The call for entries for this year's "Award Corporate Communications - Best Practice" has begun. Communications experts are invited to submit their realized communications concepts for the "Communicators 2007" by 31 July. The Swiss Award Corporate Communications stands for creatively integrated communication achievements and is awarded annually by a neutral jury. This prize, which is unique in Switzerland, is intended to promote professional internal and external communication in business and public administration. In the third edition of the prize, concept developers can once again rely on their communication concepts being carefully examined by a competent jury of experts. This year's award ceremony will take place on September 13, according to a press release. Detailed information and registration documents are available via the link below.

 The 31-year-old radio presenter and head of presentation at Radio 24 is expected to leave the station at the beginning of July. Marc Jäggi will then take on a new challenge as a producer at DRS 1.  
The ex-husband of TV lady Anna Maier will continue to work in Zurich, as reported by Radioplay. He started his radio career at Radio Förderband (BE1) in Bern. He also made a name for himself as the author of Bundesrat-WG with Patrick Schäfler.

Gastronomy For forty years, the Landbeiz Bläsihof has been famous in and around Winterthur for its incomparable Chnobli bread. Or infamous. Because as good as it tastes, the ensuing garlic plume is unavoidable. Nevertheless, it is hard to resist the temptation. To at least reduce the impact on the environment, the measure suggested by Demeulemeester Publicité in the new key visual for the Bläsihof is a commercially available surgeon's face mask. It may not be particularly stylish, but it is effective.

Television A second consultation by DETEC envisages a new local TV without a service mandate and fee splitting for the Zurich region.To the great astonishment of the private TV scene, the department submitted three new TV coverage areas for north-eastern Switzerland to an additional consultation on April 10. The first proposed area is "Zurich", which is identical to the current Tele Züri area, but will not have a service mandate in future and therefore no fee share. The second area "Eastern Switzerland" (with a performance mandate) is almost identical to the current broadcasting area of Tele Ostschweiz. The third area, "Nordostschweiz", is similar to the broadcasting area of Tele Top, but without the city of St. Gallen, but with the Zurich districts of Uster and Bülach. The performance mandate for this area stipulates program windows for the cantons of Schaffhausen and Thurgau.DETEC's original proposal envisaged only two broadcasting areas with a performance mandate. The former "Eastern Switzerland" area also included the whole of Thurgau and Winterthur. The "Zurich" area included the cantons of Schaffhausen and Glarus, for each of which a program window was prescribed.
 
As DETEC is now leaving the "Zurich" area at its current size after all due to the reactions received, "fee support for the canton's supply is no longer necessary", writes Federal Councillor Moritz Leuenberger.
If the new DETEC proposal goes ahead, the Tamedia station Tele Züri now has its broadcasting license safe and sound. More precisely: it can continue to broadcast in its current area without a license - without fee-supported competition with an identical coverage area. Switzerland's largest private TV station will even be given carte blanche, as it can expand its broadcasting area at will without a performance mandate, provided the cable network operators cooperate.
Andreas Meili, Head of Electronic Media at Tamedia, is astonished by DETEC's "180-degree U-turn". "This approach shows a certain lack of concept", he criticizes. TV without territorial restrictions and a performance mandate could certainly be interesting, he believes, especially as Tamedia is not primarily interested in fee shares. However, Meili also sees a "distortion of competition" if a large part of the Tele-Züri broadcasting area can also be covered by the fee-financed broadcaster "Nordostschweiz".
Günter Heuberger, head of Tele Top, was "completely surprised" by DETEC. But he is pleased because the new proposal reflects the influence of the canton of Schaffhausen and the towns of Uster, Kloten, Frauenfeld, Winterthur and Wil. They had largely supported his concept in their statements.
Hanspeter Klauser, CEO of St. Galler Tagblatt AG, is also satisfied. The new "Eastern Switzerland" area is "highly sensible", he says, as it is practically congruent with the current Tele Ostschweiz distribution area. This is more in line with his wishes - even without the canton of Thurgau.
Norbert Neininger, head of Schaffhausen Television (SHTV), takes a different view: "Our position remains unchanged: Schaffhausen wants its own TV license," he says. However, the fact that his region has now been moved away from Zurich to the "Nordostschweiz" region shows "that DETEC is moving". Neininger also notes that despite the new proposal, the idea of a station for the cantons of Schaffhausen, Zurich and Glarus is not off the table. The project with program windows was outlined in January by ZüriPlus, SHTV, RingierTV and Goldbach Media - analogous to the original DETEC area "Zurich" and in competition with Tele Züri.
Markus Knöpfli

Marketer PubliGroupe is realigning itself. The new strategy, which was presented on March 28, is based on cross-media marketing and all-media consulting. The previous PubliGroupe structure with the five divisions Publipresse (print and online marketing in Switzerland), PubliDirect (Yellow and White Pages) and Publicitas Promotion Network (PPN, activities abroad), Corporate and "businesses under development" (Radiotele, Web2com, Cinecom, Namics) will soon be a thing of the past. In future, PubliGroupe will no longer divide its business areas into domestic and foreign activities, but into activities regardless of where they are carried out. In future, therefore, both Swiss and foreign activities will be combined in one area - provided they are related in nature - and print and online marketing within the Publipresse and PPN divisions will be brought together in the new "Media Sales" area, where they will be bundled with the marketing of cinema, radio, websites, TV, AdScreen and mobile. The aim is to be able to offer the individual media from a single source and, if required, also cross-media and across countries. "We will align Media Sales in such a way that we are perceived by agencies and advertising clients as a competent marketing and service partner for all media," said Hanspeter Rohner, CEO of PubliGroupe, at the balance sheet conference on March 28. Around 80 percent of the main turnover of the Media Sales division will come from Switzerland, at least initially. But this is likely to change soon. "Business expansion will mainly take place abroad," said Rohner.
Niche activities, such as the marketing of in-flight media in Asia (now part of PPN), will in future be placed under "Custom Publishing". In the Search & Find division, PubliGroupe will subsume the marketing of the White and Yellow Pages, the local.ch portal and other similar activities, primarily in Switzerland, but also partly abroad.
There is still the new "Marketing & Digital Services" division: it is certain that the company Namics, which specializes in e-consulting, will be housed here. However, the specific orientation of this area is still the least clearly defined (see interview on page 17). Rohner pointed out that the interdependencies between interactive, mobile-based, electronic and traditional media are increasing and that the number of commercially exploitable opportunities is multiplying. "This is why advising advertising clients is becoming an even more important discipline." All the more so as advertising expenditure is increasingly seen as a media investment. Rohner: "Many companies today want to know where to invest their advertising money and when they can achieve a return on investment. Media research, media efficiency measurement and media analysis are therefore disciplines that will become significantly more important in the coming years. And we want to play a role in this."
PubliGroupe seems to sense a goldmine in this area. Although the marketing business in the media sector will remain the foundation of PubliGroupe, said the CEO, it will be "successively supplemented by a profitable consulting and services business". It can be assumed that the "Marketing & Digital Services" division will increasingly eat over the fence of the media agencies or attempt to compete directly with them with activities and tools.
It is interesting that PubliGroupe is now also using the buzzword crossmedia and is even making it a key component of its new strategy. However, Rohner is aware that the term can be interpreted in many ways and is therefore misleading. He therefore defines cross-media as "effective, strategic bundling of different media for a clearly coordinated marketing objective". At the same time, he differentiated himself from what many multimedia companies offer today under the heading of crossmedia, namely "discount combinations in which you bundle good-selling products with poor-selling ones and hope to give the poor-selling ones a boost. For me, that's not cross-media," says Rohner. And points out that marketing skills alone are no longer enough, as the media market is becoming increasingly complex with digital media - also in technical terms. Know-how in dealing with these media is therefore becoming a decisive competitive factor. "Today, we have basic in-house expertise - in various languages. Linking all of this with regard to the cross-media world will be one of the challenges we want to tackle as part of our new strategy," says Rohner.
Pascal Böni to join the Board of Directors Fritz Schuhmacher,
Former co-owner of Internationale Treuhand AG (Itag) in Basel, resigned from the PubliGroupe Board of Directors at the end of 2005. He had resigned his mandate because Itag had been investigated for financial crimes. Since then, PubliGroupe's largest single shareholder, the Jean-Robert Gerstenhauer Foundation, which holds 11 percent of the shares, has no longer been represented on the PubliGroupe Board of Directors. This is now set to change on April 30. The election of the new Itag owner Pascal Böni will be proposed to the AGM.
Markus Knöpfli

Neuromarketing The Rolling Stones rock out to celebrate 10 years of Migros Cumulus. In the minds of many Migros consumers, however, a Cumulus storm is brewing.
"M-Cumulus is celebrating its 10th birthday. And as a present, there's a Rolling Stones concert - exclusively for Migros customers!" However, this headline on the front page of Migros magazine was not the first thing to enter my brain. That's because my neuronal data processing system, i.e. my brain, takes in the images first. In this case, red lips, white teeth and a tongue sticking out. A strong logo for a strong brand. The image only became a human gesture when I read the congratulations on my gift in more detail. It said that only 15,000 of the more than 2 million birthday boys and girls would receive two tickets each. So more than 99 percent are looking into the cumulus clouds from the outset. Not so bad, the recipient thinks, and counts himself among the chosen ones. After all, our brains work according to the "principle of hope". The research and development department of evolution has done a great job of this over a few million years. The subconscious is the messenger of this principle. In other words, the part to which our rational thoughts have no direct access. However, if our brain has enough time to make decisions, reason can also take its place on the jury that controls our behavior. But only with a maximum of ten out of a hundred representatives. "To rejoice or not to rejoice" is on the agenda after receiving the Migros notification. Except for those Cumulus customers who have chosen the orange giant as their hero. For them, the neuronal hero circuitry is at work. And it is so well shielded against the interference of reason that the hero's actions are approved of a priori.
6000 points for two entriesBut what happens in the minds of others? Let's take a look inside. We see how a delegate of the awareness group recapitulates Migros' congratulations: "The potential recipient must go to Migros from April 10 to 23, must shop for at least 100 francs, must take a competition card, must put 10 stickers on it and, last but not least, must go into debt for about a year, because hardly anyone has the additional 6000 entry points required in their Cumulus account." Not a bad start for the consciousness faction. Because now the representatives of the unconscious are remembering the stories of their childhood. That is their destiny, that has proven itself, that is the template archive for behavioral patterns. The jury therefore recounts birthday experiences. How you felt when presents were linked to unpleasant conditions and you still had to say thank you to the stingy uncle, the cunning aunt or the hypocritical brother.
The meeting is then briefly adjourned as new information is presented. The Lottery and Competition Commission had denied that the gift was a gift. And the city of Lausanne had classified the 6,000 Cumulus points as an admission ticket and enforced the payment of ticket tax. In response, the generous gift giver said that it was purely a communication error and that the birthday children could also order the card and sticker in return for a reply envelope.
The losers pay tooOnce back at the round table, it quickly becomes apparent that the gift-giver's assurances are neither well received nor very credible. Subsequent corrections to a birthday greeting? But whether you should ultimately be happy and love the gift giver will also depend on the evaluation of other information packages. Do the Stones' stories match those of Migros? Or would a Switzerland-wide karaoke festival not be more suitable? Do I really like it when my stupid Ländler neighbor wins - and I don't? Or do I not want to stand in front of the Stones stage with 40,000 Migros customers? Should images from a promotional event be allowed to overlay my cherished image of the Stones - no matter how wrong my image of this group may be? Does it correspond to Dutti's idea of social capital if over 99 percent of the birthday children have nothing of the 4 to 5 million expensive gift?
These and other questions are still causing a stir in my Cumulus head office. And there's probably little chance that the final decision will be: "We are delighted with the great gift and thank Migros for their idea and generosity." It is more likely that I will be disappointed. Even if I met all the conditions and was there with other Cumulus users on August 11, 2007, I could hardly tear myself away from the images of the real Stones concerts. And if I were one of the 99 percent of unlucky people, I'd resent the gift giver for denying me entry and allowing the stupid neighbor in. Especially as my subconscious is well aware that the supposed gift is a promotion that all those excluded have to pay for. Nice gift.
Dr. Werner T. Fuchs, author of "1001 Macht" and owner of Propeller Marketingdesign.
40,000 tickets to be wonTo celebrate 10 years of the Cumulus card
Migros has completely bought up the only Swiss concert in Lausanne for the Rolling Stones, who are touring Europe this summer with "A Bigger Bang". 30,000 tickets will be entered into a prize draw in which only Cumulus customers can participate. Valid tickets can be obtained by making purchases of at least CHF 100 between April 10 and 23. Alternatively, tickets can be ordered directly from Migros. 15,000 winners will be drawn to receive two tickets each, including a train ticket to Lausanne. Each winner will have 6,000 points debited to their Cumulus account (100 points = 1 franc). 10,000 tickets are reserved for various promotions in Migros branches, on the radio and on the website. There will be no free advance ticket sales.

Column The spectre of the media without journalists is spreading, even in France. Their role in the election campaign has never been as insignificant as it is this time around. The economic catastrophe of the newspapers has led to the identity crisis of an entire profession. On television, the political programs that were declared dead are experiencing a resurrection and celebrating record ratings - with politicians being interviewed directly by voters. The campaign is also bypassing journalists on the Internet. Yet interest in the election is huge. When the news magazines put candidates on the cover, circulation rises by a quarter. Le Figaro sells a few tens of thousands more copies than usual on some days. Dozens of political books have been published and are selling like hot cakes. Their authors are granted the independence that journalists have lost due to their proximity to power and the concentration of power in the media sector. Thirty years ago, the communist leader Georges Marchais said to the TV star presenter, "Taisez-vous, Elkabach," and "Shut up." Their importance in an election campaign has never been so low. It's not quite that bad nowadays, but the self-important arrogance of the candidates in the election campaign does not bode well for their exercise of power. If he doesn't like a clip, Nicolas Sarkozy says what he thinks of the report. The presenter feels like a disciplined student. He threw a tantrum in the France 3 studio because he was kept waiting while his make-up was applied and the TV director had not come in person. He has the filming of his public appearances produced by himself - and they are even taken over by public television, whose cameramen have to make do with worse seats. New reports can be seen daily on his website, reporting on his deeds at close quarters: Propaganda in the web age, but at the same time more revealing than many TV programs in the information department.
Events with politicians have been the nightmare of station bosses in recent years - now they are achieving top ratings. A "panel" of one hundred French people, who are supposed to represent a cross-section of society, is invited into the studio - the pollsters are responsible for the selection. The title of the program: "I have a question for you." Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, TF1's star presenter, has never looked so bemused at the cameras. The man interviewing the President of the Republic at eye level on July 14 plays an extra role - and rarely gets enough of a shot. The puck goes back and forth, but always past the presenter. Only with difficulty does he get into the game: "I think Ginette has a question about that." Ginette asks the candidate whether her glasses will be covered by health insurance under his rule. The pollsters even had an invalid ready for Ségolène Royal. She went up to him, stroked him - and scored points. Thanks to this show, the woman who was thought to have been defeated came back into the race.
The new format, which was tested for the first time at the beginning of the year, is so successful that Germany and Italy are interested in it. The Spanish have bought it - and have already embarrassed their prime minister. When asked how much a cup of coffee costs, he said the price was far too low. In France, other election broadcasts have also adapted to this pattern - in a more moderate form. "The TV stations are reconciling the public with politics", stated Figaro in amazement.
At a conference in Lille in March, the Association of Francophone Journalists complained bitterly about the loss of importance of its members. Internet portals were accused of a "demagogic approach to information". And the program "I have a question for you" was accused of robbing journalists of their task and degrading them to "animators of public debate".
There will certainly be answers to these changes and challenges. Le Monde has provided - not the best ones. The newspaper listed the nonsense that the candidates were allowed to spout unchallenged in the show without journalists. But nobody was interested in that the day after.
Jürg Altwegg is a correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine in Geneva.

Obituary Thomas Hermann bids farewell to Luigi Grendene in an obituary. I'll make it short, I'm leaving." With these words, Luigi Grendene, Chairman and Creative Head of Grendene, Ogilvy & Mather, informed his employees at the end of 2006 that he planned to leave the agency at the end of April 2007. He had no intention of retiring. The busy advertising man still had many plans, not least a sailing trip around the world with his lovely Alma. With his ocean-going license in his pocket, he had already mastered many a storm on the treacherous Lake Lucerne with his sailing yacht. Luigi attended the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts (now HGKZ) and attracted attention early on as the best graduate of his year. He met Alma, the woman of his life, at the "Kunsti". They both celebrated their birthdays on the same day. Alma remained his great support throughout his life, gave him affection and security and bore him two sons.
As early as 1969, he teamed up with Martin Lanz, who would later become his partner. The two won many a pitch as freelancers for René Hürlimann (damas HMK). Their early success led to the founding of Grendene & Lanz in 1972. For Martin Lanz, the sudden death of Luigi Grendene "extinguished a volcano".
 
His campaigns for Rank Xerox, Ikea and Lancia were legendary. He won the latter mandate in 1984 for Fiat Auto (Suisse), whose client I was at the time. Cars were his great passion. His campaigns for Ford and Jaguar were also groundbreaking for car advertising.
From 1996 until today, he was the patron of Grendene, Ogilvy & Mather. He was the creative overfather, strict, consistent, but full of recognition for brilliant achievements. Many ADC-decorated advertisers went through his school of life. He not only taught them the craft, but also human values such as restraint, generosity and modesty. For him, the dice were more of a stumbling block.
Luigi was a fun-loving bon vivant. I was able to accompany him for 23 years and see how he enjoyed the Italian grandeur in Turin, but also pursued individual projects with total dedication, such as the book about the Fan Tree Company (DKSH), for which he will probably win a prize posthumously after all. An atypical advertiser leaves the stage of seduction and desire. He did not advertise for himself, but for his customers. He will be remembered not by a gravestone, but by his work, and his ashes will travel the world's oceans. Bon voyage, Luigi!
Thomas Hermann, Managing Director, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide.

Recycling Bella, Fifi, Rex, Astor, Balou, Sheila, Aibo, and Blacky are teaming up with Wirz to promote Inobat. We Swiss have been good at collecting batteries for a long time now. But we could do even better! That’s why a poster campaign designed by Wirz is launching these days, aimed at further increasing the collection rate. Several cute, battery-powered puppies proudly present their little piles and remind us that there’s a special bag for batteries, too: the Battery Bag. The posters, each featuring four dogs, will be hung in pairs at suitable locations. On the one hand, the «aww» factor of the cute dogs is meant to appeal to kids who still have old batteries sitting in their vintage Game Boys and other electronic toys. On the other hand, the humor in the cheeky design is meant to «remind adults—not by scolding them, but with a touch of humor»—that such a Battery Bag exists. And once half a dozen batteries have been «temporarily stored» in this bag, people will hardly toss it carelessly into the trash can anymore, but will instead «dispose of it properly,» CD Matthias Freuler is convinced.   
Andreas Panzeri

 PR and communications agency Burson-Marsteller has been named "International Agency of the Year 2007" by leading PR publication The Holmes Report.  
Every year, the Holmes Report selects the best PR agencies and evaluates them on the basis of selected criteria such as business dynamics, international network, client work, professional competence and quality of staff. This year, the award for "International Agency of the Year 2007" went to Burson-Marsteller. The Swiss representation is also delighted: "The award is a great recognition of our daily work and the commitment of Burson-Marsteller's employees," said the local CEO, Roman Geiser, in a press release on Thursday. The decisive factor for the choice was, among other things, the extraordinary growth of Burson-Marsteller in Europe. As the Holmes Report notes, the agency was able to expand its European business over the last twelve months to such an extent that the best new business since the boom years of the late nineties was achieved.

 The CIA fax affair mercilessly exposes some thoroughly negative aspects of the Swiss national character that were thought to have been overcome: Boundless pettiness and a criminal lack of humor as well as military inferiority complexes (probably because we weren't really involved in the Second World War?). No wonder the International intervenes. For those who have not yet noticed: Three SonntagsBlick journalists will be brought before a military court in St. Gallen on April 17 because they intercepted and published a fax in connection with the suspected CIA secret prisons. They are accused of having considerably weakened the Swiss intelligence service. Since then, they have been subjected to absurd pressure attempts by the Swiss military, which have now taken on such Kafkaesque proportions that the regional group of the European Federation of Journalists felt compelled to take action in the matter. In a statement on Thursday, it strongly condemned the events in Switzerland and stated that the case was not a matter for military justice, but should be judged by civil courts. Furthermore, it is not the first time that Switzerland has tried to intimidate investigative journalists and prevent them from publishing documents that the government would prefer to keep secret. This is better suited to a dictatorship and not to the land of super-democratic nerds.

Newspapers Spillmann Felser Leo Burnett enters a new round with the Tagi campaign What consequences could the major bee mortality in the USA have for the FCZ? And would Hillary Clinton's election have an impact on taxes in Wetzikon? And conversely, could a local Zurich event have consequences for the rest of the world? Stay tuned, stay tuned, stay tuned... As befits its claim, the Tages-Anzeiger is explicitly sticking to events in its new advertising campaign and for the first time showing what effects they could have. The result: a fun, intelligent and witty text campaign that uses current topics to illustrate the broad spectrum of the Tages-Anzeiger and draws attention to the fact that in today's world, many things depend on each other.
Keep at it - even with the consequencesSpillmann Felser Leo Burnett based this idea on the so-called butterfly effect - "The flap of a butterfly's wings in the Amazon jungle can trigger a hurricane in Europe." Mani Matter dramatized it in a similar way in his "Zündhölzli-Lied".
Staying tuned - the long-standing motto of the Tages-Anzeiger means not only staying tuned to topics, but also to the consequences of events. Because every event automatically leads to further events. "We don't know exactly which ones. But we can speculate," explains CD Peter Brönnimann. His copywriters were therefore allowed to make imaginative guesses as to which direction certain events might take, which areas they might touch on and how they might influence our everyday lives in a very individual way. According to the ad, sporting events are not only relevant for sports fans, but can also have an impact on the economy or politics. And political decisions in Washington could in turn have consequences for taxpayers in Wetzikon. In short: "Because many things are interdependent today, a complete newspaper like the Tages-Anzeiger is more relevant to people than ever," says the advertising department. A newspaper that takes regional issues just as seriously as international ones. A newspaper that reports on news from the world of science as well as from the world of business. A newspaper for which the grievances in Zurich's Borrweg School are just as much an issue as the grievances in the American Walter Reed Army Hospital. And finally, a newspaper that also provides a great deal of background knowledge and shows the connections.
The Tagi agency Spillmann Felser Leo Burnett has created around a dozen advertisements for an initial phase. From "What if no new nuclear power plants are built?" to "What if Hillary Clinton becomes US President in 2008?" to "What if Ailton scores a lot of goals?" Later, these advertisements will also trigger radio and television commercials in the same style.
Andreas Panzeri