EPI Europlakat International, in which the Affichage Group holds a 50 percent stake, has further expanded its leading position in the outdoor advertising sector in Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia with the acquisition of the Metropolis Media Group, which has around 8900 billboards. This acquisition further expands EPI's leading market position in these economically emerging countries. According to Christian Kauter, Delegate of the Board of Directors of Affichage, the purchase of Metropolis is expected to result in sales growth of around CHF 26 million on a fully consolidated basis. Having already increased its international activities in Greece and Romania last year, Affichage Holding is thus continuing its international strategy.

Under the product name "PromoPost", PostMail distributes unaddressed and partially addressed advertising mail in Switzerland, including customized items on request. It is the only provider to do so nationwide and together with addressed daily mail. At the beginning of 2007, PostMail is adapting its prices to the changed market situation: instead of the long price list based on weight categories, there is now only one price up to 25 g for the four local categories and the four PromoPost Selective categories, as well as a standard surcharge for each additional 25 g opened. Transport costs are now also included in this price. The prices in the most frequently used weight category up to 25 g remain virtually unchanged. Consignments over 250 g will be cheaper, while consignments between 25 and 250 g will be more expensive. The overall increase amounts to 4.8 percent.

Philip Thomas is the new CEO of the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. Thomas succeeds Penny Reid as of November 1, 2006. Reid only took over the management of the festival in January of this year. She left the organization just one month after the festival. Philip Thomas was Managing Director of EMAP Australia, FHM Worldwide and most recently EMAP Media.  
Carolyn Lowery will take over the position of Festival Director. Lowery has been working for Cannes Lions for several years. For the last two years she has been Operations Director and previously Head of Entries. Terry Savage will remain in her position as Festival President.

Google paid 1.3 billion euros in shares for the video portal YouTube. This means that two of the most widely used Internet offerings are joining forces. The markets reacted euphorically to the merger. On Monday evening after the close of trading, Google announced that the acquisition would be completed in the fourth quarter of 2006. YouTube's headquarters and workforce will remain the same. The takeover is part of a broad-based strategy to invest in the growing market for videos on the Internet. Both companies had previously announced that they had signed contracts with the music industry for the distribution of music videos. YouTube in particular had attracted criticism due to the distribution of pirated videos. Since its foundation in February 2005, the video portal has risen to become the leading video portal on the Internet and is the most popular service of its kind with a market share of 47 percent. According to the company, 100 million clips are accessed every day and 65,000 new clips are uploaded. The Google video service currently has a market share of 11 percent. Its competitor MySpace has a market share of 22 percent.

On March 1, 2007, the Ringier School of Journalism will launch a one-year course for trainees in Ringier's editorial offices. According to the media company, the pilot project is intended to train the next generation of Ringier editorial staff. The trainees will complete a one-year traineeship on a core editorial team and at the same time attend around 40 days of courses at the journalism school. The maximum of 14 participants in the first course will be determined by the respective editorial offices. Priority is given to trainees already working at Ringier. The conditions for admission are a high school diploma, a degree or a completed apprenticeship and the passing of an aptitude test.
The trainees are paid CHF 3,000 per month and attend the school free of charge. On completion of the course, participants receive a diploma from the Ringier School of Journalism. The course will be advertised online from the end of October on Ringier.ch in the "Work" section and in the individual Ringier titles.
The project is supported by the Hans Ringier Foundation and managed by Fridolin Luchsinger. According to a press release, this pilot project aims to remedy the shortage of young talent, particularly in entertainment journalism and online media. Young talents from Ringier's editorial offices are to be discovered and supported, as well as trained in practice and teaching. If possible, graduates will be offered a position at Ringier. The project is reminiscent of the stages offered by Swiss television SF.

Femina, the most widely read women's magazine in French-speaking Switzerland, launched its own website at the beginning of October. The new playful and interactive site is intended to complement the editorial content of the print magazine. Femina.ch will also provide the magazine's 464,000 readers with practical and collaborative services. In addition to a comprehensive shopping guide containing all the shopping addresses for fashion and decoration in French-speaking Switzerland, users will also have access to interactive kitchen recipes and the Femina e-paper.The new website aims to distinguish itself through original content, a direct approach and professional editors. As in the magazine, the site also features the fashion, decoration, beauty, cuisine and culture sections. Users can also express their own opinions in the interactive discussion forum and blog. It is also possible to react directly to the individual articles. Femina.ch is set to quickly become the inevitable meeting place for female Internet users in French-speaking Switzerland, according to Edipresse, the publisher for French-speaking Switzerland.

The monthly Internet access figures compiled by Wemf AG für Werbemedienforschung show a mixed picture in September. The media companies' networks recorded fewer page impressions, while individual media sites enjoyed massive increases. The AZ Media Group recorded minus 4.6 percent, Edipresse 0.9 percent, the IDG network minus 3.5 percent, the Mittelland-Kombi minus 26.8 percent and Tamedia Online minus 8 percent in page impressions. The Ringier Romandie network remained virtually unchanged at plus 0.2 percent. The number of hits on online editions of individual titles increased: Bilan +27.1 percent, Bilanz +15.3 percent, Edelweiss +13.6 percent, Giornale del Popolo +17.5 percent, Hebdo +6.1 percent, Illustré +14.6 percent, InfoWeek +12.2 percent, Le Quotidien Jurassien +13.2 percent, Le Temps + 4.9 percent and also WOZ +4.4 percent. But there were also losses. For example, Facts -17.1 percent, NZZ Online -12.7 percent and the online edition of Tagesanzeiger -6.4 percent. Blick Online remained virtually unchanged with an increase of 1.9 percent
Online job portals recorded slightly fewer hits in September, with Jobs.ch losing the most at -3.2 percent.
According to Wemf, the number of websites participating in the Net Audit continues to develop positively and is 18 percent higher than in the previous year. For the first time, over 130 websites had their traffic figures measured and certified. In September, over 90 million visits were recorded for the first time.

Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) is the winner of this year's annual report rating. They are followed by UBS and Valora. The overall rating results from the evaluation of the design and that of the value reporting (the content of interest to investors and other stakeholders), as reported by the Swiss business magazine Bilanz.SBB also tops the list of the most beautifully designed reports. Espace Media Groupe follows in second place, followed by Migros in third place. In value reporting, the big bank UBS wrote the best annual report. Second place was taken by the pharmaceutical giant Roche, followed by the Zürcher Kantonalbank. For the first time this year, Bilanz also shows which ten annual reports have performed best over the last five years. Novartis came in first, Swiss Re second and Migros third.
The head of the jury for the design rating was designer Peter Vetter and the head of the jury for value reporting was Rudolf Volkart, professor of economics and director of the Swiss Banking Institute at the University of Zurich. Bilanz has been publishing a ranking of the best Swiss annual reports since 1988. The full ranking can be found in issue 17, which is available on newsstands from Wednesday October 11.

The Zurich-based communications agency Peter Bütikofer & Company is strengthening its management team with Detlef Janssen and Martin Stutz. The two will focus on the areas of change communications, media relations and online communications. Janssen worked for several years in Change Communications at ABB and then took over as Head of Communications at Geberit. Over the past five years, he has been responsible for all communications at Bühler Uzwil, during which time he carried out a comprehensive rebranding process. Detlef Janssen has been working at PB&C since the beginning of September. Martin Stutz will join him in mid-November. Stutz worked for several years as an editor for the Aargauer Zeitung newspaper before taking over as head of the online editorial department of Bilanz. He has worked for Swisscontent since 2003, where he was editor-in-chief and is now a member of the management team for the Corporate Publishing division.

The new annual issue of the Press Council was published for the first time on Tuesday. Instead of publishing statements every year as in the past, the new publication focuses on specific issues. The Press Council is thus breaking new ground. The annual booklet offers a selection of leading decisions and the most common reasons for the opinions: The duty to hear those affected, the duty to truth and correction, the ban on discrimination or undercover research. The Press Council can also supplement its guidelines based on specific cases. For example, it has made changes and clarifications regarding interview rules and the protection of privacy. In 2005, the Press Council received 88 complaints. The Press Council rejected 13 of them in their entirety as unfounded and rejected 11. 12 complaints were upheld in full and 15 in part. All statements are still published on the Internet.

The Liechtenstein Constitutional Court has ruled that the dismissal of the former Chairman of the Board of Directors, Norbert Seeger, of Radio Liechtenstein was unjust. This means that the broadcaster now effectively has two Chairmen of the Board of Directors. According to the Constitutional Court, Parliament failed to comply with key procedural guarantees provided for by the constitution and the law when dismissing Seeger and Board member Alexander Batliner (see ), writes the St. Galler Tagblatt. These errors violated the constitutionally guaranteed rights of those affected.Seeger and Batliner were dismissed by the Liechtenstein parliament at the end of November 2005 by 13 votes to 12, as the broadcaster was in the red. Seeger was also described as the driving force behind the dismissal of director Mario Aldrovandi. Aldrovandi then took legal action against his dismissal. Seger, in turn, filed criminal proceedings against the dismissed director, who is accused of data theft, data corruption and suppression of evidence. The parties have since reached a settlement regarding compensation. The criminal proceedings against Aldrovandi are continuing.
Since the beginning of 2006, the Liechtenstein radio station has been doing better again (see
). This is due to consistent cost control and the increase in advertising income. Nevertheless, the government has applied for a national contribution of CHF 1.5 million for 2007 to finance operations (see ).

Different countries, different customs: marketing messages that are well received in our part of the world can be quite misunderstood in China. As the blog "Tigerente-goes-Shanghai" shows, not everything works when it comes to advertising in the Far East - and above all, not everything is allowed.
Some have already stumbled across Chinese peculiarities. For example, BMW advertised its new 3 Series in Europe under the slogan "The driving force". However, as the commercial features a group of sweating athletes - which is considered extremely indelicate in China - the commercial didn't stand a chance there. The sports brand Nike also made itself extremely unpopular. In one commercial, US basketball star Lebron James dribbled off a cartoon kung fu master and several dragons - thus offending Chinese national dignity. The Chinese language also seems to be another pitfall. The phonetic spelling of Coca-Cola failed. The result was "Bite the wax tadpole". However, the Chinese were probably less pleased with Pepsi's faux pas: the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" resulted in "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave".