got nowhere and the matter became public. He himself says that although he received the offer from Hersant, he rejected it immediately.
Dividend payment preventedIn mid-June of this year, Jean-Marie Fournier thought he had finally achieved his goal. He had succeeded in replacing Editor-in-Chief Jean Bonnard, whose policy of openness is partly responsible for the good business results, with Jean-François Fournier. The two Fourniers have no family ties, but ideological ones. The new editor-in-chief knows what is expected of him: That the Nouvelliste should once again exert greater influence on Valais society, in the spirit of the Catholic-conservative and right-wing bourgeois forces.
 
But the tide was already turning again: practically on the day the new editor-in-chief took office, there was a fierce dispute at the shareholders' meeting. For the third time, Chairman of the Board of Directors Fournier prevented the payment of a dividend. He explained his stance to Werbewoche that caution was needed, as advertising income was showing a downward trend. On the other side, it is suspected that Fournier wants to scare off other shareholders by refusing to pay a dividend. Fournier's opponent, insurance man Bernard Donzé, prevented all proposals by the Fournier clan. Once again, the equally strong shareholder groups blocked each other, the dispute escalated and the four largest shareholders resigned from the Board of Directors to avoid the humiliation of being voted off, or were not re-elected, including Fournier.
 
Four small shareholders remained on the Board of Directors. Fournier claims that three of them are "people from Edipresse" and that the Lausanne publishing house is thus disregarding the Competition Commission's requirement. If the Competition Commission stands idly by, it will lose its credibility. Edipresse reacted sharply: in an open letter to the four remaining board members, the publisher denied Fournier's statements and brought itself into play as a mediator: the problem lies with the shareholders' convention, which is blocking all decisions. It had to be revised so that Nouvelliste could break the deadlock. Edipresse was tired of the game of being either slandered or treated as an ally by the various clans, the publisher wanted to finally find a solution to the newspaper's structural problems.
 
Edipresse does not want to say any more about the proposal at the moment. Media spokeswoman Sylvia Wuersten is impenetrable, saying that they want to wait for the response to the letter. However, it is obvious that the proposal could become a sting in the wasp's nest: Should the shareholders' convention fall, Edipresse shares could be bought - by Jean-Marie Fournier, for example. Or Valais shareholders could sell their shares - to Hersant, for example. No wonder, then, that Hildebrand de Riedmatten, a member of the Board of Directors, is cautious: they want to comment on the organization of the Board of Directors and the letter from Edipresse at the beginning of August, whereby a change to the convention is a matter for the shareholders' meeting. For the rest, the company intends to continue its business "professionally, dispassionately and in the spirit of concertation" until the end of its mandate.   
 
Helen Brügger

 On Wednesday, the Federal Council granted the SRG a license for two new digital radio stations. DRS 4 News and World Radio Switzerland (WRS) will go on air in November 2007. According to an SRG press release, the Federal Council wanted to recognize the population's growing need for up-to-date news and the interest of foreigners in Switzerland in an English-language station. The two channels are also a contribution to the development and distribution of Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) in Switzerland. DRS 4 News is an information program aimed at the German-speaking Swiss. It will be available via DAB, cable, satellite and the Internet. The station will broadcast information on politics, business, the stock market, sport, culture, science, IT, media and education every half hour. There is also a short summary of the news situation every quarter of an hour. The concept includes live reports. According to a press release, Radio DRS finances DRS 4 News from its own resources.
World Radio Switzerland replaces World Radio Geneva, which currently offers an English-language program for the international audience in Switzerland. The new English-language station is intended to promote the integration of the international communities in Switzerland and their contact with each other by providing service information. The partnership between World Radio Geneva and the BBC is to be continued. WRS is a collaboration between the four regional language radio stations and Swissinfo and is part of the SRG service.

Reference book How is the German advertising industry faring? Is growth on the cards again? Is the importance of print media as an advertising medium shrinking? And how are EU advertising bans changing the industry? These are some of the questions that the latest edition of the Yearbook of the Central Association of the German Advertising Industry (ZAW) aims to answer. It is based on analyses of the 42 member associations. Among other things, it examines the volume of advertising in Germany in comparison to the general economy and the advertising behavior of branded companies, service providers and retailers. The book entitled "Advertising in Germany 2007" can be ordered at www.zaw.de.

Showbiz The 3+ Supernanny campaign is polarizing. Some find it outrageous, others think it's just great. We're talking about the new TV and radio commercials for the private channel 3+. For the show "Supernanny", 3+ boss Dominik Kaiser lets children rant in plain language. "Mommy, mommy, do you know what you are, a bitch, a stupid pig," is one of the words used in the TV commercial.  
Spots polarize Somewhat more harmless is the radio advertising. In the audio samples posted on YouTube, the little ones make fun of well-known children's songs. The father remains a complete idiot. The editorial teams of the local radio stations discuss the swearing advertisements controversially. Those responsible at Radio Zürisee are shocked. The commercials available on the Internet are extremely questionable. The station decides not to broadcast them.
 
A compromise was reached at Energy Zurich. Last Monday, the station played each radio spot once. Program director Dani Büchi: "A one-off broadcast rarely has any effect. We would never broadcast the spots more than once." For Büchi, the campaign is extremely controversial. For the radio man, the TV commercials are particularly bad because they contain vulgar language. Dominik Kaiser counters: "Swearing children are not an invention of 3+, they really do exist." Markus Gut, Head of Creative at Publicis, also thinks the campaign is fine, as his people were only depicting reality. Gut: "We used to talk like that in the playground too."
 
Whether serious or not, the Supernanny campaign is already causing a furor before its launch. Büchi again: "The campaign can be seen as a clever PR stunt by 3+." In addition to the "creative" content, the radio people interviewed by Werbewoche also criticized the technical design of the commercials. The basic tenor: the radio commercials are not optimally produced, as adults speak instead of children. But 3+ man Dominik Kaiser doesn't seem to care, because the commercials produced by Publicis' Fasttrack department are effective. The Supernanny advertisement linked on YouTube is being wildly recommended by email. In addition to radio and television, the problem areas of raising children are also addressed in the cinema and in print ads.
 
Christian Lüscher
 
 
Show for stressed-out supernannies
is a new show format from 3+. The 38-year-old parenting coach Martina Krieg advises stressed and overwhelmed parents and children. The private broadcaster has acquired the licenses for the successful format from Channel 4 in England.

Magazin Walterli is the name of a new magazine for skateboarders, party animals and rebels. The magazine from the Eventfabrik in Altdorf realizes a concept that celebrates Swiss values in a modern, cult-like way. Providers who want to reach their target audience via trendy stores or bars should benefit from this in particular.

Newspapers Scholz & Friends Zürich focuses on clarity with new motifs for Blick. With a new poster and print campaign, Scholz & Friends Zürich is positioning Blick as a critical opinion paper and combining the claim "Im Blick kommt's raus" with a striking and emotional visual language. The images in the style of reportage photos, together with the respective headline, always tell "their very own story", as Managing Director Katrin Seegers says at Zurich Friends.  
Since the beginning of the year, Switzerland's best-selling daily newspaper has been communicating with this agency and the new claim, which once again positions Blick more strongly as a critically scrutinizing opinion paper. It wants to take a stand - even in a polarizing way - on topics that really move people. An initial idea under this strategy for marketing communication was the campaign "How many Germans can Switzerland take?", which ran high both in the paper and in advertising.
 
Exactly in the style of Blick, advertising wants to convey such content in the form of headlines that are "quick and surprising, informative and entertaining".
 
Andreas Panzeri

Cash and Facts magazines are discontinued - the end for their advertising too. Reminiscences from the archive. Twelve years ago, the founders of Facts were beaming into the cameras. There is no longer any trace of the glory of those pioneering days. When asked for advertising material from days gone by, Tamedia replied to Werbewoche: "We no longer want to appear in public with Facts and would therefore like to refrain from printing the old advertising campaigns." For a company that cultivates extroverted journalism, this is a questionable answer that hopefully does not represent the remaining spirit of the company.  
Cash-Verlag was willing to help. For Werbewoche, the editorial team ventured into the dusty archives and searched for old campaigns. Werbewoche did the same in its in-house archive for Facts. The result is a monument to two weekly titles that we remember fondly from an advertising perspective.
 
Christian Lüscher
 
 

Clubbing On Saturday, May 19, a new gay club, Loop38, opened in Zurich. The agency ZürichTokio, which has already won various prizes for its designs and ideas for the Spidergalaxy, was also commissioned to design the overall appearance of Loop38. The new look is intended to be independent and iconic and to impress with new individual designs. For the time being, this includes a logo, a homepage, an opening flyer, a monthly program and an animated screen at Zurich main station.