Peripherals Now that two-button mice are commonplace on PCs, Apple obviously couldn't simply launch another product on the market. Instead, the company has introduced the Mighty Mouse, a next-generation computer mouse designed to make operating a Mac even easier and more comfortable. The Mighty Mouse offers the functionality of up to four programmable buttons - without sacrificing the simplicity of a one-button mouse. A new type of scroll ball is integrated, which can be used to scroll in any direction. This makes the new mouse particularly suitable for viewing websites and photos or for video editing.

Print New or further developed technologies in offset printing should be the basis for even more creative inspiration Offset printing - and sheetfed offset in particular - is synonymous with the high quality of the print medium. Packaging printers and many forward-thinking commercial printers have invested in more efficient printing and finishing technology in recent years, despite some signs of crisis. This is because they have recognized that a service portfolio with many extras helps in a tough competitive environment. Those whose services are interchangeable and who sell exclusively on the basis of low prices will not survive in the long term and will jeopardize the entire industry through "spoiled" prices - even though many customers are prepared to pay more for quality or exceptional ideas that make them stand out from the crowd! For creative people, the technical upgrading of printing companies should actually be the basis for even more creative inspiration. But still
Interesting, new or perfected technologies in the sheetfed offset sector are still not sufficiently well known.
Photorealism without waterWaterless offset printing - apart from its pragmatic application in printing presses with integrated plate imaging (e.g. Heidelberg QM 46-4 DI or KBA 74 Karat) - otherwise enjoys a reputation as a high-end process. The elimination of the dampening solution not only makes the offset printing process easier to control and standardize, but also significantly increases the contrast range in the images. Added to this is the lower dot gain of the waterless printing plates, which means that higher screen rulings can be printed and the finest details can be reproduced.
For these reasons, this process is recommended for photorealistic image printing and for particularly effective advertising subjects. The use of the finest autotypical screens (AM) or frequency or cross-modulated screens (FM, XM, not susceptible to disturbing moirés) is almost a must. If available as a waterless formulation, printing inks that extend the Euroscale or ISO color space should be used as the crowning touch. With some manufacturers, at least
Pantone Hexachrome printing inks are available for waterless printing; the range of colors is of course larger for conventional wet offset printing.
So if the color space expansion called "HiFi-Color" is more important to you than the waterless quality, you should opt for FM screen plus
special scale. This does not necessarily require a six-color offset press, as the "Hifi Color Scales" box below shows.
Not just paperIn display and packaging printing, but also in advertising printing, sheet-fed offset presses can be used to print on materials other than just wood-free or coated paper and cardboard. Transparent paper, for example - it doesn't sound very spectacular, but the translucent effect of the subject underneath makes it particularly appealing to the viewer. By printing explanatory or supplementary fonts and graphics, Trans-
The parent paper and the underneath form an attractive unit.
Flexo printing no longer has a monopoly on direct corrugated board printing. At least the ultra-fine flute grades - E (standard), F, G, N and the extremely fine O flute - are available on many medium and large format printing presses.
format machines in sheet-fed offset printing today. In combination with cool die-cutting and embossing, which can completely replace a printed image, a wide variety of sophisticated designs are possible. Incidentally, Switzerland is an international leader in corrugated cardboard processing and die-cutting/embossing machine production.
Plastic printing is a domain
printing with UV inks. Besides
the "usual" foil and card
technically sophisticated processes such as the
Lenticular image printing established. Since
This is the exact printing of images split into strips on the back of a lenticular film, the strip lenses of which compose the various partial images under a different viewing angle. 3D views and changing subjects consisting of two-part or multi-part image sequences are possible.
Inline finishing with lacquerInline lacquering is more cost-effective than offline lacquering or film lamination by specialized service providers. However, "offline" is the better choice when structured films (e.g. for hard-
cover or in outdoor advertising), extreme gloss or the combination with unusual finishing steps are required. Be that as it may, hardly any sheet-fed offset
presses from half format upwards are now supplied without a coater. In addition to the advantage of faster processing of inline-coated sheets (deadline pressure!), print service providers can now offer a feature that more and more customers are demanding from the outset for aesthetic reasons.
The most common machine con
figurations see one or two paint towers after the last
printing unit - usually in conjunction with a so-called delivery extension, in which the
Units for final drying
are accommodated. Two coating towers are referred to as a "double coating machine". There are even machines that additionally coat before the sheet turning device (i.e. on both sides) or have a coating tower before the first printing unit for applying a topcoat or effect primer (e.g. MetalFX coating). Due to the further development of coatings in terms of solids content, maximum layer thickness, flow behavior and effect pigmentation, today
worked with flexo coating units,
consisting of anilox roller, chambered doctor blade, coating form and impression cylinder.
A lot can be "done" with just one paint tower. Dispersion varnish, i.e. water-based varnish, is the dominant type of varnish. The range extends from protective coatings (scratch and scuff protection in use) to matt and high-gloss coatings through to effect coatings in which metallic or pearlescent pigments (e.g. Iriodin) are incorporated. The so-called hybrid finishing of printing inks is becoming more widespread. What the economic
What makes this technology so interesting for creative minds is the option of applying matt or textured oil-based varnish (pigment-free ink) in a spot coating with the final printing unit and printing a glossy UV varnish over the entire surface. The UV varnish cannot adhere to the areas with oil-based varnish, resulting in fantastic gloss contrast effects.
Because conventional printing inks cannot be directly overprinted with a high-gloss UV coating, but must first be sealed with a fast-drying dispersion coating (primer), double-coating machines were developed.
ckelt. However, the two coating towers are now also used for other purposes. For example, some companies alternatively print two dispersion varnishes to simply increase gloss or use effect pigmentation for one of the two varnishes.
Dieter Kleeberg

Hans Beer has gone from client to partner. This doubles the permanent staff of the Walker advertising agency
in Zurich in one fell swoop.
"I wonder if that will go well?" thought Hans Beer. His employer at the time, Düring in Dällikon, where he had just joined as Head of Marketing, wanted to hire the newly founded agency of a young advertiser from the village in order to better sell its WC-Ente, Powerflame and Durgol products. The unknown man's name was Pius Walker, but he was known to junior boss Heinz Düring because the son of the local postman occasionally worked for Düring as a schoolboy. Almost 20 years later, it is the toilet ducks that now fill a shelf on the Ikea rack of the Walker advertising agency with creative prizes. Pius Walker's agency has won several awards for its campaigns for Düring products at the New York Festival, at the Klappe in Germany and at the ADC Germany and Switzerland and has just represented Switzerland in Cannes with a place on the film shortlist.
It's turned out well: "The small agency has done well with its large
We have found a gap in the market thanks to our international experience," says Hans Beer happily today. After two years of working together, the Head of Marketing has therefore changed fronts and has been fighting alongside Pius Walker for the customers and future of the "smallest advertising agency in the world" for a few days now.
They immediately complemented and understood each other, says Beer, looking back on his almost three-year customer relationship with Walker. The marketing specialist now sells their advertising instead of consumer products. However, quality is also decisive for success here. With Walker's ideas, he sells a product of which he, as a customer, has experienced first-hand what it does in the market. "Advertising from our agency fits in with the reputation of good Swiss brands," says Beer with conviction.
Becoming self-employed was an old dream of his. However, he would have been less tempted to switch to a large agency. "Now the carpet has been rolled out for me in beautiful Walker red with the opportunity for a partnership. I couldn't say no to that."
Beer sees bringing in new business and his experience as a customer as his main tasks. "We are two partners with totally different backgrounds - the creative with an international career and the sales and marketing manager with over ten years of Swiss consumer goods experience. For us, a customer meeting doesn't end with advertising. We include price positioning, product forms and retail potential," says Beer, who once won over retailers from Coop to Pickpay with Walker's advertising.
Beer studied economics in St. Gallen, majoring in finance. However, his passion for accounting was limited. In 1995, he joined Lindt & Sprüngli in marketing. For almost four years, he looked after the Lindt chocolate bar brands and was responsible for the tourist chocolate products, from the little landscape picture on the packaging to the "stuffed cows". He then switched to sales and, after two years in key account management, headed up Lindt's national sales force. In these sales roles, he gained a comprehensive insight into the Swiss retail trade. "There's practically no customer I haven't visited personally."
Beer worked enthusiastically on the very good positioning of Lindt & Sprüngli today. After this "instructive and very tough time in consumer goods marketing", he moved to Düring in 2002. In Dällikon, he was attracted by "a certain exoticism". The company was "very small but still part of the big players" in the near-food products sector. The tasks of the marketing manager in the third-generation family business included the further development of the global WC-Ente brand, which is still sold directly by Düring in German-speaking countries. The launch of the Powerflame lighting aid for fondue, barbecues and fireplaces was new. With Durgol Swiss Espresso, a descaler for espresso machines, Beer has provided something of a model case for the development of a new brand. For this "product with great potential", he has also initiated a promising step towards America.
Hans Beer prefers to relax with his family. But when his daughter starts kindergarten next week, everything has to be well organized, as his wife also has a "150% job" as a purchasing manager at Globus. "I don't have to worry too much about my free time at the moment. But I will still be able to make small trips to my Engadin home in the future," smiles the Grisons native.
In view of the "carpet in beautiful Walker red", Hans Beer was only too happy to enter into the partnership with Walker.

Andreas Panzeri

Classifieds The AZ Medien Group provides its customers in the job, real estate and vehicle sectors with a new system for the production, ...Classifieds The AZ Medien Group provides its customers in the job, real estate and vehicle sectors with a new system for the production, scheduling and distribution of advertisements in print and online. To this end, it has concluded a usage and service agreement with Unio AG for the UnioPalma software solution. The real estate market will be the first to benefit.

Publishing The proven font embedding extension FontIncluder2/XT from callas software is now also available for QuarkXPress 6.x in conjunction with Mac OS X. The program extension automatically embeds all fonts used in an XPress document when EPS is generated from Quark; the program can also be installed as a stand-alone application in parallel to its use as an extension: PostScript, EPS or DCS files are dragged onto a droplet and used fonts are integrated immediately. A Windows version of FontIncluder2/XT for XPress 6.x will be available from the end of August.

TV After the test of
Microsoft's Internet TV solution, Swisscom Fixnet is once again acting as a
Pioneer of the new world of television. It is the first company to take over
a license for the interactive remote control Betty. Swisscom
markets the device, which originated in Munich, as a stand-alone product from 2006.
brand in German-speaking Switzerland. Betty shows additional information on a display
to the program and serves with a wireless connection to the
telephone connection as a return channel with which viewers can access offers from
broadcasters or advertisers.

Publishers The Frankfurt Higher Regional Court has ruined a presumably lucrative side business for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ): it has prohibited the writer Hans Magnus Enzensberger from publishing the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Bücherei" book series for the FAZ. The judges agreed with Eichborn Verlag that Enzensberger must fulfill his previous contract until the end of 2007. At Eichborn, the author ran the successful series "Die Andere Bibliothek". In December, he resigned without notice in order to tackle the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Bücherei". The FAZ is now abandoning the project.

Magazines The
Fritz magazine, published by the Stiftung Elternsein foundation since 2001
and Fränzi goes to the kiosk. This is accompanied by
step with a campaign by the Jung von Matt/Limmat agency. For
Editor-in-Chief Sabine Danuser and the Board of Trustees around Ellen Ringier
The new distribution channel has imposed itself, because it also offers a
readership that has not yet been reached via the previous channels.
came into contact with Fritz and Fränzi. An important distributor
are many school buildings where Fritz and Fränzi are available free of charge. "There
many potentially interested parties are never reached," knows
Dominic von Matt. (pan)

Group figures A sale brings Affichage a leap in profits The proceeds from the sale of Affichage Holding
fell by one percent in the first half of the year. After an encouraging
At the beginning of the year, the out-of-home advertiser recorded a slowdown in the second
quarter.
In Switzerland, revenue remained virtually unchanged at 134.2
million francs. All business divisions have improved their positions
and electronic advertising even increased.  
In Central Europe (Europlakat), on the other hand, revenue fell by 9.6 percent to
13.7 million francs. The focus of activities abroad is on
currently Bulgaria, in whose capital Sofia the concession for
billposting rights are put out to tender. In contrast, Affichage
advertising media and contract rights in Stuttgart to JCDecaux.
The income from this sale ensured the growth of the
consolidated net income by 38 percent to CHF 12.4 million despite
falling operating result. Its decline of 4.4 percent is due to
Affichage with higher expenses for concessions and commissions and
rising production costs due to increased all-inclusive
Offers.

Rona Grünenfelder

Josefa Haas has been appointed by the Association of Swiss
Press elected head of its media institute. On January 1
2006 she takes over from Karl Lüönd the responsibility for the
Company specializing in vocational training and continuing education for the
media industry. From 1998 to 2005, Haas headed the
Corporate Communications at SRG. Prior to that, she spent ten years as
Journalist specializing in media and politics at the Tages
Anzeiger and at the business newspaper Cash.

Budget wins for Angelink yourposition The Zurich agency Angelink yourposition
(search engine marketing) has won further budgets. The
electronics retailer Distrelec, timber construction specialist Renggli, the
Air conditioning technician Krüger and measuring instrument manufacturer Metrohm have their
Rebuild search engine presence from Angelink yourposition and
to support them. In addition, the Metrology Division of Leica Geosystems has expanded its
Cooperation with the agency extended.
Ammarkt adorns itself with Christ The St. Gallen advertising and marketing agency
Ammarkt takes over the entire communication for Christ watches and
Jewelry. In the pitch for the 2005 fall campaign, she prevailed against four
competitors. The new appearance of the specialist retail chain, which
celebrating its 30th anniversary, will be launched in a few weeks' time and will also be
the Christmas season and the year 2006, writes Ammarkt in
a press release. Posters and brochures are planned,
Regular customer mailings, POS implementations, events and other measures.

DM What moves direct marketing? The latest answer from Cannes: storytelling with parcel mailings is going down well with the public. A trend was already apparent after a first look around: The disciplines are increasingly moving in one and the same direction. Today, in order to take consumers out of their world of thought and introduce them to a topic, they need to be told a story that encourages them or makes them sit up and take notice. Only those who manage to redirect consumers to their message will achieve anything. We are not only talking about attracting more attention and improving attitudes, but also about the change of action that is the goal of all direct marketing measures. package mailings with space for a story were also a trend at the Cannes Lions 2005.
DM also demands new stimuliLong gone are the days when a "new" or "free" incentive was enough to win consumers over to the message. In the environment of countless pieces of information that everyone has to absorb every day, such keywords are no longer enough. Even the brand and the brand promise alone are no longer a guarantee that something will be read. As a result, direct marketing today faces exactly the same challenge as traditional advertising: how do I get the customer's attention and persuade them to engage further with the offer?
In Cannes at the advertising festival, it was the parcel mailings that stood out in a particularly creative way. Some managed to create suspense and at the same time convey the relevant message in a clever way. The following example of an advertising measure for long-term parking spaces sums it up: when the box is opened, a toy car appears, properly parked in the parking lot. Movie in your head: What's with the full parking lot? Now the recipient has to open the box again. And lo and behold: when the same box is opened a second time, the car has disappeared and shows a free parking space.
Opera in a boxAnother striking parcel shipment was from the Frankfurt Opera. Its métier is the portrayal of human stories involving love, jealousy, greed and hatred. The package advertising the opera contains elements that reinforce precisely these associations: a bullet, a boa feather and gold glitter. The message: if great emotions are to continue to have meaning in opera, sponsors are needed.
And who hasn't racked their brains over an upcoming car purchase? Audi quickly sent out pillows with the suggestion to simply sleep on it again. A mailing like this creates sympathy and perhaps even leads to sweet dreams - of the Audi A4, of course, if the makers have their way.
Gifts and other gadgets are often best suited to playing a movie in the recipient's head and awakening associations that help to convey a message in a sympathetic or humorous way. With the much-cited change in advertising - away from traditional means of communication and towards cross-media dialog concepts - parcel mailings are likely to increasingly take on a new function in the mix of advertising media.
Swiss Post helps door openersSwiss Post has also responded to the growing market demand and developed a new offer that makes sending parcels for advertising purposes more attractive again in terms of price. From a weight of 100 grams and a quantity of 500 units, parcels of the same weight and content can be posted as PostPac Promo. As a result, it is now once again possible to use parcel mailing as a door opener in the minds of consumers at a reasonable cost.
And something else was revealed in Cannes: In other countries too, for example in Spain, the parcel is used to get past the secretary. After all, she is the one who sorts the mail and therefore has a say in what is allowed to reach the decision-makers - and what is not. A parcel addressed to the boss, like the one for the Audi A4, clearly has a better chance of overcoming the tough selection hurdles in the secretary's office. Ralf Doller
Ralf Doller from Alex Schmid Direct, Zollikon, was a member of the jury at the
Cannes Lions 2005.
Messages in the box: Audi awakens dreams of the A4 with a pillow message (above), an opera company symbolically bottles great emotions to woo potential sponsors (left).
Want a permanent parking space? A magic box makes it clear how easy it is to make your car disappear.