The current Head of Corporate Communications at the SV Group will become the new Head of PR at Suva from August. She will take over from Manfred Brünnler, who is taking a new direction for health reasons. The 44-year-old trained interpreter and qualified PR consultant began her career as an editor at the Zurich news agency for business publications AWP. From 1995, she worked for Wirz Public Relations for four years, where she also became a member of the management team. She has been Head of Corporate Communications at the SV Group since 1999 and will take over responsibility for PR at Suva from August this year.

 Wirz Corporate is currently producing five annual reports. For Panalpina, Roche, SWX (Swiss Stock Exchange), Berner Krafwerke BKW and Wirz Partner Holding, the Zurich-based creative team looked back on the past year. According to Wirz Corporate, it supported the five companies in the design and implementation of their annual reports. The Wirz Group subsidiary offers content conception, design, layout, typesetting, photo and illustration concepts as well as online implementation and project management under one roof.

 E-Bay is placing fewer advertisements on Google in the USA with immediate effect. The reason: Google had scheduled a marketing party for its new payment service "Google Checkout" on the same day as the annual "E-Bay Live" conference. Of course, this was not an oversight: Google wanted to use the party to lure E-Bay customers who had previously used its Paypal payment service. However, as reported by Pressetext, Google has since relented and postponed the party. The auction house, on the other hand, continues to restrict its advertising bookings on Google. The punitive action is justified by growing concerns on the part of E-Bay about "the strategic threat posed by Google", as Pressetext puts it. It is not known how much advertising revenue the search engine giant is losing as a result of the dispute.

The Focus Media Guide 2007 concludes in its new study that gross advertising expenditure on the Internet rose by almost 70 percent in 2006. Another study shows that no other medium is currently growing faster in the advertising market than online. The latest study by Focus-Media-Guide 2007 shows that gross advertising expenditure on the Internet rose by 65.5 percent in 2006 compared to the previous year to EUR 692.4 million, reports Werben & Verkaufen.
The telecommunications industry in particular invested heavily in network advertising, but online services, e-commerce, financial services, media and publishing houses are also increasingly relying on online advertising.
Another finding of the study is that a quarter of German companies do not yet have an online presence. This means that Germany lags massively behind Sweden, for example, where 84 percent of companies are online.
Whether online advertising is as useful as that which appears in other media nevertheless remains questionable. According to a new study by ARD Werbung Sales und Services (AS&S), radio advertising is significantly more effective than advertising on the Internet. Online advertising also continues to make up a very small part of the advertising pie.

Click prices on Google remain at record levels, while the number of advertising spaces booked has fallen. This is shown by the May figures from Angelink Yourposition's Swiss Adex: In April, click prices on Google shot up by more than 60 centimes to 1.96 Swiss francs. According to the press release, however, there was no correction in May: Individual sectors - above all IT service providers and dating agencies - drastically reduced their click prices, but overall the average value climbed to a provisional record high of CHF 1.99 per click.
What is surprising is that the number of advertisers has fallen at the same time. While an average of 17 companies were present per search query in April, this figure had fallen to just over 15 in May - a trend that could already be observed in May of the previous year. While the price increase practically only affects B2C sectors, the decline in advertisements is almost exclusively attributable to the B2B sector.
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.

 Customer loyalty measures generally do not enjoy a very good reputation. There are often concerns due to data protection issues. Sometimes they are even banned as inadmissible advertising - as was the case with Bayer Schering Pharma's Lovecard. The German pharmaceutical giant used the Lovecard to encourage young women in Switzerland to buy its contraceptive pills. Until their 20th birthday, cardholders received a whopping 25 percent discount on contraceptive pills. According to the SDA report, the authorities have now decided that this discount is illegal advertising. The reprimanded company sprinkles ashes over its head and says that it will of course comply with the official requirements. Now the pharmaceutical company has to come up with new seductive measures. How about a pack of deluxe condoms per box sold for a safe fling? Or the promise of a year's supply of diapers if the product fails to have the desired effect? Probably the most efficient option, however, would be to simply sell the often shamelessly overpriced contraceptive pills to all age groups at a lower price, especially in Switzerland.

  Werbewoche: Mr. Walker, are you in Cannes this year? Pius Walker: WW: Did you submit any work? Walker: WW: Do you think you have a chance? Walker: WW: You’ve won quite a few awards recently, though. WW: And how do you assess the chances for the Swiss in general? Walker: WW: What does Cannes offer the advertising world? What are you particularly looking forward to? Walker:
Yeah, for the first time—assuming I can find it… But luckily, my wife is coming along.

Yes, a few TV commercials for Fleurop and the poster campaign for Amnesty International.

Cannes never fails to surprise. But predictions for this festival are about as reliable as the weather forecast for two weeks from now. Still, I’m always happy to be surprised, of course.
Walker: But that doesn't mean anything for Cannes—a lot of things are different there. That's what makes it so interesting.

It was a good year, even by international standards. This year’s outstanding campaigns came from Germany, England, and, above all, the U.S. In addition, there are now all these “shadow” categories, such as Promo or Direct Lions. Here, the Lions often pop up out of nowhere. Unfortunately, this also applies to fakes that are used at such festivals.
 
Over the past few weeks, I've received a lot of emails from friends all over the world who are also traveling to the Côte d’Azur. I'm looking forward to seeing all of them. And, of course, to meeting new people, too.

 The Board of Directors of marketer Goldbach Media has set the issue price for its shares at CHF 42 per share. The company will thus receive CHF 57.31 million. The IPO is scheduled to take place on Friday, June 15.  
According to a Goldbach Media press release, the offer met with brisk demand: The shares with a nominal value of CHF 1.25 each were oversubscribed several times during the placement period from June 4 to 13, 2007. A total of 2,373,170 registered shares were placed at a price of CHF 42 per share. This corresponds to around 39.6 percent of all outstanding shares in the company.
 
Goldbach Media's share capital will amount to around CHF 7.5 million following the IPO. The existing core shareholders and the company's management will retain a significant stake. According to SDA, BC Medien Holding remains the largest shareholder after the IPO with a stake of 19.72 percent before over-allotment. Other shareholders are Adlink Internet Media with 14.99 percent, Group CEO Klaus Kappeler and co-founder Walter Frey with 6.71 and 5.01 percent respectively. However, the major shareholders 3i Group and BHS Verwaltungs AG, which previously held 7.65 and 5.69 percent of Goldbach Media respectively, will sell their shares.
 
According to the communiqué, the company intends to use the CHF 57.31 million in funds received by Goldbach to further consolidate its position as a one-stop store for the marketing of all private electronic, interactive and mobile media in Switzerland and Austria. It also plans to grow rapidly in the dynamic online market and invest in selected Eastern European markets.

 Change at Ringier Verlag Zeitungen: Publishing Director Thomas Passen is adding several new employees to his crew. On July 1, Martin Tamas will take over the position of Head of Advertising at Verlag Zeitungen after returning from a year-long trip around the world. In his last position, the federally certified publishing manager was Head of Commerce, Publishing Director Health Unit Ringier TV.
Esther Martin will take up her position as Head of Advertising Marketing and Research in the Advertising Market Marketing department on October 1. Martin is about to graduate from the HWZ and most recently worked as an administrator in Media/Marketing Services at Ringier Magazines.
Marcel Elsener will take up his position as Head of Internal Advertising Services in the Marketing Advertising Market department on July 1. In his last position, the technical businessman was in charge of customer service at Faksimile Verlag.
Corina Schneider will be the new Head of Advertising/DM at Ringier Verlag Zeitungen from September 1, 2007 at the latest. Schneider has completed further training as a federally certified marketing planner and most recently worked as Marketing Communications Manager at Siemens.
Simon Flatt will take up the position of Projects and Integrated Communications as a staff position directly under Thomas Passen by agreement. In this role, Flatt will take on many internal publishing projects and negotiate countertrade deals. He will also support the editor-in-chief, publishing and sales management in the coordination and implementation of integrated communication solutions, such as publicity reports. In his last position, Flatt worked as a marketing specialist in the creative pool at Ringier magazines.
Dalida Covre is returning to Ringier as the new DM specialist for Blick in the Advertising/DM department. Dalida Covre was already responsible for Blick's DM activities for several years as Manuela Hrubesch's predecessor. The marketing planner will start on September 1, 2007, having previously been Assistant Marketing Controlling at Swisscard AECS.
Barbara Steiner joins the team as the new direct marketing specialist for Sonntags-Blick. In her last position, Steiner worked for Cash as a DM specialist.
Marta Budzko will take up her position as the new Creative Pool Manager from mid-July. In this role, she and her team will be responsible for event strategy and implementation, the development of sponsorship concepts, POS measures and the acquisition of new PA and subscription channels. Budzko is a qualified communications manager and most recently worked as advertising project manager at Migros in Lucerne.
Michel Rahm has been working as Head of Circulation Management in the Retail Sales Service since September 1. Prior to this, he was Head of Market Research and Advertising Marketing at Handelszeitung and Finanzrundschau.

The champion muesli from Bio-Familia has long been the clear champion of the muesli shelves. With the new "There's more in you" campaign, the creative minds at Contexta show why this will continue to be the case. The print campaign highlights the performance-enhancing effect of Bio-Familia müesli in an original way. Thanks to the Müesli-induced energy boost, a runner even manages to outrun his shadow, which remains exhausted on the track. According to the Bern agency, the images of active people ideally illustrate the benefits of optimal nutrition in terms of energy and balance.

Medgate, the Swiss center for telemedicine, has a new head of marketing, communications and sales. Cédric Berset is taking over from Franca Gütte, who is now setting up her own business.40-year-old Cédric Berset, who holds a federal diploma in communications, is assuming overall responsibility for marketing, communications and sales at Medgate, according to an SDA report. The 40-year-old is in charge of all Medgate's communications and market-related activities and is the new contact person for the media. His predecessor, Franca Gütte, who was Head of Marketing and Communications at Medgate for six years, will now return to work as an independent communications and marketing consultant.
Medgate employs 45 doctors and 20 other medical specialists and manages up to 1,600 patient contacts every day. Medgate's most important customers include large and medium-sized health insurance companies as well as the federal government, in particular the Federal Office of Public Health. Over 30 percent of the Swiss population has access to Medgate's telemedical services.

 Basel is getting a new communications agency for the ICT and technology sector with Füllhaas PR and Marketing. The agency emerged from the blog "Crossmediale Kommunikation", which discusses PR and marketing with blogs, podcasts, Internet TV and the web. According to the new agency's press release, Füllhaas' aim is to offer its clients modern corporate communication that also integrates new tools such as corporate blogs. Audio and video podcasts will soon be added to the range. The owner, Karsten Füllhaas, is a Master of Arts and PR specialist with a federal certificate. He has previously worked in corporate PR and as an online journalist.