The creative efforts of the Walker agency for Amnesty International have paid off! According to Walker's press release, Amnesty has won the Corbis Creativity for Social Justice Award at the 86th Annual Awards of the ADC New York for the campaign "It's not happening here, but it's happening now." This award, which includes prize money of 20,000$, was presented for the first time this year. Corbis CEO Steve Davis will present the award at the gala in New York on May 31.
Daniel Bolomey, Secretary General of Amnesty International Switzerland, thanked the Art Director Club New York and Corbis as well as Walker: Amnesty is very happy that this campaign could be developed together with Walker.

 Peter Brun was actually supposed to take over as editor-in-chief of the Ringier program KonsumTV from 1 May. Ringier has now announced that the 38-year-old media professional will not be taking up the post after all. For personal reasons, Brun has decided not to take on the new professional challenge. He will continue to work as Head of Communications at the travel company Kuoni Switzerland. Hannes Britschgi, Editor-in-Chief of RingierTV, will take over as Editor-in-Chief on an interim basis.

RTVA Since April 1, the Radio and TV Act has permitted new forms of advertising. But so far, the corresponding offers are few and far between. But when it comes to TV advertising, they were the fastest for once. "As an innovative regional TV station, TeleBärn, together with its sales organization conRadio-TV AG, has made all preparations to offer the split screen advertising format to advertising clients from the start of the new RTVG/RTVV," wrote Conradio, part of Espace Media Groupe, in mid-January. The new offer is also included in the 2007 tariff documentation: "Via split screen, an advertising spot can be placed exclusively during a running program. The sound of the program continues, the spot is therefore limited to the picture," it says. The split screen is currently available for five programs and costs 90 or 100 francs per second, depending on viewer performance. The new offer has certainly met with interest from local companies, and a split screen will be broadcast for the first time during Easter week, says Conradio boss Martin Bürki (until recently an employee of Publisuisse). Incidentally, TeleBärn is also one of the broadcasters trying out interactive advertising via Betty TV. "So far, however, we have neither clear findings nor a business model," says Bürki. "But it is important that we benefit from the new possibilities at an early stage."
TeleBärn is not only the first regional TV station in German-speaking Switzerland to make direct use of the new RTVA, it is also the only one so far. Up and down the country, no other tariff documentation or TV website has a similar offer. Not even on Tele Züri. "We have not yet decided anything about the new special forms of advertising," says Marco Genepretti, Deputy Head of Sales at marketer Belcom. Neither media agencies nor advertising clients have asked for this yet.
There is still a lot of uncertainty At Radiotele, the marketing company belonging to PubliGroupe, the situation is similar. "We haven't discussed anything concrete yet," says Sabine Körner, Head of TV. She assumes that the individual broadcasters can already implement virtual advertising or split screen technically, but she doesn't know for sure. "We'll clarify this when it's up to date," she says succinctly.
"We are working with the SRG channels to develop concrete offers, but we have not yet had any inquiries from advertising customers," says Peter Kaufmann, Head of PR and Sponsorship at market leader Publisuisse. Kaufmann expects Publisuisse to launch such offers in the second half of 2007; individual solutions are also conceivable earlier. However, Kaufmann points out that the SRG's RTVG only allows split screen and virtual advertising for sports broadcasts - but these forms are often contractually excluded by the broadcasters from the outset.
Cinecom and IP Multimedia, the marketers of foreign TV program and TV advertising windows, are conducting their first experiments with the new possibilities. Cinecom is using the opportunity for more frequent interstitial advertising and is converting advertising blocks between two programs into interstitial blocks on its own initiative - at the price of the booked campaigns. "This means more attention for the same price," says COO Jean-Claude Bruhin. However, the broadcasters Sat.1, Kabel eins and 3+ have yet to provide split-screen offers.
Virtual advertising is a different matter. "We are very open to this, but every event has to be considered individually, so a standardized offer makes little sense here," says Bruhin.
IP Multimedia does not yet have any concrete offers for split screen and virtual advertising either, but is in the process of "developing further special forms of advertising exclusively for Swiss customers with all broadcasters", writes Siri Fischer, Head of Research and Product Management. On the other hand, it is "already possible on ProSieben, RTL II and Viva Switzerland to use a spot, a moving logo or an animated product directly in a program. It is also possible to reinforce a classic sponsorship with an insert from the sponsor every ten minutes."
What is generally noticeable is that there is still widespread uncertainty about the specific form of the new forms of advertising. Most of the private marketers approached assume that, like SRG, they can only use virtual advertising for sports broadcasts. This is probably a mistake. Jean-Claude Bruhin from Cinecom points out that, according to Article 15 of the new ordinance, virtual advertising is generally possible for "a public event organized by a third party". This gives the private sector more leeway. The Federal Office of Communications will therefore still have to do some educational work.
Under the new RTVA and the corresponding ordinance, private broadcasters are now allowed to interrupt their broadcasts with advertising more frequently than before. On television, advertising on a separate screen (split screen), virtual advertising and interactive advertising are now permitted. In addition, private radio and local-regional TV stations may broadcast advertising for wine and beer. The latter, however, remains prohibited for SRG, but it is now allowed to broadcast virtual and split-screen advertising, but only during sports programs. It is also allowed to broadcast longer advertising programs on television outside prime time. Product placement is permitted for both private broadcasters and SRG.
This was demanded by advertising clientsIt is surprising that there is little demand for the new special forms of advertising from advertising clients. In its 2005 annual report, the Swiss Advertising Association (SWA) criticized: "The supply policy is not very innovative. Special forms of advertising should be promoted." The new RTVA now partially meets the SWA's expectations. The fact that the SRG can continue to interrupt broadcasts lasting at least 90 minutes with advertising is entirely in line with the SWA, as is the fact that the SRG is allowed to use product placement after all (this was not the case in the draft ordinance). The SWA was not successful in its demand that SRG should also be allowed to use split screen and virtual advertising outside of sports broadcasts.
 
 
Markus Knöpfli

Generic advertising The jury has chosen the winners of the "Only an ad can do that" competition. For the second time, young creatives rather than established advertising agencies were invited to take part in the Swiss press competition "Only an advertisement can do that". "The ideas were almost more intellectual. The young talents are in no way inferior to their predecessors," says project manager Pepi Burch from the Swiss Press Association. "Although it gets more difficult every year, the tasks have been mastered excellently," says a delighted Toni Vetterli, Head of Marketing. 86 works were submitted by young creatives born up to 1978 - eight more than last year. Ten subjects will now be printed in millions of copies in almost all Swiss print media over the course of the year. At the end, the public will vote for the best advertisement. An expert jury has already selected the ideas of Isabelle Hauser, Martin Arnold and Beni Haslimeier for participation in the final at the bestYet in Paris.   
Andreas Panzeri

Telenovelas 80 million viewers in South America and 7 million in Germany can't be wrong: telenovelas about ugly ducklings who work in the fashion scene are extremely successful. This has now been discovered by 3+. The young Swiss television channel launched the cult series "Ugly Betty" this week, ahead of ORF and Sat.1. The idea is based on the Colombian telenovela "Yo soy Betty, la fea". The "Ugly Betty" works for a fashion magazine. And 3+ also uses a fashion magazine to advertise its new hit show every Tuesday at 8 pm. For the guerrilla campaign, the cover of Elle or Amica has been creatively defaced. Who did this? In a telenovela, you can never give away the punch line.

Easter Publicis has an Easter bunny murdered in hot blood for Chocolat Frey. Chocolat Frey is launching various dark chocolate products for Easter - to suit the tastes of an urban, predominantly female target group. Publicis introduces the dark chocolate bunnies with the slogan: "Discover the dark side in you!" On the one hand via advertisements in women's magazines and the Sunday press, and on the other with a virally distributed "horror film". The thriller-like spot tells the story of a sexy lady in a nightgown who - following an inner urge to lust - eats a dark chocolate bunny in a gruesome way. The film can also be found on YouTube, and the corresponding link is being distributed via relevant newsletters such as Ron Orp, 20 Minuten, Klassenfreunde, tilllate and others. The campaign has been running since mid-March and will continue until Easter.    

 The creative team at dialog agency Fisch.Meier.Direkt has recently been strengthened by copywriter/concept developer René Bucher, art director Jeannine Grabolle, junior copywriter Fabian Zahner and graphics apprentice Raphael Schoen.  
René Bucher has been anchored in the advertising industry for many years. He was previously a freelance copywriter/concept developer for seven years. He has worked for various Swiss agencies, including McCann-Erickson, Promovico Cato Johnson, Ogilvy&Mather, GKK Basel, Grendene and Honegger/vonMatt. Jeannine Grabolle is a trained graphic designer and has been working for zogg.kettiger.gasser for national and international clients for the last three years, gaining experience in the areas of CI/CD, classic advertising, event marketing and direct marketing. Fabian Zahner began his copywriting career after studying journalism and organizational communication at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Winterthur and worked for Ron Orp's newsletter.

Furniture The advertising agency Hochspannung was commissioned to develop a poster and advertising campaign to publicize the Asian furniture store Lotos. The agency was inspired by the Asian characters and turned them into pieces of furniture by skillfully placing the home accessories that Lotos carries on the characters. For example, a Thai Buddha stands on a Chinese character and turns it into an Asian table. The motifs will be used as posters, advertisements and cinema slides in Zurich and the surrounding area from now until the end of April. A second wave will follow in the fall.

 Young Swiss television continues to climb, increasing its market share in March by 18% compared to the previous month. This means that 3+ already has more viewers than all other Swiss private channels combined. With a market share of 3.3 percent in the advertising-relevant target group of 15 to 49-year-olds and even 3.7 percent among 15 to 34-year-olds in prime time (22:00 to 22:29) in March, 3+ reached 1.5 million viewers per week. This puts 3+ almost on a par with Sat 1 and also overtakes ZDF, Kabel1, Super RTL and ORF2 in the 15-49 age group. As in February, C.S.I. was the most popular program in March, with Thursday being the best day in terms of ratings. A total of 19 prime-time programs achieved a market share of over 5 percent among 15-49 year-olds in March. The program will be further expanded in April: In addition to "Ugly Betty", the two series "Office Girl and "Criminal Minds" will also start their premiere broadcasts before Sat1 and ORF1, as well as "Alias".

Regional press Nordostschweiz has been launched - and is waiting for the Schaffhauser Nachrichten. On April 2, the cooperation announced last January between the two regional newspapers Landbote and Thurgauer Zeitung began under the title Nordostschweiz. The most obvious change, especially for the readership of the Thurgauer Zeitung, is the conversion to a four-cornered newspaper with a modernized layout, which was largely adopted from the Landbote. Shortly after the launch, it is difficult to say how successful the new appearance of the two newspapers will be. "Changes are not welcome at first," says TZ publishing director Urs Bucher. But he is convinced that after just one or two weeks, people will get used to the new look, and with this in mind, the two titles have lowered the advertising rates for their joint Nordostschweiz advertising combination and are offering advertisers a combined discount of 15 percent compared to 8 percent previously. The combination of both titles together with the Schaffhauser Nachrichten, known as Kombi 1, can still be booked. The higher discounts had logically led to price discussions. "We have now made the corresponding price adjustments," says Norbert Neininger, CEO of Schaffhauser Nachrichten.
According to Urs Bucher, these adjustments are in the range of one to two percent. This means that Kombi 1 remains attractive and cheaper than if advertisers book Nordostschweiz and Schaffhauser Nachrichten separately. Neininger says that this should not result in any loss of revenue for Schaffhauser Nachrichten. His paper is not included in the new Nordostschweiz real estate and job advertisement.
In principle, the Landbote and the Thurgauer Zeitung would like to see the Schaffhauser Nachrichten as a third party. However, Schaffhausen has so far been content with a loose cooperation (occasional production of joint supplements or exchange of editorial articles) and does not want to enter into a closer cooperation. "We would have liked to welcome SN", says Lothar Dostal, Publishing Director of Ziegler Druck, which publishes the Landbote. Now they are simply continuing with what already exists in the advertising sector, which promises less success than cooperation in all areas. Nordostschweiz's contracts with Publicitas expire at the end of 2007. Dostal hopes that by then they will have come a little closer together on the Schaffhausen-Winterthur/ Frauenfeld axis.   
René Worni

 The figures alone are brutal: domestic violence is a regular occurrence in one in ten Swiss families. Most of the victims are women and children. With the support of Publicis, the Zurich Women's Center (ZF) is drawing attention to this and to the new law on the protection against violence.  
Until now, those affected have often had to leave the family home and seek refuge with family members or in women's shelters. There was no legal basis to protect them, but the new law changes this: Anyone who uses violence or threatens violence can be removed by the police or taken into custody. When the law comes into force, the ZF's "Stop Domestic Violence" campaign, which campaigned for the new law, will be launched throughout the canton of Zurich. Domestic violence must never be accepted or tolerated - this was the brief given to Publicis. The agency dramatizes the problem with a commercial that gives an insight into the normal everyday life of a woman with a violent husband. It is the unspectacular realization in particular that makes for a stab in the heart. Perhaps it inspires action where many have previously preferred to tolerate it.

Mediafocus In February 2007, advertising pressure rose by 8.3% compared to the previous year. The cumulative increase amounted to 13.2 percent. In this month, the Internet, daily newspapers and consumer magazines saw above-average growth, while the other media groups recorded rising or stagnating advertising pressure. The only exception is cinema, which recorded a strong downward trend. The strongest growth was recorded by political campaigns (March referendums), charitable campaigns, IT and finance. By contrast, the tobacco, energy and beverage advertising markets declined sharply.