Schools Z.B. Werbung relaunched the Bernese educational institution Feusi There are dozens of completely different providers of education and training in Switzerland. In terms of communication, however, the schools' appearances are usually like two peas in a pod. The Feusi education center in Bern now wants to counter this with an independent image. The new CI and a campaign launched at the same time have been realized by Z.B. Werbung, which is based in Zurich and Bern. "Anyone who comes to us is looking for continuous development and wants to play an active role," says Sandra von May-Granelli, President of the Board of Directors of Feusi, with conviction. "I want to know" is therefore the name of the new claim, which is intended to appeal to those who want to learn. The campaign shows everyday situations from the school environment. Photographer Christian Aeberhard deliberately worked with authentic Feusi models. They were asked questions that were as provocative as possible.
CD Felix Zimmermann had the texts written on typical school utensils. "Why do you write upper case small?" or "Until when was the earth a disk?" are such questions. The poster or advertisement is not intended to provide conclusive answers. A possible hint is given by the claim: "I want to know."
The campaign can be expanded as required. For example, current issues will also be embedded in questions. The subjects can also be seen in Bern on streetcars, Cinémotion and wild posters. Z.B. has also produced a customer magazine and various brochures.
Andreas Panzeri

Caritas fundraising campaign against hunger. This is the number one cause of death in poor countries. There are various methods of encouraging people to donate. Advertising with children is known to be very well received, because children arouse emotions and give aid projects a face. However, criticism is often voiced that children are inappropriately instrumentalized for advertising purposes. Nevertheless, since mid-November, the Caritas aid organization has been using children as the subject of its "Caritas Christmas Collection 2006". This is not because children, as a matter of principle, keep donors' wallets loose. With this year's Christmas collection, Caritas Switzerland wants to draw attention to the daily scandal of global hunger. In the campaign, Caritas shows a child with an empty plate. Placed over the empty plate, the message reads: "Every day, 18,000 children die of NOTHING." By using the word NOTHING, Caritas wants to address the issue of starvation and exacerbate the problem of malnutrition. This is because the high child mortality rate in poor countries is not caused by disease, as is usually assumed, but by hunger. Having nothing to eat costs more young people their lives than the diseases malaria, tuberculosis and Aids put together.
With the claim "No one should go hungry", Caritas appeals for the right to food. Caritas helps to fight hunger in over 100 projects. The traditional collection goes to people in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The campaign is advertised with F12 posters, advertisements, mailings and unaddressed direct mail. The campaign was visually realized by the advertising agency Spinas|Gemperle.
With Caritas and Terre des hommes (s
hee As white as never before
), two aid organizations are advertising for children in need. The only question is which campaign will ultimately be better received by donors - the empty poster or the empty plate. Christian Lüscher

Theater The Lucerne agency Velvet is working for the Kammerspiele in Munich for the second time - and is now also promoting the stages in Freiburg and Cologne. On the stages that mean the world, there has long been an international comings and goings as far as directors and actors are concerned. Well-known names in Switzerland include Volker Hesse at the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin, Stefan Müller at the Burgtheater in Vienna and Christoph Marthaler in various places. What is new in this cultural merry-go-round is that an advertising agency can also step out from behind the Swiss curtain and reap international applause for its work: the Velvet agency in Lucerne created the advertising for the local municipal theater when Barbara Mundel was artistic director there from 1999 to 2004. When Mundel moved to the Kammerspiele in Munich as head dramaturge, she not only took a few actors with her - as usual - but also the advertising agency. This became Velvet's first act abroad. When Mundel then moved to the Theater Freiburg, Velvet's 2nd act followed. However, artistic director Frank Baumbauer in Munich did not dismiss the Swiss mercenaries from his service. Their advertising has not only brought his theater excellent capacity utilization, but also theater-ready "scandals" in the press.
The poster with Pope John Paul II - with an elephant's head and trunk on the spiritual leader of the Catholics - made it onto the front page of the Munich evening newspaper with a scandal. In the same 2004/05 season, the Kammerspiele was also voted German "Theater of the Year". That attracted attention. Velvet and four other agencies were invited to an evaluation in Cologne. The audition was successful. Act 3: In the coming season, the Lucerne-based company will also be looking after the Schauspielhaus Cologne.
"Don't be afraid" is the motto of the current season in Munich. Velvet has developed a poster campaign that uses modern imagery to address political and social issues.
But the agency in Lucerne doesn't just cultivate art. Velvet also has clients such as the international ski company Völkl and advertises Stimorol chewing gum, for example. One of Velvet's recipes for success, according to CD Jürg Schaffhuser, is to incorporate the experience gained from marketing such commercial products into culture and, conversely, to put a little more culture back into commerce.
Andreas Panzeri

Column In the Reconvilier case, journalism has failed: it is better to simulate it and stick to the neoliberal mainstream. It was the year of Karl. That was the name of the ghost that made the executive floors in the Jura and in faraway London tremble. Karl heard everything. Karl was always there. Karl struck immediately: whatever happened at the Swissmetal Group - he immediately put it on the Internet. Sharply analyzed, with inside information, brightly illuminated. As a reminder: Swissmetal is a victim of the hedge fund Laxey, Group CEO Martin Hellweg dismantles the factory in Reconvilier, the metalworkers go on strike. Hellweg publicly cursed Karl. Hundreds of Swissmetal workers read him on strike watch. Journalists poached on his blog . They will do it again these days, when Laxey lands his coup, cuts up Swissmetal, sells it off, closes it down or joins it to a larger one, or pulls off one of the hedgers' plundering tricks. In any case, stockbrokers are expecting a rough ride - the share price recently hit the roof.
The specter is quite contemporary. Karl's power does not grow out of gun barrels, but out of the Internet. From the first day of the strike in Reconvilier, he masterfully pulled out all the stops: web, mail, blog. Many hundreds of pages, 1,500 e-mails, well over 100,000 visits. Readers of this media ecology column know what the author thinks of blogs. Karl was the daily rebuttal in 2006. For this, the cyber pirate received the Golden Mouse at the Swiss Blog Awards.
The prize was collected by a delegation of workers. One suspects: Karl is a pseudonym. In real life, he is a young, clever man who is doing his doctorate on an explosive topic. A character like Dostoyevsky could have invented: tall, serious, passionate. But completely from our time. His battle name is not simply personal protection - "Karl" conceived Karl as an art figure. As a role. He doesn't mirror exactly what his author thinks: "In some things I would think more radically, but in my role I have to decide between personal opinion and what Karl says in the service of the cause."
In the service of the cause? "Giving the workers a voice. To do that, I have to get involved with the economic rules, for example. This is about things like the role of a company in society." So, with investigative conscientiousness, he had a comic book character pitted against "Martinou" aka Hellweg. A single player with a high ethos. Karl's creator grew up with video games. So he fights, a little Marx, a little Captain Harlock, his favorite hero, for the industrial future in Jura.
In short, Karl did what journalists today often fail to do. He thought precisely about their role and "job description". Those who actually should have shed light on the Reconvilier case did not shine very brightly (apart from the usual exceptions such as Werner Vontobel and Jean-Martin Büttner). One would like to think that Swissmetal would have contained all the ingredients of attractive journalism: two "wildcat strikes", an autistic CEO, evil hedge funds, a lawless entrepreneur as president of the support committee, the active solidarity of an entire region, human fates, the dispute between French-speaking and German-speaking Switzerland, mediation by the Federal Council, a deceived Bernese cantonal councilor....
But even when an expert appointed by the mediator proved the strikers right against the CEO on almost all points, hardly any journalists wanted to speak to him. Not that there was little writing. SDA did a diligent job. What the union said, what Hellweg said, found its way into the media. The PR worked. Journalism did not work at all. Perhaps the expertise to penetrate the affair was lacking. More likely, colleagues were not interested. What really happens in this country takes place at some distance from the everyday life of journalists. People would rather simulate journalism and stick to the neoliberal mainstream.
Irritating, but revealing, what transpired: Karl, the artificial figure, spoke about Swissmetal in a much more real way than the real Helvetic journalism.
Oliver Fahrni is a freelance publicist and media ecologist.

Guest commentary It is better to have a strong SRG than many regional multimedia monopolies.SRG currently has many construction sites and is the focus of political parties and competing media houses because of the planned fee increase. It is undisputed and was constantly emphasized during the debate on the new Radio and Television Act (RTVA): We want a strong SRG in order to strengthen important pillars of our state. At the same time, we need private radio and television stations to provide a regional public service. The new RTVA has mapped media policy well and created workable compromises in all areas. But new lines had to be drawn. With a more generous fee-splitting system, there are now ten to twelve new allies to fight for the fee increases.
Conversely, price supervisors and consumer organizations will ensure that the desires of the SRG and the new fee payers do not grow sky-high. The free reception of radio and TV programs has become a fundamental right in recent years that must not be undermined by the commercialization of our society.
Pay TV and pay radio are of great importance, so that desires for new business areas are also being awakened here. With Bluewin TV and Cablecom's new programming content, the telecom industry's entry into the broadcast sector is already underway.
In the past, policymakers wanted many small broadcasters independent of the regional newspapers to create more proximity. Today, almost all of them are integrated into the multimedia publishing houses. In the future, newspaper publishers - at the request of their association - should receive fee money for their TV stations. However, the only publisher-independent regional TV should not receive a coverage area.
With the fee money, the monopoly publishers will be able to blithely continue their concentration in the newspaper sector. This is another facet of Swiss media policy and perhaps one reason why the decision-makers in the federal government, cantons and municipalities would rather have a strong SRG than an unpredictable bunch of regional multimedia monopolies that want to squeeze out everything else.
Günter Heuberger is the founder and head of Radio Top and Tele Top.

On Wednesday, the Federal Council took note of the consultation report on the amendment of the Unfair Competition Act (UCA) and decided not to enact a special provision against parasite advertising. In doing so, it backed down and did not respond to UEFA's demands (see ). An amendment to the UWG was planned. The Federal Council had its sights set on companies that advertise their products with Euro 08 but are neither sponsors nor have permission from the organizer to do so. The majority of cantons, political parties and affected organizations had spoken out against such a provision in the consultation process. They considered the proposed legislation to be too vague and described it as unnecessary. There is a general clause against deception in the UCA, which would also cover parasite advertising - also known as ambush or free-rider marketing. The Federal Council shares this view. Furthermore, it was stated in the consultation that the victims of such a revision would be small and medium-sized companies that could not afford sponsorship. Organizers of major events, sports associations and six cantons gave the draft a positive assessment.

The Stöckenweid home for the disabled in Feldmeilen needs money for a new building. The Zurich advertising agency Malstube provided a brochure, an advertisement and tips on the fundraising concept. The Stöckenweid Foundation has more requests than space and therefore has to keep turning away disabled young people and adults who want care and employment. This is why the work home above Meilen is now expanding and needs more than 3 million in donations, despite receiving federal and cantonal funding. The motif for the campaign is a wallet that is set up like a roof to show that donations can give disabled people a roof over their heads. The motif is also used on a brochure that is widely used as part of the fundraising campaign.

Marketing IP Multimedia's online booking tool puts it ahead of some of its competitors Booking spots by phone, fax or e-mail will soon be a thing of the past, at least at IP Multimedia. The marketer of the Goldbach Media Group, whose portfolio includes the advertising windows of ProSieben, RTL, RTL2, M6 and MTV, has developed the new MediaPro booking tool, a web-based instrument which, according to media agency experts, is roughly on a par with the standard used by SRG marketer Publisuisse. In concrete terms: MediaPro gives agencies and clients online access to the IP database, where they can find the TV and radio advertising blocks or ad screen loops that can be booked and their performance values, and can make the desired bookings immediately, as project manager Fredy Grau explains. The booking is confirmed by the system shortly afterwards.
From 2007, MediaPro will replace the Adassist tool, which was developed for radio bookings and later adapted for TV and ad screen bookings. "Adassist is over ten years old and has reached the zenith of its capacities," says Grau. The system is also no longer up to date in terms of database structure and efficiency. Wherever Adassist is used today - and this is also the case for Radiotele in addition to IP - booking is relatively complicated. First, a list must be requested by fax or e-mail showing when advertising time is still available. Then you can send in the desired times. These are read into the system by the marketer and confirmed.
With the new MediaPro, IP could now put itself in pole position against its competitors and PubliGroup subsidiaries Radiotele and Cinecom, especially in the radio sector. Could. Because first the tool has to work perfectly. Although all bookings for 2007 have been processed via the new tool since November 13, for the time being they are still being handled as before - by fax, telephone and e-mail. An online pilot test with agencies will not take place until mid-December. If the tool passes its baptism of fire, the entire industry will have access from February 2007.
Markus Knöpfli

Lowe is joining forces with FCB Leutenegger Krüll. As the two agencies announced on Wednesday, they will operate under the umbrella of DRAFTFCB in the future, meaning that - as Werbewoche reported on October 16, 2006 based on insider information - the planned management buyout, as communicated by CEO Kurt Schmid to the trade press (see
), did not actually take place. The information provided by Werbewoche proved to be correct. Werbewoche also received information from Lowe London on October 17 that discussions were still ongoing and that no decision had yet been made regarding the ownership structure (the official wording on October 17 was: "We are in discussion regarding the future of our operations in Switzerland, but as yet no firm decision has been taken with regard to management ownership"). There can therefore be no question of negotiations proceeding according to plan at this time, as CEO Kurz Schmid claimed to the trade press (see Lowe: ) On Thursday, November 16, Werbewoche also received the information that Lowe Switzerland was in talks with FCB. Neither Kurt Schmid nor Peter Leutenegger from FCBLK confirmed the information. On the contrary, when asked by Werbewoche, Leutenegger said that the information was nice, but certainly not correct. Once again, however, the information provided by Werbewoche proved to be correct.
The alliance that has now been forged is as follows: Lowe Switzerland and FCBLK are now organized under the umbrella of DRAFTFCB Worldwide as of 1 January 2007. The two agencies will continue to operate with their own brands under the umbrella of DRAFTFCB AG. The approximately 40 employees of both agencies have already been informed and will be working at the current FCB headquarters in the Mühle in Zurich-Wallisellen from the new year. The intention is to further expand the teams. The two current CEOs will become Managing Partners with equal rights. Across the agencies, Peter Leutenegger will be responsible for agency management and Kurt Schmid for strategy. Keith Loell will be the new Creative Director for both agencies. Mike Krüll has "decided on a new direction", as stated in the press release.
The alliance between the two agencies also takes place against the backdrop of the global merger of DRAFT, the largest direct marketing and interactive agency in the USA, and Foote, Cone & Belding FCB, one of the world's largest agency networks with branches in over 100 countries. Initiative Media has also been on board via DRAFTFCB since the partnership in October 2006.
Kathrin Fischer, Sonja Levy

The Regensdorf-based in-store television provider Incite Media acquired the software developer ComputerOil at the end of August 2006. ComputerOil's products and personnel will be fully integrated into Incite Media. The takeover gives the company powerful software applications in the field of digital asset management and content management as the technical core of its digital hub. This will enable existing content to be found, adapted and published, according to a press release. The efficient adaptation of corporate messages and content via various communication channels such as TV, web or mobile also plays a key role in sustainable customer acquisition and relationships. The founder and former CEO of ComputerOil is now Chief Technology Officer at InciteMedia. The company offers advertising customers, advertising agencies and media marketers a multimedia advertising platform directly at the point of purchase.

Competition Does PubliGroupe give preferential treatment to publishers and titles in which it holds a stake when placing advertisements? The Competition Commission has long been circulating rumors that it is scrutinizing PubliGroupe's minority shareholdings in Swiss publishers. What's more, it was said that the ComCo wanted to prevent conflicts of interest on the part of the market-powerful P by demanding that the advertising giant sell off some of its holdings. In some places, a connection was also suspected with the Weko complaint filed by the intermediary AdX against PubliGroupe (see WW 40/06). It was rumored that this case had been dragging on for over five years because P was reluctant to comply with the Weko's wishes, but a few days ago some things became clear: the Weko did indeed investigate P's minority shareholdings in Swiss publishers in a preliminary investigation. Specifically, the question was "whether PubliGroupe concentrates its advertising marketing activities on newspaper publishers in which it holds a minority stake." No, the Competition Commission Secretariat now states in its recently published final report. There are "no indications" that P favors those publishers in which it holds minority interests. Furthermore, no unlawful restriction of competition was discernible, nor did P's minority shareholdings contravene the Cartel Act.
As a result, the Competition Commission Secretariat decided back in July to close the preliminary investigation without any consequences. An acquittal across the board. And the all-clear for all publishers in which P holds minority interests: There is currently no pressure on P from the competition authorities to sell any shares.
Complaints from various publishersThe trigger for the preliminary investigation was P itself, which had notified the Competition Commission in March 2005 of a publishing participation. But there were also complaints from various publishers without a stake in P, who felt disadvantaged by P. "We saw that there was a certain amount of interest in the issue in the industry, so we decided to look into the matter," says Patrik Ducrey, Deputy Director of the Competition Commission. He denies any connection to the AdX case.
In the report, the ComCo states that P has acquired most of its publishing interests in the range of 11 to 37 percent within the last ten years - mostly at the request of the companies concerned. P in turn states that it enters into such participations for financial and strategic reasons. The ComCo concludes from this that the motive to hold minority shareholdings as a capital investment could "constitute an incentive to favor certain companies" when placing advertisements. This is because if P favors these companies, their profits - and thus also the return on equity - increase.
Does P really act accordingly? The P annual reports for 2003 and 2004 that were consulted raise doubts in the ComCo because it notes that P's income from minority shareholdings "clearly plays a subordinate role" compared to that from the advertising business. P therefore appears to be "not a financial investor", it says cautiously. The report therefore concludes that there appears to be no conflict of interest (literally, the ComCo speaks of a "trade-off") between income from minority shareholdings and the placement of advertisements, or only "in a weak form". Consequently, there is also no evidence of tactical behavior on the part of P to "eliminate" certain publishers or titles.

This was not the first time that minority interests were examined in1993.
PubliGroupe has already been the subject of an investigation. At the time, the Cartel Commission (CC) was investigating press concentration and made recommendations to P in this context. According to these recommendations, PubliGroupe should withdraw from publishing participations as soon as the companies in question were in a position to buy back the shares "at a reasonable price". Where this was not possible, the P was "invited not to influence the editorial offices and the (marketing) strategy of the company". As a result of the report, KK and P drew up a code of conduct which P was prepared to follow. However, when the then new Cartel Act came into force in 1996, the code was repealed by the Competition Commission "due to a lack of legal basis". Why is P remaining silent?
on the P minority shareholdings in connection with the pending AdX case? Patrik Ducrey, Deputy Director of the ComCo, denies this. Nothing else can be inferred from the report either, although it does make brief reference to the case - namely with regard to the question of how P's position in the advertising market should be classified. The report calculates a market share of 64 to 65 percent for P in print advertising sales (2002 to 2004) and then refers to the AdX case, in which the Competition Commission described such a market share as "an indication of Publigroupe's dominant market position". Interestingly, George von Csernatony, Head of Strategic Planning and member of the PubliGroupe Management Board, does not wish to comment on the preliminary investigation, which was discontinued without any consequences - despite the positive result from P's point of view. Nor will he reveal anything about the status of the AdX case (WW 40/06). "P is currently obliged to remain silent," says von Csernatony. However, he makes it clear that he does see a connection between the AdX case and the preliminary investigation.
Markus Knöpfli

The loyalty marketing agency ICLP has appointed Frank McCusker as its new Global General Manager. McCusker was previously Vice President of the international marketing agency EMEA of Carlson Marketing Worldwide. He will take over the management of the company, which has over 500 employees, and will drive forward the agency's planned major growth, according to a press release. ICLP stands for International Customer Loyalty Programs. The agency implements various loyalty concepts worldwide for companies in the airline, service and consumer goods sectors and is the market leader in its segment. ICLP recently announced the expansion of its Swiss branch in Zurich-Kloten (see ).