The canton of Aargau wants to market itself better as a business location and living space. That's why it had the Baden-based communications agency Mach Corporate & Werbung give it a new look.  
The canton pursues an active economic and location policy in order to create new jobs - this even earned it high praise from the NZZ, among others. Aargau wants to actively promote the relocation of companies and has created the appropriate presentation tools for events and inquiries. Under the claim "Aagrau - invest and win", a 16-page brochure paints a concentrated portrait of the economic canton and boldly highlights the 11 most important advantages of the location. Mach Corporate & Werbung is responsible for the concept, text, photography and realization of the brochure.

The new collective labor agreement for journalists in French-speaking Switzerland has been concluded after months of tough wrangling. It will come into force in 2007. The journalists accepted it "without enthusiasm".  
Mathieu Fleury, General Secretary of the Impressum professional association, commented to SDA: "This is a sensible yes to a reference text". The CLA is necessary to protect the weakest and to continue to regulate working conditions. However, the battle is not yet over. The fact that the negotiations - one of the main points of criticism - now have to be conducted in the companies is a step towards new battles. In addition, the new contract contains a number of deteriorations compared to the one that is still valid until the end of the year. Accepting the new agreement would mean choosing the lesser of two evils over a situation without a contract, as Impressum wrote in a press release on Friday. The journalists' association is now calling for the contract to be rigorously enforced and sees the result as a strong signal for German-speaking Switzerland, where there has been no contract for media professionals in the press since publishers terminated the CLA in 2004.

With the Newsmail of Monday, December 18, the online editorial team and thus also the Werbewoche Newsmail are saying goodbye to the winter break. We wish our readers a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, happy days in the snow and a successful New Year. The next Werbewoche Newsmail will be published on Monday, January 8, 2007.

Since the beginning of November, Tom Blum has been working as an account director in the agency's Seefeld office, providing TBWA with his experience for clients such as Nissan and Sony.  
For a long time Blum worked and lived in French-speaking Switzerland, but now he has been working and acting in Zurich again for some time. Here he has proven his skills at Lowe Lintas GGK, Cablecom and Publicis for strong brands such as Philip Morris, Unilever, Möbel Pfister, Zurich, Renault and Hispeed Internet.

Last week, the Belgian television station RTBF got itself into serious trouble with a fabricated TV report about the division of the country. The most surprising thing about it, however, is not the story itself, but the fact that viewers believed the station at all.  
The Flemish region had unilaterally declared independence, and the royal couple had left the country on a military aircraft, reported the French-language public broadcaster RTBF in a fictional live broadcast. In the report, RTBF anchors aired interviews with real politicians who either welcomed or criticized the country’s alleged breakup. The television footage showed trams being stopped at the new borders between the two parts of the country—Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia. It also showed thousands of celebrating Flemish people, who were in a state of euphoria over the independence.
 
With this, the broadcaster—which had intended to reignite the debate over the country’s cohesion or fragmentation with the segment—stirred up a hornet’s nest. The press reacted with disbelief: «Belgium died last night,» wrote the daily newspaper *Soir* the next day. Even while the program was airing, the responsible Walloon ministry was up in arms and forced the broadcaster to change the on-screen caption from «this may not be fiction» to «this may be fiction»—as if that made any difference. Politicians unanimously condemned the joke’s poor taste; the station’s phone lines were overwhelmed; it was total chaos.
 
According to an RTBF survey, 89 percent of viewers initially believed the news about the country’s collapse—and six percent remained convinced even after it was made clear that the report was fictional. In this way, the broadcaster—which has since had to issue a full apology—not only more than achieved its goal but also demonstrated that Hemingway was right after all when he said, «Fiction is often the best fact.» That’s why the same holds true today as it did back then: A sharp mind is and always will be the best tool for separating the wheat from the chaff.

LuZ, the Lucerne hospital radio station, launched its festive program for the 16th time last Saturday. Until January 14 of next year, it will be broadcasting live 24 hours a day from the cafeteria of Lucerne Cantonal Hospital. The radio station is already in its 16th year, but for only the second time in its history, Spitalradio LuZ will also be available in the city and agglomeration of Lucerne from Monday, January 18 (FM frequency 90.5 or 99.0). The full program includes general information, entertainment and music from all genres. In the mornings, the radio station provides a platform for the Lucerne Cantonal Hospital, allowing listeners to find out more about what goes on behind the scenes at the hospital. This is reported by the SDA.

Roger Köppel, publisher, editor-in-chief and majority shareholder of Weltwoche, has expanded the Board of Directors of Weltwoche Verlags AG, which was officially founded in November, from two to four members. The most prominent new member is Peter Kleiner, member of the Board of Directors of St. Galler Tagblatt AG, which belongs to the NZZ Group.  
However, Kleiner's new board mandate at Weltwoche has nothing to do with the NZZ Group. "Kleiner's appointment at Weltwoche was made in a personal capacity," says Beat Lauber, member of the NZZ Group's Executive Board. "Kleiner informed us beforehand and we had nothing against it because the NZZ Group has no points of contact with Weltwoche or Jean Frey AG." Kleiner, who was also operationally active in the publishing industry as director of St. Galler Tagblatt AG until 1998, could not be reached for comment. Incidentally, Kleiner already knows Weltwoche well: when Jean Frey AG was transferred from the Basler Medien Group to the investor group led by Tito Tettamanti and Charles von Graffenried in 2002, Kleiner was also a member of the new Board of Directors - until the beginning of 2005.
 
The second new member of the current Weltwoche Board of Directors is Bruno Widmer, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the investment company Brino-Holding in Zug and holder of various other board mandates outside the publishing industry. The board also includes Köppel himself as board delegate and the lawyer Martin Ernst Wagner as board chairman.
Markus Knöpfli
 

The new Swiss advertising campaign has been on TV for over a month now. The enthusiastic response to the campaign song "Campari Soda" prompted the Zurich label CSR Records to release the 30-year-old classic as a single for the first time.  
The single with the original version by the phantom group Taxi around singer/songwriter Doninique Grandjean and the remix by Zurich electro producer Goldenboy on the B-side got off to a dream start in its first week of sales. On Wednesday, the track was the second best-selling single on iTunes and has been the best-selling single on Cede.ch for days. In stores, the single sold out shortly after its launch.
 
SCR Records is being supported in the launch by Jung von Matt in collaboration with Move Music & Media. The single artwork was created by Jung von Matt, according to the advertising agency.

The advance of free media is unstoppable. The tabloids and regional subscription newspapers are the hardest hit economically by this development. However, journalistic quality will also suffer, according to a survey of experts conducted by the media consultancy Publicom. Following the successful market launch of 20 Minuten, further free titles were launched in Switzerland with Le Matin bleu, 20 minutes, Heute and Cash daily. In the advertising market, the media experts surveyed by Publicom see the tabloids and regional subscription newspapers as the main losers. From an economic point of view, however, the experts also see positive aspects to the triumph of the free titles: The new papers are opening up new reader markets and forcing regional subscription newspapers to make long-overdue structural adjustments.
Media experts expect negative consequences for journalistic quality: increased competition will make the press more susceptible to commercial pressure and editorial teams will have to make do with fewer staff. Those who believe that increased competition will even lead to an improvement in journalistic quality were clearly in the minority.
Publicom surveyed over forty experts from leading media companies as well as representatives from advertising and corporate communications. Publicom, which specializes in media research and consulting, regularly publishes the results of various expert surveys under the name Delphinarium. 

Swisscom is a sponsor of Euro 2008. Switzerland's largest telecoms provider wants to ensure that no one is left behind at this major event. That is why it is the official telecommunications supplier in Switzerland.  
At Euro 2008, Swisscom will be responsible for the communications networking of the four European Championship venues in Switzerland. This also includes state-of-the-art press centers, journalists' workstations and mobile entertainment. Football is not new territory for the Swiss market leader: Swisscom is already a technology partner at the Stade de Suisse. Swisscom is also the official sponsor of the Swiss Football Association and the national football teams, as well as the title sponsor of the Swiss Football Cup, the Swisscom Cup.

Züri Sub in Küsnacht is the most popular base in the region for anyone who loves diving. Whether diving courses or trips to the most interesting diving spots around the world: the professionals at Züri Sub know all about it. And to be equipped for everything in the depths of the seas and lakes, they have their own dive store. The creative minds at Euro RSCG Zurich have developed a motif for one of the products on offer, which appears as an advertisement in 20 Minuten. Using a humorous sequence of snapshots, the particularly robust diving cameras from Züri Sub are literally introduced - and then removed again. But Euro RSCG is convinced that such a witty idea is bound to stick in people's minds, according to a press release.

As of January 1, Christoph Tonini will take over from Jürg Brauchli as Deputy Chairman of the Management Board of Tamedia. Brauchli will remain a member of the Management Board as Head of Printing and Logistics.  
With this decision, the Board of Directors is rejuvenating the top management of Tamedia. The 37-year-old Tonini has been a member of the Management Board of Tamedia as Head of Finance since April 2003. In October 2004, he also took over responsibility for the Services division and since December 2005 he has also headed the Newspapers Switzerland division.