After more than ten years of collaboration, Hiltl is moving from Wirz to Ruf Lanz. The time together was successful: Wirz won over 30 awards with the campaigns for Hiltl, including in Cannes, at the ADC, EDI and the New York Festivals. According to a press release, they are parting ways on good terms and for understandable reasons. The Hiltl is currently undergoing a major renovation phase. Once the new restaurant has been completed, it will also have a take-away and a bar. As this will bring Hiltl and Tibits closer together, it is all the more important for communication to be more clearly differentiated in future, according to the owner of the vegetarian restaurant, Rolf Hiltl. For this reason, advertising will be created by two different agencies from this year onwards. Tibits will remain with Wirz and Ruf Lanz will now work for Hiltl.

The Groupement des Télévisions régionales romandes, an association of local TV broadcasters in French-speaking Switzerland, and SRG marketer publisuisse are founding the Tele Romandie advertising alliance. As part of this agreement, they want to jointly offer an attractive, language-regional advertising opportunity and cooperate closely on marketing, as can be seen from a Publisuisse press release. The idea for this was the existing Tele News Combi offer in German-speaking Switzerland, which is why all relevant providers in French-speaking Switzerland met for initial talks back in 2005. After a thorough examination, Publisuisse was awarded the contract. In French-speaking Switzerland, Tele Romandie Combi includes Canal 9, Canal Alpha, Canal Nord Vaudois, Ici TV, Léman bleu, TeleBielinque and TVRL.

After Pius Walker took home no fewer than five of the seven cubes at the Art Directors Club, he was named Communicator of the Month by Swiss Advertising. Pius Walker has only been working under his own name for a short time, but in that time his agency has become one of the best and has won numerous titles. It was Newcomer of the Year, Walker himself was second behind Felser in the Advertiser of the Year rankings, not to mention the many creative awards for his work. You can currently vote on the latest commercial from Walker in the current issue of Werbewoche.

The Direct Lions Award for creative, innovative approaches and solutions in the field of direct marketing has been presented at the Cannes Advertising Festival since 2002. This year, Rory Sutherland will head the jury. Rory was Executive Creative Director of the Ogilvy Group from 2002 to 2006 and has been Deputy Managing Director of the agency in the UK for the last year, the first time Cannes has awarded a prize for excellent creative work in the field of sales promotion. This year, Geraldo Rocha Azevedo will head the jury. Azevedo founded his own promotional agency, Rocha Azevedo, in the 1990s. It quickly became the largest in Brazil and, with more than 500 awards, is probably the most awarded in the whole of South America.
 

New castling at the Jungfrau Zeitung: Samuel Günter, Editor-in-Chief since September 1, 2006, is handing over his post to Annette Marti. According to a press release, Günter has implemented many changes during his time as editor-in-chief. These include the permanent news flow on www.jungfrau-zeitung.ch, a new head of photography, the relaunch of the 7 Tage magazine, the founding of Marktpklatz and web TV. As a final step, Samuel Günter wants to introduce a service editorial team. This involves the operational separation of writing and editing editors. Günter now wants to set up this editorial team himself and is therefore relinquishing the position of editor-in-chief. Annette Marti, who has been on board since the launch of the Mikrozeitung in October 2000, will take over as editor-in-chief ad interim. According to a press release from the publisher Gossweiler Media, the aim is to fill the position of editor-in-chief with an external person by fall 2007.

Beatrice Born, head of communications for the city of Bern, is leaving the city administration. The separation is by mutual agreement and at Born's request, according to a press release. Differences of opinion regarding tasks, responsibilities and the structure of the communications department led to Born's departure. She took up the post in November 2005; her predecessor Suzanne Auer had also resigned after two years with the Bern city administration. No announcement has been made about Born's successor.

Zürich Tourism is expanding its marketing team in order to strengthen the promotion of the location. Bettina Fischer has joined the tourism organization as EURO 08 project manager. She took up the post, which is limited to the end of September 08, on 1 February. As a staff position, she and the project report directly to the Director of Tourism, according to a press release from Zürich Tourism. Fischer holds an Executive Master's degree in Sports Organization Management and has worked in marketing for the world football association FIFA. Prior to this, she worked for various media companies as publishing director and managing director. Zürich Tourism was also able to fill two other newly created management positions. Marianne Gut has been Head of Communications since the beginning of the year. Prior to this, she was responsible for developing communications for the Stade de Suisse Wankdorf in Bern. The second position has been filled by Reto Helbling, who will be working for the tourism organization as Controller from 19 February. With these new appointments, Zürich Tourism aims to strengthen the promotion of the location, made possible by the increased financial contribution from Zurich's hoteliers.

The Swiss department store Jelmoli receives support from Swissclick iSolutions for the online marketing of the first free Visa credit card. Jelmoli is working with Swissclick to implement a comprehensive lead campaign to market the Jelmoli Bonus Card credit card. The Internet plays an important role as a marketing channel, as targeted online marketing intensifies the relationship with the customer through fast channels and a wide range of response options, according to the company's press release. As an online agency, Swissclick iSolutions develops comprehensive lead management and online dialog marketing solutions for companies in Switzerland and abroad.

The Neue Luzerner Zeitung is taking another step into the digital age. The daily newspaper and its regional editions are now also available as an e-paper. The e-paper is an exact reproduction of the newspaper, including pictures and advertisements. Users can read the current issue online, browse through the archive or download the entire copy to their computer. The e-paper can be tested free of charge until the end of March. Subscribers receive the electronic edition as a supplement for CHF 46 for one year. Non-subscribers can obtain the e-paper for CHF 284 per year. The introductory phase is accompanied by discounts. By jumping on the e-paper bandwagon, the Neue Luzerner Zeitung is venturing into an area that has not yet been fully exploited by Swiss publishers, as Karl Lüönd recently postulated in his Werbewoche column (see "The future doesn't come by itself"
).

Mike Gut has withdrawn his application for a license for his Zurich youth radio station, Radio Max, and is now teaming up with his former competitor Giuseppe Scaglione. The two radio producers have come to the conclusion that they are stronger together and are now joining forces in Music First's application. Mike Gut will contribute conceptually to Music First and acquire a minority stake as a private individual, as can be seen from a press release issued by the two. Together, they believe they have a better chance than if they had competed against each other. Both projects were favored in the consultation process of the Zurich city government. The second remaining applicant for the FM frequency put out to tender by Bakom has a different opinion. DJ Radio names itself on its website as the city government's favorite. The two self-proclaimed favorites now have until the end of March to revise their applications.

The Internet travel agency Ebookers.ch has commissioned Planetactive with the planning and implementation of online advertising in Switzerland. The current offers from Ebookers.ch are to be advertised. Planetactive's remit includes the conception and creation of the advertising material, development of the media strategy and planning and placement of the online campaign. The Swiss full-service agency has been part of the Ogilvy Group since April 2006, enabling it to realize international campaigns around the globe. The company employs 85 people in Zurich, Düsseldorf and Vienna. In addition to Ebookers.ch, clients include AOL, Swisscom, Nikon and SAP.

An episode from the city of Zwingl shows that media not only divide, but can also play a unifying role in social life. Since the end of last November, the Tagblatt der Stadt Zürich has been published only weekly. On the one hand, this leads to the somewhat absurd circumstance that a weekly publication bears the name "Tagblatt". On the other hand, there was resistance from the city council, since the paper is an official publication. Now another group of stakeholders is speaking out: the Zurich seniors' group of the Unia trade union passed a resolution at its annual meeting for the attention of the city council and the Tagblatt's majority owner Tamedia. According to the NZZ, the resolution criticizes the fact that information such as death notices and burial dates are no longer published on a daily basis. This could have the consequence that one could no longer pay one's last respects to good acquaintances, because the date would be known too late. The resolution thus confirms the publishing truism that obituaries are an important indicator of the anchoring of a local title. And makes it clear that those citizens most committed to a cause are the ones most affected: Airfield abutters for quiet hours, non-smokers for smoking bans - and seniors for obituaries.