Negotiations between the journalists' association Impressum and the publishers' association Schweizer Presse on a new CLA for French-speaking Switzerland have all but collapsed.  
The French-speaking Swiss journalists' association Impressum is disappointed with the outcome of the CLA negotiations. The publishers have rejected practically all of the union's demands. The Swiss Press Publishers Association only made concessions with regard to salary levels. The unions described the negotiations as a failure.
 
In contrast to the journalists, the publishers were cautiously optimistic: "At least it hasn't come to a big bang," the general secretary of the publishers' association, Alfred Haas, told SDA. This at least shows that both sides are interested in reaching an agreement. The result will now be submitted to the association's management. The union will be informed of the publishers' decision before their congress. On October 27, Impressum will discuss the next steps with the rank and file.

TSR television in French-speaking Switzerland wants to convey the joy of further education with the Tsrdecouverte.ch website. TV programs with educational content, themed dossiers and games are intended to appeal to learning enthusiasts of all ages, reports the news agency SDA. At the end of 2000, the last educational programs were removed from the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and the site is the product of a collaboration between TSR and the Department of Education of French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino, as well as the University of Geneva. The latter intends to produce a dossier on the subject of climate in the near future. The educational institution will also answer questions on genetic engineering. Tsrdecouverte.ch offers content in three sections for the age groups 4 to 12 years, 13 to 16 years and for Internet surfers aged 17 and over. In a fourth section, teachers will find material, particularly on media issues.

The Evangelical Reformed Church of the Canton of Zurich wants to communicate its self-image as a popular church and its openness to everyone more clearly. The Zurich agency Heads is helping it to do this.  
The profile brochure designed by Heads communicates the church's religious and social commitment in a short and concise form. It shows where the church helps to find answers. Answers to questions such as "Who are our neighbors?" or "What are we without the strangers?". The Reformed Church makes the brochure available to its 179 parishes as a means of communication. The brochure is supported by A3 and A4 posters, small advertisements and postcard flyers.

On September 29, Switzerland celebrates Apple Day. To turn this day into a national event, the Zurich agency Metzgerlehner has launched various measures. With these communication measures, which all contain the core message "Apple - the healthy and low-calorie snack", the Swiss Fruit Association wants to encourage people to bite into an apple more often instead of a hamburger.
 
Teaser ads with the "apple burger motif" will draw attention to the promotions in advance with media partners 20minuten, Blick, Le Matin and 24heures. On Apple Day itself, free apples and information flyers will be distributed to passers-by in the six largest Swiss cities. Posters and other promotions round off the package of measures.

Print cooperations appear to be a panacea in the struggle for survival of the regional press. The Basellandschaftliche Zeitung is cooperating with the Mittelland Zeitung, the Zürichsee newspapers are joining forces with the Zürcher Unterländer and the Zürcher Oberländer to form a joint cover section, and the rivals St. Galler Tagblatt and Thurgauer Zeitung want to work together editorially in future and help each other out with articles from certain regions. These are the latest collaborations in Switzerland's increasingly close-knit print landscape. The ongoing structural change with the emergence of the free press and the still uncertain significance of multimedia business models is causing irritation in the industry practically every month. And where there is cooperation, new constellations are created and the competitive situation changes.
When the two regional titles Thurgauer Zeitung (owned by 100% Tamedia) and St. Galler Tagblatt (owned by 70% of the NZZ Group), which had been in strong competition since 2000, announced that they were laying down their arms, those in power in Frauenfeld saw red. On the one hand, they regretted that the jobs of numerous "experienced editors" were at stake.
Above all, however, it was feared that the canton, which already had a weak center, would also be divided into two in terms of publishing by a territorial agreement: The west with the districts of Frauenfeld, Weinfelden, Münchwilen, Diessenhofen and Steckborn would belong to the TZ, while the east with Arbon, Kreuzlingen and Bischofszell would belong to the St. Galler Tagblatt.
Apparently, the parent companies in Zurich have since been able to largely allay these concerns. "We were pleased to see that our fears have not yet been realized," says Walter Hofstetter, Head of Information Services at the cantonal administration in Frauenfeld. But the mistrust has not been completely dispelled. The Thurgau executive still has the impression that the two papers will work even more closely together in the medium term. "What has happened now is possibly just the first step towards even greater cooperation to create a single newspaper for the entire canton," says Hofstetter.
In fact, industry experts believe that it would be possible to work even more closely together on a commercial level within the framework of an advertising combination between Tagblatt and TZ. According to Hofstetter, this aspect has not yet been considered in detail, as the focus so far has been on cooperation between the TZ and the Landbote in Winterthur, in which Tamedia holds a 20 percent stake. In fact, Tamedia needs a cost-effective solution for TZ, which was purchased at a cost of 60 million. It therefore makes sense to combine them in all directions.
Cooperation is synonymous with savings, which almost always means job cuts. When the MeierWaser printing company in Feuerthalen (Meier publishes the Schaffhauser Nachrichten) was merged into the new Huber Print AG in Frauenfeld at the beginning of the year, 71 employees lost their jobs.
Thurgau's higher-ups went one step further with their concerns about the cooperation between the two newspapers and their Zurich owners in the background: "For the cantonal government, such an approach by the NZZ Group and Tamedia would not be unobjectionable from a competition law perspective either," it was announced. However, as Walter Hofstetter confirms, no such clarifications have been made to date.
However, the question of whether the cooperation leads to a distortion of competition has remained unanswered ever since. "Cooperations are not necessarily anti-competitive," says Patrick Ducrey, Deputy Director of the Competition Commission. It becomes problematic when declared competitors are mutually antagonistic and also belong to different owners. In the case of Thurgau, however, the Competition Commission has not yet received any complaints. Ducrey confirms that competition law is applicable to cooperations such as the one in Thurgau. "However, it always remains to be examined on a case-by-case basis whether it leads to competitive harm for the advertisers and also for the readers," he says.
From a purely legal perspective, cooperations are models in which independent companies work together. For media law expert Franz A. Zölch, such models often lead to shareholdings or takeovers, which can sometimes lead to cartel-like structures. For example, the Competition Commission did not allow the Berner Zeitung to take a stake in the Thuner Tagblatt, the Berner Oberländer and the Oberländisches Volksblatt at the same time. This would have led to a dominant market position.
Frauenfeld apparently wants to wait and see how far the two Zurich publishing houses will go with their regional newspapers. Whether Thurgau will become a case for the competition authorities therefore remains open for the time being.
Close editorial officesWith the cooperation
St. Galler Tagblatt with the Thurgauer Zeitung, the Tagblatt plans to close its two editorial outposts in Weinfelden and Kreuzlingen. Conversely, the TZ intends to reduce the size of its editorial office in Amriswil. This will result in a reduction of around 10 editorial positions at the Tagblatt and 2 to 3 positions at the TZ. Missing content will be mutually supplemented by exchanging articles. René Worni

Guest commentary The referendum result in Basel-Landschaft has a signal character, says Piero Schäfer.The result is abundantly clear. More than two-thirds of the voters in the canton of Basel-Landschaft voted against billboard advertising for tobacco and alcohol (except beer and wine). The result is surprising at most in its clarity: within a good ten years, the mood of the people has turned 180 degrees. In 1993, the twin initiatives had been rejected in the same proportion. What has changed since then? The FOPH has done a good job. Its protagonists have succeeded in demonizing advertising. With arguments that can be refuted in part, but have never been questioned. In addition, there is a general advertising weariness, "political correctness" and an unbelievable seeming lack of interest in the industry. Those who are not directly affected by advertising bans take note of the politicians' efforts with a shrug of the shoulders.
Solidarity or defending fundamental rights is not part of day-to-day business. And now that the tobacco industry has also resigned itself to the seemingly inevitable, the SW stood alone in the headwind.
The people have decided, and we have to accept that. We may even do so with a certain amount of relief. Because although we remain convinced that advertising bans are disproportionate and of no use, the lonely battle against windmills has taken its toll. The recriminations against the defenders of constitutional rights and the constant insinuations of malice have left their mark.
The result of Baselland is a call for further efforts of this kind. It is only a matter of time before the other cantons also ban the advertising of tobacco and alcoholic beverages. They no longer have to fear political resistance.
Apart from the fact that this federalist approach is detrimental to legal certainty, one may wonder how much impact the outcome will have on future policy, given that the health lobby is already focusing its attention on other products that are harmful to health. Fatty foods and sweet temptations are at the forefront.
If we then fail to form a broad front against the renewed dismantling of freedom of communication, we will slowly have to get used to the idea that the market economy is a discontinued model. And the astonishing thing is that a considerable proportion of bourgeois politicians hardly give it a second thought.
Piero Schäfer is the Communications Officer of Swiss Advertising SW.

  Auction On October 7, a major poster auction will take place at the Swissôtel International in Zurich. Fashion, sports and cigarette posters are the focus of the upcoming fall auction.

  Internet TIC, The Internet Company AG, is introducing the new wireless Internet (WLAN) in Lucerne with immediate effect. All customers and interested parties can now surf wirelessly at 45 locations in the city of Lucerne. By the end of the year, wireless surfing will be possible in public spaces in the city center of Lucerne.

Mobile Information should be available faster, better and more easily. The Japanese QR code should make this possible.  
As we all know, a picture is worth a thousand words. With the QR code, it's the other way around. At first glance, it says nothing at all. Only with the help of a cell phone camera and installed software can the user read the QR and access the information hidden in the QR code within seconds. QR, what is it? QR stands for Quick Response. It is a two-dimensional barcode. It can be compared with the familiar one-dimensional barcode. If you take a picture of such a code with your cell phone camera, software converts the grid. For example, into a hyperlink to the Internet, into a message with words or even into a piece of music.
In Japan, the QR code is all the rage. More than 50 million people use them every day. This is because the tedious typing of information on a cell phone is a thing of the past. In a matter of seconds, users can use the code to call up information and save it on their cell phone. In Japan, it can now be found everywhere. In newspapers, on billboards, on food or in passports. Even on cheeseburger packaging. For example, consumers can use their cell phones to find out how many calories they are currently consuming. The QR code has also had a significant influence on advertising in Japan. Companies are having the square grid of dots printed on posters, which is changing the cityscape of Tokyo.
Still unknown in SwitzerlandIn Switzerland, experts are also predicting a great future for the technology. This is because QR codes will enable users to access information even faster and more efficiently. Take Semapedia, for example: The project aims to link objects and places with articles from Wikipedia. The principle is simple. A QR-like code is generated from a Wikipedia URL. When this graphic is attached to the corresponding place or object, a physical link to the Wikipedia article is created. The code can be photographed with a cell phone camera. The code is converted into the URL to the Wikipedia article and the browser can then be used to call up the article.
This physical linking is not limited to Wikipedia. Any website can be linked in this way. The QR code is particularly interesting where people with camera phones are or pass by. And not only URLs, but also other information that is difficult to enter using a mini keyboard can be passed on in this way.
The QR dot matrix and its possible uses are still largely unknown to consumers in Switzerland. Rossignol, the ski and ski accessories manufacturer, used the QR code for the first time at Freestyle.ch. The public was able to photograph the QR code at the event stand and take part in a competition. According to Martin Hochuli, Managing Director of BXP, two people took part in the competition using the QR code.
To make the QR code even more popular in Switzerland, Swisscom, Tamedia and Kaywa are launching a QR campaign in October. The experts agree: the QR code will become more attractive with the spread of new cell phones and ever lower tariffs.    
Christian Lüscher

The Zurich agency ViznerBorel is whetting the appetite for a city trip for Austrian Airlines. The offer includes quick trips to Vienna, Prague, Athens and other cities. A poster campaign invites the Swiss to make a paper airplane in their heads and take to the skies.

The Swiss lifestyle label Navyboot has completely revamped its website. The new site presents the company in its usual unconventional way, according to a press release. The focus is on the visual language. A separate "Art" section presents works by Andrea Good and Annelies Strba, which are also an integral part of Navyboot's store concept. The site is supplemented with information on the latest products, addresses of sales outlets throughout Switzerland and a text and image section for media professionals. The Zurich-based new media agency Wbg Screens and the communications agency Flowcube Communications are responsible for the overall concept.

   Film Nadine Geissbühler was commissioned to create the visual identity for the new Swiss comedy film "Love Made Easy". The implementation plays with the language of American movie posters. The colors and typography create an overall image through different means of communication that characterizes the advertising presence from print to the Internet. The realized media include a set of poker cards, stickers, advertisements, banners, posters and wallpaper for the Internet. Nadine Geissbühler is the daughter of the famous graphic designer K. Dominic Geissbühler.