In accordance with the new Federal Radio and Television Act (RTVA) passed in March 2006, the Federal Council is redefining the number and extent of the coverage areas of local radio broadcasters. The new FM guidelines provide for an unequal distribution of competing radio stations in the canton of Zurich, as Radio Tropic announced on Monday. According to the planned guidelines, the Zurich city radio station is to receive a broadcasting area that is only half as large as that of its competitors. For this reason, Tropic plans to submit a statement to Bakom by January 22, 2007, in which it demands that the new FM guidelines be revised so that Tropic will no longer be at a disadvantage compared to its competitors. Radio Tropic broadcasts in German, English, French, Spanish and Portuguese and broadcasts music from the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa and Asia. Until now, Radio Tropic has not received any subsidies but, like its competitors, has financed itself through the sale of advertising time. Even under the new guidelines, Radio Tropic will not receive fee-splitting. To make matters worse, Radio Zürisee, Radio Top and Radio Argovia have also been allowed to broadcast into the city of Zurich since 2006.

The Lucerne-based company Polykomm is taking over the communications activities of Alfred N. Becker PR. Like its predecessor, the newly founded company is active in the fields of trade fair communication, communication consulting, project management and training. The managing director and majority shareholder of the communications agency is Albert Schwarzenbach, while Alfred N. Becker remains a shareholder in the new company. As a result, Albert Schwarzenbach is leaving the management of Messe Luzern, but will continue to work for the exhibition industry on a mandate basis.

On the other side of the pond, too, people are currently kicking the advertising bucket. The American pizza fast-food chain Pizza Patron merely wanted to boost its sales. What the Americans didn't take into account, however, was that their advertising slogan "Aceptamos pesos" (we accept pesos) might be met with a sour response from some customers. For many locals felt it was an affront to the United States that a U.S. company - domiciled a hundred kilometers from the border - was accepting Mexican money. As a reaction to the advertising, Pizza Patron's inbox was filled with dozens of complaints - including some death threats. The fast-food restaurant is obviously not intimidated, however, and is bravely continuing the promotion until the end of February 2007.

In 2007, the NZZ is once again offering young media planners the opportunity to benefit from the knowledge and experience of renowned speakers. "Media Views" is an intensive five-day workshop for media planners with two to five years of professional experience and was successfully held for the first time in spring 2006 with 17 young media planners from the largest media agencies in the Zurich area. The first block of courses will start on January 19, 2007: 17 young people from Swiss agencies will have the opportunity to experience "Media Views" and benefit from international expert knowledge on a wide range of topics such as media planning, cross-media, trends, perspectives and presentation techniques for their day-to-day work.

The Baden-based agency Mach Corporate & Werbung has given Steinform Kistler a new website. The new website clearly displays images of the various stones. Many photographs also show the variety of possible applications in kitchens and bathrooms as well as for floors, tables and fireplaces. The steps required to manufacture stone products are not only described, but also presented in short films. Clips on planning, storage, production and installation are integrated into the website. Steinform Kistler imports stone from all over the world for kitchens, bathrooms, floors, tables and fireplaces. The stone specialists from Reichenburg process and refine more than 200 types of granite and marble for the European market.

The new Internet panel of Net-Metrix Internet Research, which examines the Internet usage of the Swiss, has been recruiting for just over a month. The first data is expected in the second quarter of 2007, the two partners Mediapulse and WEMF announced on Monday. The product range includes Net-Audit, Net-Profile, Net-Tracking and Net-Base, which offer different research results. Around 3000 Internet users are included in the panel measurement with the aim of being able to make detailed statements about developments in Swiss online usage. The panelists' Internet use is measured at home using software installed on their computers. Outside the home, participants can log onto the Internet via a portal, where their use is also recorded. The use of various Internet applications such as Google Earth or iTunes is also measured, as well as that of streaming services, which are becoming increasingly important in the age of YouTube, web radio and web TV. An automatic topic categorization of all websites should also make it possible to map the current interests of Swiss Internet users and identify trends at an early stage. The research of the Net-Metrix modules is based on a joint basic survey, Net-Base. The universes and structures of the Swiss Internet community are determined from around 42,000 interviews each year.

The PR and communications agency Karl F. Schneider, based in Schlieren, is now in charge of the Swiss Internet search portal Help.ch. With over 50 search engines, Help.ch is the country's largest provider of industry search portals such as Essen.ch, Autos.ch, Reisebuero.ch, Casinos.ch and Krankenversicherung.ch. The operating company Help Searchengines, based in Zurich, celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2006.

Sales and Marketing Director Hans-Peter Baumgartner is leaving the Swiss branch of Samsung Electronics Austria with immediate effect. Baumgartner will take on new challenges outside the company. Samsung regrets this step. Baumgartner has been instrumental in building up the Zurich branch of Samsung in the Swiss market since June 2006. Previously, Baumgartner was Business Unit Manager of the IT division within Sedico-IT, which was, among other things, the general importer for Samsung's IT products. Until a successor has been found for Hans-Peter Baumgartner, the respective managers of IT, Consumer Electronics and Home Appliances will take care of all customer concerns.

From 2008, Coop Presse, Switzerland's largest printing contract in the area of newspaper production, will be handled by five printing plants. In future, Coopzeitung, Coopération and Cooperazione will also be printed by Espace Media Groupe. Despite this partial circulation in Berne, the Basler Zeitung Medien printing plant will retain its position as the leading partner. The cooperation with CIE Centre d'impression Edipresse, Ringier Print and St. Galler Tagblatt will also continue, as Coop announced on Monday. The printing contracts have been concluded for a period of three years and cover an order volume in the double-digit million range. This means that Coop will continue to have its customer newspaper produced exclusively in Switzerland in the coming years. Coop Presse has a circulation of almost 2.5 million copies and is read by around 3.3 million people, according to the major distributor. This makes it the largest weekly newspaper in Switzerland and is published in German, French and Italian.

Since January 3, the advertising industry has been puzzling over who is behind the "Switzerland elects a new capital" campaign. Now the cat is out of the bag: Affichage, which includes APG, is the client. It is following in the footsteps of its Angie Becker campaign and has once again caused a stir with the capital city campaign. The campaign was implemented by the agency Publicis. According to a press release, Affichage wanted to prove that mobile marketing can be carried out efficiently with the help of outdoor advertising. It was able to achieve maximum effect with a minimum of intensity, namely just 800 posters. In addition, the campaign was probably self-financing: the posters invited viewers to take part in an SMS voting for a fee of 50 centimes. According to Affichage, the campaign demonstrates integrated outdoor advertising opportunities and the interaction of the classic poster medium with modern SMS communication. Implementation by Publicis Affichage commissioned the advertising agency Publicis with the communicative implementation. With the idea of packaging the case as a political election campaign, Publicis wanted to combine three objectives, according to the press release: to do justice to the advertising media used, to appeal to a broad public and to arouse the curiosity of journalists and opinion leaders. The campaign led to numerous speculations in blogs, comments and letters to the editor in newspapers or interviews with city presidents. All of this was conducive to voter turnout, especially as the federal government intervened. Firstly, the Federal Chancellery criticized the use of the Swiss coat of arms and secondly, it called on all federal employees to boycott the election.
Lucerne on the running board The Neuehauptstadt.ch website shows that a good idea always attracts riders to the running board. It differs from the "real" election website only by the absence of a hyphen; the URL carried by Affichage is www.neue-hauptstadt.ch. Anyone who accidentally enters the imitation address ends up on the official website of the city of Lucerne.
Basel wins The participants in the SMS voting were in a neck-and-neck race: With 42.4 percent of the votes, Basel won by a wafer-thin margin ahead of Zurich with 41.9 percent. Bern achieved 13.7 percent and Geneva only 2.9 percent. So it seems that the campaign did not have the same resonance in French-speaking Switzerland as on our side of the language border. Voting ends at midnight on January 14.
Net proceeds to Surprise Incidentally, the net proceeds from the SMS voting will be donated to Surprise, Basel's crisis-hit street magazine. The detailed evaluation of the interactive campaign will be made available to all interested parties in due course. The Psychological Institute of the University of Zurich is preparing its own study based on this data.

Weblog authors must not trample on personal rights. They must reckon with legal consequences if they make foul comments. The Sonntagszeitung writes that bloggers are equal to journalists under media law. The objection "That's just hobby poetry in diary form" does not apply. Theoretically, even verbal abuse in private could end up in front of a judge if the violation of personality can be proven. Numerous Swiss blogs such as Medienspiegel.ch, Blattkritik.ch or the now closed Pendlerblog are dedicated to the media and journalism scene. In the case of untrue, misleading or unnecessarily offensive statements about journalists and their employers, unfair competition (UWG) can also be claimed in addition to violation of personal rights, according to the Sonntagszeitung. The amount of possible compensation that could be awarded in court depends on the significance of the publication. It therefore plays a role whether a comment is made in a mass-circulation newspaper or a small blog. According to the law, prominent people, such as editors-in-chief or columnists, must have a thicker skin than unknown people. According to the Sonntagszeitung, Blattkritik.ch is therefore allowed to describe Weltwoche editor-in-chief Roger Köppel as Tettamanti's adopted son and a womanizer. This is neither dishonorable nor unnecessarily offensive. But Roger de Weck does not have to put up with the term "idiot", which was used at Westwatch.
Bloggers must therefore also play by the legal rules in the infinite expanses of the Internet, the Sonntagszeitung article concludes. However, one cannot quite shake off the impression that author Michael Soukoup wanted to avenge his colleague Barnaby Skinner, who was denigrated on Henusodeblog.blogspot.com by blogger Bugsierer and dubbed the author of "bullshit journalism". Soukoup's post, however, follows the rules of decency and would certainly stand up to scrutiny by a judge.

The SVP and the SP - as politically different as they are - have something in common recently: Both have put themselves in an advertising rut. In the 2007 election year, the SP is advertising with the silhouette of the Matterhorn in its logo. In Zermatt this did not meet with enthusiasm. Zermatt is against a verpolisisierung of the Matterhorn, said the Zermatt tourism director Roland Imboden on Thursday to the "Tagesschau" of Swiss television (SF). One had therefore requested the party in a letter to take distance from this representation again. SP party president Hans-Jürg Fehr, on the other hand, wants to continue advertising with the Matterhorn. The Matterhorn does not stand in private property and is not patented, but a symbol for the summit. That is exactly where the party wants to go, Fehr told SF. The SVP also wants to reach the summit of votes. However, in terms of advertising, it does not rely on rocks, but on animals. The People's Party appointed the billy goat "Zottel" as its mascot for the current election year and presented it at an event last October. The Foundation for Animals in Law has now reported the party for this and criticized that it lacks the necessary permit for the animal's appearances. Antoine F. Goetschel, lawyer and managing director of the Foundation for the Animal in Law, confirmed a corresponding report of the NZZ am Sonntag at the request of SDA.
Goetschel said that the performances of the billy goat hardly constituted animal cruelty. Possibly, however, the dignity of the animal is violated. This is a matter for the cantonal veterinary office to clarify when it processes the corresponding permits. The Foundation for the Animal in Law had no political intentions with its complaint.
"One or two of us should have known that a permit was needed - but we simply didn't think of it," SVP press spokesman Roman Jäggi told the NZZ am Sonntag. On its homepage, the SVP called the ad completely absurd. It is about the animal protection to operate politics against them. After all, via a webcam, the whole of Switzerland could see for itself how good it is.
"Zottel" have. How mean: The parties come up with such original and unique advertising measures and only get a beating or are even hauled before the cadi for it from people who are jealous. The poor, beleaguered advertising managers of the SP and SVP can probably only be recommended an inter-party meeting to exchange anti-bashing tips.