The finalists of the London International Advertising Awards were announced at the weekend. The Zurich agency Walker is delighted to have won two places in the final: The TV commercials for Fleurop's Mother's Day campaign, which have already won silver once and bronze three times in New York (see ), can now also hope to win precious metal in London. But the poster campaign "Not here, but now" for Amnesty International is also among the finalists in London, having recently won gold and the United Nations Award in the USA.

Econ Verlag has extended the deadline for entries to the Yearbook of Advertising competition. The deadline for all entries is now October 20, 2006, by which date advertisers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland can submit their work in the categories "Print", "Cinema/TV spots", "Multimedia" and "Online advertising". The categories "Ambient Media", "Events" and "Direct Marketing" are new additions. In addition, the best campaign for the 2006 FIFA World Cup will be awarded this year. 

The Zurich agency Capital Communication is taking over all public relations/investor relations (PR/IR) tasks for the technology company Amitelo with immediate effect. The two companies are thus continuing the cooperation that has existed since Amitelo's IPO a year ago. Since then, Capital Communication has been supporting the company in the area of communications. The Zurich-based firm realized the website and supported Amitelo in defining its corporate identity/corporate design and in classic advertising measures.

Nobel Prize winner for literature Günter Grass feels unfairly treated by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). Grass accuses the newspaper of copyright infringement, as he said on Friday at the Frankfurt Book Fair. At the end of September, the FAZ had printed two letters from Grass to former Economics and Finance Minister Karl Schiller from 1969 and 1970. In these letters, Grass appealed to the SPD politician to reveal his Nazi past. The letters printed by the FAZ were "personal" and should not have been published, Grass said. The FAZ, on the other hand, had not signed a declaration to cease and desist demanded by Grass, and is now arguing that the letters are in the public interest. For this reason, the FAZ had decided to publish them. According to the newspaper, it is about the credibility of the public figure Günter Grass, who triggered the debate himself by belatedly confessing to having been a member of the Waffen SS. Grass' lawyer Paul Hertin takes a different view. If this practice of printing unpublished letters sets a precedent, then all writers and other authors as well as their heirs should be urgently advised to immediately withdraw unpublished correspondence from all archives.

The ProsiebenSat.1 marketer SevenOne Media has launched Advertising on Demand. On the Maxdome video-on-demand platform, advertising customers can choose between various packages for marketing their products. One of the packages on offer focuses on Advertising on Demand. Advertisers can place new formats such as test reports, corporate, short and image films online on Maxdome and viewers decide for themselves whether and what they want to watch. The downloads of the advertisements are free of charge for the user. Advertisers pay according to the number of downloads, similar to how Internet portals charge for ad placement per mouse click. Particularly high-value products from the electronics or entertainment sector are advertised via the portal.

Online advertising has grown by 40 percent in the UK this year compared to the previous year, according to the Interactiv Advertising Bureau's semi-annual study on online advertising sales http://www.iab.net. Experts assume that the online advertising sector will overtake print advertising sales by the end of the year. Unpopular pop-up advertising If online advertising is broken down into its individual segments, search advertising accounts for 57.7 percent of the revenue generated. Screen-related advertising, such as banners or pop-ups, accounts for 23.5 percent. Classified ads account for a further 17.7 percent. However, pop-ups have lost a lot of ground in the area of screen-based advertising: while they were still able to maintain a segment share of around nine percent in 2005, they fell to 0.7 percent in the first half of 2006.
Online advertising currently accounts for 10.5% (£917 million) of the UK advertising market, just behind print media at 11.4%. The share of online advertising is twice as large as that of out-of-home advertising and three times larger than that of radio advertising. Television advertising accounts for 22.7% of the segment this year.

At the beginning of 2007, the Federal Council will decide on the level of SRG fees that will apply from April. SRG has notified the Federal Office of Communications (Bakom) of its financial requirements until 2010. This would mean an 8% increase in radio and TV reception fees. As a result of the new regulation on fee splitting in the new Radio and TV Act (RTVA), the SRG will face a shortfall in income of almost CHF 40 million. SRG anticipates a reduction in income of 60 to 70 million francs as a result of the loss of sponsorship and advertising money due to the new regulations in the RTVA. SRG is also claiming higher costs for the broadcasting of sporting events and inflation, reports the NZZ am Sonntag.
 
Objections from the conservative partiesHowever, the fee increase would go down badly with the conservative parties. The NZZ am Sonntag gives representatives of the SVP, CVP and FDP the opportunity to express their opposition to a fee increase. Only the SP representative in question shows understanding for the SRG.
SRG points out that the financial requirements have been presented honestly and transparently. SRG is also in the process of saving CHF 80 million. Further rounds of savings could follow - because Swiss television has to accept losses in advertising money (see
). However, it is out of the question to announce the highest possible financial requirements in order to then achieve at least a small fee increase, SRG Chairman of the Board of Directors Jean-Bernard Münch told the newspaper. It is up to the Federal Council to determine the level of the fee.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" is an immensely popular satire of the classic news program. Jon Stewart himself plays the anchorman and is more convincing than many an original. Since the 2004 election, pundits have been whining that whole legions of viewers prefer "Daily Show with Jon Stewart" to the serious evening news. The worry now is that here is a generation growing up, saturated with irony, who are just lapping up the disinterest and cynicism of the political press. Worse, these people, it is feared, will be so unconcerned and careless because they are misinformed - by a comedy show they find more credible than the real news.
The study by Julia R. Fox, an assistant professor of telecommunications at Indiana University, now showed why the show works almost beyond measure: it has substance, it is a legitimate source of information. The guests alone: Pakistani President Musharraf chatted about his new book on the show, Bill Clinton took a seat in the "Seat of Heat." Coveted talk show guests like the former and very scandal-ridden governor of New Jersey turned down overtalker David Letterman, only to appear on Jon Stewart.
Julia Fox wanted to know more about substance, so she conducted a second-by-second comparative analysis of traditional newscasts and Jon Stewart's show. These measurements showed that the parody consistently offered more humor than substance - but the same measurements also showed that traditional newscasts often broadcast more hype than substance. And in terms of the average proportion of video and audio substance, the real news hardly differed from the parody.
What is the moral of the story? When it comes to information, one should never - NEVER - rely on just one source. Professor Fox, in any case, after conducting the study, thinks that one should be equally concerned about both sources of information - because neither of them is particularly substantial.

The repositioning of the luxury chocolate Cailler was a flop for Nestlé. Sales up to the end of August were almost 30 percent down on the previous year. This is in line with the initial development following the relaunch (see ). This is shown by the latest market figures from AC Nielsen, as reported by the NZZ am Sonntag. According to the newspaper, consumers have not accepted the price increase of around 8 percent and the new PET packaging. However, the lack of the traditional chocolate on Denner's shelves has also had an impact. Denner had not accepted the price increase and was no longer supplied (see
). Nestlé's aim now is to be managed by Denner again. However, details of the ongoing talks have not been made public. Coop is also not satisfied with Cailler. The chocolate is not meeting sales expectations there. But here, as at Nestlé, the focus is on Christmas business. A premium product in the top price segment and other innovations are therefore to be launched at the end of October. Nestlé is also reacting to the criticized PET packaging. Their weight will now be greatly reduced.
Switzerland as a test run The relaunch in Switzerland is a test run for the international market. The expansion of international business is a top priority for Callier. Cailler products are available in selected stores in Germany, Great Britain, Italy and France. Internationalization is to be developed carefully and without haste. Nestlé assumes that there will be hardly any protests against the new packaging abroad.  

If the Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products Swissmedic has its way, no more information or advertising for prescription medicines should be found on the Internet. The reason: pharmaceutical companies are increasingly mixing information with advertising (see ). However, the regulation does not affect officially approved information, such as that which is publicly accessible on the Internet via the medicinal products compendium. According to NZZ am Sonntag, doctors and pharmacists will only be able to access certain information with a password from 2007. However, the regulation is considered to be rather absurd and not well thought out. After all, the Internet does not stop at Swiss borders - and even password protection does not prevent access to information on the World Wide Web.
The pharmaceutical industry is also anything but enthusiastic and is considering legal action against Swissmedic. For the time being, Swissmedic is being accused of a control mentality and paternalism.
The happy medium, which allows consumers to be protected from unlawful advertising while at the same time providing patients with comprehensive information, has not yet been found.  

Various print publishers want to prevent their web content from being taken over by search engines without being asked. The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) is now having the Automated Content Access Protocol (Acap) system further developed for precisely this purpose.  
The global association WAN, in which the Tages-Anzeiger publisher Tamedia is also represented by the Swiss Press Association, wants to prevent search engines such as Google from becoming publishers themselves via their news services. With Acap, a newspaper should allow any search engine to incorporate its online presence into its own website. However, individual articles can only be included for a certain period of time.

Stephan Oehen returns to Zollikon from Forch with his new public relations consultancy.  
The successful start of Oehen PR with numerous new mandates gives a boost to further expansion of the company in Zollikon, as PR consultant Stephan Oehen rejoices. The municipality of Zollikon is an excellent location for a management consultancy with high quality standards: discreet and yet central.
 
Oehen PR currently advises companies that are listed in London, Zurich, Dubai, Frankfurt and Scandinavia and have interests in Switzerland and Germany. The focus of the owner-managed consultancy is on traditional media relations, corporate communications, networking and political lobbying in the Canton of Zurich and at federal level.