At the beginning of February, the 25 section presidents met at the European conference of the International Advertising Association IAA in Zurich. They presented the status of their organizations and current developments in their countries. The meeting served to exchange ideas and discuss current topics; exchange of programs, the IAA's strategy for the future, regional and global market developments and communication-related dossiers in Brussels. They also planned the European Advertising Summit in Bucharest in September and the next IAA World Congress in Washington in April 2008. One important aspect was the growing corporate social responsibility of companies, which also includes advertising, according to a press release. The IAA consists of a global network. The worldwide organization has 4000 members in 56 sections and 76 countries.

Competitions The Crossmedia Award, initiated and organized by Goldbach Media, is being held for the third time this year. The new jury president and successor to Dominique von Matt is Geri Aebi. The gold winner will receive 10,000 euros in prize money. Other winners will be awarded silver and bronze The Crossmedia Award is intended to promote networked thinking and action in communication and the innovative use of media. The closing date for entries is April 3, 2007. To register, find out more and upload your work, visit www.crossmediaaward.ch.

TV advertising In its battle against the M6 advertising window for French-speaking Switzerland, the SRG has rather poor cards. But Bakom is backing it up. 2007 got off to a bad start for SRG and especially for French-speaking Swiss television TSR. On January 4, the Fribourg cantonal court dismissed the lawsuit brought by SRG against the French TV station M6. And just one and a half months later, Naxoo, the operator of the Geneva cable network, announced that it expected to switch on M6's Swiss signal at the end of March (see page 1). What's more, TSR boss Gilles Marchand, who is also a member of Naxoo's Board of Directors by virtue of his office, will soon have to give up this post and lose his influence there (see box).The ruling in Fribourg and the changes at Naxoo weaken the positions of SRG and TSR in their long-standing battle against M6. However, it is not yet clear why the Fribourg court dismissed the SRG complaint. The reasons for the ruling are still pending. All is not lost for SRG: it has reserved the right to appeal the ruling to the Federal Supreme Court.
SRG wants to set an exampleBut with the Fribourg trial, SRG wanted and wants to set an example, which it has so far failed to do. Cablecom, the local cable network operator, was the first network provider to no longer broadcast the broadcaster's original program signal with French advertising blocks from 2001 onwards, but a second signal that was partly equipped with Swiss advertising. Because of this advertising window, however, SRG and TSR accused the French rival broadcaster of copyright infringement and unfair competition. M6 broadcasts films and series on its signal intended for French-speaking Switzerland for which TSR has acquired exclusivity.
Bernhard Cron, M6's lawyer, emphasizes that M6 broadcasts exactly the same programme via the two signals transmitted from France - and at the same time. Only the advertising blocks are different. M6 is therefore not infringing any copyrights or exclusive rights and is not engaging in unfair competition.
However, the fact that TSR and M6 buy some of the same broadcasting rights means that conflicts arise time and again. For example, last year during the Football World Cup (see box). Or last fall with the series "Prison Break", which was extremely well received by audiences in French-speaking Switzerland. TSR began broadcasting the series, with one episode per week. Shortly afterwards, M6 also launched the series, but with three episodes on the same evening, which forced TSR to follow suit with two episodes per broadcast evening to keep the young audience interested.
Similar situations arise time and again, and TSR is constantly being forced into the role of defender. However, TSR does not have its back to the wall; on the contrary, its two channels are very popular with the advertising industry. This certainly applies to prime time, when TSR's advertising blocks are often fully booked. Advertisers have therefore long been calling for a regional language alternative. The M6 channel would actually be predestined for this, but as long as its Swiss signal has large coverage gaps in Geneva and Lausanne, the station can hardly serve as an alternative platform.
Local TVs also benefitThis is precisely the situation that the private TVs in western Switzerland now want to exploit: Late, very late, they joined forces only two weeks ago to form the nationwide TeleRomandieCombi, chose the SRG subsidiary Publisuisse as their marketer and are now being offered to the advertising industry as a supplement (and not as an alternative) to TSR - according to the motto: "TSR for reach, TRC for depth." SRG is happy with this: it can at least pocket part of the TRC advertising revenue in the form of the commission. However, every spot that is placed on M6 is a complete loss for them.
But what is the Federal Office of Communications' position on the M6 advertising window? Back in 2001, when M6 was launched, OFCOM threatened to instruct the cable networks not to broadcast M6's Swiss signal. Since then, however, nothing more has been heard from Bakom. "Basically, we are still of the opinion that advertising windows - even in German-speaking Switzerland - are politically undesirable. The cable network operators are also aware of this. However, our legal means are limited," says Bakom media lawyer Alfons Birrer.
The reason for the rejection: it is not welcomed when a large broadcaster from abroad simply makes use of the "small, very sensitive and vulnerable Swiss markets" without investing. This is different for program windows: these provide an editorial service and require a Swiss license under current law. In contrast, pure advertising windows only require the express approval of their regulatory authority for cross-border distribution, says Birrer.   
 
 
 
A turnaround - thanks to Cablecom When Cablecom increased its stake in Naxoo to 49 percent last September
This enabled the Geneva-based cable network company to make concessions to M6. Leaning on the Swiss industry leader, which has experience with advertising windows, provided security. SRG's defeat in Fribourg provided a further boost. In addition, the new ownership structure led to a reorganization at the level of the Naxoo Board of Directors, where
TSR boss Gilles Marchand is also one of 26 stakeholders on the board. This oddity is due to historical reasons.
However, the committee is now expected to be reduced to eleven members in the middle of the year - and Marchand, the tireless warner in front of the M6 advertising window, is one of those who will have to leave the field.
Nevertheless, his influence was felt in the latest negotiations between Naxoo and M6: Naxoo CEO Antoni Mayer secured himself with a contractual clause in the event that TSR was found to be right in the Federal Court. In this case, it is stipulated that M6, not Naxoo, would be liable for damages.
 
 
Legal wrangling over sports rights for the 2006 FIFA World Cup
SRG had signed an exclusive contract with the TV rights company Infront, owned by German former world-class footballer Günter Netzer, to broadcast the matches in Switzerland. However, Germany's RTL and France's M6 also broadcast the World Cup matches, including on their Swiss windows and with Swiss advertising. These advertising slots are said to have been fully booked at the time.
SRG therefore expects to lose millions in revenue. On October 20, it sued Infront at the cantonal court of Zug "for a price reduction and damages", as the deputy SRG spokesperson
Daniel Steiner on request
confirmed. The lawsuit is still pending.
 
Markus Knöpfli

The public relations and communications agency Burson-Marsteller is strengthening its Geneva team with Christine Pielken. As a new senior consultant, she complements the previously primarily internationally oriented team and is responsible for expanding the market in French-speaking Switzerland. In addition, she supports the agencies in Zurich and Berne with clients from French-speaking Switzerland. With Pielken, Burson-Marsteller will be able to offer communications consulting and PR services in all language regions of the Swiss market in the future. Pielken has twelve years of professional experience in public relations. She has worked in agencies as well as in French-speaking Swiss companies. Before joining Burson-Marsteller, she was head of the PR agency Pielken & Partners, founded by her father. She later moved to the international watch industry as Head of Marketing and Communications.
 

The consultancy for PR, communication and marketing, Richterich & Partner from Zollikon, is expanding its management team. Since January 1, 2007, Yasmine Suter Schmid has been a partner and member of the management team. The 32-year-old studied at the University of St. Gallen and has already been working as a consultant for Richterich & Partner for two years. Richterich & Partner has been operating in the Swiss PR and marketing environment for over eight years with a growing client portfolio. Today, Richterich & Partner employs 14 communications professionals.

Dialogue marketing The Swiss Dialogue Marketing Prize is also being held for the ninth time in 2007 under the patronage of the Swiss Direct Marketing Association (SDV). The submitted works can be viewed at the Unterwerk Selnau in Zurich from February 22 to 24. A vernissage will take place on February 21 at 7 pm. The motto of this year's competition is: "Only scaredy-cats don't take part here!"

Beer In the past, Switzerland was not exactly considered a source of sparkling ideas when it came to beer. It is only recently that microbreweries in particular have made a name for themselves with innovations and have met with open throats. One of the drivers of innovation among Swiss brewers and inventor of the now well-established Ittinger Klosterbräu is Martin Wartmann. He is now surprising the scene with a completely new beer idea. Under the label "Wartmann's Beer for Friends", the old master brews high-proof specialty beers in hand-signed and limited editions. The beer is also available online. Angelink has set up a virtual regulars' table at www.wartmanns.com, including a blog for beer wisdom.

Food The February issue of Magalog più, a mixture of informative catalog and entertaining magazine, focuses on Migros' Asian expertise. In addition to an overview of the Migros range of Asian tableware and the corresponding cooking utensils, as well as the extensive range of delicacies from Thai, Chinese, Indian, Indonesian and Japanese cuisine, the new più surprises with lots of background information about Asia. For example, you will learn that dabbawallahs are the Indian alternative to convenience food and that Ayurveda involves much more than just massage. The più is produced by Weber Harbeke and is distributed free of charge in all Migros branches. It also appears as a supplement in the weekly and monthly press in German, French and Italian-speaking Switzerland, as well as in a partial edition of Migros magazine. A total of six più issues are planned for this year.

On February 17, 1967, a Toyota jumped through a Japanese flag in Adliswil and symbolically landed in Switzerland. To mark Toyota's 40th anniversary in Switzerland, the advertising agency GGK is launching a pioneering national radio campaign for Toyota. Together with Radiotele, GGK is planning a radio competition for Toyota. Listeners of 27 local radio stations can take part in the competition at the same time. Six rounds of the game will be played on the Swiss airwaves throughout Saturday. By the final round, which will be broadcast live on the Internet in the evening and commented on by the radio stations, 162 listeners will be playing for the main prize. True to the motto: "Toyota rejoices, the listener profits." According to Fredy Weisser from GGK, this campaign is unique in Switzerland because the local radio stations have largely identical programs throughout the day. In addition to the competition, the local radio stations are broadcasting radio spots in the run-up to the event to promote the campaign. In addition, Toyota slogans will be used to accompany the hourly radio show on Saturday. Almost all local radio stations are taking part in the campaign. Radio Pilatus is not taking part in the campaign. Reason: Central Switzerland is celebrating carnival. All Toyota dealerships throughout Switzerland are toasting Toyota's 40-year success story. And the legendary jump from back then will also be repeated. Toyota Formula 1 driver Jarno Trulli will provide a spectacle at the press conference in Adliswil.
Christian Lüscher

Skiing 32 percent of all sports accidents in Switzerland are winter sports accidents. This is no coincidence, as people are skiing faster and faster on the slopes. A collision can have fatal consequences for your health. The Suva brand SuvaLiv is committed to safety in leisure time. For years, it has been advertising against speeding on the ski slopes with striking posters and advertisements by Ruf Lanz. The motif for the winter of 06/07 is also literally a hit: Two chainsaws laid down like skis dramatize the potential dangers of speeding in a surprising way. The solution: speeders on the slopes endanger themselves and others. The motif can be seen as an advertisement and poster in all major Swiss ski resorts.

Vote If voters decide in favor of one health insurance fund instead of 86 on March 11, this would also have an impact on the communications industry. "The savings potential with a single health insurance fund would be enormous. Today, health insurance companies squander huge sums on advertising, administrative expenses and bureaucratic changes of insurer ..." With these words, SP National Councillor Christine Goll made the case for a single health insurance fund in the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper on February 7. The politician's statement points to an aspect of the upcoming vote that has hardly been discussed in the communications industry to date: Because a single health insurer would eliminate competition between insurers, communication and marketing expenditure is also likely to be significantly lower. Paul Rhyn, Head of Communications at the health insurance association Santé Suisse, puts the total annual marketing expenditure of the 86 members of the association at between 150 and 200 million francs. This amount includes all advertising expenditure as well as the costs of materials and personnel required to prepare dossiers and insurance certificates when changing health insurance companies or to handle the formalities involved in leaving the insurance company. Also included are commissions and salaries for external and internal customer advisors and brokers as well as the costs of providing information to policyholders (mailings, customer magazines). However, Rhyn is not in a position to break down the marketing expenses by individual items.
However, the Advertising Index Switzerland (AIS) from Wemf provides a certain indication, at least for direct advertising expenditure. According to this index, the 86 health insurance companies spent CHF 26.7 million on traditional advertising last year, 6.9 percent more than in 2005. By comparison, Orange's Swiss advertising budget was similarly high in 2004. At that time, the telecommunications company was the ninth most active advertising company. However, the health insurance companies' advertising expenditure mentioned above does not include expenditure on direct mailings or telemarketing or the costs of offers aimed at encouraging potential customers to switch health insurers.
In view of these figures, Piero Schäfer from the Swiss Advertising Agency (SW) therefore expects "very serious consequences for agencies and media" in the event of a yes vote for a single health insurance fund. "It would be just as drastic as if there was only one car brand or one publishing house," he says. However, the foundations of the SW itself would "hardly be shaken", Schäfer adds: the SW counts only a few individual advertising clients among its members - and a maximum of three insurers among them.
SWA and BSW would sufferThe situation would be different for the Association of Swiss Advertisers (SWA): Although only two of its 141 members are pure health insurers, five others offer health insurance in addition to property and pension insurance. Acceptance of the initiative for a single health insurance fund would therefore primarily result in a reduction in the association's budget. According to SWA Director Jürg Siegrist, the amount of the SWA membership fee depends on the annual advertising and media budget of the individual member. As the latter would also be reduced for insurers with health insurance, the membership fee would also be lower.
Walter Merz, Managing Director of BSW Leading Swiss Agencies, also anticipates a loss of income for his members. "Today's 86 insurance companies run perhaps 50 different campaigns. These would certainly no longer exist in the future," he says. Based on the AIS figures, he estimates the concrete losses for the advertising agencies alone at three to five million francs, which corresponds to around one percent of the BSW agencies' total gross operating income. "That wouldn't be the death of the agencies, but for some of our members these orders are very important," says Merz.
However, Merz's fears may be unnecessary and Goll's statement quoted at the beginning may not be entirely correct. In view of previous experience with single insurance funds, it is by no means certain that savings can also be expected in expenditure on traditional advertising. The Swiss National Accident Insurance Fund (Suva), for example, is also a single insurance fund that operates accident prevention by law: in 2005 it invested 105 million Swiss francs - for advice, company inspections and education by means of TV commercials, posters and brochures. Suva was unable to say how much of this was spent on traditional advertising. Nevertheless, even with a single health insurance fund, advertising and media agencies will not necessarily come away empty-handed, but the briefings are likely to be very different from the current ones. Rather than image advertising or customer poaching, a single health insurance fund would probably focus more on prevention advertising - as is the case with Suva. Ultimately, however, this would depend on the specific structure of the future health insurance fund and therefore on politics.
But one thing is certain: all the call centers that could count on orders from health insurance companies in the autumn would be left empty-handed in future. And the numerous health insurance customer magazines would probably have to make way for just one per language region.
Markus Knöpfli

Column CNN made the start. Al-Jazeera is now also available in English, and the French are following suit with France 24: A look at the battle of the news images on the TV screen: "It's civil war here," says the reporter. He is reporting live from Baghdad and seems almost a little pleased: "Only the Americans don't want to admit it." For France, at any rate, it is a day of triumph: after a long back and forth, France 24 finally goes on air - the French news channel for the world, the Grande Nation's belated answer to CNN. The launch could not have been better programmed. The day before - truly a divine coincidence - the Baker Report was published in the USA, criticizing the Bush administration. Chirac had been proved right in his policy of opposing the invasion of Iraq - and the French now had the opportunity to make this known. Around the clock and around the world. In French - and in English.a big party was held on the Champs-Elysées. The Canadian former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien was flown in. He emphasized the importance of France 24 for the French-speaking world. Javier Solana represented European diplomacy. Chirac was beaming as he gave the starting signal: "France's voice in the world will be impartial", he declared.
Since the first Gulf War in 1991, when the world discovered CNN and the Americans thus had a monopoly on images and information, Paris has wanted its own news channel. The project was relaunched with every international conflict. Chirac felt completely misunderstood and left alone when he detonated a few nuclear bombs on Mururoa in 1995 and became the bogeyman of the world. His campaign against the war in Iraq made him popular again - except in the USA, where hostility towards France manifested itself. "French CNN" was launched. The editorial team includes 170 journalists, some of them very young, and the 2007 budget is a rather modest 80 million euros.
You can easily watch France 24 on the Internet. The offer is by no means bad. Lots of blue - it's the national color - attractive news anchors, culture and lifestyle. Stock market and politics. Sport too. Exclusive reporters report from Brussels and Beirut. Reporters from the state news agency AFP are called in from Gaza and Moscow. From Jerusalem, the correspondent from France 2 comes into the picture. The journalistic contingent is quite impressive.
Two months on, and already those responsible claim that France 24 has succeeded in taking a "different and new" look at international current affairs. This is difficult to judge from Europe. But it is worth taking a look from here at al-Jazeera, the Arab channel that became famous for its videos of Bin Laden and recently entered the battle of images in the war of civilizations with an English-language programme. Al-Jazeera is as professional as CNN. Israeli and US statements are also systematically obtained. And the facts are soberly presented. It is astonishing, for example, that al-Jazeera really does present a different picture of Africa than we are served up by our national programs. It is not limited to the bellies of starving children, AIDS and child soldiers. Lawyers, bankers, diplomats, politicians, intellectuals have their say - there is an African public that we as TV consumers never hear about.
Nevertheless, al-Jazeera remains as Arab as CNN is American. Even at second glance, they are not propaganda channels - nobody would voluntarily switch them on today. This is even more true of BBC World and Deutsche Welle. Nevertheless, it is their diversity that creates a form of pluralism. Now the Japanese also want a global news channel. Does globalization only exist if you broadcast your images from space around the globe? Certainly not, and perhaps the Internet will make news channels obsolete anyway.
Nevertheless, Switzerland should also take the question of its international presence a little more seriously. It would be fatal if Swissinfo were to be dismantled further. The information channel of German-speaking Swiss television is free to air on satellite, but is hardly suitable as the "voice of Switzerland". Generally speaking, the French-speaking part of Switzerland is better represented via francophone cooperation, for example on TV 5. On France 24, however, we have only ever seen Switzerland when it came to Johnny Hallyday's tax exile in Gstaad. Otherwise, it only appears regularly in the weather report and stock market prices.
 
Jürg Altwegg is a correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine in Geneva
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