Corporate publishing Are corporate publications achieving their communication goals? The "CP Standard" aims to answer this crucial question: the magazine has a dignified and serious appearance: in the current issue, it presents a dialog between former Federal Councillor Ruth Metzler and Economiesuisse President Ueli Forster, a report on a university for black people in South Africa and a portrait of Lisbon. But does the glossy magazine CEO also achieve the communication goals defined by Alexander Fleischer, Head of Corporate Communications at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) - and therefore CEO publisher? Does the company magazine manage to "bring the brand to life" and establish a "dialog with customers"? PWC magazine put to the test
Apparently yes: "The CEO is an above-average effective and successful communication tool" is the conclusion after the impact analysis using "CP Standard", a new method recently presented by Publicom AG. The Kilchberg-based media researchers and consultants used the PWC magazine as the subject of the pilot study.
Considerable potential
The "CP Standard" is a complex tool designed to determine and measure the various communication performances of customer magazines (see box below right). Publicom has adapted the method for Switzerland and now offers it for controlling all CP products. The Media Knowledge Company, as the agency defines itself, sees "a great need and corresponding potential" here.
Although Publicom Managing Director René Grossenbacher estimates that around one billion Swiss francs are invested in and with Swiss corporate journalism every year, "the evaluation of these investments is absolutely inadequate." This assessment is supported by a study by the Institute for Journalism and Media Research at the University of Zurich (IPMZ), according to which only one in four of the 400 largest Swiss companies have their customer publications regularly reviewed.
The standardization of the new procedure should enable clients to compare their publications directly with those of their competitors - instead of only subjecting them to ad hoc studies without reference values, as was previously the case. Benchmarking is also the main innovation of the new tool. It is made possible by a (for the time being rather modest) database with results from other "CP Standard" studies from Germany and Switzerland. Another new feature is that it is possible to determine exactly whether a publication is achieving its specified objectives: all results on usage and evaluation are displayed in concrete index values. According to Grossenbacher, the main benefit for companies is an action relevance matrix that shows which editorial or design elements need to be reviewed in order to eliminate weaknesses and not jeopardize existing strengths.
The "CP Standard" is therefore likely to generate more than the "anecdotal feedback" that PWC's Head of Communications Fleischer has received to date. Whether and how representative the benchmarking tool will be, however, depends heavily on the number of existing comparative studies, as Grossenbacher also admits. Either way, it will force companies to define their communication goals in the first place - in order to be able to measure something.
Publicom magazine Medianovis: The inside view of the CP industry.
Patrick Steinemann

Advertising celebrity Verona Feldbusch has already achieved such cult status that she no longer needs to appear in shows to be considered a celebrity. It is enough if the lady with the bubble regularly has a few nice testimonials in an advertising block. Her career as an advertising icon almost came to an end recently. During a vacation in Dubai, a sheikh offered her fiancé Fanjo 582 fine camels for Verona. After some deliberation, he declined, as Feldbusch revealed to the Cologne Express.

Column Communications consultants are the corporate clowns of our time. And yet they are more reliable service providers than lawyers, for example, who cause more or less hilarious PR disasters. "This is the only country where people who successfully create value are on trial for it": Josef Ackermann, CEO of Deutsche Bank, announced this on January 21, 2004 - and spread his fingers in a victory sign as he entered the courtroom. It took 15 days before the 55-year-old Swiss publicly apologized for this unfortunate appearance: he had only followed the advice of his lawyers. They had advised him to behave "as casually as possible". The result was a storm of protest that almost cost the top banker his job, but "Big Joe" can take comfort in the fact that he is not the only one who caused a PR disaster because he listened to his legal advisors. The temporary employment agency Adecco destroyed around five billion Swiss francs of share capital within a week on the stock exchange due to accounting problems with its lawyer-dictated communication. The company is now facing numerous lawsuits from investors and an investigation by the Swiss stock exchange.
What went wrong in these two - and in numerous analogous - cases? Just one thing: Most company bosses no longer have a clue what their investors, customers, employees and other stakeholders think and want. Anyone looking out of the 30th floor of their glass palace sees the world populated only by ants. And who cares what ants think?
It is obvious that someone who has to go to court over controversial compensation payments of 60 million euros is perhaps not the most popular man in Germany and should therefore appear somewhat modest. But only if the person concerned realizes that his own sense of innocence does not necessarily correspond to the feeling of all those who are not wearing golden parachutes. But it is precisely this examination of one's own perspective that many success-spoiled inhabitants of the carpeted floors lack.
Which is why one of the core tasks of internal and external communications consultants is to tell their clients clearly: "Hey, you up there, watch out: Not everything you think is good and right is actually perceived as such in the real world!" (A tip between brothers: It is not absolutely necessary to get the bosses to rethink. It is enough if they no longer make everything they think public).
Incidentally, this type of reality check was already practised a few hundred years ago: by court jesters in the Middle Ages. It was up to them to hold up a mirror to their masters and embody the vox populi: "Mirror, mirror in my hand, see what they think in the land."
This did not always make them popular with their employers. But the rules of the game at court were: As long as you give me the rate honestly and don't just butter me up, you can stay. This rule has lost none of its validity today: Communications consultants must not just announce good news to their clients. Otherwise they are not court jesters, but court singers.
However, opportunism is not uncommon in the communications industry. Today's consultants have a decisive advantage over their colorful predecessors: they can spread their entrepreneurial risk over several "kings". If a CEO or Chairman of the Board of Directors proves to be absolutely unadvisable, they can confidently take off their foolscap - or put aside their consultant hat and resign their mandate. Those with a literary bent do so in the appropriate manner with the words from Friedrich Schiller's classic "The Ring of Polycrates": "Here the guest turned with horror..."
> Sacha Wigdorovits was editor-in-chief of Blick and co-founder of 20 Minuten (Switzerland). Today he heads the Zurich-based communications agency Contract Media.

Magazine 20000 to 25000 subscriptions were the target of the publisher Edition Plus when it launched the money magazine Tout Compte Fait last May, with an average circulation of 34000 copies from October to December 2003, 31867 of which were paid subscriptions according to owner Hans Räz. According to Räz, the circulation will be certified with these figures. Tout Compte Fait is aimed at readers with higher incomes or assets who want to manage their money wisely. In addition to Tout Compte Fait, Edition Plus also publishes the consumer magazine Bon à Savoir.

Magazines Ariane Dayer is taking the retro trend to the extreme: the models for her magazine Saturne date back to the 1960s - the 19th century. "Magazines can no longer bombard readers with news like television," says Ariane Dayer. As the former editor-in-chief of Ringier's political magazine L'Hebdo, she knows what she's talking about. In an over-informed society, Dayer is convinced that the magazine press must step back from topicality. What is needed are subjective titles with a strong personality, an insight that Dayer radically implements with the new Saturne magazine. Even the format is out of the ordinary: Square with a round
With an edge length of 30 centimeters, it clearly stands out from the usual newsstand variety. There are no photographs on the cover or inside the magazine: Saturne is illustrated exclusively by a group of young illustrators from the comic scene.
The magazine, which is published every two weeks, focuses on three topics: Information, poetry and satire. Despite Dayer's idea of deceleration, they are oriented towards topicality in their own way. The information section focuses on people who have witnessed important events. The poetry is always based on a current theme. "For example, when Alinghi wins the America's Cup, our theme is wind," explains the editor-in-chief. It almost goes without saying that satire - drawn or written - deals with the present.
Lunar eclipse as godmother
Ariane Dayer drew inspiration for this concept from magazines from the French Second Empire, the reign of Napoleon II from 1852 to 1870. "My favorite title from this period is L'Eclipse (the lunar eclipse)," enthuses Dayer. "This magazine came about as a reaction to La Lune, then there was Le Soleil ... all these names of celestial bodies seemed infinitely beautiful and poetic to me. That's why I chose Saturne."
Dayer finances the magazine out of her own pocket, together with investors François Longchamp and Daniel Salzmann. She is thus fulfilling a dream. But which readers will dream with her?
"Our readership is urban and modern," defines Dayer. Informed people, committed citizens with a certain level of education and income. People who are waiting for a magazine that lets them breathe better and brings joy and laughter. "They have their feet in the city and their heads in the stars."
With so much poetry, it is perhaps understandable that Ariane Dayer did not want to go into the business plan or the advertising business for the first issue. What is known is that Saturne will be published for the first time on March 5 with a print run of 30,000 copies. The magazine comprises 24 to 28 pages and is sold at newsstands for 6 francs. It is produced by six permanent employees and a number of freelancers. Faridée Visinand is in charge of advertising.
Retro feeling: Ariane Dayer.
Different format, different content: Saturne stands out from the zeitgeist.
"The great evil" Saturn takes its name from the second largest planet in the solar system. Known today primarily for its conspicuous rings, Saturn was considered "the great evil" in medieval astrology: it indicated misfortune, opposition and difficulties, and stood for punishment, old age and death.
In modern astrology, the significance of Saturn has been weakened to the principle of order, reality and moral boundaries.
The planet was named after Saturnus, the ancient Italian god of seed and fertility. The Romans associated Saturnus with the
Greek Kronos, the father of Zeus. He was the ruler of the gods before his son dethroned him and cast him into the underworld. (sm)
Stefano Monachesi

Agencies The PR agency Frei Kirchgessner und Partner has changed its name to Frei Group Communications after Urs Kirchgessner left the agency in December. The agency with offices in Berne and Zurich was able to increase its fee turnover by around 10 percent in 2003 and thus consolidate its position in the BPRA ranking, writes Frei Group. The 2002 ranking shows the agency in 7th place with CHF 3.85 million. Frei Group's declared goal is to be in the top five by 2008.

Multimedia The photo agency Keystone is now selling its photos via cell phone in cooperation with the mobile service provider Minick and the commuter newspaper 20 Minuten. The "Foto MMS" project on 20min.ch offers current pictures from categories such as news, people, sport and animals, which can be downloaded to cell phones for 2.50 francs.

Out-of-home advertising Clear Channel Plakanda, the number 2 in Swiss out-of-home advertising, "held up well in 2003, finishing only slightly down on the previous year, thus slightly increasing CCP's market share in the traditional poster business", announced Beat Roeschlin, CCP's CEO.CCP, as a subsidiary of Clear Channel Worldwide (CCW), which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, is not permitted to publish more detailed figures due to the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act. According to this law, detailed information about companies listed on US stock exchanges and their subsidiaries may only be communicated by a single company office. The CEOs face severe prison sentences if false figures are published.
For this reason, CCP does not disclose how much CCW still holds in its competitor Affichage. Just over a year ago, CCW reduced its stake from 8 to 4 percent. It is now said to be even less. Roeschlin only says: "Clear Channel no longer holds a significant stake in Affichage."
(mk)

Radio Extra Bern is expanding its cultural reporting, with a team of event reporters attending a cultural event in the canton of Bern every week. Their report is broadcast the following morning as an "Event Report" in two to three parts. The station also adds ticket and CD prize draws to its "going out tip". Thanks to a new transmitter in the Belpberg area, reception of Extra Bern in the district of Konolfingen to the south-east of Berne is improved.

Agencies The German advertising agency Scholz & Friends is now represented in Stockholm and is founding a new agency with Kay Höök as Managing Director and Arvid Swanvik as Creative Director. Höök previously worked for ATG and Ogilvy One, Swanvik - one of the top creatives in Sweden - for the TBWA subsidiary Der Kern. The first clients are Nike, Hipp and Sun Maid. For the time being, Scholz & Friends only holds a minority stake. According to German press reports, this is to be expanded to a majority stake. The network follows
The move to Sweden will enable Springer & Jacoby to integrate its Stockholm-based sister company Lowe People into its own network.

Magazine The fashion and lifestyle magazine Bolero has a new look on the Internet.magazine The fashion and lifestyle magazine Bolero has a new look on the Internet. Its website has been ported to Ringier's service and marketing platform and completely redesigned. Ringier's in-house agency Previon was responsible for the implementation.

TV Since Monday, the real estate magazine "WohntraumTV" has been broadcast on the eastern Swiss regional TV station TeleTop. 15 minutes long, it has been running on TeleZüri since last September. It provides viewers with advice on all aspects of real estate and presents residential properties in film spots and picture advertisements. These can be booked individually or in combination for TeleZüri and TeleTop. The weekly program is produced by Primetime in Schlieren. TeleTop shows "WohntraumTV" daily in the afternoon program and also in the morning at weekends.