Both the Biel-based watch manufacturer Milleret and the Nidau-based watch manufacturer Century have had their websites designed by Orange8.The watch manufacturer Milleret turned to Orange8 to design a suitable website for its new watch collection. According to Orange8, the full-flash website focuses on emotions. The informative aspect was also taken into account, according to a press release.
Orange8 was also commissioned to make the website of the watch manufacturer Century more functional, especially with regard to the needs of the press. The company website was implemented on the basis of a CMS. In addition to a sensitive presentation of the watches, the website was also designed in two languages, English and Japanese.
Since 1998, the Biel-based company Orange8 has been offering a package that ranges from strategic positioning and visual design to the technical implementation of Internet and mobile platforms.

 Martin Ebner and his BZ Bank are suing the financial journal Bilanz. Claims for personal injury and unfair competition amounting to several hundred thousand francs are being asserted against editor-in-chief René Lüchinger and the Jean Frey publishing house.  
According to SDA, the publisher confirmed a corresponding report in the Basler Zeitung on Thursday. In the legal petition submitted to SDA, Ebner is demanding compensation of CHF 50,000 as well as the profit of at least CHF 35,000 generated by the publication of the article. BZ Bank is even demanding damages of at least CHF 250,000.
 
Lüchinger had criticized Ebner in March for his stance in the takeover battle for the Swiss reinsurer Converium. The words of offense can be found in the editorial entitled "In the act": Ebner is again on the "corporate prowl" and is "targeting Swiss companies". The financier had sold his 20% stake in Converium to French competitor Scor with a "shrug of the shoulders" and was guided solely by his own "profit maximization". The plaintiffs now want to prohibit Lüchinger and Jean Frey from repeating these statements under threat of punishment.
 
Lüchinger and his publishing house rejected the claims. The lawsuit was aimed at further critical reporting on the Converium takeover battle. In addition, Ebner is attempting to eliminate his previous activities from the reporting with the injunction request. The plaintiffs' claims are "completely exaggerated". Furthermore, it is not clear why BZ Bank is appearing as a plaintiff. It is not even mentioned in the disputed balance sheet editorial.

Seal of approval Gay and lesbian couples want to hold hands on vacation without having to risk critical looks or hostile remarks. The solution developed by JWT+H+F provides the Adliswil-based travel provider Pink Cloud with a tool with which it can draw its customers' attention to suitable offers. The "Gay Approved" stamp is used to brand the relevant trips, destinations and other offers that are particularly suitable for gays. In addition to image ads, JWT+H+F also created a physical stamp set. Among other things, this gives Pink Cloud the opportunity to mark offers in the catalogs of various tour operators as particularly gay-friendly. As a further application, cinema slides were produced for the Pink Apple Film Festival.

Internet Youme.net is the name of a new Swiss Web 2.0 project. Video clips, blogs and online exchanges are captivating the Internet community. More and more start-ups are focusing on the participatory web with the ambition of being able to sell to a giant like Google shortly after launch. The Swiss start-up Freeflow also wants to benefit from this hype. With Youme.net, the company is launching a so-called social network, its own interpretation of the well-known US role models MySpace and YouTube.Ringier is supporting the project with a six-figure sum. The aim of Switzerland's largest publishing house is to gain insights into the online usage behavior of the younger generation. It is not surprising that Ringier is investing money in a risky venture, as innovations in the online sector are explicitly on the publisher's strategic agenda for this year. Last autumn, publisher Michael Ringier declared that the company would push ahead with digitization and that it wanted to benefit from the "gap between Internet usage and Internet advertising business" in the future.
According to Ringier, 20 percent of teenagers and young adults today cover their media consumption with the Internet, but less than 5 percent of the advertising business comes from the web. Projects such as Youme.net are therefore an obvious choice, as traditional media will have to reposition themselves sooner or later. "We want to learn how to deal with user-centered platforms and hope to gain access to new target groups," says Andreas Waldis, Head of New Media at Ringier.
The new online platform Youme.net is currently unique in Switzerland. The project is not a clone of existing models. As is the case with the usual offerings on the Internet, users can put themselves in the limelight with all kinds of interaction tools. But Youme.net founder Marcel Meier goes one step further. He wants to work together with the users and is counting on them to become active themselves, to join like-minded communities and not just vegetate on the net as mere consumers. He currently has an editorial team of six, most of whom are teenagers. They moderate the goings-on on the platform.
Cross-media marketingYoume.net works via topic incentives. The creators encourage participants, for example, to upload their own contributions on topics from the fields of entertainment, sport or work and education. For example, Youme.net attracts people to the platform with the call "Make Switzerland laugh" and uses this to find the best videos on the subject of comedy in Switzerland. Once the contributions have been linked, commented on and rated by the community after a few weeks, Meier wants to bring the best contributions to the traditional media channels and sell the corresponding content cross-media to various media partners. He reckons that, for example, portraits of participants in newspapers, reports on television and events where the best up-and-coming comedian is chosen should be of interest to advertisers.
Meier does not want his project to be a mere talent factory, but sees his platform as a pool for ideas and stories. "As a media partner, we are interested in the content that is created," says Andreas Waldis. Founder Marcel Meier is convinced that people will increasingly become producers of their own ideas thanks to the technologies in cell phones and notebooks.
Another novelty of the platform is its mobility: in order to be close to the action and the target audience, the team is constantly on the move with a glass container. It is currently parked on the grounds of the Museum für Gestaltung in Zurich. Every six weeks, it will move to the location where the stories produced by the users are happening. If a participant's contribution stands out from the gray mass, the editorial team picks it up with a report or a portrait and seeks distribution in the media. So anyone who has something to say gets the chance to become "famous". Meier's focus is on the Net generation, the target group of technology-savvy people who today produce films with their cell phones, chat on blogs and no longer know information hierarchies. As a rule, these are people between the ages of 18 and 29.
Meier and his team are also looking after media partnerships and campaigns and already have access to a large network of citizen journalists throughout Switzerland. According to Meier, his project can already count on 40 to 50 so-called heavy users producing content before the launch. The ambitious experiment aims to attract 25,000 active users to the platform in the first six months.
However, the company has also come in for criticism. Nicolas Berg, journalist and company founder, supports young entrepreneurs in the Internet sector as an investor. He is rather critical of the Youme project. Berg refers to the proliferation of party and dating platforms. Such websites are much more in line with the main interest of the young target group. "In order to attract users, the platform must clearly differentiate itself thematically from other platforms."
Christian Lüscher

 The German publishing house Gruner + Jahr (G+J) is discontinuing the fortnightly women's magazine Woman after four and a half years. The losses were too great, the future prospects too poor.  
G+J had launched the title with high hopes and fought for its survival for four and a half years. According to the German industry service Kress Express, the long trial period is due to the fact that Woman was one of the first major projects to be launched under the aegis of Bernd Kundrun as CEO. In the first quarter of this year, Woman sold 271,615 copies, almost 11 percent less than in the previous year. The price of the magazine was raised or lowered slightly from time to time, the magazine was plucked and plucked, staff were cut. None of this helped, Woman never got off the ground and the current issue is the last.

Prevention The new Euro RSCG campaign for the Federal Office of Public Health and Swiss AIDS Federation focuses on what you should always know about the past - or wanted to know about sex. For the first time, a motif featuring homosexual love has been integrated into the umbrella campaign. The core of the awareness campaign is a test on the Internet, which is intended to clarify where and why an AIDS test makes sense. The campaign caught our attention because it has already sparked passionate controversy in the editorial team of Werbewoche. Which, as a prelude to the act of penetrating public opinion, must of course be the point of such a campaign.

Regional television The people of Upper Valais want their own regional TV and have already founded it. The people of Fribourg have similar wishes, but are less brash.The fact that the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC) is holding a second consultation for the TV broadcasting areas in north-eastern Switzerland is also triggering a desire for a second consultation elsewhere, for example in Upper Valais and Fribourg. However, the starting points are different: DETEC has planned a single TV channel for bilingual Valais. The canton of Fribourg, on the other hand, has been divided up: According to DETEC, the German-speaking part belongs to the Bern region, the French-speaking part to the Vaud region, meaning that the cantonal capital of Fribourg would be served twice.There was resistance in both regions. The Upper Valais was united in demanding its own German-language television. To underline this demand, Tele Oberwallis AG was founded at the end of March (see interview), in which the Upper Valais cable network operator Valaiscom, local radio station Rottu, the publishers of the daily newspaper Walliser Bote and the weekly newspaper Rohnezeitung as well as the Swiss Distance Learning University of Applied Sciences Association each hold a 20 percent stake. The latter already operates the VS2 video channel.
Canal 9 in Sierre regrets that the Upper Valais went it alone. Cooperation had been sought, but was rejected by the Upper Valais, says director Aline Nicol. Nevertheless, Canal 9 is continuing to pursue the DETEC's unified proposal, she said, even in competition with Tele Oberwallis if necessary. However, Nicol left open how she intends to cover the Upper Valais.
Edipresse says non In the cantons of Vaud and Fribourg, however, the issue is not a language problem, but the question of whether a television station for the already fragmented Vaud can also serve the denominationally and politically different French-speaking inhabitants of Fribourg. In particular, the publisher Edipresse, which has been trying to unite five local Vaud stations into Vaud-TV for two years, spoke out against a cross-cantonal TV station. "It would be too expensive," says Christophe Rasch, Head of TV at Edipresse. Should DETEC nevertheless stick to the original plan, "we would have to start again from scratch", he says. He does not want another consultation. "DETEC already has all the facts on the table," says Rasch.
Albert Noth, member of the boards of trustees and directors of Radio Fribourg, Freiburger Nachrichten and La Liberté, would be happy to have a second hearing. From the point of view of the Fribourgeois, a connection to Vaud is possible, but they understand Edipresse's rejection. It had already put out feelers to Neuchâtel, but a joint TV would be similarly difficult to realize. "That's why we prefer to have our own French-speaking broadcasting area, perhaps with the Broye district," says Noth. The economic potential is currently being clarified. But this much is already clear: Noth does not believe that a Fribourg television station without a license is feasible at the moment, nor is a bilingual station.
Markus Knöpfli

TV marketing Publisuisse delivers considerably more sponsorship money to its parent company SRG than in the previous year. 284.8 million francs of the total turnover of 336.5 million francs generated by SRG marketer Publisuisse in 2006 was delivered to SRG, 12 million francs more than in the previous year. This is according to Publisuisse's 2006 annual report. However, at CHF 268 million, the amount that SRG receives from TV advertising remains almost the same as in the previous year (2005: CHF 266.2 million). However, Publisuisse is able to transfer significantly more sponsorship money to its parent company: While the figure was CHF 6.6 million in 2005, this year it is CHF 16.8 million, an increase of 254 percent. This was primarily made possible by an expansion of the portfolio: Publisuisse has also been responsible for sponsoring the French-speaking Swiss television station TSR since last year, which alone brought it 8 million in additional revenue. Whether this is more than what TSR generated on its own in 2005 is not clear from the figures. On the other hand, Publisuisse was able to increase its radio sponsorship turnover for all four SRG station chains by 8 percent to CHF 8.1 million. At TSI television in Ticino, revenue growth amounted to 11 percent, with total income amounting to one million francs.
Publisuisse has not only recorded large leaps in sales in SRG marketing, but also in Tele News Combi (TNC), the advertising combination of eight private TV stations in German-speaking Switzerland. Although the Publisuisse annual reports do not reveal the amounts in Swiss francs, they do reveal this much: since 2003, when the TNC was first listed in the Publisuisse online booking tool Publiplan, the Combi has more than tripled its turnover. In 2004 it increased by 130 percent, in 2005 by a further 40 percent and last year by another 10 percent. It is now likely to be at least CHF 12 million. Publisuisse is not responsible for all of this, as the PubliGroupe subsidiary Radiotele also markets the Kombi. However, the growth rates show how much the Publisuisse tool alone accounts for - and why the Tele Romandie Combi and the Swiss Radio Pool have now also chosen the SRG subsidiary as their sole marketer.
 
Markus Knöpfli

The Bern-based creatives at Contexta have launched the "Miteinander verbunden" campaign for Swisscom. With its new communication strategy, Swisscom wants to show its solidarity with Switzerland and its population.Swisscom is currently showing its chocolate side. In addition to its sponsorship of Swiss Ski and the Swiss Football Association, the telecommunications giant is giving 5,000 schools in the country free Internet access. For this very "Schools to the Internet" initiative, knights, giraffes and astronauts, for example, are staged in the school field, symbolizing the areas of knowledge that pupils can discover from the classroom thanks to the Internet. The Bern-based advertising agency Contexta was responsible for the development and implementation of the campaign.

Prevention Jung von Matt/Limmat wants to get the Swiss population up to speed with witty images Health Promotion Switzerland's national population campaign on healthy body weight is entering its second phase. Mountain bikes, inline skates and running shoes need a run. The more often, the better. If you leave them in the cellar, they literally get out of shape. Three new subjects have been created for the mobilization phase of the four-year campaign. With them, Jung von Matt/Limmat has further developed the visual implementation of the issue without changing the basic idea: As before, the consequences of an unbalanced ratio of energy intake through food and energy conversion through exercise are dramatized.
Following the awareness-raising phase at the beginning of the year, the campaign is now in the mobilization phase. The aim now is to do something about the excess pounds on a broad front. Together with various partners, offers are being implemented to help people become active. Central to this are the successful slow-up events and various walking events that are already taking place successfully throughout Switzerland. Further information and activities can be found at www.gesundheitsfoerderung.ch.   
Andreas Panzeri

Erotik Boutique Sensuelle is erotic shopping for women - the sophisticated way. In the small boutique you will find toys for your love life alone or as a couple. McCann-Erickson came up with this seductive advertisement to raise the profile of Boutique Sensuelle on Kasernenstrasse in Zurich.

Internet research One year delay -now the new Internet research Net-Metrix can start.On April 16, SRG, Wemf and the ICT association Simsa (Swiss Interactive Media and Software Association) founded Net-Metrix AG, the announced joint company for Internet research. Its headquarters are in Zurich, in the Wemf building. SRG holds a 50 percent stake, Wemf 40 percent and Simsa 10 percent. Wemf and SRG agree that this has to do with the higher initial investments that SRG is making for the new Internet research. But in three years at the latest, the shares of SRG and Wemf are to be balanced to 45 percent each, adds Wemf managing director Marco Bernasconi. Even more: Manuel Dähler, director of Mediapulse (ex-SRG research service), hinted that SRG could one day cede its share to the research foundation, which has yet to be established.It is interesting that Simsa, representing the Internet community, is now in the Net-Metrix boat. It had signed up as a third partner a year ago after the website operators had expressed too many reservations about the SRG/publisher (Wemf) research duo. But at the time, SRG and Wemf felt that the website operators were not sufficiently represented in Simsa. This reservation has disappeared because Simsa is quite accepted as a representative by the site operators themselves, says Dähler today.
Simsa is represented on the Net-Metrix Board of Directors by Marc Werner of Swisscom Fixnet, Wemf delegates Marco Bernasconi and Wemf Board member Polo Stäheli, and the SRG representatives are Walter Rüegg, Director of Radio DRS, and Manuel Dähler. Dähler and Bernasconi together also form the management of Net-Metrix.
The company will offer four products: Net-Metrix-Audit (previously Wemf's Net Audit) and the new onsite survey Net-Metrix-Profile, which will soon be published for the first time and then enable online reach. Furthermore, the Internet panel Net-Metrix-Tracking is currently being set up, which will provide the first data in the third quarter of 2007. And finally, there is the Net-Metrix-Base baseline study (previously Publica Data's Net Base). Mirco Marrone and Christine Diemand (both ex-Wemf) and Markus Jufer (ex-SRG Research Service/Media-pulse) continue to be responsible for the studies.
Markus Knöpfli