Pleasure shopping, frustration shopping, bargain hunting, hoarding, fun shopping or shopping to kill time - there are many motivations for shopping. Now the Frankfurt advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi has added yet another one: Shopping-by-Night. The aim is to spend a night alone in a department store. The idea of being locked up alone in a department store for a whole night - forgotten by mom and everyone else - has haunted the dreams of many children. However, this idea is not intended to inspire feelings of fear, but rather to get out the credit cards - and the VISA card in particular. Because anyone who pays with VISA and registers online by 25 November can fulfill this "childhood dream". The night spent alone in Berlin's Galeria department store on Alexanderplatz is set to be "unforgettable", accompanied by a budget of 5,000 euros. The advertising clips, which are designed as a viral campaign and can be viewed and sent on Myvideo.de and Clipfish.de and on the dedicated website, show examples of how to spend this unique night in a meaningful way. Scaring the audience as a shop window pantomime, emptying a mountain of sweets over the girlfriend, making inane loudspeaker announcements, organizing a fashion show for life-size teddies. Let's hope that the lucky winner doesn't come up with any criminal ideas that far exceed the 5,000 euro budget.

In a Switzerland-wide agency evaluation, the two Zurich agencies Assai and Wirz Corporate have won the mandate from Tilllate. The two partners of the Wirz Group will be responsible for the brand management and the new online presence of the nightlife portal. In order to do justice to the international expansion, the Tilllate brand is to be communicated in a uniform and integrated manner across all communication channels, according to a media communiqué. At the same time, the constant product expansions from the leading medium of the Internet will be continuously adapted across all media. The first works will be presented in spring 2007. Tilllate.com is the leading Swiss nightlife portal with a reach of over 460,000 visitors per month. The company operates internationally in Germany, France, Austria, Italy, Spain and the UK as well as in cooperation with franchising partners in Turkey and Bulgaria.

Just in time for its 10th anniversary, the Bern-based member of BSW Leading Swiss Agencies Freiburghaus und Partner is reorganizing its management and consultancy. Pascale Berclaz (left) is the new head of the consulting department. She has been with the agency for several years and is now a shareholder. At the beginning of October, Andy Schärer (center) started as consulting group manager. He replaces Barbara Brügger, who is leaving Freiburghaus on November 30. Schärer has held various positions in the Young & Rubicam network over the past ten years. Also new on board is Roland Tanner (right). He previously worked at Giger und Partner and Wirz. Freiburghaus und Partner has fifteen employees and is starting the new financial year with a number of new clients (see ).

The Geneva agency Saatchi & Saatchi Simko created a street marketing campaign for the brand and jewelry store chain Accessorize from 2 to 5 November. In collaboration with Swiss designer Damien Regamey, the creative team transformed the city's furniture. For example, huge jewelry necklaces instead of the usual steel barriers prevented cars from driving into the pedestrian zone in the city center. The aim of the concept is to use unusual media as a platform for unconventional ideas.

On November 27, 2006, Peter Kümmerli (56) will take over the management of Zehnder Wochenzeitungen. He will have both commercial and management responsibility and will thus also join the company management of the publishing house. As the publishing house announced on Monday, Kümmerli was most recently publishing director and chairman of the executive board at a specialist publishing house in central Switzerland. Kümmerli has extensive publishing and sales experience, gained at Ringier, Tamedia and Jean Frey.
The publishing house, which publishes 22 weekly newspapers with a total circulation of 743,692 copies, has thus found the replacement for Daniel Sommer, who suddenly left office (see
).

At the weekend, 16 participants in the Executive Master of Science in Communications Management postgraduate course at the University of Lugano received their diplomas. Over the course of 21 months, the graduates were prepared to take a leading role in strategic decisions in the field of communications and to work closely with the relevant CEOs in formulating general corporate objectives. The following MScom graduates have successfully completed their studies:
 
o Doris Ackermann
o Mark Bächler
o Caroline Berchtold
o Barbara Fry Henchoz
o Patricia Goldschmid
o Markus Helbling
o Rolf Helfenstein
o Barbara Josef
o William Law
o Corinne Lo Verdi
o Walter Thomas Lutz
o Claudine Marty
o Sandro Mesquita
o Natascha Molenaar
o Tatiana Togni
o Zvjezdana Zeco
 
Furthermore, the best thesis was honored with the Burson-Marsteller Award of Academic Excellence. The award goes to the six-person project team from SF-Projekt, which systematically examined the perception of Swiss television by individual stakeholder groups. The prize is endowed with CHF 10,000.

From November 20 to mid-December 2006, the SRG Teletext subsidiary Swiss TXT is broadcasting two TV commercials on Swiss television. The campaign presents the sections "Treffpunkt" and "Astrologie" in cartoon style. The commercials show how easy it is for men and women to find each other thanks to Teletext. The computer-generated, 15-second commercials were produced by the Bern-based communications agency Nothing From Outer Space. According to a press release, the campaign is intended to attract positive attention and appeal to the core target group of up to 35-year-olds throughout Switzerland - and bring them to Teletext.

In competition with three other agencies, OgilvyOne came out on top and won the pitch from Schuler St. Jakobskellerei. The subsidiary of the Zurich agency OgilvyInteractive was entrusted with the relaunch of the website. The first results of the collaboration should be visible in a few weeks, according to a press release. OgilvyOne is already working on the implementation of various projects for the 300-year-old wine company, in particular the relaunch of the internationally renowned wine brand Don Pascual.

The Swedish media company Metro International announced the closure of the afternoon newspaper MetroXpress in Denmark on Monday after just five months. The little brother of the most widely read free newspaper was launched in Copenhagen in August with a circulation of 100,000 copies (see ). "Despite a positive development in readership figures, the afternoon paper did not achieve its financial targets during the test period," says Metro CEO Pelle Törnberg, explaining the decision. Given the oversaturated free newspaper market in Denmark, it is hardly surprising that the planned success of the paper failed to materialize (see ). The afternoon edition of MetroXpress had concentrated on updated news and lifestyle reports. As Metro writes in a press release, the measure is not expected to have a significant impact on the quarterly result.

This winter, the new Prodalp-Prodkamm 8-seater chairlift on the Flumserberg will go into operation. Three BMW branches have commissioned Jung von Matt/Limmat to advertise the BMW all-wheel drive system Xdrive on the poster sites of the chairlift masts. Because Xdrive also reacts on snow-covered or icy roads. The result is a poster idea suitable for series production. It shows animals from the mountains waiting for a BMW with Xdrive to get them safely to the Prodkamm summit. Marmots stick their thumbs up and clutch a piece of cardboard labeled Prodkamm with their paws. Snow hares and ibexes act as further hitchhikers. The poster series can be seen from the end of November 2006 to the end of March 2007.

The French media group Lagardère SCA wants to take over Sportfive completely. The value of this transaction is estimated at 865 million euros. Sportfive is the European market leader in the marketing of sports rights and also markets the television rights for the Euro 2008 soccer championships in Switzerland and Austria. The RTL Group confirmed on Monday that it will sell its 25 percent stake to the French group. The EU antitrust authorities still have to give their approval for the takeover to take effect. Further shares are held by the investment company Advent International, Goldman Sachs Capital Partners and the management of Sportfive.  
Sportfive markets the TV rights for 250 European football clubs and the rights to the Six Nations tournament for the best European rugby teams. Its customers also include 30 football associations. The company, which was founded in 2001 and is based in Hamburg and Paris, expects sales of EUR 526 million and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of EUR 85 million this year.
 
Lagardère includes press titles such as Elle, Paris Match, the Sunday paper Le Journal du Dimanche and a 17% stake in Le Monde, as well as radio and television programs. According to the Group, the Sportfive purchase is part of a long-term strategy to strengthen Lagardère's presence in exclusive media content with strong growth potential.

The French-speaking Swiss newspapers L'Express, L'Impartial and Journal du Jura will publish a joint national section from February 6, 2007. The announcement of the cooperation was made in June 2006 (see ), and the partners signed the contract on Monday morning.  
Affected by the joint mantle are the domestic, business and foreign departments as well as parts of the sports and culture/society departments - and various employees. The newspapers are cutting ten jobs and four people are being made redundant. According to the news agency SDA, the staff committees of L'Express and L'Impartial regret that there is no social plan and that no negotiations have taken place with the employees. Around a year ago, five people were made redundant at the two Neuchâtel newspapers for economic reasons (see
).