Chief Creative Officer Reinhard Binder is leaving the brand consultancy Interbrand Zintzmeyer & Lux in the middle of the year. He wants to take on new challenges, as Werben & Verkaufen reports. Binder has worked for Interbrand for 15 years, where he was responsible for Deutsche Telekom and BMW, among others. It is still unclear where the branding expert will move to. There are some indications that he will become self-employed: He is looking forward to "being able to get to work in self-determined structures", Binder let it be known. According to Werben & Verkaufen, Interbrand boss Jürgen Häusler was less than enthusiastic about Binder's departure. He regrets the decision 'very much', Häusler said in an initial statement.

Roger Köppel, editor-in-chief of the German newspaper Welt, will now also be head of the tabloid Welt Kompakt. His expansion of responsibilities is part of an online offensive by the Welt/Berliner Morgenpost newspaper group, as reported by Kress.de. According to Peter Würtenberger, Managing Director of the publishing house, Welt Online is to become a "leading news and service-oriented website in Germany". Christoph Keese, editor-in-chief of Welt am Sonntag, will also head Welt Online for the time being. He is to expand the editorial team and install a "powerful editorial management". Springer also intends to bundle the newspaper group's print and online activities: a central newsroom is to go into operation as early as the fourth quarter of 2006. Welt, Welt Kompakt, WamS, Berliner Morgenpost and Welt Online will therefore have joint editorial management under Keese's chairmanship. Jan-Eric Peters, publisher and editor-in-chief with overall responsibility for Welt, Welt Kompakt and Berliner Morgenpost, is only involved in the integration in an advisory capacity: he is to take up a new position at Springer on January 1, 2007. This is why the former editor-in-chief of Weltwoche Köppel is now coming into play.

The newly designed image campaign for Swiss farmers will be launched on April 24. Under the slogan "Good, there are Swiss farmers", Swiss celebrities from business, sport and show business emphasize the importance and achievements of Swiss farming families. Among those taking part are TV presenter Michelle Hunziker, football coach Köbi Kuhn, entrepreneur Otto Ineichen, tennis player Patty Schnyder and gourmet chef Philippe Rochat. In addition, the heads of the two wholesalers Migros and Coop, Herbert Bolliger and Hansueli Loosli, are jointly promoting the partnership between retailers, producers and consumers with the statement "Swiss farmers are our partners". The new image campaign is being realized by Burson-Marsteller. The advertising agency Lang Gysi Knoll previously worked for the Swiss Farmers' Association. The aim of the image campaign is to promote the purchase of local products, increase sympathy for farming families and emphasize the importance of Swiss agriculture.
To visually support their identification with the farmers, the celebrities wear blue Edelweiss shirts. The blue Edelweiss fabric will be used as a key visual for future appearances in the farmers' campaign.

The German daily newspaper (taz) is expanding its online presence to include watchblogs from June 2006. Project manager Mathias Broeckers confirmed this to the Sonntagszeitung. According to Boeckers, an online editorial team of four to five journalists will be responsible for the expanded taz website from October. Until now, the content of its website corresponded to the printed edition; the taz worked without online editors. The watchblog is modeled on Bildblog.de, among others. Since June 2004, media journalists have been publishing concise, often glossy texts on erroneous or misleading reports from Bild, Bild am Sonntag and Bild.de on this blog every day. "Bildblog.de should actually have appeared on taz.de," said Broeckers to the Sonntagszeitung. However, in addition to the "leading dirty newspaper", there are other "daily annoyances and filth" for critical observation.

Primus Communications, a PR agency specializing in tourism, is responsible for the press relations of Turkey Tourism (Turkish Consulate General, Culture and Information Office) based in Zurich. The mandate has been running since April 1, 2006 and the PR program includes intensive information work throughout Switzerland for the trade and general press. Media trips will also be organized throughout the year. According to Primus, the aim of the planned activities is to dispel the current irritations, focus attention on Turkey's tourism offerings and drive demand.

The Zurich-based media company Ringier is acquiring the monthly specialist magazine Sportmagazin in its entirety and is taking over the shares of the AZ Medien Group (AZM) in return. The takeover will not result in any editorial changes. Patrick Mäder will continue to manage the magazine as editor-in-chief. The takeover is taking place because Ringier believes that such a magazine has a place in the Swiss market, the Ringier media office told Werbewoche. This is particularly the case in view of the 2006 Football World Cup in Germany and the 2008 European Football Championships in Switzerland and Austria. The sports magazine was previously printed by AZ Medien. From the next issue onwards, Ringier Print in Zofingen will take over the printing. The sports magazine was launched in 2000 and, according to Ringier, reaches 431,000 readers per month. In January 2004, the AZ Medien Group entered into a joint venture with Ringier with an unknown shareholding and has since published the sports magazine together with Ringier. As Ringier informed Werbewoche, this was a collaboration between equal partners. In publishing terms, the magazine had already been placed under the Blick Group. In May 2004, it was redesigned and relaunched with a new focus on football alongside ice hockey and motor sport. Product management remained with AZM.

After winning a pitch, the advertising agency Grey Worldwide will realize a campaign for Manpower, a provider of recruitment, personnel placement and human resources services. The new image will be launched this spring. According to a Grey Worldwide press release, the implementation of the campaign will focus on issues that will concern employees worldwide in the future. The campaign, whose media area is managed by MediaCom, will run nationally in newspapers, magazines, business magazines and on posters.

From fall 2006, SF 2 will be showing a docusoap with the working title "Tapetenwechsel - Wir ziehen um". It will be broadcast on Tuesday evenings during prime time. This is reported by the program magazine TV-Star. "Tapetenwechsel" will be in the style of the RTL formats "Umzug in ein neues Leben" and "Unser neues Zuhause". People will be accompanied in their search for a new home. The show will be produced by the Bern-based production company FaroTV. According to the TV star, it has not yet been decided who will host the new show.

The French news channel Chaine francaise d'information internationale (CFII) is expected to be launched between November 15 and December 15. Described by French Culture Minister Rennaud de Donnedieu as "CNN á la francaise", the channel is the brainchild of Jacques Chirac and will be broadcast in several languages. As Pressetext.ch reports, it will be available digitally and free of charge. However, a new name must first be found: The originally planned name CFII has already been registered by a private individual and may not be used by the broadcaster following a court ruling. The new channel name will be announced between the end of May and the beginning of June and will be run in equal shares by France Television and the private broadcaster TF1 as a joint venture. The public information channel is financed by state aid, which had to be approved by the EU Commission. CFII will host around 160 bilingual journalists and will initially be broadcast on two channels: one will be 100 percent in French, the second in equal parts English and French. A third channel is planned for the end of 2007, which will broadcast in Spanish and Arabic.

The telenovela dream is not quite over yet: the private broadcaster ProSieben is continuing its "Lotta in Love" format despite persistently below-average ratings. As things stand, all 200 planned episodes are to be broadcast, as Werben & Verkaufen reports. The series, which was launched at the end of March, competes with ARD's long-running hit "Verbotene Liebe" in the weekday 6 p.m. slot. After a promising start with a market share of more than twelve percent, "Lotta in Love" recently only achieved just under eight percent in ProSieben's important target group of 14 to 49-year-old viewers. ZDF has already announced that it will not be renewing its series "Tessa".

Peter Hasler, who is stepping down as Director of the Swiss Employers' Association at the end of May, is to become a new member of the Board of Directors at the Zurich-based communications agency L&W MarCom. He replaces former CS CEO Walter Fluck. Fluck was a member of the L&W Board of Directors for six years. Peter Hasler has been Director of the Employers' Association since July 1, 1993. As an excellent business expert with an outstanding network, he will actively contribute to the success story of L&W, according to a press release issued by the agency. L&W MarCom was founded in 1985 and specializes in information technology companies. The agency has offices in Zurich, Vienna and Atlanta. Its clients include the EU (Help campaign against smoking in Austria), Xerox and Sun Microsystems.

A total of 124 million euros was spent on online advertising in Germany in the first quarter of 2006. This corresponds to an increase of EUR 43.3 million or 53.4 percent compared to the same period last year, according to market researcher Nielsen Media Research. The strongest month for advertising in the first quarter of 2006 was January, which recorded an increase of 64.9 percent. The most advertising-intensive sectors in the first three months of 2006 included online services with 24.8 million euros (up 51.4 percent), followed by e-commerce with 12.2 million euros (up 48.4 percent) and telecommunications companies with 11.1 million euros (up 137.1 percent). Advertising expenditure in the online segment of consumer magazines increased by an additional 4.7 million euros to 5.0 million euros. Of the top 50 sectors on the Internet, 39 increased their advertising investments in the first quarter of 2006 compared to the same quarter of the previous year. 19 of these sectors increased their online advertising revenues by more than 100 percent.
There is also good news from the USA when it comes to Internet advertising: according to PricewaterhouseCoopers and The Interactive Advertising Bureau, income from online advertising totaled 12.5 billion dollars in 2005. This represents a 30 percent increase on the previous year.