The management and marketing consultancy Input is strengthening its consulting capacity. Since February, John-Oliver Breckoff has been taking on mandates in the areas of transportation/logistics and finance/insurance as an associated partner. Breckoff most recently worked as a senior consultant at Axas and as an independent consultant. He has also held positions in product management at Beiersdorf and in marketing at Hamburg-Mannheimer Versicherung. Beat Scheidegger is also a new associate partner at Input. He is primarily active in the retail, transportation/logistics and consumer goods sectors. The business economist previously worked in controlling at the Swatch Group and in various management functions at Valora AG.  

The Swiss Press Catalog 2006, published by the Association of Swiss Advertising Companies (VSW), has been released. It provides basic data for the placement of advertisements in Switzerland. It covers all titles known to the VSW from the daily press, regional weekly press, Sunday press, general, financial and business press. Information on circulation, publication frequency, type area, column layout, unit rates and page prices is provided for each title. According to the VSW, the reference work is designed to provide a quick overview. It can be obtained from the association's website.

The German media group Bertelsmann's M6 channel is to hold a 5.1 percent stake in the new French TV group Canal+ France. Bertelsmann is thus involved in the reorganization of the French pay-TV market, reports the media service Kress.de. The majority stake and management of Canal+ France will remain in the hands of the conglomerate Vivendi Universal, with the media and defense group Lagardére becoming the second-largest shareholder with 20 percent. According to Kress.de, the deal still has to be approved by competition authorities and media regulators as well as the employees and works councils of the companies involved. The new group should be in place by the end of September.

Simon Hubacher has set up his own business and founded the communications agency Swissaffairs. It offers advice on communication and editing. Together with Com-ment.ch, Swissaffairs also organizes workshops and seminars. Swissaffairs, based in Affoltern am Alibis, has been operational since January, as Hubacher told Werbewoche. Its clients include the Swiss Real Estate Association (SVIT) and Swiss Re. Hubacher was previously a member of the Executive Board and Senior Consultant at Peter Bütikofer & Company, Head of Information at the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, media advisor to Federal Councillor Micheline Calmy-Rey and a journalist at Tamedia and Ringier.

The managing director of the Swiss Press Association, Daniel Kaczynski, will leave his post at the end of the year. This was confirmed by Kaczynski at the request of the industry service Persoenlich.com. He said he wanted to take on a new challenge after almost five years with the association. Kaczynski denied to Persoenlich.com that he was leaving because he had been criticized by publishers for his involvement with Swisscontent.

Until a few weeks ago, some of the archived film clips on the Swiss TV website contained commercial breaks. This contradicted the agreement that www.sf.tv would remain free of advertising, as reported by the media magazine Klartext. But this was an oversight, SF spokesman Urs Durrer told the magazine. The commercial breaks should have been cut out of the original broadcasts before streaming. In the future, he said, better care will be taken to ensure that this actually happens. According to Klartext, the mistake was positive for advertisers, as they did not incur any costs for secondary use. The publishers' association, which had decided to lodge a complaint against SF's online presence, was relatively relaxed about the continued use of TV advertising on the Internet. This was indeed an issue, as Hanspeter Kellermüller of the Swiss Press Association told Klartext. But much more disturbing, he said, was the fact that www.sf.tv had been expanded into a "primarily text-based news portal".
The DRS audience council also expressed its opinion on the new website. The majority is of the opinion that Schweizer Fernsehen should continue to offer and manage such a news site. However, it also voiced criticism: the entry page, systematics, clarity and above all the search functions must be improved according to the audience council. The quality of the downloads, on the other hand, is satisfactory, and the archive is considered very useful. The Tagesschau news site is characterized by topicality and credibility.

According to a press release, the DRS Public Council is satisfied with the development of "10vor10". The focus of the content is adapted to current world events, and the mix of topics with current news and in-depth background reports is successful. In the eyes of the Audience Council, the content is convincing due to its independence, provides important arguments for opinion-forming and represents a valuable addition to the Tagesschau. The moderation, supported by the new graphics, is also well received. However, there was a wish for some background reports to be scrutinized even more consistently for their relevance. There should be even more persistent questioning in the interviews. The "Pisa" program managed the balancing act between imparting knowledge and entertainment. The German model was skillfully implemented with the necessary dose of "Swissness". The forms of audience participation and the additional services on the Internet were also well received. However, some members of the audience council described the length of the program as problematic. Streamlining the program could make it more dynamic and prevent the feeling of being too long and the "switch-off impulse". The Council also identified potential for improvement in the presentation of the show blocks.
 
"Genial daneben", another adaptation from abroad, was also well received by the Audience Council. However, the Swiss version can hardly compete with the foreign originals in terms of wit, quick-wittedness and spontaneity. In principle, however, the Council agreed that the adaptation was a success and that the show was adapted to the Swiss mentality.

According to the German Newspaper Marketing Association, the negative trend in terms of advertising volume has weakened considerably. With a slight decline of 1.1 percent, the advertising business has stabilized at almost the same level as the previous year. The slight decline was primarily caused by a 4.1 percent drop in real estate ads. The job advertising market has picked up again since mid-2005.

The "Fahr-Weise.ch" campaign aims to give the gift of safety. The three-year campaign aims to reduce fatal motorcycle accidents by 30 percent within five years. The campaign will run for three years and consists of TV commercials, postcard distribution and a website. The campaign will focus on TV spots, while the Internet will provide more in-depth information. Over the three years, a continuous dialog with the target group - men aged between 30 and 60 - will develop. The web agency Orange8 Interactive is responsible for the website, while the campaign, TV commercials, postcards and basic design come from Biel-based Twin Productions and the Bern-based communications agency Siebensinn.

Football is the most attractive sport for
the area of sports sponsorship. According to the press release
a survey conducted by IFM Medienanalysen GmbH of 150
sports sponsors in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. 57 percent
of those surveyed are involved in this area, because the
The popularity of football as a major event means that many people from
reach all levels of society. In second place for the
sponsors is Alpine skiing, followed by ice hockey. 86 percent of
Sponsors want their initiative to become better known, 71 percent want their
Strengthening customer loyalty. Football offers a suitable, large-scale
Platform. Other sports such as snowboarding and mountain biking are
less attractive for sports sponsors due to their small TV presence.
More than 70 percent of those surveyed support teams, clubs or
sporting events. In addition, 93 percent would like to see the
sports sponsorship as a communication tool. 86 percent
want to maintain their sponsorship budget and 64 percent expect a
Increase in the importance of sports sponsorship.

Christophe Besuchet is the new art director of the Geneva agency Neo Advertising and has strengthened the management board since the beginning of February. Besuchet is a trained graphic designer and has been working for 20 years on an international level in visual communication and new media. In his new role, Besuchet will define program strategies and implement them together with his creative team.

The study "The practice of brand valuation and brand management in German companies" by the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers shows that four out of five companies carried out brand valuations in 2005. In 1999 it was only one in two. During this period, the share of the brand in the total company value rose from 56 percent to 67 percent. Over 80 percent of the managers surveyed stated that they considered brands and brand licenses to be important or very important for the success of their company. In the opinion of almost 90 percent, brands are among the most important assets. The study also shows that half of those surveyed are convinced of the importance of brand valuation, but do not trust the available monetary valuation methods. Only 23 percent of companies had the monetary value of their brands determined.