Florian Ingold and Tobias Weber are convinced that their agency +söhne has not bagged its last award with the recently won Edi. But a few people "are already showing real interest" since Florian Ingold and Tobias Weber's commercial won a "Special Edi" for visual effects two weeks ago. The two young creatives attracted attention at the Swiss Commissioned and Commercial Film Awards in the Commercials category with a film made with Wirz & Fraefel in Zurich. The entry also proves that films from Switzerland can keep up with trendy cuisines such as New York or London. "The commercial realizes a good and surprising idea at a high level. A comparatively low budget was not a pretext for an average realization, but rather an incentive to find a clever solution," said the jury about the film, which can now be viewed at www.undsoehne.ch.
On this website, the sons greet you wittily and boldly as dapper young advertisers, with not an ounce of unnecessary fat on their ideal bodies - graphically marked. "Liposuction" or shedding the sedate and "taking a slimmer and more daring course" is the motto of the young agency, which, in allusion to its new generation of agencies, calls itself "und söhne" in proper style.
Florian Ingold and Tobias Weber have set up their office in an old loft in the Sulzer Areal in Winterthur. However, they want to move out of there soon. Not to the advertising Mecca of Zurich. Only to a more modern and larger building a few hundred meters away, because the future in the loft, which is in danger of being demolished, is too uncertain for them. Otherwise, the sons are of the opinion that their location is not the only relevant factor for the agency's success. "We want to define ourselves much more by our creative output than by a fancy address."
Ikea, The Care Company, Swissrisk and the Winterthur Bikebistro are the first customers +söhne has acquired since its launch almost two years ago, alongside Nike (Switzerland). Ingold and Weber acquired customers with cheeky gadgets, which they sent out as mailings to selected desired customers. Depending on the sympathy bonus for such newcomers, an inflated plastic bag that landed as a package with a text "for a breath of fresh air in your advertising" at the potential customer's doorstep was simply annoying. Others were happy about it. However, it wasn't the funkiest, but often the more conservative addresses that reacted positively to original self-promotion ideas such as a set of Lego blocks and the request to "build your dream agency".
Nike took the bait with a paper doll that could be dressed in different clothes to determine the target audience. This resulted in an invitation to a pitch. And finally the idea for the now award-winning commercial.
Of course, you can tell that AD Tobias Weber has his professional roots in the field of special effects in film production. After graduating from high school in Winterthur, he attended a film school in London. This was followed by two years working at a studio for digital image processing. In Tobias' time, Hollywood films such as "Mission: Impossible II" were also post-produced here. The Swiss artist found further inspiration for his future work at many exhibitions in the design and art scene in London. His work to date has also been influenced by "the trashy" and typical English humor in advertising. After his return to Switzerland, Tobias found a job as a freelance director at Wirz & Fraefel, where he continues to work as a freelancer.
Florian Ingold first sought his path as a secondary school teacher. "But that didn't lead anywhere." So he dropped out, realized various creative projects with Tobias and then completed an apprenticeship in marketing and communication. During this phase, philosophizing together about a possible future ultimately led to the founding of +söhne. "Our training is professional. Nevertheless, we are absolute greenhorns in the agency scene. We have no inhibitions about communicating this," say the two, who have never actually worked in an agency other than their own.
What attracted Tobias to this company was the fact that he no longer wanted to just continue as a director "putting the finishing touches to other people's storyboards". As a lateral "full-service advertiser", he wants to develop new ideas himself, just as he did back in his student days. Florian takes on the role of strategist, consultant and CD. But they don't want to separate their work so clearly in the two-man agency.
The +söhne model is based on the network concept. Artists and creatives from a wide range of disciplines are brought in at low cost depending on the client's needs. "With us, you don't always have to finance the entire agency," say the sons. As far as their style is concerned, they agree that they don't want to chase after every job. "Better less, but better," is their motto. "With our advertising, you have to be able to live with the fact that 30 percent of the target group feel that they are being addressed, and that they are being addressed correctly." This is more effective than addressing 50 people half-heartedly. Or in other words: "Away from the soft-spoken monotony, rather more pointed and more to the limit. Even if it scares a few people. But such advertising can convince others."
With this mindset, +söhne has already won another large budget for an internationally active company in the outdoor sports sector. The brand is to be strategically repositioned here. The collaboration with Nike Football will also continue. Ideas are needed for the upcoming Euro 08.  
With such plans, there is not much time for a private life at the moment. Florian cites the recently completed house and his two daughters as the best way to relax alongside his job. And Tobias loves recharging his batteries with biking and "hopefully winter sports in the near future".
Andreas Panzeri

Michèle Beglinger will be the new weather presenter on TeleBärn from November 30. With the 26-year-old from the Oberland region, the station is gaining a prominent face, as Beglinger came third in the final of the Miss Switzerland competition two years ago. Beglinger replaces Tanja Gutmann, who is the new presenter within the news team.

Ringier Print Adligenswil has been honored for the fifth time in a row for the print quality of Blick and SonntagsBlick. At the IfraExpo in Amsterdam, the Swiss print shop was included in the International Newspaper Color Quality Club of the world's best newspaper printers. Another title printed in Adligenswil - the customer newspaper Cooperazione (Coop Presse) - took part in this competition for the first time and won this exclusive quality award at the first attempt.  
Ifra is an international association of companies in the newspaper and media industry, primarily newspaper publishers and media houses. Ifra has been organizing the print quality competition together with the Newspaper Association of America NAA and the Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers' Association PANPA since 1994. This year, 181 newspaper titles from 38 countries took part. 50 titles were accepted into the club. In addition to print quality, numerous other quality aspects were evaluated on an international scale. In addition to samples from daily production, a number of test elements as well as an editorial image and a digital advertisement had to be printed. 

 
From January 2007, the Zehnder publishing house will be distributing all 22 newspaper titles from Eastern Switzerland to the Central Plateau and Central Switzerland with Swiss Post. Swiss Post was the winner of the tender for the distribution contract of the Wiler publishing house. According to the publishing house, there is a conscious decision to invest in distribution with Swiss Post, as the aim is to ensure complete transparency for the advertising market with regard to the distributed circulation. Having Swiss Post as a partner also ensures quality assurance in the delivery of newspaper inserts and brochures ordered by advertising customers. It should also be possible to guarantee the splitting of inserts to selected target groups or freely selectable locations in the more than 740,000 households each week from January 1, 2007.

Patrick Helfer (29) has launched a new website, VerSPOTet.net. The aim is to invite users to present their own reinterpretations of commercials. He was inspired by commercial interpretations he discovered on Youtube.com, where existing commercials are dubbed to create a new soundtrack. Dubbing is successful when the storyline can be placed in a completely new context. Helfer's target audience is people from the advertising and communications industry. He is convinced that it is exciting for them to see what happens to their own ideas.
There are already some advertising clip parodies online, including five reinterpretations of a CASHdaily commercial. These were found and uploaded by Helfer himself. In future, however, users should send him the videos they have created or found themselves. If they meet Helfer's quality standards, he will post them on his homepage.
Helfer, who works in the IT sector, runs the site as a hobby. "If it becomes a great success, I would consider reducing my job in IT so that I have more capacity to manage the site," explains Helfer. Whether the site will actually be successful is questionable, as it does not yet have a "look & feel" that invites participation.

Internet marketer Adlink is creating an online aid for planning and booking processes in the online advertising market. Swiss Media Tool, the largest Swiss database for online advertising media according to Adlink, is being supplemented with an overview of the most common online advertising formats in Switzerland. Have you ever wondered what a rectangle is? Or a floating ad? The various standard and special advertising formats can now be viewed directly in use on a selection of Swiss websites using live simulation. The key data for the respective advertising form with the rates complete the new service.
Martin Radelfinger, CEO of Adlink, wants to use such innovations to make the planning and booking process easier for customers and thus also contribute to the growth of online advertising as a whole. "With the Swiss Media Tool, we have laid the foundation for a complete database of Swiss online advertising media. By presenting all common advertising formats in the Swiss Media Tool in an innovative and simple way, we are increasing transparency in the selection of suitable advertising formats," says Radelfinger.

Since September of this year, Switzerland has had a new agency, Rent a museum, which, as the name suggests, arranges museums and galleries for corporate events and functions. Rent a museum, which claims to be the only agency in the country that specializes in arranging art venues, aims to offer companies and organizations comprehensive solutions with its service. In addition to renting out spaces in museums and galleries from its own portfolio, the scope of services includes conception, consulting, organization and on-site coordination. The agency also works with professionals in the areas of catering, audio and vision technology, furniture and decorations. Its portfolio includes the Museum Haus Konstruktiv and the g27 and see301 galleries in Zurich.

The Zurich agency Futurecom has designed new websites for two clients: For the Swiss supermarket chain Coop and for the hearing aid manufacturer Phonak. The websites of the four labels Naturaplan, Naturaline, Oecoplan and Max Havelaar were redeveloped for Coop. The sites have been redesigned both visually and in terms of content and are intended to meet the requirements of experience, product presentation and information with an emotional design language, according to Futurecom.
Futurecom created and designed the Hear-the-world.com website for Phonak. The site is the centerpiece of the "Hear the World" initiative for better hearing launched by Phonak worldwide. The aim of the initiative is to raise public awareness of the persistent taboo surrounding hearing loss and to stimulate a broad discussion.

The French-speaking Swiss publishing house Edipresse has massively expanded its position in the Spanish market by merging its magazine publishing division with RBA Revistas. The new magazine publisher resulting from the merger is called RBA Edipresse. Edipresse holds a 33 percent stake in the new company. However, both partners have equal rights in decision-making. The new company has a gross turnover of CHF 250 million and is one of the leading publishing companies in Spain in terms of the number of titles, circulation and readership. The new publishing company will hold a leading position particularly in the magazine segments of people and celebrities, popular science, living, women's magazines, health and wellness, cooking, handicrafts and patterns.

More than 300 marketing decision-makers from the 2,000 largest German companies are surveyed annually for the "Agency Images" study. The study is conducted by the market research institute Innofact on behalf of Handelsblatt and Absatzwirtschaft. The respondents were asked for their assessment in four key performance categories: Creativity, Efficiency, Internal Communication and Strategic Brand Management. Jung von Matt/Alster received top marks for creativity. Scholz & Friends excelled in efficiency and internet communication and the Munich-based Heye Group scored best in strategic brand management. The two Jung von Matt agency founders, Jean-Remy von Matt and Holger Jung, are also regarded as the most prominent figures on the German advertising scene.

The globally operating German retailer Aldi is now also offering travel. Aldi is another retailer entering the highly competitive Swiss travel market. Migros has its own travel subsidiary, Hotelplan, and Coop has ventured into the travel market again this fall. Denner is also offering travel arrangements with Denner Reisen, a discounter that will be launching a range of low-cost trips for the Swiss market under the name "Aldi Suisse Tours" on November 30, 2006. According to the company, trips can be booked every two weeks via the Internet and a hotline.
According to Aldi, the aim is to offer "the highest quality at the best prices". No additional booking, consultation or service fees are charged. "The franc shown in the individual advertisements corresponds to the price to be paid in each case," promises the discounter. The offers are advertised on the Internet, via direct mail and in Swiss Aldi stores.
Aldi Suisse Tours is working together with the Austrian tour operator Eurotours. The retailer "Hofer", as Aldi is known in Austria, has been offering tours together with its partner Eurotours under the name Hofer-Reisen for three years, as detailed in a press release. With 220,000 customers this year, Hofer-Reisen is the third-largest travel provider in Austria.
On December 7, 2006, Aldi Suisse opens its 22nd Swiss store in Zurich Altstetten in Greenpark Letzi. This is the fourth store in the canton of Zurich and the second in the city of Zurich.

For the month of October, the Web2com index of advertising investments in online advertising shows the highest value since 2001. The index has thus risen by 1.5 points to 138.5 points - but no longer shows the same high growth rates as in the two previous months (see ). 
The upward trend in online advertising is continuing and the mood remains positive. Looking at the European environment. This seems to confirm the trend. According to the October report from Nielsen/Netratings, the strongest growth rate for online advertising was achieved in Germany in October. The Internet advertising medium increased by 57.7 percent to 453.2 million euros. The situation is similar in Austria, where online advertising grew by 64.6% in October according to the Focus advertising report.
 
The Web2com Index is based on monthly surveys of investments in commercial advertising on national and international online platforms. It is therefore intended to show how internet advertising is developing in Switzerland.