Did you recognize her? Back then, Katja Stauber still had a shy smile and a teasing fringe on her forehead. And not quite as fashionable as she is today. The 3+ campaign will be enriched on Monday by the young Katja Stauber. But then again: Every TV great started out small.
Katja Stauber succeeds the bearded Beni Thurnheer (see Ruf Lanz for 3+: Today with Beni Thurnheer) and Christine Maier (see Ruf Lanz for 3+: Today with Christine Maier). The casting campaign for the new Swiss private television station 3+ was launched with Teleboy presenter Kurt Felix (see 3+ advertises with figureheads of Swiss television).

On Monday, the German news magazine Focus was published with five different covers. The main topic of the current issue is climate change in Germany. The different covers feature versions of the major cities of Hamburg, Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt and Düsseldorf - including their landmarks and how they could change with constant warming until 2100. As Werben & Verkaufen writes, the Burda title wants to use the campaign to draw attention to the impending climate change. However, it remains to be seen whether such a production is good for the environment.

When Peer Teuwsen moves from the magazine to Weltwoche on January 1, 2007, Daniel Binswanger will do the opposite: he will return from Weltwoche to the magazine at the beginning of the year. From 2001, the 36-year-old journalist worked as a freelance writer for the weekend supplement of the Tages-Anzeiger, Basler Zeitung and Berner Zeitung. He then wrote for Weltwoche as France correspondent for two and a half years. In future, Binswanger will report mainly from Paris and London for the magazine, but will also devote himself to Swiss topics.

Following a multi-stage selection process, the jeweler Tiffany & Co. has commissioned Zurich-based Flowcube Communications with communications consulting and public relations for Switzerland. The mandate includes all media relations and management of the press office. The agency's first project will be the launch of Tiffany's new Frank O. Gehry collection at the beginning of November.  
The fine jeweler Tiffany & Co. with its headquarters in New York was founded in 1837 and is known in particular for its diamond jewelry creations. Today, the company has over 150 stores worldwide; the Swiss branch is located on Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich.

The Zurich agency Klauser Weibel Design has been nominated for the International Design Award of the Federal Republic of Germany for outstandingly designed products. The award recognizes the 2004 annual report they designed for Esso Switzerland. The prize is awarded annually for outstanding design and for personalities who have rendered outstanding services to the promotion of design.

Companies cannot apply for the award; instead, they are nominated by the state ministries and senators for economic affairs or the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. However, the prerequisite for this is that a product has already won a national or international award. The nominated works are assessed by an independent jury from the fields of design, trade, academia and media. Esso's 2005 annual report was honored with the Red Dot Award 2005.

The music casting show "Superstar" will be flickering into Swiss living rooms for ten weeks from October. The broadcasting concept: the first two auditions will take place in Zurich, Bern, Basel and Lucerne. In a further two episodes, the best will compete against each other in the preliminary round. The remaining contestants will be trained in the camp over five episodes, live together in a shared flat and then present their final performance. The audience decides by televoting who gets to stay and who has to go.
Prominent jury The jury is made up of old acquaintances: Chris von Rohr and music producer Roman Camenzind are, according to a press release, the jury "dream duo" with the best tips for the aspiring young Swiss stars. Columnist and author Mark van Huisseling is the third member of the jury.

The main aim is to ensure an "extremely high quality of misuk knowledge and experience". Dominik Kaiser, Managing Director and initiator of 3+, also originally comes from the music business.

Pre-production underway
Pre-production has already been underway for several weeks. The first castings will take place in Bern on September 10, followed by Zurich, Basel and Lucerne. Interested parties can find the registration form and the exact dates of the castings on the broadcaster's website.

35-year-old Pascal Vuistiner will take up the post of Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the French-speaking Swiss business magazine Bilan on September 1. He succeeds Stéphane Benoit-Godet, who replaces Olivier Toublan as Editor-in-Chief. Vuistiner studied political science in Geneva and completed an internship at the Tribune de Genève. He then worked at Le Nouvelliste and has been with Bilan since January 2005. The business magazine is published by Agedip, a partner company of the Edipresse Groupe, with a circulation of 19,000 copies. 

The Addiction Prevention Office of the City of Zurich wants to encourage the Swiss population to think about how they deal with addictive substances. To this end, the Zurich agency Matter & Gretener, together with the animation specialists from Wicked Pixels, has produced a series of stirring cinema spots. All four do not warn against alcohol, cannabis, pills or shopping excesses. Instead, they are intended to make people think and promote low-risk behavior. The 25-second spots can be seen in all Zurich cinemas until further notice.

The casting campaign by Zurich-based creative think tank Ruf Lanz in the commuter newspaper 20 Minuten (see 3+ advertises with figureheads of Swiss television) is showing the desired success within six days: over 550 people have registered for the casting on August 27 and want to put their presenting talent to the test. The celebrity jury will therefore have their hands full trying to find the young presenter talents for the short news, the weather and the "upcoming big entertainment shows". The music show "Superstar" (see 3+ is looking for the superstar: on air from October), which will be broadcast from October, will certainly also trigger casting fever.

The Swiss Regional Television Association Telesuisse and the Swiss Private Radio Association (VSP) have submitted their joint statement to the Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM).
Time is of the essence As the two associations emphasized in a press release on Monday, the time factor in particular has top priority. The new law and the new ordinance should therefore come into force as planned on April 1, 2007. This is because the new licenses for local and regional providers with a service mandate would only be put out to tender and distributed after this date. The framework conditions for public service in the local area should be created immediately.

Both associations agree with the asymmetrical advertising regulations between private broadcasters and SRG, the press release continues. However, the proposed new regulation of short reporting is open to criticism if exclusivity contracts exist.

In addition, both associations demand that the regulation offers broadcasters the right to signal integrity. The integral and unaltered distribution of a program should be regulated and protected by the regulation. This is because in the technical area, too, the aim is to maintain the media policy role of broadcasting in the digitalized future in the service of the public.

The Zurich agency Vizner Borel has excelled in a competitive presentation and has been commissioned by the furniture store Ikea to communicate a strategically important product range. As the agency announced on Monday, the campaign includes TV, print, radio and point-of-sale (POS) communication. The campaign will be launched in 2006.

Following an agency evaluation, Hyundai has chosen Ruf Lanz as its new advertising agency. According to Managing Director Adam White, Ruf Lanz "impressed with an agency presentation that not only showed nice pictures, but also nice results", according to a press release. In addition, the passion to get things rolling for Hyundai was palpable. The Korean car brand wants to shift its communication up a gear in future and thus dramatize its advantages even more surprisingly in order to gain market share. The first Hyundai campaign by Ruf Lanz will be shown in the fall.