Automobil Saatchi & Saatchi Simko has shot a commercial in Spanish for Seat Switzerland What would German technology be without Spanish passion? At the end of last year, the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi Simko from western Switzerland won the advertising budget for Seat Switzerland. The first results of this collaboration can now be seen. On the occasion of the launch of the new Seat Leon Cupra, the new Seat campaign, specially designed for and in Switzerland, starts with an unusual TV commercial: in Spanish.The Seat brand claim "auto emoción" says it all: Seat embodies the perfect combination of Germany and Spain - "auto" stands for German engine building expertise and reliable technology, "emoción" for Spanish passion, heart and temperament. Why, the creatives at Saatchi & Saatchi Simko asked themselves, don't we use exactly that in the new campaign?
When technology becomes an eventThe result is a concept that amazes with both its simplicity and its unusualness. In the first spot of the new campaign, we see a breathtaking woman speaking directly into the camera - in Spanish. Sometimes angry, sometimes tender, then sexy again. The overwhelming majority of people in Switzerland (and all other non-Spanish-speaking countries) have no idea what this woman is trying to tell us. Only the subtitles make the fascinated viewer realize that she is actually reciting the technical specifications of a car. It is the Spanish language, the Spanish temperament, the Spanish fire that manage to turn even the dry, boring technical specifications of a car into a tingling, passionate experience for the senses. The excitement and curiosity that have been built up are then rewarded with the super "German technology. Spanish passion. The new Seat Leon Cupra" elegantly and intelligently resolved.
A simple yet imaginative idea to promote the new Leon Cupra in particular and the Seat brand in general. "Our aim was to create both a product and an image spot that ideally showcases Seat's brand values and the unique combination of German technology and Spanish passion. We succeeded very well with this commercial," says Andreas Huwyler, Head of Marketing at Seat, explaining the strategy.
"With the new commercial, Seat is taking a big step towards the Lovemark. Lovemarks are brands that are so loved by consumers that they (almost) can't imagine life without them. This campaign manages to arouse respect and emotions for this brand in equal measure," says Christophe Waeber, Managing Director of Saatchi & Saatchi Simko, with conviction.
A 30-second and a 14-second reminder were produced, which can be seen on TV and in cinemas throughout Switzerland from this week.
Andreas Panzeri

Awards 1 After a one-year break, Die Klappe is relaunching. Die Klappe has been around for 27 years. Now a new chapter is to be opened with the 2007 festival. The communications association, as organizer, wants to make the advertising film competition "an international benchmark". To this end, Die Klappe 27 is taking another important step on the way from a German-language creative prize to a "leading international award for outstanding film and moving image communication". This includes the inclusion of new categories such as "Internet" and "Mobile Devices." Amir Kassaei, Managing Director of Creation at DDB Germany, is one of Europe's youngest and most successful advertising minds to chair the jury. The jury will now be made up of one third each of well-known representatives from agencies, clients and other service providers such as film productions. This should "ensure maximum objectivity and transparency," as Klaus Flettner, President of the Communications Association, hopes.
The 2007 jury members already include Andreas Grabarz (Grabarz & Partner), Guido Heffels (Heimat), André Kemper (kempertrautmann), Delle Krause (Ogilvy & Mather), Johannes Krammer (TBWA/Vienna), Thomas Knops (Nokia Europe), Ralf Lanzrath (Fujitsu Siemens Computers), Claudia Willvonseder (Ikea Germany), Oliver Klein (cherrypicker), Harald Nebel (new business), Philip Schwinger (ffp Vienna) and Mark von Seydlitz (made in munich Filmproduktion), Jörg Schäffken (InBev), Kirsten Missfeld (Warsteiner).
Agencies, production companies, businesses and institutions can still register online at www.dieklappe.de until April 15, 2007. The organizers would particularly like to see more participants from Austria and Switzerland. The decisive jury meeting will take place in May. The award ceremony is in Hamburg or Berlin.

Andreas Panzeri

Publishing Klaus Kurz, Adobe Systems, talks about the availability of Creative Suites, the Macromedia integration, names his personal highlights and explains why agencies should update.WW: Mr. Kurz, when you introduced Creative Suite, you mentioned that the requirements for agencies have changed. Klaus Kurz: Agencies have to fulfill a much broader range of requirements than in the past. In the past, advertising agencies focused exclusively on traditional media and communication channels, but today clients also demand solutions and results from the Internet, mobile devices, interactive dashboards and much more. This calls for even broader expertise. Of course, agencies have always offered full service from a single source and worked with other service providers in the background. However, this causes additional costs and a higher coordination effort. Due to price pressure, more and more work is being designed and realized internally. It is therefore important that the tools for this support all media, channels and required formats.WW: Why should agencies not stay with Creative Suite 2, but switch to the new suite as quickly as possible? Klaus Kurz: The reason for switching lies in a single function through to the interaction of the products within the suite. A creative who implements the majority of his projects with our programs sees the advantages of his work and processes immediately, so that the investment pays off for him within a very short time. For us, however, the focus is on helping our customers with their work. That's why we make sure that the typical workflows are optimally supported and improved with each version. Anyone who currently works with Creative Suite 1 or Creative Suite 2 is familiar with our operating concepts and knows the key functions. That's why a switch to Creative Suite 3 can be made in a very short time. The feedback from our customers confirms that we are now making the productive process with our products even easier. In this respect, everyone who switches to Creative Suite 3 will be able to work even faster and more efficiently. This, in turn, is ultimately reflected in the costs and the time available.
WW: What are your personal highlights of Creative Suites? Please limit yourself to three functions ...Klaus Kurz: I think so many things are really extremely well done ... But if I have to limit myself to three, then these are integration, productivity and creativity.WW: What are the considerations behind the four collections? Klaus Kurz: There are four main disciplines that creative users deal with: Design, Web, Video and Cross-Media. With the four suites (in a total of six editions), we are consistently pursuing the requirements of customers to be able to work in a specialist yet interdisciplinary way. In this way, we cover all the requirements of the respective areas of application and ensure that they can interact with each other unhindered.WW: This is the first year after the integration of Macromedia. What is the customer benefit of this acquisition? Klaus Kurz: We now offer an even better integrated product range that supports all the requirements of modern publishing across all media and devices. This means that workflows can be optimally supported and previously separate products can work hand in hand. In concrete terms, this means, for example, that the interfaces of the products are becoming increasingly similar and that data can be exchanged between the applications without hindrance.WW: Can individual programs also be purchased in addition to the suites? Klaus Kurz: Of course, all programs are also available as individual applications. These have a clear raison d'être due to the wide range of applications. An editor will only need to create content with InDesign or InCopy, a photographer will in many cases concentrate on Photoshop, and a pure web developer, unlike a web designer, may only need Dreamweaver and Flash.WW: When can Swiss desktop and web publishers and video producers expect to receive the corresponding suites? Klaus Kurz: We expect to deliver the localized design and web products and suites in the second quarter of this year. The Creative Suite Production Premium and the Master Collection are not expected until the third quarter.Jürgen Franck

Numbers Michael Ringier's passion for art is well known. Selected objects from his extensive collection can be admired not only in the Pressehaus on Dufourstrasse. Every year, his publisher's annual report also offers the eye a creative encounter with art. Richard Phillips from New York has designed the current figures in the form of a work of art. All the statistics and tables are printed in 1930s Fraktur type.

Fast Food TBWA/Zurich launches the "Heidi Weeks" for McDonald's and brings Swiss burgers with a great film classic to the parlor.The Japanese not only built the best watches in the seventies. Our second national product "Heidi" was also filmed more enduringly in Japan than in Switzerland. In any case, the animated films of Isao Takahata, who later won an Oscar, became world-famous at that time. The Japanese cartoonist showed us an intact mountain world that we would hardly ever have dared to draw ourselves. Heidi, Geissenpeter and Alpöhi have thus become icons worldwide and for generations to come. And what still inspires children today was already a highlight of early childhood television culture for their parents.The modern reputation of the mountainsFor McDonald's and TBWA/Zurich, these films are more than just a good opportunity to present traditional Swiss burgers "in an appropriate setting", as CD Armin Korf puts it. As TV commercials for the family restaurant, the films offer a unique media platform that conveys tradition, originality and quality in a self-explanatory and entertaining way.
Of course, these movie templates didn't just serve as fast food for the creatives. Instead of reusing a few simple excerpts, new and funny short stories were created from the existing stories, all of which revolve around the burgers of the "Heidi Weeks". For example, a call to the ravine is not simply an echo, but an order for a tasty McBacon.
Or Geissenpeter doesn't bring Alpöhi letters from Auntie Dete as usual, but the offer of the current "Heidi Week". These are all fitting stories, which are of course crowned with a culinary presentation of McBacon, McTicino and McRösti at the movie's happy ending.
As the "Heidi Weeks" don't just take place on the screen, attention also had to be paid to the careful and loving implementation of the various communication measures. New illustrations were created specifically for this purpose, which showcase the protagonists in a witty and playful way.
Heidi, Geissenpeter and Alpöhi can be seen on television from April 4. And the culinary creations of the "Heidi Weeks" will be available to munch on at McDonald's until May 15.
Andreas Panzeri

Katrin Seegers wants to make the new Scholz & Friends Zurich a top address in the international network. 
"There's a horizon out there that wants to be discovered." Katrin Seegers entered the media industry with this seductive idea. The newly appointed Managing Director of Scholz & Friends Zurich has been working in advertising for 17 years. She started out by training as an advertising saleswoman. That was in a medium-sized agency in her home town of Hanover. After an internship in an agency at the age of 16, she already knew that she wanted to work in this sector. This enthusiasm was later joined by the realization: More knowledge is needed. So Katrin Seegers also studied the necessary theory with languages and culture, initially in Siena, Italy. "Leaving and being a stranger" is a consistent theme in her biography. Even as a child, Katrin completed part of her schooling in the USA because her father worked there as a German specialist in the automotive industry. After Siena, she moved back to the USA once again. In New York, the student spent six months working for the German-American Chamber of Commerce on a project about the image of German companies in the USA. "So I dealt with the issue of German image very early on. I unconsciously reflected on it as a child and later examined it professionally," says Seegers with a smile, referring to her new Swiss customer Blick. But first things first.
Back from the States, Seegers studied media science and communication research in Hanover. At the same time, she set up a small agency. "Three friends started their own business and needed another woman," she jokes about that time. In order to convey the necessary agency size to clients, friends and fellow students were sometimes put in the empty seats for an afternoon as extras. After just three years, the young company had 25 real employees.
Despite her status as a "woman of the first hour", Seegers wanted to continue discovering the world. She had "set her mind on" working for Scholz & Friends in Berlin. And explicitly for the budget of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. She had already researched daily newspapers during her media studies and wrote a thesis on "Correspondents of international daily newspapers in Brussels". This background knowledge, coupled with a strong will, convinced her: she has been with Scholz & Friends Berlin for seven years and is not only responsible for the FAZ.
As "Family Director" for four years, "together with two wonderful creatives", she has also been able to lead the watch brand A. Lange und Söhne to the number 1 position in the German luxury ranking with a clever strategy "and a playful approach to ideas".
The current top advertiser has not undergone any further training in strategy. "You need very good analytical skills," Seegers believes. She learned this in communication science. This requires you to question and uncover causalities. "But you can also study biology, because the mechanisms of thought are the same." Seegers also has "a high capacity for empathy, affection for people and a love of invention".
The new Managing Director of Scholz & Friends Zurich derives professional satisfaction from challenging and encouraging each other to grow. Some of her team have been with her for six years and came to Zurich with Seegers. "It's fun to see how someone grows with the job - and can also grow beyond themselves if you know how to strengthen the right qualities." In her day-to-day work, she tries to provide a good springboard for ideas to take off. "We are not just an advertising agency, we also see ourselves as strategic consultants."
The first Blick campaign showed what this can mean. The advertisers from Germany suggested to the editorial team on Zurich's Dufourstrasse that they launch a journalistic campaign on the topic of "How many Germans can Switzerland take?". "The reactions show that there was a strong need to bring the topic to the surface. You get the feeling that an outlet has been opened here," analyzes Seegers. Further such topics are now to be proposed. "In order to strengthen Blick as the leading medium in Switzerland, the newspaper needs to cover topics. To do this, we work closely with the editorial team. Advertising alone is not enough."
Scholz & Friends Zurich made a strong start by winning the Blick budget. Otherwise, however, no red carpet has been rolled out for the newly founded agency. The address is already established - just one floor below the BSW association office on Zurich's Konradstrasse. Nevertheless, Seegers still sees a lot of work to be done. But: "Being able to build something from scratch is a great opportunity."
Scholz & Friends Zurich already employs 15 people. In addition to Swiss people, who "find a platform for their ideas here", the team also includes Germans, Austrians and Italians. "We want to become one of the most interesting offices in the global Scholz & Friends network," says Seegers, formulating the goal. In Germany, the network has just become number 1.
They don't want to be modest in Switzerland either. "We didn't come here to be a wallflower." In addition to Blick, the new Zurich team is currently also working for Honda, Siemens Hausgeräte and Masterfoods. Zurich designed a campaign for Ebly, which was also adapted in Germany.
Seegers has high hopes for an exchange. "Berliners come to Zurich and our people go to Germany. We are not the remote-controlled arm from Berlin, but have a very high level of trust at Group level and have a completely free hand here in how we organize the whole thing."
Personally, Seegers has also found the right mix of Berlin air and Zurich sea breeze. As she still has a suitcase with a partner in Berlin, she commutes almost every weekend. Many people ask her if it's not too stressful. But more than stress, the internationally raised advertiser sees this way of life as an opportunity to live in two cities at the same time.
   
Andreas Panzeri

Awards 2 Contexta and a Zurich student saved Switzerland's honor at the Spotlight, the largest advertising film festival in the German-speaking world to date.the Spotlight advertising film festival in Friedrichshafen flickered across the screen for the tenth time at the end of March. With 20 percent more entries, the competition was fierce. The Swiss were not intimidated. The Bern-based agency Contexta received the special prize from the expert jury at Lake Constance for its Swisscom campaign Beck & Bondi. Over the years, the two families Beck and Bondi had already played their way into the hearts of the jury several times and had become old friends, the jury explained this special prize.Rolf Lang, a student at the SAE Institute in Zurich, won two precious metals in the young talent competition. For his "Red Smoke" campaign, he won silver from the expert jury and gold from the audience in the new "web & mobile" category. The film aims to draw attention to passive smoking and illustrates this with a wine drinker who, instead of swallowing, sprays the red noble juice into his surroundings by blowing violently. The SAE Institute in Zurich (www.sae.edu) is part of an international chain and offers extra-occupational courses in multimedia.
A fifth of all submissions to the Spotlight were "virals".   
 
Andreas Panzeri

 Knut here, Knut there, Knut everywhere, for Kuoni also on the sandy beach. The travel company uses him as an advertising subject for air travel and some, including the left-wing weekly WoZ, declared him without further ado to be a symbol of climate change.  
A polar bear is making a career for itself, but no longer in the Circus Knie. There's no escaping the cute little white guy in the media at the moment. He is the animal of the moment, and everyone wants to take advantage of the opportunity. The Swiss Illustrated magazine is catching readers with him, he also made an appearance in the last edition of the TagesAnzeiger, and for Kuoni he is lying under the palm trees. For those who don't notice the contrast, the tour operator urgently recommends a vacation. The Zurich weekly WoZ not only discovered the one contradiction, but also sensed a subversive statement on climate change in the ad. Seen in this light, the always shrewd WoZ editors spotted two contradictions at the same time, since air travel has an extremely poor ecological balance sheet. Reason enough to quote the Kuoni boss for the interview, who then affirmed that there was no connection whatsoever between the climate debate and the bear, that it was simply a very cute advertising medium. The WWF could also think about this and revise its logo.

 Mixed feelings at the media marketing company Goldbach Media: The 9.8 percent increase in sales is evidence of a growth spurt, yet the Group's profit shrank from CHF 6 million to CHF 5.1 million. The reason for the dip is various measures to prepare for further growth.  
For example, a changeover to an international accounting system and new operating software were expensive. Without these additional costs, the Goldbach Group would have been able to increase its profit by 15 percent, as Chairman of the Board of Directors Peter Blum explained on Wednesday.
 
Online boom The fact that the Group was nevertheless able to present a good result can be attributed to the newer forms of advertising. The ad screen business grew significantly: up 18.7 percent. However, the strongest growth was in online advertising, which was up 63% on the previous year. This segment benefited from rising advertising expenditure in the financial and services sectors. With sales of CHF 34.3 million, the online business has now almost reached the second-largest revenue generator, radio. The radio sector suffered from the World Cup and was the only one to suffer a decline in sales of 3.4% to CHF 37.4 million. Television advertising is still number one and continues to develop steadily with an increase of 4.3% to CHF 122.7 million.
 
Breakthrough in Austria Business in Austria increased by 49 percent to CHF 9.5 million and contributed 4.8 percent to the Goldbach Media Group's total sales in 2006. With the introduction of a holding structure and the division into two companies for the online and offline business (TV, radio, ambient), Goldbach Media is underlining its claim to be a cross-media provider and thus a specialist for cross-media marketing concepts in Austria, according to a media communiqué. Goldbach Media is currently examining expansion into Romania, Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary.

 Radio and portal in one: Equipped with the programs of 105 and Monte Carlo Swiss, Usgang.fm is now the first community platform in Switzerland with its own web radio stations.  
Until now, Usgang.ch has been known as a provider of high-quality event photos from German-speaking Swiss cities and Ticino. From now on, Usgang visitors will not only have something tasty to look at, but also something to listen to: On Wednesday, several special-interest radio stations will go online on the site. You can choose from the 105 stations Original, Dope, Classics, Hitradio and Rock as well as the extremely popular program from Radio Monte Carlo Swiss. The target group should be able to listen to high-quality sound from the various categories while surfing. The partners will work closely together on the programming and develop new ideas together, according to a 105 press release.

Print media research Research is not yet able to measure the reach of e-papers. This is not a problem for most newspapers, but it is for the new Cash daily. Ringier's free business newspaper Cash daily is still too young to be included in the current Mach Basic. But when the time comes, the paper will have a problem: Mach Basic only shows the reach of the print product. The e-paper, which can be read online and is called "livepaper" in Ringier's publishing jargon, is not included. "Mach Basic currently only collects data on printed media and cinema and has therefore reached the capacity limit for interviews. An additional query about e-paper would go beyond the scope," says Wemf Head of Research Harald Amschler. 
It is therefore clear that all newspapers are treated equally. Nevertheless, Cash daily is particularly disadvantaged: According to the publisher, Cash daily's e-paper currently has around 22,000 registered users who receive the e-paper free of charge by e-mail and can read it there. No other print medium currently has so many e-paper subscribers.
According to last year's Wemf circulation statistics, the previous record holders were Südostschweiz with 1,325 and Liechtensteiner Volksblatt with 863 (paid) e-paper subscriptions. NZZ and NZZ am Sonntag follow with 449 and 338 subscriptions respectively.
This shows: For most titles, the additional reach of their e-papers, which is not currently being surveyed, is hardly significant. This is not the case with Cash daily, where the electronic circulation accounts for a third of the actual print circulation (68,000 copies). This means that the live paper could also generate a third of the total Cash daily reach. Possibly even more. Of course, no one is currently in a position to say anything about the number of double subscribers and double readers, or whether an e-paper has more, fewer or the same number of readers as the print edition. However, André Michel, Head of Business Development at the Cash Group, estimates that usage is lower. "Not every registered user reads the live paper every day."
However, other publishers are also interested in the relevant information. After all, cross-media is the big topic everywhere, and more and more media companies are preparing their content and advertising offers across different media. Whichever media they include, they face at least two problems: Either there is no reach research for this (e.g. for mobile, AdScreen), or the currencies are difficult to compare with each other. In short: whether mobile offerings, e-paper subscriptions, web TV, radio streaming, downloads on MP3 players - nobody can currently provide reliable information on usage and even less on possible overlaps. Intermedia research is still in its infancy. Although the Wemf does have a rudimentary intermedia comparison with the MA Strategy, it does not even include all traditional media, let alone the new possibilities. In view of these gaps, the Swiss Advertising Association (SWA) regularly states in its annual reports: "The available intermedia studies are unsuitable for media strategy and planning."
"We are aware of this problem," says Harald Amschler. "But due to the complexity of the task, it will take some time before we can offer an adequate solution." The new Internet research Net Metrix represents a ray of hope, as access to measured websites (Net Audit) can be combined with socio-demographic data (Net Profile) for the first time. In addition, a new working group has been formed within the Wemf Research Commission to specifically address the topic of "Use of cross-media offerings".
Keyword Mach 3When it comes to media research, and print research in particular, the keyword Mach 3 crops up more and more frequently. What is it all about? One thing is clear: the current Mach Basic with the Lpa value, introduced in 2000, is the Mach 2; its predecessor with the so-called K1 value was the Mach 1. The Mach 3 is therefore a successor project, probably associated with a new (print) currency.
However, nobody knows yet what the methodology and currency will look like. This is one of the reasons why Wemf is already launching the topic as a subject for discussion.
Otto Meier, Vice President of the Wemf Board of Directors, points out in the current SWA annual report, for example, the need for new approaches to research (that are better suited to cross-media) and adds: "The industry will not run out of material for discussion regarding the requirements for future media research any time soon. Mach 3, announced by Wemf for 2010/2011, is the appropriate platform for discussing these important issues." The timing of the launch is not set in stone.
Markus Knöpfli

 On Wednesday, the Thai government ordered the immediate blocking of the popular internet portal YouTube. The reason: a video in which King Bhumibol was made fun of.  
As the SDA reported on Wednesday, anyone who clicked on the YouTube web address in Thailand was automatically redirected to the Ministry of Information website. The Asian country has extremely strict lèse-majesté legislation. This was also experienced by a Swiss man at the end of March, who was sentenced to ten years in prison after he defaced public portraits of the king with paint while drunk.