Following a competitive tender, Advico Young & Rubicam has been awarded the contract to develop the new advertising campaign and redesign the visual identity for the Rhaetian Railway. The decisive factor in the decision was the "creative potential and strategic competence of Gockhausner", as Diana P. Hofstetter, Head of Marketing for the Rhaetian Railway, said in a press release from Advico Young & Rubicam. The first communication measures are expected in the fall of 2006.

After Die Welt and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany's largest national subscription daily newspaper, now also wants to launch its own Sunday edition. According to the news magazine Focus, the launch date is planned for spring 2007. The circulation is to be 150,000 copies and sales are initially to start in Bavaria. Süddeutscher Verlag considers it attractive to enter the Sunday newspaper market because the advertising business of the existing titles has picked up again. The editor-in-chief of SZ-Magazin, Dominik Wichmann, has been commissioned with the concept, as Focus further reported. However, the decision on the concept will not be made until the end of this year at the earliest.

The Zurich-based creative think tank adds another name to its client list with the City of Zurich's addiction prevention office. The brief is to create a series of cinema commercials. These are currently being produced and will be shown in Zurich cinemas from the fall.
By the way: On the MatterGretener website, the agency shows what creative minds mean by livecam. The scenes in the agency's own meeting room are - although not live - definitely worth seeing.

The Zurich-based advertising agency, which has been in existence since 2003, has won the budget of the Upper Engadine municipality of Sils Maria in a pitch against two competitors. Garbini, Biedermann is now reorganizing the communication of the Sils/Engadin tourist office.
In communication, the focus is now placed on the place of power: Sils Maria has Bovis values that are far above what places of power generally offer. The new credo is therefore also "Sils - strength lies in tranquillity". The agency's website also states that it is rare for an agency to advertise something that has given new strength to great spirits and inspired many artists.

Feature films, series, documentaries - 160,000 legal downloads and streams are currently counted every month in Germany, an increase of 45% compared to the same period last year. In the summer of 2005, 110,000 monthly downloads were counted. As the German Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media (BITKOM) announced in Berlin, the increase in broadband connections is not unconnected to the double-digit growth rate. Against this background, market researchers expect good business for commercial video downloads. The European Information Technology Observatory (EITO) forecasts sales of 88 million euros for 2006 and Western Europe. A growth rate of 51 percent is expected for 2007.
According to the BITKOM press release, providers are currently relying on two main business models. One can be equated to rental, the other to sale: With "pay-per-view", customers can watch the videos for a certain amount of time, usually for 24 hours. This model is the most frequently used approach. With "download-to-own", on the other hand, the user acquires the right to watch the videos an unlimited number of times.

As Swiss Television SF announced on Monday, more than 250 applications have been received for the second presenter job on "glanz&gloria". The proportion of women is 75 percent and the applicants come from 22 cantons and all language regions. Applications have also been received from abroad, in addition to the prominent application from Princess Maya von Hohenzollern (see "Princess Maya von Hohenzollern wants to present glanz&gloria").
The SF is delighted with the great response. 28 candidates are invited to interviews and aptitude tests. The recruitment process is documented on film. The result is a documentary series in six episodes called "g&g sucht...", which will be broadcast on SF zwei from November 14 to December 19.

The publications Die Welt, Welt Kompakt and the Saturday edition of Die Welt from Springer and the Ringier political magazine Cicero increased their circulation in the second quarter of 2006. Welt under editor-in-chief Roger Köppel and the tabloid edition Welt Kompakt were able to increase their combined circulation according to IVW - Informationsgemeinschaft zur Feststellung
The Springer publishing house reported in a press release that the distribution of advertising media increased by 11.9 percent year-on-year to a total of 262,845 copies sold. The largest increase of 31 percent was achieved in single copy sales. "The continuous growth in total circulation confirms the success of our strategy of attracting new, young readers with Welt Kompakt," said Peter Würtenberger, Publishing Director Marketing and Sales of the Welt/Berliner Morgenpost newspaper group, according to the press release. The Saturday edition of Die Welt increased by 3.4 percent to 225,125 copies.
The Ringier newspaper Cicero was also able to increase its circulation compared to the same quarter last year - by 16.9 percent to 66,474 copies, as Horizont reports.

The Biel-based online agency Orange8 Interactive is developing a total of four online solutions for new clients Bank Coop, Finecom Telecommunications, Cablex and KünzlerBachmann Directmarketing. For Bank Coop, the Biel-based agency is defining and developing a new online communication tool, while a new website is being developed for the newly formed company Finecom Telecommunications, as Orange8 Interactive writes in a press release. Orange8 Interactive is redesigning the website of Swisscom subsidiary Cablex and adding new services and functions. And Orange8 Interactive is supporting KünzlerBachmann in the design and implementation of the new website.

Swiss Advertising SW and the Association Against Advertising Bans are attempting to influence the referendum in the canton of Baselland with a referendum campaign. The campaign with the striking motifs will start next week, or at the latest at the beginning of August, and will be on display in Baselland until the referendum date on September 24.
After bans and restrictions on tobacco and alcohol advertising have already been introduced in the cantons of Thurgau, St. Gallen and Bern this year, the topic is next on the agenda in the canton of Baselland. Here, the people can decide, as Baselland has a mandatory referendum for bills that have not been approved by a majority of 780 percent in parliament (see Billboard advertising ban for alcohol and tobacco to be put to the people in Baselland).
The two subjects will be shown on billboards of APG, Clear Channel Plakanda and Baracom, broadcast as slides in cinemas by Cinecom and placed in the print media of the Swiss press. The catchy and emotionalizing referendum campaign was designed by the creative agency FCB Leutenegger Krüll.
As the Swiss Press Association also announced on Monday, the campaign is not aimed at providing information about the economic context, as the previous campaigns by SW and the Alliance Against Advertising Bans have done, but is instead deliberately aimed at encouraging voters to be mature.

Following the great success of the first cross-media seminar this spring, Sawi, the Swiss Training Center for Marketing, Advertising and Communication, together with Goldbach Media and BSW Leading Swiss Agencies, are launching the second edition of the Crossmedia Kompressor. Regula Fecker, strategic planner at Jung von Matt/Limmat, will once again lead the course, as reported by the Jung von Matt/Limmat agency in a press release. The course is divided into three sections: Crossmedia Strategy, Crossmedia Toolbox and Crossmedia Concept. Creative professionals, consultants, PR managers and media people can acquire practical knowledge as part of this seminar and develop cross-media campaigns in interdisciplinary groups, which are evaluated and awarded prizes by experts. The second Crossmedia Kompressor will take place from October 19 to 21 and on November 18, 2006 at the Hotel Greulich in Zurich. Further information and the registration form can be found on the Sawi website.

Allgemeine Plakatgesellschaft APG has won the tender for the billboards at the new Sihlcity shopping and leisure center. APG now markets the seven major shopping centers in Switzerland: Glattzentrum, Centre Balexert, Shoppi Tivoli, Emmen Center, Shoppyland Schönbühl, Seedamm Center Pfäffikon and now Sihlcity.
The new center will feature 80 billboards around the point-of-sale area. The new shopping center will open its doors to consumers on March 22, 2007. It will have a floor space of 100,000 square meters and will include a multiplex cinema, a fitness center, restaurants and hotels in addition to retail space. A total of 25,000 visitors are expected per day and 850 parking spaces are available on the site.
By winning Sihlcity, APG is also further expanding its leading position in the city of Zurich, APG announced on Monday. APG was recently awarded 2,080 of the 2,200 spaces put out to tender in the bidding process for the city of Zurich's concession contract.

Penny Reid, CEO of the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival since January 2006, is leaving the festival with immediate effect. Reid has taken this decision for personal reasons, as the festival wrote in a press release. A new CEO, who will continue to report to Terry Savage, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Cannes Lions, is to be recruited soon.