The January data from Wemf's AIS Advertising Index Switzerland features a new industry list that is better adapted to the current market situation, Wemf reported on Tuesday. Advertising sales for January 2006 amounted to 234 million Swiss francs, a decrease of 5.8 percent compared to the previous year. Significantly more money was invested in advertising this month by the office/IT sector with (+ 61.2 %), clothing/shoes with (+ 47.4 %), politics/administration/business/industry with (+ 25.6 %) and pharmaceuticals/health with (+ 22.2 %). Less money was spent on advertising in the food (- 33.3 %), telecommunications/Internet (- 29.5 %), beverages (- 26.7 %), services (- 22.1 %), residential/home (- 21.5 %), cosmetics/personal care (- 18.6 %), media (- 17.6 %) and watches/jewelry (- 15.1 %) sectors. The overview of advertising sales in January 2006 by sector and media has been available online free of charge since February 28.

According to the Press Council, the Zuger Woche has breached one of its journalistic duties by failing to publish a correction to a partially incorrect article. This was announced by the Press Council on Tuesday. With this finding, the complaint of a person mentioned in the article, who had drawn the newspaper's attention to an error several times, was partially upheld. However, a correction was never published. The Press Council found that the newspaper should have published a corrective counterstatement, even if it had not been expressly requested by the complainant. This did not exclude the obligation to correct a false report.

The Winter Olympics are barely over before football fever starts: The Guide Company and LTV Yellow Pages have launched the joint, unique and free publication WM Guide 2006. As the communiqué announced on Tuesday, the 2006 World Cup Guide was created from a synergy and the anticipation of seeing the Swiss national football team win the 2006 World Cup in Germany. In addition to information on the 12 host cities and their football stadiums, the World Cup Guide also offers information on restaurants and accommodation. The World Cup Guide was produced in a print run of 50,000 German and 20,000 French copies. The 2006 World Cup Guide will be distributed in direct mailings to sports stores and in restaurants, bars and clubs. The guide can also be downloaded free of charge from the website www.ltv.ch.

The Association of Swiss
Gas Industry (VSG) has teamed up with the Swiss triathlon champion Sven
Riederer a sponsorship contract until after the 2008 Olympic Games
in Beijing. In a few days, Riederer will start for the first time with
the natural gas logo at the first World Cup competition. The industry organization
the Swiss natural gas supplier is already the main sponsor of the
Swiss Triathlon Federation and wants to use the new measure to strengthen its
complement our existing sponsorship commitment.

The Swiss daily newspaper Le Temps is strengthening its business presence with a corresponding online platform. Letempsfinance.ch goes online on March 1. The newspaper aims to better meet the needs of financially interested parties and private investors. In addition to current stock market information and figures on the fund business and finance and economics, the daily updated site also offers exclusive information from analysts, merger specialists, banking experts and other economic specialists. Care has been taken to ensure that current financial events are presented simply and clearly and are easily accessible to website users. According to the press release, the new platform is intended to offer content that has not yet been published in French-speaking Switzerland.

The poster advertising company Affichage increased its profit by 5.3 percent to CHF 22.1 million in 2005. Group sales fell by 1.2 percent to CHF 296.4 million and the operating result by 14.7 percent to CHF 25.7 million. However, the increase in profit was due to the sale of advertising media and contract rights in Stuttgart and improved financial and real estate income. As the company's CEO Christian Kauter explained at the annual media conference on Tuesday, after a good start to the year, an initial decline set in during the summer. Christmas business was disappointing. In the main market of Switzerland, net advertising expenditure was stable to slightly down according to the sales figures, with sales falling by 0.3 percent. The decline abroad amounted to 8%, but without a change in the consolidation ratio, foreign sales would have increased by 6.4%. CFO Ulrich von Bassewitz attributed the decline in the operating result to the stagnation of sales in a business with high fixed costs. Affichage has also established itself more firmly abroad. It made acquisitions in Romania, Greece and northern Italy. In Switzerland, it acquired the niche provider Visiorama, as reported by Sda. Affichage wants to continue to grow abroad and has its sights set on south-eastern Europe, particularly Serbia-Montenegro. However, with a sales share of around 10 percent, Affichage is still a long way from its international target of 25 percent. In Switzerland, the strategy is diversification.
Affichage is optimistic for the current year. After a sluggish January, business picked up significantly in February, according to Kauter. He expects growth of 5 percent abroad, where the strategy is: growth with calculable risk. As Affichage also states in the press release, the persistently very short-term booking behavior of customers makes it difficult to forecast sales for a longer time horizon. The improved economic sentiment suggests that demand will increase in the first quarter. Affichage also reports that the cantonal advertising bans on tobacco and alcohol currently under discussion will not be introduced in any of the economically relevant areas in 2006. Together with practically all Swiss associations, Affichage is campaigning against these regulations.

After 231 episodes, the Hagenbuch family from Rottenschwil said goodbye to media life at the end of February. Since June 1, 2005, the Aargauer Zeitung, the Aargauer Woche, Radio Argovia, Tele M1 and alltag.ch of the AZ Media Group have been depicting the everyday life of the Hagenbuchs in multimedia. The reports from rural family life were very well received by the public, reports the Aargauer Zeitung. "It is particularly pleasing that the family survived the nine months unscathed," says an article in the Aargauer Zeitung. The Everyday Life project has provided valuable experience and new insights into the possibilities and opportunities of multimedia collaboration within the AZ Medien Group, Florenz Schaffner, Head of E-Media at the AZ Group, told the Aargauer Zeitung. It has also attracted national attention and was awarded the national TV Star prize for the most innovative format, and the integration of commercial partners into a journalistic series has now been implemented in order to develop attractive offers for the audience. Thanks to the collaboration with Charles Vögele and SBB, 12,500 people from Aargau traveled to Ticino with the "Raus-aus-dem-Alltag" ticket. Further partnerships have been entered into with AEW Energie, Amag, Astra Zeneca, Bauknecht, Ikea, Le Shop and Twerenbold. The findings on the possibilities and opportunities of interactive and multimedia collaboration will be reflected in future projects. According to the Aargauer Zeitung, a continuation of the project is already planned.

The American trade magazine of the
Advertising Age (Ad Age) has named OMD North America the
Media Agency of the Year 2005. The reasons for choosing the
Omnicom Group, the magazine announced its increase in the
New business with 1.4 billion dollars and new customers such as Bank of America,
Ebay, Hilton Hotels and American Century Investments.

Research expertise will be combined with the
advancing media convergence and the new forms of distribution
of advertising-financed content is a decisive success factor.
For this reason, Adlink has created the new function of Head of Research and
Communication and filled it with Vanessa Marr. Vanessa
Marr is responsible for the MMXI research data at Publicadata.
and was responsible for the New Internet project at Wemf.
responsible for research. With the creation of the new function, Adlink
a decisive step towards strengthening research expertise
to meet the increasing importance of Internet research as a solid
basis for online media planning. As a leading
As a marketer of online and cross-media offerings, Adlink
to achieve its goal of providing competent research and a clear
communication to customers and partners a more transparent picture of the
opportunities and risks in the area of new media, according to the
Adlink Commuiqué.

The speakers at the World Newspaper
Advertising Conference of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN)
concluded that newspaper publishers are rapidly shifting their business activities to the
online area. Otherwise they risk losses in the
advertising business and on the reader market. The income from
online advertising are increasing. Last year, they amounted to
more than 17 billion dollars in the USA, four billion of which is attributable to the
press. According to WAN consultant Jim Chisholm, the growth of the
online sector is immense, but not yet sufficient to cover any
offset losses in the print advertising business. Online media
also generate 20 to 20 percent of their revenues, according to Vin Crosbie of Borrell Associates.
100 times smaller revenue per capita than newspapers. According to Gavin
O'Reilly, President of WAN, there are no empirical studies worldwide.
Evidence for the claim that the Internet is reducing newspaper circulation
impaired. According to WAN, there is a tendency for newspaper publishers with strong online activities to be more of a
circulation growth.

The St. Gallen-based company for television
and video productions Videcom has made a name for itself with its film "Time & Spirit".
the final of the German-language business film competition Grand Prix
Victoria in Vienna. Videcom has produced the film for the 100th anniversary
Anniversary of the St. Gallen embroidery company Forster-Rohner
produced. A total of 222 works were entered in the competition for
audiovisual media submitted. The finalists will present themselves on 30.
March of the international jury of experts. Organizer of the Grand Prix Victoria
is the Austrian professional association of the audiovisual and
film industry. The competition is aimed at companies, producers,
public bodies, media agencies and television stations in Germany,
Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and South Tyrol.

The Amden-Weesen vacation region in Eastern Switzerland
has proven with a good idea to stimulate tourism that
Winter sports don't have to be expensive. Hotel and group house guests receive
free ski passes during their stay and until the end of the
winter sports season. The campaign is intended to draw attention to the fact that
Fewer and fewer young people and families due to low incomes
come into contact with winter sports. For the vacation region and the
The tourism campaign has already been a great success in the hotel industry.
The venture was financed by the local
Tourism promotion tax and the Amden sports railroads.