Website The Zurich-based new media agency dCTRL reports two budget wins in professional sailing. Firstly, it was commissioned to relaunch the website of the St. Moritz Matchrace.website The Zurich-based new media agency dCTRL reports two budget wins in professional sailing. Firstly, it was awarded the contract to relaunch the St. Moritz Matchrace website. As the event will be the venue for the European Swedish Match Tour for the first time this year, the website, which dCTRL created two years ago, is to be adapted and expanded in line with requirements. The second order is a Flash website for the Swiss professional sailor Christian Scherrer. Scherrer sailed for Alinghi in 2003 and will compete in the 2007 Americas Cup in Valencia for the Italian team "Piu 39 Challenge".

Photography The new D50 digital SLR camera achieves outstanding image quality quickly and easily, and is amazingly easy to use despite its wide range of functions. Thanks to the fact that Nikkor interchangeable lenses can be used, hardly any design or quality requirements remain unfulfilled.

Magazines One year after it was founded, the Basel youth magazine Zündstoff is expanding its publication area, and from the April/May double issue, the free monthly magazine will be distributed mainly in the Basel, Bern, Zurich and Lucerne conurbations. Biel, Solothurn, Olten, St. Gallen and Chur will also be covered. Circulation will increase from 10,000 to 35,000 and distribution will be handled by the Zurich-based company Propaganda. The magazine aims to quickly generate paying subscribers through attractive promotional offers.

Corporate Publishing Bâloise, the banking and insurance group, is taking a new and unusual approach with its latest annual report.every year, the makers of annual reports try to stand out from the crowd. And what is the best way to achieve this? With great pictures, daring layouts and creative gadgets. The content often falls by the wayside. But shouldn't the aim be for annual reports to be read? To achieve this, the content must be relevant to the target groups: texts and images should say something in common - beautiful symbolic images can be dispensed with. This is a requirement that is not so easy to realize - especially as the report is usually already out of date before it is published. Corporate publishing offers a journalistic and documentary approach here.
Baloise as a workshopThe people in charge at the banking and insurance group Baloise considered how the annual report could not only be a unique design highlight, but also convey relevant content about the implementation of the business strategy to the various target groups. The basis for this was an analysis of the target groups. The aim was to find out which group of people is important and what they expect from the annual report. It turned out that financial analysts and journalists want to know more about what is actually happening in the company.
The task now was to make the implementation phase explainable and tangible. External observers were to show how the strategies were implemented in the company.
Authenticity and transparencyIn terms of content, transparency has been improved. A journalistic rather than promotional tone was used to lend the stories about the business strategy the necessary authenticity. External observers were present at meetings and workshops. Limits were only set where business secrets were involved. In this way, the greatest possible transparency was achieved - readers gain an authentic insight into everyday life at Baloise.
The images go hand in hand with the text. Documentary in nature, they complement the content and create an overall picture. They also document independence. They are neither interchangeable nor copyable, but "100 percent Bâloise".
The example of Austria shows the desired path: At a management meeting, the participants discussed implementation measures for the 2005 customer offensive. The journalist and photographer took part. After a short time, they were no longer perceived as outsiders. As part of the workshop, they experienced everyday life 1:1 - real, up close and without censorship. Only in this way was it possible to write an authentic report and obtain real pictures.
Involvement of top managementIt is essential that this approach is accepted by management, which was involved at an early stage. A rethink was necessary in terms of addressing problems or sticking points. This is the only way to credibly communicate the implementation of the strategy. In order to avoid empty phrases and run-of-the-mill statements, it was necessary to take a stand and speak plainly. For example, in the credo of the Chairman of the Executive Board, Frank Schnewlin, in which he clearly puts his thoughts on paper.
This approach also gives the annual report greater significance and weight within Baloise. Projects become tangible, and the work of individual employees or small teams is no longer just a mention in a subordinate clause. The inclusion of the national companies strengthens mutual trust and makes it possible to learn from each other. At the same time, the annual report is an incentive for other project teams, because it shows that only the sum of the individual parts makes a successful whole.
> Dominik Marbet is Head of Corporate Publishing at Baloise (Basel) and is responsible for the annual report, among other things. Baloise's partner for concept and design is the corporate publishing agency Primafila (Zurich and Munich).
The content of annual reports must be relevant to the target group.
Dominik Marbet

Innovation Hediger AG produces with opaque white on a flatbed inkjet system for the first time and thus conquers the last bastion of screen printing Where other printing processes reach their limits, inkjet technology opens up a wide range of applications. In the past, there were hardly any restrictions in terms of formats and substrates; only the direct printing of very thick and rigid materials was previously not possible with inkjet and remained largely the domain of screen printing. This is now possible with the JetPrint 3530 UV used at Hediger AG and supplied by Lüscher AG. The two companies based in Aargau have been working closely together on the development of the large-format inkjet printer since it was installed in June 2004.
For example, it is now possible to use opaque white - similar to screen printing. This results in greater freedom in design and in the choice of colored and transparent substrates. In addition to the largely free choice of material, production is thus considerably accelerated, simplified and manageable; processes that were previously carried out separately can now be reduced to just one printing process.
Alternative to screen printingThe large format printer developed and marketed by Lüscher is designed for printing on 350 x 305 cm surfaces. The flatbed principle allows material thicknesses of up to 80 mm to be processed. The system produces with either four (CMYK), six (CMYKLcLm) or eight colors (CMYKLcLmLyLk, CMYKLcLm plus 2 x white, CMYKLcLmLk plus 1 x white, 2 x CMYK). This makes the process a real alternative to screen printing.
Lüscher has found an innovative partner in Peter Hediger for the further development of the JetPrint 3530 UV to market maturity. After a pilot phase of almost a year with the machine exhibited at the drupa trade fair, the new model, which was essentially modified for the use of opaque white, was put into operation in April.
Inkjet attacks screen printingWith flatbed printers such as the JetPrint, the inkjet process is conquering the last bastion of screen printing, as it can be used to print materials for backdrops (on plywood), banners (on fabric), posters, cardboard, polystyrene, glass, stone or other materials. In addition to the ability to process thick and rigid materials, Lüscher's large-format printer, in conjunction with piezo technology, also offers the prerequisites for the use of inks that cure completely within a short time when exposed to ultraviolet radiation.
The inkjet inks normally used are based on glazing binders. This leads to considerable additional work, particularly with crystal-clear materials, because opaque films or opaque Plexiglas have to be glued behind them or an opaque layer has to be applied by spraying after the printing process. This process can be completely omitted when using UV-curing inks.
All in all, Hediger AG has done a great deal of pioneering work. It resulted in a technology that will open up new creative fields for visual communication.
UV inkjet still in its infancy UV-curing inks have been used in offset, flexographic and screen printing for over 20 years. The reduction of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) through the elimination of solvents is one of the driving forces behind this rapidly advancing development. In contrast, UV applications in inkjet are still in their infancy. Solvent-based inks are currently predominant.
In order to meet criteria such as weather and light resistance as well as the high quality requirements, either aggressive solvents that penetrate the substrate or substrates with an ink-receiving layer and subsequent lamination are required. In addition, materials with a completely closed surface such as Plexiglas, glass, acrylic etc. do not allow direct printing. In this case, films must be printed upside down and applied to the desired material in a further work step. (jm)
Hediger AGLocated in the canton of Aargau, Hediger AG can look back on over 60 years of experience in dealing with technologies for visual outdoor and indoor communication. The company also counts the production of three-dimensional objects among its areas of expertise. The cutting system used for this with water jet technology was essentially designed by Peter Hediger himself to meet his needs.
In addition to the JetPrint 3530 UV, two Vutek machines with widths of 3.2 and 5 meters are used for printing truck tarpaulins and films, frontlit and backlit prints as well as megaposters for a wide range of applications. A recently built hall provides space to equip two articulated lorries with films at the same time. (jm)
The use of opaque white offers far greater freedom in design and a wider choice of both colored and transparent materials.
The JetPrint at Hediger uses UV inks.
Jürg Marti

It has only just become known that the outdoor advertising company Affichage has a third major shareholder: as of December 31, 2004, the company Arnold and S. Bleichroeder Advisers in New York reported a stake of 5.04 percent.The value investor has held Affichage shares for some time, and last year exceeded the 5 percent mark for the first time, explains Ulrich von Bassewitz, CFO of Affichage. Unlike the other major shareholders, Arnold and S. Bleichroeder Advisers has not applied for voting rights. "Since 2002, when the US out-of-home advertiser Clear Channel Plakanda sold its 8 percent stake in its Swiss competitor, Affichage has only had two major shareholders: the French out-of-home advertiser JCDecaux (30 percent) and Grisobi Holding, owned by the married couple Béatrice and Paul-Henry Binz (6 percent). Both have voting rights limited to 5 percent. They are also represented on the Affichage Board of Directors with one seat each, with Paul-Henry Binz holding the office of Vice Chairman.
(mk)

Triple Play The Federal Council has only granted pay-TV provider Teleclub a temporary broadcasting license. The license, which expired on 30 April, was extended by one year, during which time it is to be clarified whether Swisscom's acquisition of a stake in Teleclub's parent company Cinetrade - a company in which the Confederation holds a majority stake - is compatible with the principle of state independence of radio and television.

Media 20 percent of young women are affected by anorexia, according to estimates by psychiatrists. And the trend is rising. The percentage is likely to be similarly high for print media, and it is certain that Hörzu, which is no longer so young, is also suffering from excessive weight loss, i.e. loss of circulation. That's why uncompromising is the order of the day there. What the programmer and his advertisers mean by this is first-class in its profundity, and it is not only in the choice of TV magazine that consumers are encouraged to be consistent. Hörzu also recommends pragmatism in matters of the heart - love is only appropriate these days if it is of the same sex. Even when it comes to the complexion, half measures are out: death-doomed, instead of just morbidly ailing, that's chic.
While half the world is watching the calculated taboo-breaking of the collective
pop scene has long since been digested and excreted, Hörzu seems to have allowed for a certain time delay for the weaker-hearted segments. They must have feared that the snogging and eating-disordered lesbian couple would make them lose their hearing and sight. Even if we are neither moralists nor gerontologists, we can understand this caution. However, the message of the ad remains a mystery to us.
(la)

Distribution The alternative delivery organization of the major publishers has been quiet for four months. Now, however, a maneuver by Swiss Post is forcing the AZO project makers to come out of their shell.
On December 21, 2004, the top management of NZZ, Tamedia, Ringier, Südostschweiz and Valora commissioned a committee to set up their own Alternative Delivery Organization (AZO) for magazines in competition with Swiss Post by 2006. According to the feasibility study, AZO would be able to serve all households in German-speaking Switzerland two days a week - at a rate at least 10 percent below the current postal rates. But the clients also imposed an information freeze. For the last four months, therefore, almost nothing was heard from AZO - until last week: Within a few days, the project was widely discussed in the in-house newspapers of Ringier and St. Galler Tagblatt Medien as well as in the newsletter of the Swiss Press Association (VSP). The background to the action is probably that the AZO Committee wants to show that its project has not fallen asleep. It also continues to demonstrate to the publishers and Swiss Post its determination to implement an alternative. After all, Swiss Post did not remain idle either, but reacted to the AZO order by starting to lure publishers with sweeteners.
So far, it has done this on two levels: On the one hand, it offers tariff reductions, on the other hand, it offers cooperation to publishers with large-circulation newspapers and early delivery organizations. With both measures, it puts them in a sandwich position between AZO and Swiss Post, and also sows discord.
The most recent example: Swiss Post is prepared to reduce its tariff for magazines and newspapers slightly. It is doing this by halving the smallest element of all price components, the so-called tariff surcharge, as of July 1, 2005. It has submitted a corresponding application to the supervisory authority DETEC. This surcharge applies to periodicals whose mailing format is larger than B5, and it currently amounts to 1 to 5 centimes per copy, depending on the weight of the product. For an average daily newspaper, this amounts to a maximum of 8 percent of the total rate, and less for magazines. It is clear that the publishers are nevertheless pleased with this reduction in rates, as it would benefit almost all of their periodicals.
Offers to publishersAt the cooperation level, Swiss Post is apparently offering to transfer the emptying of mailboxes and other services to the early delivery organizations, and is also interested in "borrowing" staff from the early delivery organizations in the event of temporary bottlenecks (body leasing). Discussions to this effect are currently underway.
Both represent an attack on the AZO. Because every time Swiss Post lowers its rates, the AZO offer becomes less attractive. All the more so if Swiss Post also offers publishers additional income. What's more, the same early delivery companies with which Swiss Post recently wants to cooperate had already been asked by the AZO committee to participate in the alternative project and submit an offer.
It is therefore not surprising that AZO once again marked its presence. All the more so as the article in the VSP newsletter gives the impression that the association is using the AZO as leverage for lower postal rates. VSP lawyer Hanspeter Kellermüller wrote there that after the halving of the format surcharge, publishers are expecting "further voluntary rate reductions" because the AZO project has shown "that the costs at Swiss Post are clearly excessive, which also affects newspaper distribution."
Swiss Post, however, is unimpressed. "We are not planning any further rate reductions, and the halving of the format surcharge is not related to AZO, but to the new newspaper logistics introduced in summer 2004," says Swiss Post spokesman Dario Ballanti.
It is astonishing that the VSP is now beginning to instrumentalize the AZO for its own politics, since it had always emphasized - even in the aforementioned newsletter - that the AZO was "a purely private initiative". This fuels the suspicion that the AZO only serves as a means of exerting pressure on the publishers. AZO spokesman Walter Lütolf denies this, but he can understand the impression, especially since Swiss Post CEO Ulrich Gygi was informed in detail by the publishers involved about how AZO calculates and where there is potential for savings.
However, this has not changed the mandate to get AZO up and running. "Indirectly, Swiss Post is admitting with its proposal that costs can be reduced and that this creates a certain scope for price reductions," Lütolf is pleased to say. But he warns against merely threatening the yellow giant without wanting to realize the AZO. "Ultimately, only competition can contribute to development." In any case, he says, the AZO is not endangered by Swiss Post's latest moves. "We have taken such things into account. We also now have many interested logistics providers, so AZO could definitely be built up," he says.
Nevertheless, Lütolf can't say much concrete about the status of the project. Does he have the circulation giants Coop-Zeitung, Migros-Magazin, TCS-Zeitung Touring or Schweizer Illustrierte, which are so important for AZO, on board? "Talks with these titles are progressing well," says Lütolf simply. In fact, Coop spokesman Felix Wehrli says he is "interested in a solution that reduces the high costs of distributing 2.2 million Coop newspapers." But that seems to be all. Marius Hagger, Head of Editorial Offices and Publishing Migros-Medien, has also not yet made any promises, but is "first awaiting an offer from AZO."
This shows exactly the dilemma of the project: As long as no customers commit, AZO cannot give definitive prices to the logistics providers - and vice versa. Lütolf also lets it be known that time is running out. In late summer," he says, "AZO will have to appear before the commissioning committee again, by which time customers and logistics providers must be determined, "otherwise we will stop working," he says. "Or someone other than us will set up the project, possibly without publishers and their early deliverers."
Postal distribution center: How many newspapers will be mailed from here in the future is written in the stars.
Markus Knöpfli

Finanzen Wirz Werbung uses modern art to show how VP Bank in Liechtenstein understands "The Modern Art of Private Banking".Classic private banks appeal to older people. In their discreet rooms, heavy oil paintings bear witness to heavy wealth. The VP Bank Group from Liechtenstein sees its client potential more among younger successful people as well as the modern generation of heirs. "The Modern Art of Private Banking" is therefore the claim of Wirz Werbung, which also sums up the style of VP Bank. The campaign is aimed at a younger world that works and no longer just lets money work.This idea is implemented with illustrations by New York artist Anja Kroencke. World-famous and meanwhile often copied, she also draws for Wallpaper or Vogue magazine. She was also to be used several times in Switzerland for cultivated advertising, but Wirz has concluded an exclusive contract with the illustrator for the wooed territory of VP Bank, as CD Matthias Freuler mentions.
Verwaltungs- und Privat-Bank Aktiengesellschaft was founded as recently as 1956 and employs around 600 people. In addition to its headquarters in Vaduz, it has representative offices in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Germany, the British Virgin Islands and Uruguay. As a vision, VP Bank wants to "become
among the best private banks". Important values are "flexibility with regard to customer needs and a dialog-oriented relationship with customers." In addition to a competitive return on equity, it lists "open communication" as goals.
The scene has changedThe modern bank works with more modern tools and therefore also wanted different advertising than traditional private banks with a rather dusty image. Nevertheless, VP Bank also arose naturally from the tradition of Liechtenstein asset managers. These have never had to do marketing, let alone communication. One simply brought them the money. In the meantime, however, the scene has changed dramatically. The rich people no longer came automatically, because not only with the development of the stock market, for example, there have been other ways to deposit one's money. So what are the motives for looking for a new bank?
The campaign's strategy was ultimately based on the realization that the more money you have, the greater your concerns around
their management. Translated into private: "You've always had worries, but when you look back today, you can laugh about them. In five years, it will be the same with today's worries." VP Bank understands that - and can relieve its clients of those worries.
Since scenes around this idea with photographs immediately seem kitschy, Wirz Werbung dramatized the statements with abstracting illustrations. The agency came up with the subjects. Anja Kroencke in New York produced a first draft from them. The bank reviewed the layout. Then the correction requests went back to New York. "It's a style of working that has only become possible with electronic image transmission," says Matthias Freuler, pleased with this international network of his creation.
At the same time as the campaign was launched, VP Bank had a new CI designed by a Paris-based corporate design agency. This was incorporated in parallel with the development of the ads and is expressed today in the purple dot for the message in the upper part of the modern artwork.
From Vienna to the wider worldAnja Kroencke was born in Vienna in 1968. Even as a child, she is said to have altered the walls of her parents' apartment with bright colors. Later, as a teenager, she spent her free time in Viennese coffee houses, where she secretly sketched guests. This led to studies at the Vienna University of Fashion and Design.
Her first professional work followed for various design studios before she was promoted to AD at GGK in Vienna. In 1994 Kroencke moved to New York. First freelance, after two years AD at Stein Rogan & Partners. During this time, she began working part-time as an illustrator. Since 1997, Kroencke has worked exclusively in this field.
A front page to the New York Times fashion spread has won a Silver Award for Newspaper Design. Other awards followed from Creative Club Austria, Merit Award, ADC New York.
Notable work can be found in American Illustration, Society of Illustrators, Communication Art, Luerzer's Archive. More on:
www.anjakroencke.com
The new campaign, featuring illustrations by renowned New York artist Anja Kroencke, is aimed at a young audience.
Work from Kroencke's portfolio.
Andreas Panzeri

Newspapers Zurich-based Tamedia has sold its ten percent stake in Anzeiger von Uster to majority shareholder Zürcher Oberland Medien AG (ZOM), and Group CEO Martin Kall will step down from the Board of Directors at the Annual General Meeting in May. Tamedia acquired a majority stake in Anzeiger von Uster in 1991. In 1996, it handed over responsibility for the loss-making newspaper to ZOM and gradually reduced its stake. Since the end of January, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung has held a substantial stake in ZOM and thus indirectly in Anzeiger von Uster

The US media group Clear Channel (CC) is spinning off its outdoor and entertainment divisions and plans to list its global outdoor advertising business - which includes Clear Channel Plakanda in Switzerland - on the New York Stock Exchange under the name Clear Channel Outdoor at the end of 2005. However, CC initially intends to list only ten percent of the shares. The Entertainment division is to be fully listed at the same time.