For the first time in the history of the Golden Ear radio commercial competition, there are two winners to report: Both the Zurich agency Wirz Werbung and RTS Rieger Team won. Wirz was rewarded with the Golden Ear for its series of radio spots for the Zürcher Brockenhaus association, while the RTS Rieger team was awarded gold for the Hammer radio spot.  
The high-caliber jury awarded a total of four bronze, two silver and two gold ears. Switzerland came out on top in the country comparison, taking four of the eight awards. Three spots from Germany were honored and one award went to Austria. For the first time this year, spots from Italy were also admitted, but not enough for an award.
 
The award ceremony took place at the Theater an der Sihl in Zurich. The Golden Ear Night was attended by 200 invited guests, with Meteo presenter Cécile Bähler hosting the evening. Libsig.Lässer.Hildebrand, who performed a song written especially for the evening, the lyrics of which consisted 100 percent of advertising claims and brand names, were particularly impressive.
 
And here are the winners: Goldes Ohr
RTS Rieger Team for Metabowerke (Other category)
Wirz advertising for Zürcher Brockenhaus association (institutional advertising)
 
Silver ear
Ruf Lanz for NZZ Folio (media/self-promotion)
Ruf Lanz for Hyundai Suisse (Automobiles)
 
Bronze ear
Service plan for fashion house Konen (clothing)
Jung von Matt/ Limmat for Swiss International (Tourism)
Flemming-Pfuhl for Cohen + Dobbernig Buchhandel (retail and specialist trade)
Jung von Matt/ Donau for Reed Messe Wien (Miscellaneous)

Only in the event of a claim does it become clear whether a car insurance policy is really any good. The creative minds at Zurich advertising agency Scotti show that Winterthur is there for its customers when they need it most.  
In the event of an accident or breakdown, all it takes is a phone call and the claims manager will arrange everything else so that the customer remains mobile and can still keep important appointments. This customer benefit is dramatized in the new advertising campaign. The campaign also refers to the Internet link, where customers can find out about Winterthur's comprehensive services in the event of a claim and test whether their own insurance can keep up with Winterthur's claims service. 
 
According to the agency, three advertising subjects will be used in October and November. They will be supported by online advertising at the POS and at fuel pumps.
 

A jury of experts will select the most innovative marketing projects in Switzerland and Liechtenstein in four categories. March 13 is Marketing Day and the day on which a gold, silver and bronze winner will be awarded in each category.  
All companies, NPOs and institutions are invited to submit their projects by December 31, 2006. The jury will evaluate the market performance in the categories of small, medium-sized and large companies as well as non-profit organizations.
 
Marketing concepts that are currently being implemented or have already been completed are eligible. Success or convincing future prospects are a prerequisite. All companies based in Switzerland or Liechtenstein can apply. Based on the submitted application documents, the jury will decide which works will be nominated for the award. The nominations will be announced in February and the winners on Marketing Day, March 13, 2007.

Following a pitch, the independent Lausanne agency Angebaultportenier won the overall European budget from R.J. Reynolds Global Products, a subsidiary of the American R.J. Reynold Group.  
North Carolina-based R.J. Reynolds manages tobacco products on a global scale. In order to ensure positive development on the European market, a pitch was held to find a suitable partner. Several large international agencies and a number of smaller offices competed for the account - Angebaultportenier outshone them all.
 
The small office will now be responsible for brand strategy and positioning, as well as identity and packaging issues, communication, POS and Internet and viral marketing. Angebaultportenier can now demonstrate its innovative strategic thinking and unconventional approach to traditional media, as the agency announced on Friday.

Trimedia Communications reports an extremely successful third quarter. In recent weeks, the communications agency has won a series of new clients. The growth in orders has led to an increase in personnel and an expansion of the management team.  
Trimedia Zurich now serves the companies Pricewaterhouse Coopers, PostLogistics, Mirabaud & Cie, Banquiers Privés, Ferro Capital, Jamba, Dettling & Marmot, EVE by Cardinal, a Feldschlösschen brand, and Zur Rose.
 
The Basel-based Trimedia subsidiary Com.factory was awarded the contract for the annual reports of Basilea Pharmaceuticals, Bell, Swiss Post and Syngenta. Com.factory also produces the annual reports for ABB, Bachem, Ciba Specialty Chemicals, Novartis and Speedel.
 
New clients - new heads As the company announced in a press release on Friday, the positive course of business has also led to personnel growth. Thomas Balmer has been brought on board in Zurich to expand the financial communications division as a senior consultant. The 38-year-old former financial analyst will also take a seat on the Executive Board. Balmer was most recently an independent communications consultant.
Com.factory in Basel, which specializes in corporate publishing, is now headed by Dr. Axel Rienitz, who is also a new member of the management team. The 48-year-old biochemist and journalist has many years of experience. Before joining Com.factory in 2000, he was head of the communications department at Novartis Crop Protection. He takes over the management position from Dr. Henner Lappe, who will remain associated with the company as a member of the Board of Directors.
The 33-year-old Sabine Bianchi is the new head of Trimedia St. Gallen. The former TV producer and presenter has been working at Trimedia for three years and is now also joining the management team. She succeeds Marc Reinhard, who is leaving the company to take on new challenges.

Outdoor advertising now also has a neutral and cross-provider planning and evaluation tool. The new SPR+ Expert planning tool was presented to the industry on October 26, 2006.  
The move is comparable to the introduction of Telecontrol at the time, according to industry insiders following the presentation of SPR+ Expert. Six years ago, APG and Clear Channel Plakanda (CCOP) promised to jointly establish neutral, cross-provider poster research and to use this as a basis for creating a hard currency for outdoor advertising that could objectively evaluate both individual sites and entire poster campaigns. Swiss Poster Research has now kept this promise, as the organization writes in its press release on Friday.
 
The SPR+ Expert planning tool can be used for cross-provider planning. Offers can be digitally imported and processed by APG, CCOP and soon also by other poster providers. The tool links important planning parameters into a coherent system and simplifies the planning of different variants. It calculates the industry-standard performance values for each variant, displays relevant components in diagrams and delivers the finished documentation of an optimized poster campaign at the touch of a button.
 
With SPR+ Expert, out-of-home advertising now also has a modern planning tool as the last basic medium. Based on research that reaches the level of basic research in other media in terms of concept, methodology and accuracy, the tool creates transparency about out-of-home advertising in Switzerland. The planning tool allows the performance and costs of a poster campaign to be compared directly with other media, making it possible to assess the poster medium in the context of intermedia competition.

With the acquisition of XMPie, Xerox is strengthening the link between personalized publications, digital printing and Internet marketing.Xerox acquired the software development company XMPie for 54 million US dollars, as announced by Xerox in a press release on Thursday. XMPie develops specialized software for cross-media, personalized marketing campaigns that combine communication tools such as digitally printed mailings, e-mails and the Internet to reach customers with marketing materials that are personally relevant to them.  

Independent Swiss weblogs want to support each other in professionalizing their services. To this end, a good dozen of them have joined forces in the Swisslogpress network, and the Swissblogpress.ch site went online on Thursday morning. The blog network is currently an association of 13 independent Swiss weblogs that want to exchange knowledge and experience with each other. The network also offers members services such as certified readership figures, support in legal matters and joint marketing. The 13 now united blogs together reach around 10,000 readers per day, as reported by SDA on Thursday.
Swissblogpress, which is organized as an association, is open to new members who meet certain quality requirements. For example, the content of the blogs must be related to Switzerland, have been online for at least one year and be updated regularly. Swissblogpress will soon be working to make this alternative form of publication more widely known through various activities and collaborations in the real and virtual world.

The OnlineStars internet audience awards were presented for the eighth time on Wednesday evening. RTL presenter Katja Burkhard presented the prizes initiated by the Ebner Ulm publishing group in Munich. Over 2.6 million Internet users from all over the German-speaking world voted for their favorites in 14 categories from 20,000 suggested sites, as Werben & Verkaufen reported on Thursday. Among the winners were mainly well-known names, but there were only a few surprising online stars:
Google.de (Category: Portal)
Adac.de (Auto, Motor, Sprot)
Wikipedia.org (Knowledge, news and information)
Amazon.de (shipping portal)
Otto.de (fashion and lifestyle)
Sparkasse.de (Money and career)
Chip.de (Computer and Technology)
Youtube.com (weblogs, video blogs and podcasts)
Expedia.de (travel and leisure)
Studivz.net (social networks and chat communities)
Sport1.de (Sport)
Musicload.de (Entertainment)
Lotto.de (Games)
Gesundheit.de (Health and wellness)   
Special prizes were awarded to Lukasz Gadowski, founder and CEO of Spreadshirt, who was named Internet Entrepreneur of the Year, and to Sternstunden e.V., the children's charity of Bayerischer Rundfunk, for special social commitment.

Federal Councillor Hans Rudolf Merz opened the 5th Biel/Bienne Communication Days with a speech focusing on the development of the Swiss information and communication market. As Merz explained in his speech. The information and communications market has by no means reached its limits. It will continue to grow rapidly - with fantastic prospects. However, the opportunities are also accompanied by risks. That is why the state is needed to provide security. But it must also protect itself and prevent itself from becoming an aberration and a will-less monster. This has already been successful in the area of data protection. Merz sees no danger in the state always being one step behind developments - as long as it provides the framework conditions for these developments.
Over the course of two days in Biel, experts from politics, business, administration, journalism and advertising will discuss the political and economic future prospects of the information and communication industry. Around 600 participants are expected to attend.

The Zurich advertising agency Exxtra has been commissioned by LeShop to develop a brand profiling campaign. The first work will be seen in a few weeks. The online shopping market is developing rapidly. LeShop is the clear market leader in online grocery shopping in Switzerland: for almost three years, LeShop has been in a phase of unchecked growth of almost 40 percent and opened a new logistics center a week ago to expand its capacity.

In a metaphorical sense, celebrities are outlawed, given the green light to be "shot down. In fact, that's what it's called in the jargon, shooting. While C-list celebrities are happy to throw themselves in front of any lens that presents itself, A-list celebrities are tired of being photographed. The tragic accidental death of Lady Di and her lover showed what grotesque proportions the hunt for the most lucrative pictures in the world really is. For a decent interval, the paparazzi held back, but no one remembers that anymore. Publishers around the world are sounding the tally every day, the cameras are out, the telephoto lenses are getting better, and if that's not enough, they'll just step into a mansion for a moment. That's what happened to Brangelina, whose villa two U.S. television journalists broke into without further ado in order to film inside the house. Hollywood's royal couple wasn't there, but their employees were, and they caught the nice media representatives, squealed, and now the two journalists are out of a job.
The climate is generally getting rougher for the paparazzi. Germany's best-known face, Günther Jauch, has not only filed the highest compensation claim in German legal history with his 300,000 euro lawsuit over the paparazzi pictures of his wedding, but has also reignited an interesting discussion. The content of the lawsuit is explosive: Jauch is not only suing for the violation of his personal rights, but is also seeking compensation for the market value of the photos - which in any case must be valued many times higher than the personal rights - but that's another story.
 
The case shows that systematic violation of the law pays off for publishers. Unauthorized photos increase circulation and bring in more money than a publisher later has to pay in compensation for pain and suffering. If Jauch were successful, this could change the balance of power between the fundamental right of freedom of the press and the right to privacy in favor of privacy. Much to the disadvantage of the tabloid press readership - who would henceforth have to settle for the C-list celebrities.