According to data from Wemf AG für Werbemedienforschung, the total volume of advertisements in the Swiss daily and regional weekly press in July was 1.5% up on the previous year. In June, the increase amounted to 0.7 percent.
Commercial advertisements fell by 4.7 percent, Wemf announced on Tuesday. However, income from job advertisements rose sharply, increasing by 24.2 percent in July.

Advertising revenue also fell in the Sunday press: Overall, there was a 15.1 percent drop compared to the previous year. In contrast, the financial and business press grew by 23.2 percent and the general press by 9.8 percent.

The following figures for the specialty and trade press relate to page volumes. Page volumes in the specialty press fell by 8.9%. In contrast, the trade press saw a 2.7 percent increase in advertising pages.

Bomb alert in the advertising week? The Zurich event agency Rufener Events drew attention to its new partnership on Tuesday with a suitcase full of travel guides. The agency has acquired a significant stake in Group Worldspan, a company that focuses on congress and trade fair organization as well as incentive and dialogue marketing. The two companies will remain legally independent.
The new network now comprises 40 employees at five locations in Zurich, Hamburg, Barcelona and London. To illustrate this, the suitcase contained the corresponding travel guides for the cities. Next year, the two companies are planning to move into joint agency premises.

In cooperation with Cablecom, the media giant Axel Springer will be publishing the program guide TV Digital fortnightly from 25 August. TV Digital is already successful in Germany, now the Swiss edition is coming. In addition to the usual TV program, an overview of all 94 digital channels is listed and described. The rapidly growing number of digital television consumers in Switzerland will thus receive the first program guide that is "precisely tailored to their needs", says editor-in-chief Christian Hellmann in a press release published by the Handelszeitung. In addition to the program section with a film planner and editorial evaluation of the films, TV Digital also contains an extensive magazine section. It includes interviews, star portraits and background reports. Of course, special attention is paid to the Swiss film and TV scene, which is covered in reports and features. This Switzerland-specific content is produced in collaboration with the Handelszeitung publishing group, a subsidiary of Axel Springer. The result is, as Cablecom Managing Director Rudolf Fischer puts it: "a tailor-made menu that makes our TV subscribers' viewing pleasure unique."
TV Digital Switzerland starts with a circulation of 150,000 copies. An annual subscription (26 issues) costs 75 francs; the unit price at newsstands is 3 francs.
A four-color advertising page costs 8,900 in Switzerland; the Handelszeitung publishing group is responsible for marketing.

The Internet and cable channel Radio 105 and the Internet station 105hitradio are going on the offensive with new broadcasting concepts. 105hitradio in particular is undergoing a reorientation. The channel is now aimed primarily at 12 to 17-year-old girls. Founder and Managing Director Guiseppe Scaglione comments: "With 105hitradio, we are making a program for the Bravo target group. According to Scaglione, this makes the channel unique in Switzerland; no other radio station produces a program for such a young target group.
At the main station 105, the program is being trimmed even more strongly for topicality: from September, all titles that are not quite up to date will be removed from the program. The youth station for an audience aged 15 to 29 wants to underline its own program philosophy: "If you want to know today what will be hot tomorrow in terms of music, you can no longer ignore 105. If you want to keep listening to old and stale songs, you should keep listening to other stations", Yves Brandenberger, Head of Music, is quoted as saying in the press release.

The Liestal cable network operator EBLCom is currently switching its frequencies. When 3+ goes on air on August 31, EBLCom's approximately 30,000 customers will be able to receive the channel from the very beginning. As the future of the local station NordWest1 is uncertain, EBLCom has decided to allocate the previous frequency to 3+ (channel S41, 463.25MHz). If NW1 continues to broadcast, the station will be switched to channel 67 (839.25MHz) in the EBLCom grid and to channel 23 (487.25MHz) in the old RGGA Sissach grid. According to EBLCom, the changeover will take place between August 22 and 25.   

Following the intervention of the British entertainment industry regulator Ofcom, the cartoon stars Tom and Jerry have been banned from smoking. The authority intervened after complaints from viewers. It justifies the smoking ban with "the possibility of harm to children" when they watch Tom the cat smoking his cigars with relish and, on top of that, trying to impress pretty chicks with hand-rolled cigarettes. Even non-smoking associations are surprised. In the Austrian Standard, Amanda Sandford, spokesperson for the anti-smoking organization Ash, is quoted as saying: "We can't reinvent history by changing Hollywood classics after the fact."
The two comic heroes have not been banned from other activities that are harmful to their health. So Katz and Maus can continue to fight each other with hammers, axes, bombs and swords until they are half-dead.

The social enterprise Brüggli has commissioned the St. Gallen PR and text agency Complecta to professionally design the external communication of the new "Industriecenter" brand. In a first step, customers and partners were contacted directly with a mailing. They received a flyer that attempts to clarify the meaning of the abbreviation "IC" from the new logo with word combinations such as "Illegal camping?" or "Ginger cream?". As a response element, the flyer refers to a competition on the new website www.industriecenter.ch. The first media releases have also already been sent to print media. In a later phase, features, reports and case studies from the Industry Center will provide further material for the media. As a producer and provider of services in the metal, assembly and textile sectors, Brüggli has made a name for itself internationally with products in the pet and mobility market. With the new brand, Brüggli now wants to position the industrial sector as an independent profit center in the market. Launched in 1987 as a pilot project to integrate people in difficult life situations, the company now offers around 400 people work or training opportunities.

Just in time for the start of school, the Migros Club School is testing the knowledge of the Swiss on posters and advertisements. In order to advertise the wide range of courses on offer, the Club School's long-standing advertising agency, Weber Harbeke, is currently creating puzzles: In the style of shows such as "Who wants to be a millionaire", the Migros Club School is posing questions on posters and advertisements on topics relating to IT, leisure and work. There are four possible solutions for each term, but only one of the answers is correct. They don't tell you which one, you have to take a look at the program at www.klubschule.ch. With over 50 training centres, Migros Club School is the largest adult education institute in Switzerland. It offers vocational training and continuing education as well as a wide range of leisure courses.

Following the successful "Volvo Inscription" mailing with a tartan look, OgilvyOne Zurich is once again targeting new customers for Volvo with a dialog marketing campaign. The aim is to win new customers for the new Volvo S80 saloon with a birch wood panel. The piece of wood symbolizes Scandinavian design and conveys the car's origins, according to a press release. The piece of wood also serves as a response element: simply sending back this small slice in the enclosed reply envelope is enough for Volvo to recognize the prospective customer - even if they do not provide any further name or address details. The mailing concept is used in Switzerland as well as in Austria, Slovenia and Croatia.

The fundraising subsidiary of direct marketing specialist Alex Schmid Direct is expanding its team with the addition of consultant Nadine Blickle. In this role, she will support Margrit Baumer in advising customers and implementing campaigns. Blickle originally trained as a graphic designer and has further developed her skills as a consultant. Before moving to Baumer Fundraising, Blickle worked for several years as a consultant and consulting group leader at the Zurich agency Factum.

Yves Keller joined Adlink Internet Media as an Internet Consultant in mid-August 2006. The qualified marketing planner previously worked at the media agency Carat. He worked there as a planning assistant and media buyer and most recently as an account manager. "The constant professionalization in the field of online planning requires competent advice from AdLINK. With Yves Keller, we are gaining another experienced media planner for our consulting team," said Stephan Suter, Sales Director at Adlink, in a media release about the new addition.

On August 23, 2006, during the X'06 marketing fair at Messe Zürich, the best projects will be awarded gold, silver and bronze or a special prize. The nominated stand builders and event agencies have now been announced.
As the Xaver jury announced on Monday, the following companies can hope to win an award:

In the "Events" category - Uniplan Switzerland for moving ropes Basel
- Wunderman for Sunrise
- Compresso for Axe Dr. Click
- SFLB for Swisscom
- X-act for UBS

In the "Exhibition stand construction" category - Creawold for Applitech
- Impact Unlimited for Fonds'06
- Instant Architects for Inventioneering Architecture
- Andreas Messerli for Applitech
- Aroma Productions for Showcase
- T'nt Events for X'05 Flyerline