British American Tobacco Switzerland (BAT) entrusts its Kent budget to the Grey advertising agency. As the Barclay brand will be transferred to the Kent brand in Switzerland in 2006, the loyal Barclay customer base will first be transferred to Kent in several stages in order to further establish the brand in the market. In terms of synergy, the aim is to benefit from the brand's strong international presence and make its product innovations accessible to the Swiss market, according to a press release. Kent ranks 4th in the global BAT portfolio. The project will be managed jointly by the Grey agencies in Geneva and Zurich.

The Agentura Novitads Rumantscha (ANR) is celebrating a milestone birthday this week. In the ten years of its existence, Switzerland's smallest news agency has developed into a pillar of the Romansh press. The agency was founded on June 7, 1996 with the aim of supporting the Romansh media. It provides the Romansh newspapers "La Quotidiana", "La Pagina da Surmeir" and "Posta Ladina", the "Engadiner Wochenzeitung" and the Romansh electronic media with daily articles in all Romansh idioms and in Rumantsch Grischun. The ANR services are considered a measure to maintain and promote the fourth national language. The costs of around one million francs per year are borne one third by the canton of Graubünden and two thirds by the federal government.

To coincide with the opening of the FIFA World Cup, Brazilian striker Ronaldinho is advertising various cell phone products in 29 countries in June. The game "Total Control" and a wallpaper set with exclusive images of the football god are currently on offer. Further applications, ringtones and videos are planned.
The technology is supplied by "Goal Mobile", a specialist in football-related applications for wireless devices, and the Brazilian developer and provider of cell phone platforms "Meantime Mobile Creations".
Ronaldinho is the first name to sign up for such cell phone offers - other stars are in discussion.

The internet station Buureradio.ch is to be further expanded. The creators around editor-in-chief Toni Brunner want to promote the personal expression of opinions with the "open microphone". Listeners are invited to vote for a personality who will be given the microphone once a week. The nominees are then invited by the editorial team to express their personal thoughts and comments on current events freely and without comment. Brunner is convinced that Internet radio in particular offers an ideal platform for this. By opening up the station to exciting personalities who can speak directly to a wide audience without editorial censorship, the medium of "radio" will finally become an open and exciting forum, explained Brunner.

The Public Relations Unit of the Zurich agency Jung von Matt/Limmat is supporting Lipton Ice Tea in its public relations work with immediate effect. The PR campaign will focus in particular on media relations, explained David Schärer from Jung von Matt/PR to Werbewoche. An initial media relations project has already been launched.

Don't miss a thing during the World Cup: football fans can follow every goal and every penalty via SMS, MMS and mobile TV - but how good are the services from Orange, Swisscom and Sunrise in comparison? The magazine "SMS/MMS Guide" took a close look at the different offers and found that Orange customers have it best: With the 30-day free offer "Try Mobile Internet", they can keep up to date via mobile TV free of charge.
Swisscom customers pay CHF 2 for the "Mobile Basic Package", for which they receive a text message after every goal and every red card in a Swiss national team match. If you want more, you pay a total of CHF 24 for additional services.
Sunrise customers can order the "Football Mobile Ticker" service, which delivers the latest news to their cell phones. The software is free of charge - there are no data transfer costs for using the ticker.
Now in its sixth year, the "SMS/MMS Guide" is published four times a year with a print run of 100,000 copies and provides an overview of SMS and MMS services.

The publishing differences over the distribution of the Sunday papers in the Südostschweiz region have been settled. The delivery organization Zuvo, a company of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and the media house Tamedia, had first filed an application for a super-provisional injunction to prevent the delivery of the first Sunday edition of Südostschweiz. However, Zuvo had wanted to reach an agreement with Südostschweiz on a new cost allocation because a new title would be added to the distribution, Tamedia subsequently corrected. An agreement has now been reached with Südostschweiz Pressevertrieb SOPV on the prices for the Sunday titles, which makes a further legal dispute obsolete.

Together with the German tourism specialist Rewe, Coop is entering the travel market. From September, the trips will be offered in Switzerland under the "ITS Coop Travel" logo. A joint company Coop-ITS-Travel AG was founded in Switzerland for this purpose. The Board of Directors consists of six members, the two equal shareholders are represented by three directors each. Andreas Restle will be Chairman of the Management Board. His previous positions were with Vögele Reisen, Direkt Reisen and Net Tours.

The Turkish government is planning to establish its own "EU television". This is intended to counteract the dwindling support for the goal of EU membership in Turkey. According to surveys, Turkish support for EU membership has fallen from 75% to 63 % within two years. According to Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül, the new channel will provide the population with better information about the EU, as reported by SDA. Talks are currently being held with the Turkish state broadcaster TRT to establish the station. Gül announced that the plans would soon be put into practice.

More than four years after the insolvency of the Kirch Group, creditors are set to receive their first payment in the coming months. "A first interim payment is in progress and should be made this year," insolvency administrator Michael Jaffe is quoted as saying by the German magazine "Spiegel". However, only a small part of the sum will be paid: Experts expect an insolvency ratio of around 10%. The original total claims amounted to around nine billion euros.

Every third user currently orders their medicines online. This is the result of a study by the market research institute Ipsos, which surveyed 1,000 Internet users aged 16 and over. 60 percent of those surveyed order over-the-counter medicines online, 35 percent order both over-the-counter and prescription medicines and only 3 percent order only prescription medicines. Only a quarter of all Internet shoppers order exclusively for themselves. One in two order for their partner, one in three for their children and 29 percent for friends, acquaintances or colleagues. However, according to the market researchers at Ipsos, the Internet does not replace the pharmacy, but respondents who order medicines in this way estimate that they obtain an average of 39% of all medicines used via the web.

The global news agency Reuters will launch a lifestyle news service called "Life" in the fall. The new service is intended to meet the growing demand from newspapers and magazines for news in the categories of entertainment, leisure, lifestyle, food, music, art, people and health. However, the new service will not include gossip. The British news agency Press Association is also responding to the increasing demand for "soft news". It is planning a show business news service to be launched after the World Cup.