Local television The year 2007: The whole of Vaud is dominated by Vaud TV, the merger of the local stations TV RL, Canal Nord Vaudois and Ici TV with Edipresse, because it is questionable whether the smaller stations in the region will survive if Vaud TV is awarded the license by Bakom. Max TV in Morges, for example, is worried. Director Johannes Hierl wants to ask Edipresse whether the door has already been closed for his station, as he told 24 Heures. For Val-TV in the Vallée de Joux, too, the future seems less than rosy. "Without a share of the fees, survival will be difficult," believes station boss Jean-Michel Vermont. So far, however, there have been no contacts between Val-TV and Vaud TV.
Edipresse head of television Christophe Rasch emphasizes to 24 Heures that the initiative for Vaud TV came from the broadcasters. The aim is not to unite all the canton's TV stations. However, he believes it is possible that the new Edipresse subsidiary Ecran Pub will take over the marketing of other stations. More about Vaud TV on page 15.
(sm)

Protests A Migros TV commercial has led to a widespread reaction in the media this week, showing two naked Asian girls in a bathtub. A voiceover describes the girls as young vegetables. They are to be "spiced up". Of course, everyone immediately thinks of crispy, tempting spring rolls. Nevertheless, Migros has now thrown the baby out with the bathwater. For the first time in the history of Migros, a commercial has been withdrawn from circulation (not meant ambiguously) so that it can no longer be ridiculed. "The reactions of the public were limited. Migros has received letters mainly from doctors, committed people from child protection organizations, but also from parents of abused children," says press spokesman Urs Peter Naef. These concerns, which are not particularly numerous, are being taken seriously. However, the actual decision to remove the advertisement was made because everyone in the media suddenly wanted to report on it. "This makes advertising counterproductive." (pan)

Food Polyconsult serves up a new look for Swiss meat. Biting allowed.
"Swiss meat - everything else is a side dish." With this well-seasoned claim, the Bern-based agency Polyconsult is launching a new campaign for Swiss meat at the end of February. With a budget of around six million francs, the campaign is not very vegetarian and can therefore be described as a campaign with a lot of meat on the bone in the truest sense of the word. Proviande, the trade organization of the Swiss meat industry, put the entire communications budget out to tender in the summer of 2004. The aim was to find a new, comprehensive conceptual approach with the potential for long-term brand profiling. Of the four advertising agencies taking part, Polyconsult, with around twenty employees, emerged as the winner.
After years of crisis, Swiss meat is well on the way to regaining its rightful place as a high-quality and enjoyable food. This is reflected in the new communication concept. And the campaign claim sums it up perfectly.
"Swiss meat - everything else is a side dish", sounds proud and is intended first and foremost to motivate the meat industry itself. But it is the consumers who are taken at their word with this statement. "We all separate meat and side dishes when we talk about a menu," CD Jürg Tscharner is convinced. The basic message of the campaign is that "the place of Swiss meat in a meal becomes clearest when it is missing".
The staging of such situations is the theme of the creative realization. A woman misses her schnitzel on the plate, a man misses his ribs and a child misses the meatballs in the pastry. The courage not to show the product is strikingly rewarded by the large graphic cut-out in the advertising environment. The ads were photographed by Nathan Beck from Zurich. The commercials were realized by Twin Production from Biel.
Brand management at all levelsThe campaign is structured in strict and simple codes: Different people are shown in consumption situations who are simply frustrated because there is no meat in their food. "The people and situations are created so realistically that the viewer always recognizes themselves in them," is what Polyconsult wants to achieve. Each time, the resolution leads to a fire and a claim.
A strategy with television as the basic medium with three different spots is being pursued. These are supported by full or half-page advertisements.
Traditional advertising is the highly visible "tip of the iceberg". In the new campaign for Swiss meat, however, 60 percent of the budget goes into the below-the-line area: from sales promotion and sponsorship to further training, many tasks are included. B2B communication with the hospitality industry, for example, where 50 percent of meat consumption is consumed, is particularly important.
This is why the skillful networking of all activities is a high priority and a prominent feature of this campaign.
Happy without meat? The diners in Polyconsult's Proviande spots want more than side dishes.

Andreas Panzeri

As is well known, the Gucci slip ring is not something that a woman would necessarily want to lose. Just like the eau de toilette. However, both the jewelry and the fragrance of La Perla seem to give the two fashion-conscious women the same idea: to hide their hand in their lap. If only that didn't cause calluses or the slip ring to suddenly slip away. In other words: better a woman who knows what she wants than cleaning the bathroom with Blue. (ck)

Mobile communications The technology group Siemens has entrusted TBWA Germany with the global brand communication of its mobile communications division, and an initial campaign from the agency's Berlin office will be used for the Cebit computer trade fair in March and launched worldwide in April. According to the trade journal Werben & Verkaufen, print ads and TV commercials are planned. The budget, including media services, is expected to be in the double-digit million euro range.

Food/Construction The Bern-based advertising agency Numéro 10 announces three new clients. The fish snack brand Coraya has entrusted it with a promotion and event campaign for its surimi sticks, while the French cheese manufacturer Bongrain has commissioned Numéro 10 to create promotional campaigns for its Tartare and Caprice des Dieux brands. The bilingual agency, which emerged from DDB Bern, was able to win over the construction and sanitary materials group Getaz-Romang as its third client.

Public transport Publicis is taking the ZVV campaign into its fifth year with an extended concept module, and it's fair to ask how often "Meh Dräck" slingshot Chris von Rohr has actually preferred a ZVV bus to his Jeep, or how often the controversial FDP parliamentarian and publishing house CEO Filippo Leutenegger has jumped on a streetcar instead of his Vespa. It is just as rare to see the speeding model Christina Surer in a ZVV vehicle. This doesn't bother the creative team at Publicis or the client, the Zurich Transport Association (ZVV). "We didn't check tickets before the shoot," replies ZVV advertising manager Hans Wälty glibly. And rightly so, because the popular figures - a good dozen of them - have an affinity with public transport and enjoy credibility thanks to their openness. The decision to continue with the "Me too" basic idea, which expresses the ticket for all means of transport, was controversial. At last year's pitch, the competition tried to make out that this approach had run its course. Publicis and CD Jean Etienne Aebi defended it vehemently and successfully. "What could be better for a brand than for one of its advertising slogans to become part of the vernacular?" asks Aebi rhetorically.
Naturally, there were concerns as to whether the campaign had taken on a life of its own and thus become interchangeable. Aebi is convinced that the exact opposite is true. "Just think of 'I'm not stupid' or 'Stinginess is cool'. The originator of the slogan always remains anchored in people's minds and is evoked by all the free riders."
In terms of brand strategy, a more detailed campaign should therefore convey even more emotionality. The holistic overall concept presented, which starts with the celebrities staged in black and white by Alberto Venzago, offers further modules, such as a public or radio campaign. It is not the budget, but proximity to the public and variety that would make the ZVV a popular part of Zurich's culture, just like Lake Zurich, the Grossmünster or the Üetliberg. Just how justified this objective is can be seen from the strong growth in season tickets, among other things. Even in the recessionary economic phase of recent years, the ZVV was able to record a significant increase in sales - around 50,000 more than before the start of the campaign in June 2000.
JFK is not just a BerlinerThe playful association is now entering a new round as a one-off campaign in which each motif is only to be used once. With self-deprecating and ambiguous slogans on the T-shirts, well-known people say what else they are. In collaboration with the people portrayed, twelve very different answers have emerged.
From the "curve star" (Christina Surer) to the "casino capitalist" (Viktor Giacobbo) and the "womanizer" (Kurt Aeschbacher), Zurich's figureheads are committed to Zurich and its public transport with the ticket for everything in a broader sense.
In a completely different celebrity format, John F. Kennedy also makes a small comeback in a cinema commercial - with his sentence in front of the Berlin Wall: "I am also a Zurich native." In this respect, it's not too tragic that they only landed on the moon by reaching for stars like Tina Turner, who was apparently also requested for the ZVV campaign.
"I am now also a ZVV celebrity" (clockwise from top left): Patrick Frey, Jeannette Eggenschwiler, Hannes Britschgi as well as Midi Gottet and Helmi Sigg.

Publicis uses T-shirt testimonials from celebrities to promote public transport in Zurich >> page 7
Luca Aloisi

Column Brilliant layout, but anemic content: the newspaper industry suffers far more from its lack of passion than from the economic situation.Are our newspapers so bad because we train journalists too well? Nonsense, a typical morning thought. You shouldn't trust what comes to you between a second mocha, a horse bet and your favorite paper, when the day is freshly washed and your desire is even stronger than your order.that morning, a conference on "quality journalism" was scheduled. Such events follow one another. The industry is nervous. No wonder: readers have to be coerced into buying. Which feeds the suspicion that the print crisis is one of content. In an attempt to keep readers interested with ever louder marketing tricks, we are maltreating the journalistic essence. And we wonder about the zapping behavior that we are training our audience to adopt.
On the train, I read the manuscript of a colleague who trained in Hamburg and has a clear picture of his career: after 18 months, Kisch Prize, in three years head of department, then - quickly, quickly - editor-in-chief. It is a diploma thesis: "War journalism; new dangers, new job description". With a request for feedback. The piece looks good. Chic stapled 68 pages. Color infographics. Perfect layout. Also available as a PDF file on his homepage. The work looks very finished. You don't really want to scribble in any corrections. Nor is it necessary. Neat language, nicely turned, flawless. Except for one detail: this text is completely
free of thought. Odorless, bodiless, not fueled by any tension or conflict. An intelligence-free zone. The man is sure to get a good grade. I write him a few non-committal words. Our criminal organization is playing at a low level to protect each other.
The honest information was omitted ("Sorry, we don't do the same job") because the man from Hamburg is so well suited to his time. Our papers have the same shape as his thesis: over-edited, layouted, content-free. That's what you learn, even at
renowned journalism schools. It's impressive how stylistically confident their graduates are. And frightening how infinitely boring their articles are.
Journalists have long struggled to find good training centers. After all, anyone who writes knows that if the form is blocked because the craft is weak, the content falls by the wayside. It's bizarre how these schools are now producing well-trained text administrators who eradicate all substance and surprise from the papers. Clever self-promoters who take an opinion for a thought. Commercial soul-massagers who confuse excitement journalism with relevance and sensuality.
The very idea of exposing herself to the material, of letting reality work on her as she writes, drives her to the brink of a nervous crisis. Allowing complexity and making it readable is too much for them. For them, the powerful things that are breaking out in society are only the cause, no longer the reason for writing - they use the surface of reality to simulate journalism.
But can journalists of the new kind really be blamed for this? After all, society as a whole is becoming increasingly virtual. Seen in this light, they have the right professional profile for the media that publishers and editors-in-chief produce today. The schools give them what they need to do their job.
But soon this will probably no longer be enough. Imagine a journalism training program that teaches sociology instead of media sociology or political science instead of media law. One that requires three years abroad and internships in such foreign climes as China or Thurgau. Which produces intellectuals instead of zeitgeist salesmen. But evening thoughts, when the day has shaken, emptied and groaned you, should not be trusted ...
> Oliver Fahrni is a freelance journalist. Until 2001 he was deputy editor-in-chief of Weltwoche and most recently foreign editor of Hamburger Woche.

Combi The Metropool partners Berner Zeitung, Basler Zeitung and Tages-Anzeiger are very satisfied with the start of their new advertising combination and are pleased to welcome numerous new customers. Sales in January were 18.4 percent higher than in 2004 with the predecessor combination Swisspool. The current booking level exceeds that of the previous year by 24.73 percent.

Internet The two online marketplaces Autodom and AutoScout24 have agreed on a sales cooperation that allows advertisers on both platforms to advertise their vehicle with the respective partner with just one click. In addition, AutoScout24 AG will market all Autodom AG products and services throughout Switzerland via its sales network.

Video games The Zurich agency Sensus PR looks after the Swiss Interactive Entertainment Association (SIEA).The association of manufacturers and publishers of interactive entertainment software awarded the mandate after a pitch. As part of an integrated PR concept, Sensus is responsible for anchoring the computer and video game theme in the media and among the general public. At the same time, the agency is SIEA's official media office.

According to a study by the University of St. Gallen, more than 80 percent of all cell phone users in Switzerland regularly receive spam messages.80% Mobile 83 percent of those surveyed expect mobile spam to increase massively over the next one to two years, according to the industry service NetzwocheTicker. This development is a major problem for the image of mobile phone providers in particular. This is because customers would primarily blame the providers for this. 8 out of 10 of the customers surveyed would rather change provider than telephone number to eliminate the problem.