Subscriber advertising In a mailing to potential subscribers, Weltwoche begins its advertising message with the headline: "Weltwoche is the best magazine in the world." If you then read the small print in the brochure, you are informed as a critical reader typical of the target group: "Of course that's a lie ..." Well, then: what am I supposed to take away from such dishonest advertising for my future intellectual well-being? Just before the brochure ends up in the bin, you read on anyway: "... but isn't there a spark of truth in every lie?" Confused by so much honesty in a direct mailing, you start to browse through the brochure. This turns out to be a cleverly reduced and muted pocket version of the real Weltwoche - mega-tabloid, you might say. You start reading and then find a witty column on page 7 on the subject of "The pure truth and nothing but the truth". But, you think, the headline wasn't so stupid. You are so taken with it that you even believe the sentence in the enclosed letter: "We don't want to persuade you, we want to convince you!". Only "the best advertising in the world" actually works like this.
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The Zurich brand agency BrandPulse has won the Rose d'Or Festival, the television entertainment competition, as a new client and has been commissioned to revise the brand design as well as other brand management and communication projects. Last year, the "Golden Rose" moved from Montreux to Lucerne.

Financial press L'Agefi is increasing its retail price to 3 francs from April 1. since its relaunch last June, the daily business newspaper from western Switzerland has been available at an introductory price of 2 francs. In a press release, the publisher expressed its conviction that readers will accept the surcharge. The new price is within the usual range for the financial press. Before the relaunch, a single copy of L'Agefi cost 3.40 francs.

Awards The small Zurich agency Walker has won silver and two bronze medals at the 26th edition of the German TV commercial competition "Die Klappe", with all awards going to commercials for PowerFlame by Düring. In these films, Pius Walker ironically shows that PowerFlame lighting aids are safe and make the fire department superfluous. The jury liked the fact that "a banal everyday product was advertised with very creative ideas". No Swiss agency has ever won three prizes in the same year since the Klappe was established, and the "Klappe" jury only awarded gold twice, silver three times and bronze twelve times. Gold went to Springer & Jacoby for Mercedes-Benz and DBB Berlin for VW. Three Swiss entries were shortlisted: The Swissinfo spots "Glocken Zebra" and "Glocken Nashorn" by Publicis and Wirz' Pneu-Egger spot "Gymnastik".
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Special Interest The Zug-based publishing house Marquard Media has increased its stake in the German Computec Media AG from 27.2 percent to over 50 percent, and Marquard intends to submit a takeover bid to the remaining shareholders in the near future, the listed Computec announced. Founded in 1989, the publishing house primarily publishes magazines for computer and video games.

Classified ads The online car marketplace Car4you.ch increased the number of visitors by more than 20 percent in the period from January to March 2005.Car4you also increased the number of private advertisers by half, according to a statement. Daily approximately 100 private ones switched a Occasionsanzeige, said managing director Roger Dal Santo. However, the circulation of the Car4you newspaper, which Tamedia publishes in cooperation with the website, was reduced. The printed vehicle market started last fall with 35,000 copies; today it is still 29,000. According to Werner Duttwiler, head of Tamedia's vehicle market, this reduction is in line with the plan. A higher circulation was deliberately chosen at the start in order to achieve the necessary presence at the newsstand.

Claudia Gutknecht wants to position the Stutz Image Center as a leader, whether it's façade advertising or wrapping an entire building: "We can cover all large-scale advertising, with a wide variety of materials and all kinds of installations," explains Claudia Gutknecht. The "passionate entrepreneur" has been working as the new Managing Director of Stutz Image Center in Bremgarten for two months, and the company is now an all-rounder in the field of digital image processing. The company was one of the first in Switzerland to enter the digital age and put its first machine for five-meter-wide digital prints into operation eight years ago.
Alois Stutz has been a trendsetter in the market since the company was founded in 1961. Following his retirement, his work was transferred to the management of the Valora Group after an interim period. In Claudia Gutknecht, they have found the right power woman for their new goals. "Stutz is to be positioned as the leading company in Switzerland in the field of digital image processing and large-format inkjet printing."
The new boss has a higher degree in economics, has trained as a marketing planner and has completed "entrepreneur school". This is how she describes her path to founding her own company. "I could also have done an MBA. But you learn more in practice than in theory."
Gutknecht has already built up two companies of her own. "Being able to make a difference" motivates her to work. She loves having an "overview of something big". Now she is excited by the challenge of stabilizing a company in a difficult situation, together with the new owners, who have "convinced her with their plans".
Claudia Gutknecht thoroughly informed herself about the risks and opportunities. "I was very happy as the independent manager of the Zurich office of Schweizer AG in Hölstein and could have taken over this leading distributor of professional video and film technology in two years' time."
In 1999, Gutknecht founded Profevi for professional television and video training as his second own company. The idea was born when the new private channels such as Tele 24, TV 3 and Pro 7 Switzerland came onto the scene. "It was a boom and there were no people." In collaboration with the TPC of Swiss television as well as Sony in Schlieren and Apple as training partners, Gutknecht developed training courses and seminars, similar to the German model of the School for Broadcast Technology in Nuremberg. "We scraped all our money together, rented 700 square meters of office space and equipped it with editing suites for the courses." Gutknecht is proud that almost all of the students have found a job. She sold the school last year.
Thanks to her wide-ranging experience, the new store manager in Bremgarten is able to talk to her customers competently and offer "technical solutions".
for creative people". That's exciting: "How do I get what the customer wants?" Stutz should once again become a trendsetter and bring new products to the market - which also means investing in new machines.
By this, Gutknecht means much more than the new coffee machine that she was the first to purchase for the canteen. She is convinced that with such small changes to the working atmosphere, she can give employees the feeling again "that the store has a future".
Thanks to her experience, Claudia Gutknecht can offer "technical solutions for creative people."
Andreas Panzeri

Tobacco The dusty local brand Brunette is to become more urban and trendy with Swiss Original. MRG has revived the old elephant logo with a touch of absurdity.
Hardly any other product is as dependent on its brand identity as the interchangeable cigarette. Hardly any other industry even has its tactical communication measures meticulously analyzed by market research. Despite the proverbial brand loyalty - a typical smoker nowadays changes his life partner more often than his cigarette brand - even the smallest changes in positioning, concept or implementation can trigger strong reactions from the target audience. This is demonstrated by Camel in a negative case and Parisienne in a positive one. In recent years, the latter has consistently expanded its market share in the shadow of tobacco multinationals such as Philip Morris - particularly in the young and urban target group.
Original local brand Brunette, Philip Morris (PM) is launching an attack on competitor smokers. The bright American blend of the new Swiss Original is intended to bring younger customer segments back to the flavorful Maryland tobacco brand Brunette. "The 'Swiss Original' is a return to the original brand, as can also be seen with other products," says PM press spokesman Marc Fritsch. The only difference is that it should not come across as old-fashioned. In the case of Brunette Swiss Original, this means a two-dimensional, clear packaging design, only three colors and, as the central element of the advertising, the revived logo of the brand founded in 1924 - a stylized elephant.
This was positioned with ironic absurdity as a new Swiss original in the teaser poster campaign at the beginning of the year, pushing classic originals such as the Matterhorn and Holzchalet out of the picture. CD Michael Gerber: "We now want to continue this positioning in the commercial." It takes the mickey out of a clichéd Switzerland with the Matterhorn, alphorn music and a horde of Japanese tourists.
Because instead of snapping the most photographed landmark, tourists are attracted to the Brunette elephant. The mechanic of humorously questioning traditional values and thus making the alternative brand attractive will be retained in the long term, although the elephant will no longer play such a prominent role in future, explains Fritsch. The Basel-based MRG does not yet want to reveal anything about the next game variants. The only thing that seems clear is that a trendy identity is to be established for the former blue-collar brand Brunette with further non-conformist appearances, which were previously reserved for Parisienne.
If you take the voices of teens and twens in the trendy chat forums as an indicator of the brand's hipness, you can see that the elephant still has a long way to go. The support that Hannibal's pachyderm has been denied is likely to be a big hit with Philip Morris in the country.
of its international headquarters.
Strong stuff from MRG: In the Brunette ad, the clichéd Switzerland is taken for a ride.
Luca Aloisi

Broadcasting SRG has renegotiated the distribution contracts with Swisscom Broadcast and Cablecom, and from 2006 Cablecom will be primarily responsible for transmitting the signal from the SRG studios to the Swisscom transmitters. According to SRG, the new contracts will save it CHF 20 million per year.

Press The Ringier publishing house is launching an international edition of the tabloid newspaper Blic, and from April 4, Blic Europa will have its own editorial team targeting the more than 950000 Serbs living abroad. The paper will initially be available in Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The initial print run is 45,000 copies. DMB Medien & Verlags GmbH is responsible for advertising sales. (See editorial on page 5)

Newspapers Tamedia sees potential for optimization in its new acquisitions. After the "unsatisfactory result in 2003", Hans Heinrich Coninx, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Tamedia, was able to announce a "pleasing result" this week. For the Zurich-based media group, 2004 was "a year of renewal and new beginnings", he said. On the one hand, this was true in financial terms (see page 18). On the other hand, four Tamedia products - Tages-Anzeiger, Facts, Schweizer Familie and Annabelle - had also undergone a relaunch or redesign, which was apparently only the beginning. CEO Martin Kall wants to "optimize" other titles. In particular, he mentioned 20 Minuten and Finanz & Wirtschaft (FuW), which were completely taken over at the beginning of 2005. In the case of 20 Minuten, a further expansion into eastern Switzerland is probably the first priority, and Kall intends to examine such a project "in the second quarter". He mentioned fall 2005 as a possible start date and was very pleased with the move into central Switzerland nine months ago. A redesign does not seem out of the question either. However, the "pioneering spirit and the cheeky character" of the commuter newspaper will be retained, Kall assured. He is also thinking about cost synergies, for example in the IT area.
In the case of FuW, which is "excellently positioned and successful despite a heavy loss of advertising", Kall is examining how the business newspaper and Tamedia can "work together better without compromising the independent FuW culture". Here too, Kall indicated that he is considering a redesign.
Markus Knöpfli

Poster In the third issue of its PPI Flash newsletter, APG examines the case study of Rivella, whose "What color is your thirst?" campaign relied heavily on poster advertising and was accompanied by the Poster Performance Index (PPI) study. The newsletter shows how the new color and emotional worlds were anchored in the audience at the launch of the Rivella Grün sub-brand and what part the creation and medium played in this. The PPI Flash is available for download as a PDF file at www.apg.ch/publikationen.