The publishing house Conde Nast International is launching the US magazine Vanity Fair in German-speaking countries on Wednesday. The magazine will be published in Germany, Austria and Switzerland with an initial print run of 500,000 copies and will cost 1 euro (1.60 francs). However, from the next issue, the price of the magazine - which will be published on Thursdays in future - will rise to between 2 and 3 euros. The mix of topics from culture, politics, business, style and society will remain the same. Ulf Poschardt, who previously co-directed SZ Magazin and Welt am Sonntag, will take over as editor-in-chief based in Berlin. Vanity Fair was first published in the USA in 1914.

Tamara Bua took over as advertising manager at Immobilien Business magazine at the beginning of February. For the past two years, she has also been advertising manager at the Lake Zurich magazine Seesicht. Prior to this, Bua had gained sales experience at Fach MediaCom's local authority magazine. Other positions included IDG (PC Tipp), Finanz & Wirtschaft and Qualiclick. Philipp Dreyer has returned to the Swiss real estate magazine. He was most recently Editorial Director at Attika, the Zurich magazine for home decor. Dreyer has been deputy to Immobilien Business Editor-in-Chief Karl Wild since the beginning of February.

The Swiss Press Council rejects the complaints of actor Jörg Schneider and the Masoni Foundation. Schneider complained about an article in the Sonntagsblick. In this article, the newspaper reported on the employment of a stage technician by Schneider. The man is accused of child abuse. The actor sued for invasion of privacy. The Press Council rejected these accusations, as the article was about the reaction of the actor, who is particularly popular with children, and why he continued to employ this man. Neither Schneider's nor the employee's privacy was violated, according to the reasoning. Child abuse is regularly reported in the media, and the employer's reaction is often of interest. In this case, there was no direct link between the employee's actions and the employment relationship. However, the position of the employer in the Swiss child show and radio play lifted the case out of the private sphere and into the public sphere.
When the daily newspaper La Regione Ticino published the data on the Masoni family's Villalta dell'Argine foundation, it acted correctly. There was a public interest in this information, the Press Council stated in its reasoning. The publication of the foundation's balance sheet and income statement did not concern the private sphere, but the business side. In addition, there was a connection to the political activities of State Councillor Marina Masoni. The left-liberal newspaper had published details about the family foundation in connection with the tax affair, which led to numerous discussions in Ticino. The Ticino section of the Federal Democratic Union then turned to the Press Council. In their opinion, there was no public interest in publishing information on individual accounts of the family foundation that was subject to tax secrecy. The Press Council does not share this view. The newspaper had not published any secret data. Due to the discussions in the tax administration, of which Masoni was the head, there was "undeniably a public interest in further information".

The US media giant Viacom, which owns channels including MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central, wants the website YouTube to remove over 100,000 video clips. Previously, months of talks between YouTube, which was bought by Google, and Viacom about compensation remained fruitless, as reported by the daily newspaper Bund, based on the SDA. According to Viacom, the clips were viewed a total of 1.2 billion times.
Under current law, media companies can demand that copyrighted material they discover on the internet be removed. However, the videos have to be found first.
YouTube was able to negotiate a license deal with the television stations CBS and NBC. The video website is also developing a system that will automatically remunerate rights holders. However, Viacom, Fox and also CBS and NBC are considering setting up their own video website. YouTube was acquired by Google last November. The search engine company announced in January that it was discontinuing its own video sharing service.

The Zurich-based company Nose has won a Volvo Sports Design Award. It received the international award in the "Wheelers" category for the "BMC Pro Machine SLC01" bike. The jury was impressed by the bike's clean and athletic design, according to a statement from Nose. BMC and Nose have already received two awards for the bike: the Gold Award at Eurobike 05 and the Red Dot Award. Nose developed the entire visual identity of the BMC Collection 2006. In addition to product design, the Zurich-based design and brand agency also supports the bike manufacturer in marketing as well as advertising and communications.

Raoul Gerber has been promoted to Sales Director of IP Multimedia Switzerland as of February 1, 2007. Gerber was previously Deputy Sales Director. He will now assume overall responsibility for German-speaking Switzerland, French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino. Michi Frank, who held this position ad interim, will once again concentrate on his managing director duties and on the strategic direction of IP Multimedia, according to a statement from IP Multimedia. After studying literature and philosophy, Gerber worked as a radio presenter and then as an account manager at a private radio station. He was jointly responsible for the commercialization of the first Swiss radio advertising window and for the launch of the local television station Léman Bleu in French-speaking Switzerland. In April 2002, Raoul Gerber joined IP Multimedia as Sales Manager Western Switzerland. Since 2004, he has been Head of Sales Western Switzerland and a member of the Executive Board.

Since January, posters have been hanging on the walls with the claim "Play fair. Stop Piracy" warning of the consequences of counterfeiting and brand piracy. They were commissioned by the Stop Piracy platform launched in 2005, a public-private partnership under the leadership of the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IPI) and the Swiss Committee of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC Switzerland). The agency Matter & Gretener, which conceived the campaign, aims to raise awareness with pointed headlines. The statements are intended to cause concern and raise awareness of the consequences of counterfeiting and piracy. Apparently, however, some viewers were not only sensitized, but also activated to participate. This is evidenced by pictures taken by a Werbewoche reader in Bern. An unknown copywriter added his own words to the statements. Under the headline "It's funny: you download the sound of your favorite singer via file sharing. And drive him to ruin in the process." for example, the sentence "Jay-Z's estimated fortune: 320 million dollars" is now emblazoned in green letters.
In the eyes of Werbewoche, the following conclusions can be drawn from the whole story for the advertising world: 1. avoid white space in your posters - then you will avoid such nosy additions. 2. find the unknown scribbler and employ him as a copywriter.  
However, from the advertising industry's point of view, there are also justified objections to this
Graffiti. Marcus Gretener, co-owner of the advertising agency Matter & Gretener, comments as follows: "This is an act of vandalism and damage to property committed by unknown persons. It is not in the interests of the client, our advertising agency or the general public. It is also stupid and undifferentiated for anyone who knows about the problems of piracy and counterfeiting." In Gretener's eyes, it is unacceptable for free riders to make fun of a serious cause by damaging other people's property.

The Zurich agency Futurecom, together with its network partner Advico Young & Rubicam, has designed a campaign for the telephone provider Sunrise that offers skeptics the opportunity to enter the ADSL Internet world. Interested parties can try out ADSL for three months with a full right of withdrawal. The introductory offer is advertised in print ads and POS material as well as via the Internet in a product and target group-oriented environment such as Comparis.ch. The Expandable Rectangle advertising format, which is being used for the first time in Switzerland, is intended to attract particular attention. It enlarges at the touch of a mouse. The application can also interact with the web visitor by entering text: Anyone who types in their name immediately generates a personalized test seal on the advertising space and the number of testers displayed is updated accordingly. This effect is intended to dramatize the fact that with Sunrise, anyone can become an ADSL tester in an instant.
The campaign idea was developed in cooperation with Sunrise's current in-house agency Advico Young & Rubicam. Futurecom was responsible for the interactive advertising.

The Erfurt media scientist Iren Schulz wants to promote the media competence of pupils with a kind of cell phone lesson in class. In an interview with DPA, Schulz explained that mobile phones now play a decisive role in young people's sense of identity. Schulz is working at the University of Erfurt on a study about the importance of cell phones in social relationships of young people. She describes file-sharing networks, where boys in particular exchange small films with scenes of violence and pornography, as a serious problem. Society should no longer close its eyes to this development. Regulation, if possible also in the hardware of the devices, is urgently needed.
According to Schulz, the significance of the clips for young people has not yet been clearly researched. She describes the fact that children can easily get their hands on the films as extremely problematic. After all, a third of eight- and nine-year-olds already own a cell phone.
As reasonable as Schulzer's concern sounds, the Werbewoche editorial team was surprised by the title of the news item "Media scientist calls for cell phone lessons": and you'd think kids would know a hundred times better about cell phones than their teachers ...

The organizers of the 54th Cannes Advertising Festival have announced that Jean-Remy von Matt will chair the jury in the "Outdoor" category. Von Matt is the founder of the Hamburg agency Jung von Matt, which was recently recognized as a leading creative agency by the German newspaper Handelsblatt. He is delighted to have been appointed head of the jury, according to the Cannes organizers' communiqué. Outdoor advertising is the biggest challenge for the creative industry, as no other medium has to fight for the consumer's attention to the same extent. This year's festival in Cannes takes place from June 17 to 23.

The manufacturer of well-known confectionery brands such as Mars and Snickers no longer wants to advertise to children in future. The confectionery company Masterfoods wants to raise the advertising age limit from the previous six years: Children under the age of twelve should no longer be enticed to buy its chocolate bars. As reported by Süddeutsche Zeitung, the company has announced that it will no longer advertise the two high-calorie bars and other "core products" to this age group. The Financial Times reported this on Monday, citing a letter from the company to the EU Director-General for Health and Consumer Protection, Robert Madelin.
Masterfoods also owns the Twix, M&M's, Bounty and Milky Way brands. According to the report, the ban will apply to advertising in all media, including the internet.
Competitors Nestlé and Pepsi, on the other hand, have no age limit in their advertising, according to Süddeutsche Zeitung. Food giant Kraft, on the other hand, does not advertise to children under the age of six and emphasizes that it only advertises fruit juices and other healthy products to children between the ages of six and eleven.

The WWF does not want to stand in the way of the production of the SF summer series "Die Pfahlbauer", as long as the filming is as environmentally friendly as possible. According to SDA, Swiss Television SF and WWF Bodensee/Thurgau have agreed on this. They have reached an agreement to protect the filming location, the nature reserve near Pfyn TG. The WWF had originally had strong reservations about the realization of the series, as the Hinterrietweiher nature reserve is a gem of extraordinary beauty. The agreements that have now been reached will be monitored on site by an independent expert. The basis is a ban on access to over 80 percent of the shoreline and the nature conservation zones. The area must be fully restored after the broadcast.
Onlookers should not have access to the sensitive nature reserve. SF will regularly point out during the series that it is not possible to see the pile dwellers with one's own eyes. These arrangements between SF and WWF supplement the expected requirements of the Canton of Thurgau and the municipality of Pfyn. SF will finance minor upgrading measures in the Hinterrietweiher to compensate for the intensive use of the area during the television program.