Guest Commentary Is the formerly anarchic and sympathetic Google turning into a giant octopus, asks Gerti Schön.Observers of America's high-tech world are currently preoccupied with one question above all others: Is Google to be equated with an angel or the devil? Even the low-key New York Times insinuated that Google is after a "$400 billion global advertising honeypot," threatening every respectable media company. In fact, competitors have reason to worry: For some time now, Google seems to have been positioning itself as an advertising broker for all media platforms. Last week, it announced a collaboration with a whole range of newspapers that will allow advertisers to place ads in those papers via Google. With the purchase of YouTube, Google will soon have a video platform available for the same purpose.
According to US bloggers, Google is planning to produce entertaining video clips created by users, into which advertising messages can be woven. Google acquired dMarc Broadcasting, a company that enables advertising bookings on the radio, in January, and even the entry into the coupon business, a business not to be underestimated in the USA, was tackled with the help of GoogleMaps in August.
It remains to be seen whether Google is helping the established media companies, as it seems to be doing in the case of the newspaper cooperation, or whether it is tightening their throats. "It all depends on whether you want to believe that Google is systematically evil or just opportunistic," says Peter Krasilovsky, a consultant at media group Knight Ridder.
So will the formerly anarchic and likeable Google become the all-devouring giant octopus that divides up a large part of the advertising pie between itself and its partners? The experience of history looks different. Recall the octopus Microsoft, which was put in its place partly by government intervention and partly by competition. In addition, there is an almost inevitable dynamic: the more the company grows, the more cumbersome it becomes - not good conditions for the constant pressure to innovate in the industry.
Gerti Schön is the USA correspondent for Werbewoche.

Journalists from news agencies and newspapers went on strike on Wednesday. The reason: journalists and employers have been discussing new collective agreements, income levels and temporary employment contracts for months without any results. The strike is to continue until Thursday, reports the SDA news agency. The journalists' union accuses the publishers' association of jeopardizing the independence of journalists and promoting a production model that diminishes the quality of Italian media and the rights of journalists. Publishers are increasingly exploiting poorly paid freelance journalists, according to the criticism.

As Head of Magazine Publishing at AZ Medien, Irene Frei wants to expand the company's market position and get circulation "boiling. Otherwise you get into a routine and become "sluggish and blind to the business". Irene Frei has never run this risk. The new Head of Magazine Publishing at the AZ Medien Group has worked as a "temporary manager" for many years in her professional life. She likes the fact that you have to approach new challenges in different ways, but can still discover parallels in the solution.at AZ Medien, Irene Frei has taken on a permanent role. But only on the outside. Within her tasks, she finds plenty of opportunities for variety in this up-and-coming publishing house. In addition to the booming magazine Kochen with a circulation of around 88,000 copies, her portfolio also includes the special interest titles Natürlich and Fit for Life as well as the five well-positioned trade journals MegaLink Precision, Elektrotechnik, hk Gebäudetechnik, technica and Batitech. 
With all these magazines, the publishing director also has to "focus on two completely different markets", each of which she has to address with different marketing strategies.
It was precisely this kind of dynamic that Irene Frei was looking for when she decided to undergo in-depth career counseling at the age of 30. There, "a marketing profile clearly emerged with a strong leadership component," says Frei, summarizing the result.
Before her career change into the publishing industry - which she had "somehow already dreamed of as a childhood bookworm" - Irene Frei worked as a commercial manager in an international general contracting company after completing commercial school and several years of management training. In Switzerland, she "managed the commercial side" of projects in what was then the Eastern Bloc. Emigrating to Moscow and helping to shape the success of an expanding construction company there would have been a tempting alternative before she decided to move to Aarau.
She began her career in publishing as a project manager at Tages-Anzeiger Verlag, now Tamedia. The SonntagsZeitung had just been launched there, and Frei was able to help market the advertising space, evaluate research and implement decision-making principles for publishing management, editorial staff and the advertising market. After two years, she applied for a job at Ringier, where she was given the opportunity to manage the national and international marketing service.
Because she really wanted to manage a profit center, she moved to Weka Verlag in 1993 and became a member of the management board for the first time. In a turnaround situation, she "restructured Baufach-Verlag with a small team". The next challenge awaited her at Limmatdruck. Frei was given a year to develop Migros' original PR tool, Saison-Küche, into an independent and now well-established publishing house. Then she flew off into the desert.
A journey that was to become more than just a vacation adventure. For the first time in her life, she traveled through the Sahara with a rucksack and sleeping bag and without a shower for 14 days in a caravan. The endless expanse and the feeling of her own smallness once again triggered completely new thoughts. "As a manager who works in different companies with their different cultures, employees, strategies and goals, I experience the concentration on the essentials in the desert."
Since this first trip to the desert, she has felt "like a nomad". She not only goes back to the desert regularly. She now also knows why she derives the most professional satisfaction from "nomadic wandering" through various tasks. She always wants to apply the lessons she learns from one project to new ones. As a temporary manager and management consultant, she has supported many SMEs since 1998 and also helped to set up the key account management of a full-service agency for international TV campaigns.
Irene Frei spent the last three years working for the Haufe Media Group in Freiburg im Breisgau. She managed its Swiss subsidiary and rebranded the publishing house for electronic specialist information in segments ranging from corporate management to marketing and sales as Haufe BusinessMedia. She eventually merged this company with its competitor Weka. 
Back in 2002, Frei played a key role in setting up the magazine Kochen as project manager. This was one of the main reasons why she was eventually brought back to AZ Medien by a headhunter to take over from interim manager Ueli Eckstein. 
Now Irene Frei wants to "grow sustainably" together with the AZ Media Group.
Andreas Panzeri

Logistik Match Communications makes it clear that DPD operates 70 "post offices" in Switzerland.DPD is regarded as the number one private parcel service provider in Switzerland and is one of the leading parcel services in Europe. The partnership with the Swiss Parcel Association (VSP) created the best possible geographical coverage in German-speaking Switzerland and Ticino in 2004. Easily accessible locations ensure high frequencies and the necessary proximity to private customers and small businesses. Match Communications has now developed an in-store promotion campaign for DPD (Schweiz) AG, which can be seen in 70 Swiss stationery stores. In addition to increasing the visibility of DPD stores in these stationery stores, the aim of the promotion campaign is to raise awareness among stationery customers and build trust in a private parcel service provider.
The internationally active logistics company has been accredited as an official private parcel service provider since the very beginning and successfully transports parcels of all sizes, shapes and weights in Switzerland.
DPD was founded in 1976 as an alternative to global integrators and traditional postal services in Germany. In its very first year, the company transported 1.4 million parcels. By 1980 the figure had risen to more than 7 million. Today DPD transports more than 1.4 million parcels every day. DPD specializes in business-to-business parcel shipping and offers a service for around 200,000 customers with around 500 depots in 35 countries and a fleet of 15,000 vehicles. DPD is 83.32 percent owned by GeoPost, a subsidiary of the French Groupe La Poste.
For the promotion in Switzerland, Christian Staub from Match has also devised an interactive competition that invites participants to get to grips with the DPD Shop range. 1200 digital cameras and a Cybershot cell phone provide an incentive to win. The promotion consists of competition flyers, posters and prominently placed competition urns.
Andreas Panzeri

Corporate publishing Professional image design is essential for customer and employee media Only 20 percent of newspaper readers read an article beyond the first paragraph. We scan books rather than reading them carefully. We only pay attention to the image and headline of an advertisement for two seconds, we almost never read the text. Instead, images have become increasingly important, as magazines, TV news and the Internet show. Corporate publishing has also recognized that professional image design is essential for customer and employee media - the design of images plays a decisive role in determining the attention and use of CP media. As a result, magazines have developed into little gems in the context of corporate presentation, as can be seen from the many entries for prizes such as the CP Award.
As successful as the individual magazines are: What is almost always missing is the connection to the corporate imagery built up over the long term. A study carried out in Germany and an excerpt media observation from 2005 shows that almost none of the largest DAX companies have succeeded in creating strong and clear visual memories. This is a serious omission, as such inner images have a strong impact on behavior, as numerous studies have shown. For example, the Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung (GfK) found in its Imagery Study that the clearer the image of the company, the more willing people are to buy shares.
In order for the imagery in corporate publishing to be fully effective, it must fulfill the following requirements:
Designed for the long term: The internal and external reference groups must learn the imagery before they recognize and remember it. This requires time. The theme of the imagery must be presented and repeated over the long term. The imagery must not change with every new brochure.
The imagery is specifically planned and used without contradiction. To this end, all those involved who show images of the company come to an agreement. The basis of the agreement is the overarching image concept, which sets the direction and leaves enough room for variation and individual design.vividness: The clearer and more distinctly the imagery is perceived as an inner image, the stronger its effect on behavior. Vividness is regarded as the super dimension of the image's effect: The imagery must appeal positively to internal and external reference groups.The imagery is not only likeable and atmospheric, it also expresses the corporate personality. It should convey an emotionally significant message for the reference groups.multimodal: The imagery should also leave impressions on sight, taste, smell, touch and hearing. Recent studies have found that if the imagery appeals to all five senses, it has ten times the effect.Multimedia: The imagery must be just as applicable in personal communication as in printed media (brochures etc.) and electronic media (radio, television, Internet etc.).Consistency: Consistent imagery facilitates the creation of memorable images.Imagery determines the success of communicationIt is important for the sustainable and effective use of imagery in corporate publishing that the theme of the imagery is derived from the long-term imagery of the company. The long-term presentation and repetition of the theme in the CP is a prerequisite for learning and retention. The image theme is varied slightly within the brochures, but also from brochure to brochure, as the viewer's attention wanes significantly after three to five image contacts.
The insight: in future, imagery will play a key role in determining the communication success of companies. The prerequisite, however, is that corporate publishing increasingly builds up expertise in long-term imagery and develops a long-term visual language into which the existing design elements, such as logo, colors and fonts, can be integrated. Corporate imagery understood in this way, which goes far beyond one-off photos, faces fascinating challenges.
Dieter Herbst, Manuela Stier
Manuela Stier is the managing director and owner of CP Agentur Stier Communications AG in Weiningen (ZH). www.stier.ch
Prof. Dr. Dieter Herbst is an expert in image communication and a lecturer at various universities, including a main lecturer for strategic communication management in the MBA program at the University of St. Gallen, www.dieter-herbst.de

Weblogs Marketing experts are currently talking a lot about weblogs. Few of them have first-hand experience, according to a study by Marketing-Börse. Reason enough for Werbewoche to go online: citizen portals, bloggers and podcasters are challenging advertisers and other media professionals. Trends announce themselves and disappear again. They are extremely fast-moving. Today's confusion of media, platforms and lifestyles requires a lot of patience. Weblogs have proven their worth as trend seismographs. Topics in weblogs can often be found online long before they are picked up by traditional media. And another thing: bloggers today produce far more marketing information than companies themselves. So you would think that weblogs are part of the daily reading of marketing experts. This is not the case, as a study by the Marketing Exchange service directory claims. Of over a thousand marketing experts surveyed, not even one in six was aware of the Basic Thinking blog. According to Technorati, the world's leading weblog list and search engine, this weblog is the third most influential blog in Germany.
Regular monitoringEven if, according to the common opinion among communication experts, weblogs are far from being able to seriously compete with traditional specialist media, regular monitoring of the most important weblogs is essential. The reason: mistakes made by companies are quickly discussed, and marketing trends in particular are increasingly being born in weblogs. If you think you don't need to pay attention to weblogs, google Jamba or search for Kryptonite on YouTube.
The Werbewoche editorial team has found the most important weblogs about marketing, media and advertising on the Internet. So that you know the most important opinion leaders on the web for the next discussion among experts.
Follow weblogs - with RSSDecide,
to read and monitor weblogs on a regular basis, RSS technology is the ideal solution. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It is a technology that enables users to subscribe to the content of a website - or parts of it - or to integrate it into other websites. Weblog content can be followed in a web browser, in a mail program or in a special reading program, for example. Weblogs usually display a small RSS logo that opens the subscription by clicking on it. In browsers, these subscriptions appear in the favorites bar. Mail programs and special reading programs such as NewsBee offer options for sorting and efficiently processing the news flow. Christian Lüscher

Marketing is all about money. But money is dirty - and so are the seven deadly sins. No wonder, they go well together. That's what ice cream manufacturer Langnese said to itself three years ago, taking aim at seduction and naming seven of its Magnum creations after the deadly sins of the Bible.
 
This idea has been taken up again by a New Zealand restaurant chain with a name that is also not entirely kosher: Hell's Pizza currently offers the right pizza for each of the seven deadly sins: lust, greed, sloth, anger, pride, envy and gluttony are the names of its creations. However, it is not the sinful dishes that have caused a stir so far, but above all the marketing strategy for the lust variant. Instead of a slice of pizza, a condom including detailed instructions for use landed in mailboxes as advertising.
 
However, instead of increased pizza consumption, the campaign triggered the biggest flood of complaints in the history of the state advertising regulator. In addition to angry parents' groups, the Catholic Church protested along with - surprise, surprise - others. Hell's Pizza meanwhile justifies itself with pregnancy prevention. The condoms are intended to educate young people, since New Zealand has the third-highest rate of teen pregnancies among industrialized nations. It remains to be seen which advertising media - and the moral sermons associated with them - will be used by the hellish pizza chefs in the future.

Following an agency evaluation, the Swiss generics company Helvepharm has decided to work with Spillmann/Felser/Leo Burnett (SFLB). In addition to strategic tasks such as brand positioning, SFLB will develop the B2B and B2C campaigns for the young company. According to a media communiqué, the first works are to be seen at the beginning of 2007.

Sony sets off a firework display of color with its international Bravia campaign Last year's campaign with the colorful "Bouncing Balls" in San Francisco set international standards for a new gigantism in advertising films. Naturally, Sony doesn't want to let that fade so quickly. The recently launched campaign for the new LCD television Bravia therefore continues the colorful advertising in a stylish way. The eagerly awaited commercial impressively visualizes the "Colour like no other" experience of the Bravia brand by firing up a dreary high-rise building with gigantic colour cannons and completely enveloping it. The film was once again produced in Glasgow in July 2006 at great expense. Under the direction of multi-award-winning music video and advertising filmmaker Jonathan Glazer, over 300 people worked for twelve days using 70,000 liters of food coloring and hundreds of paint containers to create the perfect spot. The limits of creativity were to be pushed even further in the new campaign - which is why the film had to be even bigger and more spectacular.
 
The "Paint" campaign was designed by the Fallon agency in London and slightly adapted for Switzerland. It starts with a massive TV presence in the form of 60- and 30-second commercials. These will run until mid-January 2007 and the commercial will also be shown in cinemas. There will also be advertisements and posters as well as an online campaign with interactive banners and games on the microsite.
Marco Di Piazza, General Manager Marketing Sony Switzerland, is convinced: "The intense visual language of this campaign impressively conveys the natural color experience and viewing pleasure in HD quality."
Online fans can watch and download the commercial together with exceptional making-of material and a large picture gallery on the microsite www.colourlikenoother.com.
Andreas Panzeri

The media marketing company Cinecom exclusively markets the Arena Filmpalast, which will open in Zurich's Sihlcity on March 22, 2007. At the same time, 2172 viewers can watch current films in nine movie theaters. Cinecom is also responsible for the Pathé Küchlin multiplex in Basel, which opens its doors on Thursday with eight screens and 2,400 seats. As a partner to over 150 cinema owners, the company is also converting around 420 screens for digital cinema advertising by the end of the year - 404 are already equipped with the new technology.

Awards for outstanding trade and specialty publications were presented for the third time on Tuesday on "Trade and Specialty Press Day". The title Auto&Technik from Springer Science+Business Media also won for its market presence. According to the laudatory speech, the trade magazine manages a balancing act, providing both business information for companies and practical professional knowledge for employees. Auto&Technik is published ten times a year.

The Swiss branch of a leading German software and consulting company, IDS Scheer, has commissioned Wirz Corporate with the PR mandate. This includes support and advice in public relations at the marketing and corporate communications levels. IDS Scheer develops solutions for business process management in companies and currently serves around 6,000 customers in over 70 countries. In Switzerland, the company has offices in Zurich, Basel, Lausanne and Geneva.