Sponsoring The Feldschlösschen beverage group is not renewing the expiring sponsorship contracts with the Tour de Suisse (TdS) and the Swiss Ice Hockey Association (SEHV).Sponsoring The Feldschlösschen beverage group is not renewing the expiring sponsorship contracts with the Tour de Suisse (TdS) and the Swiss Ice Hockey Association (SEHV). The decision follows a cost-benefit analysis of all commitments. Despite very good awareness levels and public response, according to marketing manager Kim Christensen, the primary target groups could only be reached inadequately. Feldschlösschen has been the main sponsor of the Tour since 2000 and is participating for the last time this year. Its involvement with the SEHV comes to an end in the spring after six seasons. In future, Feldschlösschen intends to concentrate its field hockey activities exclusively on the club level, such as the Spengler Cup.

Education The canton of Zurich reinstates the Lucerne Media Training Center (MAZ) in its school agreement in autumn. This means that the MAZ is now supported by all German-speaking Swiss cantons. In the mid-1990s, the then Director of Education Ernst Buschor terminated the agreement to save money. As a result, course participants from Zurich had to pay considerably more because the MAZ could not cover the loss of around 200,000 francs itself. In future, training will also be cheaper for Zurich residents.

Gastromagazine Even after a comprehensive relaunch, Salz & Pfeffer remains as irreverent as ever.ten (!) pages of wild garlic and a "gruusiger Cheib": the gastronomy magazine Salz & Pfeffer was redesigned in February and expanded its range of topics in the process. One of the new features is an interview in which the magazine talks about enjoyment. The first victim is Polo Hofer, to whom Salz & Pfeffer has given the above-mentioned honorary title. The recipes, which previously appeared in the Romano & Julienne supplement, have now been integrated into the magazine. To this end, the magazine is working with Fona Verlag, from whose books the recipes originate. In the February issue, you can conjure up delicacies such as wild garlic mousse on marinated asparagus and cream of beetroot soup with wild garlic dumplings. Another new feature is a multi-page special topic - "Cheese" to kick things off - and services such as tests, new products and tips on spirits.
Salt & Pepper has been graphically cleaned up. The layout should be more modern and magazine-like, says editor-in-chief Andrin C. Willi. The visual language has been refined and emphasized more strongly, and the information content has been increased with info boxes. Simplifying the reader guidance is also important: it should make it easier for younger readers to access Salz & Pfeffer. "You can now understand the magazine even if you haven't read it for years," says Willi happily. It is the first redesign since Daniel E. Eggli founded the magazine in 1990.
Positive reactions to redesign
Eggli's approach as a cheeky "magazine for food criticism and other satire" remains true to Salz & Peffer in its new guise. The target audience is still people who like to spend money on good food. They seem to like the redesign. "The phones at the publishing house were ringing off the hook after the February issue was published," says Willi. The reactions were consistently positive. And he promises: "We will remain the truffle pig for our readers and plow through the world of gastronomy and indulgence with big snouts."
Stefano Monachesi

Private radio station Energy Zürich has secured a prestigious contract: The former hit radio station is producing broadcast elements for sister stations in the NRJ network.Energy Berlin and Energy Stuttgart are the first customers. The two stations have commissioned Energy Zürich to produce the entire news package. Other stations are to follow. Since last fall, Energy Zurich has already been producing all of Radio Basel 1's broadcasting elements.

Health The pharmaceutical group Johnson & Johnson has entrusted Blue Spirit with the account for Compeed, and the marketing agency in Schlieren will be showcasing the blister plaster brand in the spring with various measures at the point of sale. Blue Spirit has been involved in a competitive presentation
has prevailed.

Event marketing Despite the advertising slump, the event industry is booming again. The "World of Events" will take place in Wiesbaden on March 3 and 4.330 The international trade fair for event marketing and event services has recorded growth of ten percent (330 companies from all over the world).
Europe and the USA) set an exhibition record. Accordingly, the size of the exhibition has also increased by around ten percent to 20,000 square meters.

Location marketing The Basel advertising agency Bluegummy Marketing Communications has been commissioned by the Basel Economic Development Agency to design a newsletter.location marketing The Basel advertising agency Bluegummy Marketing Communications has been commissioned by the Basel Economic Development Agency to design a newsletter. BaselAreaNews will be published twice a year and provide information about Basel as a business location. It will be launched at the end of March.

Press Mediasearch.ch is to become better known. To this end, those responsible for the search portal for media professionals have come up with a series of marketing measures for the next six weeks, including an online media quiz. The aim is to answer five not entirely serious questions from the media scene correctly on the website. Anyone who succeeds will be entered into a prize draw for the "Great Swiss Press Show", which is organized by the Swiss Press Association. Three Audis and 200 SBB half-fare travelcards are up for grabs. Mediasearch.ch is an initiative of the Swiss Press Association and is managed by the editorial team of the Media Trend Journal. It was launched last year and currently receives over1500 visitors per month.

Cinema magazines A year ago, the monthly titles Film demnächst and Avant première were given a new layout. Now they will be given another facelift at the end of March. The main reason: the colored text was difficult to read. The new layout is now "much clearer and more dynamic", says advertising manager Joël Dufour. The two cinema magazines from the Geneva-based Quorum Group, which are available free of charge in many cinemas, in all Media Markt stores and at Resa+ and Tic Tec ticket outlets, are also expanding their distribution: The March edition of Avant première will be available for the first time in 29 video stores and distributed to 50 video clubs (plus 20,000 copies).
Film will soon follow in German-speaking Swiss clubs in April (plus around 30,000 copies). In addition, 15,000 copies will be available in the Dietlikon multiplex, which opens in spring (WW 6/04). Film demnächst currently has 145000 copies, Avant première 120000 copies.
(mk)

Media Despite the rising stock market, business titles are performing poorly. Bilanz is optimistic with a new campaign and Jean Frey was the only major publisher to grow from existing titles. The decisive factor here, however, was the increase in advertising at Weltwoche, which compensated for the losses at Beobachter and Bilanz. The latter not only suffered an eleven percent drop in advertising in 2003 (according to VSW advertising statistics, the loss excluding job advertisements was as high as -27.6%), but also a further drop in circulation of 7000 copies (-14.6% to 47402 in 2002). The extent of the malaise of the business titles despite the rising stock markets and economy is reflected in the sex ads - officially "personal ads" - that Cash has been publishing in the "Invest" bundle alongside securities and real estate since the beginning of the year or in the fact that Stocks continues to maintain its halved cadence. So a pessimistic outlook for the balance sheet? Not quite, if you want to read the many changes in the magazine, which continues to be the strongest advertiser in German-speaking Switzerland, as an indicator of recovery. "After all, we were able to increase our advertising business slightly in January 2004 compared to the previous year," says publishing director Uli Rubner. In order to increase the number of subscribers, the publisher is planning additional subscription measures such as large distribution campaigns with a mini Bilanz for trial reading or cooperation with advertising customers in the distribution of the specials, which will now only be published seven times (for the first time a women's Bilanz). Thanks to its distribution partners, Bilanz aims to tap into new reader segments that are difficult to reach with mailings and conventional methods.
Balance sheet as the hero of the investigation
René Lüchinger, Editor-in-Chief of Bilanz since last December, sees the general crisis of confidence in executives as both a challenge and an opportunity for the magazine and is focusing more on captivating and stirring business stories. This can already be seen in the first two issues under his leadership. In doing so, the magazine seems to be responding to society's need for more justice in the business world. His aim is to make Bilanz read like a "true business thriller". And since the crime novel is one of the most popular genres in literature, Bilanz's positioning is exactly right. As an analytical "armchair detective agency", the editorial team is supposed to defy the hurdles of the system in order to uncover explosive content and real connections. According to Rubner, initial copy tests confirm the innovations: The reading intensity has increased, the pick-up rate has risen.
René Lüchinger and Uli Rubner also wanted to bring the new direction to life in communications and held a brand workshop with the long-standing in-house agency Publicis to define the joint platform. The advertising strategy is based on Bilanz's new self-image and was "tailored to the editor-in-chief, so to speak", says CD Markus Gut. On the basis that
Since the thriller economy is nowhere else described in such an exciting and high-quality way as in Bilanz, his team developed a concept that builds on this style of revelation and makes it recognizable through the new regularity.
Since February, the Bilanz cover stories have been landing on the desks of bosses and business lawyers every month as "revelatory works". In January, the test run was rehearsed with Joe Ackermann's "Catch Me if You Can". The leaked book, DVD or video with the explosive content is skillfully placed in the center like a piece of evidence.
Get it quickerWith its March issue, the Bilanz audio CD is definitely going into series production after the pilot last October. With each issue, the Wirtschaftsblatt provides its subscribers with an audio CD on which some of the highlights from the current issue are read aloud by professional speakers. In addition to the texts from the print edition, the audio CD contains an interview with Editor-in-Chief René Lüchinger on current issues. The disk is aimed at readers who want to save time by having the magazine read aloud at home, while commuting or doing sport. The listening time of 70 minutes is only interrupted by an important message from the sponsor Sunrise. (la)
The new Bilanz stories: Caution, explosive! Magazines If you like reading gripping thrillers, you should take a look at the cover stories of Bilanz >> page 7
Luca Aloisi

Column America, you have it better. Even when it comes to readership research. Because US newspapers not only want to know what their audience really wants; they also want to put this knowledge into practice. The figures are record-breaking: to find out how readership decline can be halted or even reversed, the Readership Institute at the renowned Northwestern University is surveying 37,000 people from 100 different newspaper markets in the USA. So far, eight million dollars have been invested in this extensive survey, with a further four million available until 2006. According to the American Journalism Review, the researchers' findings may not be sensational, but nevertheless deserve the attention of editors-in-chief and publishing managers: Excellent customer service, content improvements (including the advertising section), stronger branding and a new editorial culture. According to the surveys, the editorial section should aim to be even closer to the reader: the average American wants to find himself in his newspaper. This applies above all to the local and regional press, as there are only three truly national papers in the USA. And two of them - the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal - serve the country's elite. However, the third in the group, USA Today, has shown that national success can also be achieved by targeting specific target groups that are neglected by the other newspapers and, above all, by putting them in the spotlight; for example, all those ethnic minorities that are gradually becoming the majority in America. For a long time, however, they hardly featured in the newspapers, which were mostly written by whites for whites.
According to the researchers, even more color, information graphics, self-promotion and reader guidance should make the newspaper more attractive - apparently also for people who hardly read anything else. This makes it all the more surprising that US readers want longer science articles and fewer weather reports instead. But they also want fewer stories about crime and more politics - from community affairs to globalization processes, which, like all international reporting, have always been woefully neglected by the US media. This makes people sit up and take notice and proves right those who have been calling for years for "public journalism" - journalism that motivates citizens to participate more in public life.
Newspapers such as the Bakersfield Californian (7,000 circulation) or the Atlanta Journal (42,000 circulation) have "readership editors". They are supposed to help their colleagues to do what Helmut Markwort has been preaching to his Focus editorial team for over eleven years: Always think of the reader first! Of course, such a "readership editor" will only have influence and success if he is accepted as a coach by his editorial colleagues. Conversely, there is a danger that the editorial team will pass all responsibility for reader guidance and friendliness on to their coach.
The Readership Institute is sponsored by the American Publishers Association and the Association of Editors-in-Chief. The findings are passed on to editorial staff in countless seminars. As newspapers are also suffering in many countries in the old world, it is time to launch a corresponding European initiative.
However, more market research will not be able to provide editors with patent remedies. "That's what the reader wants": instead of just continuing to trot out this phrase, media professionals - like the manufacturers of beer, baby carriages or washing machines - should finally want to know what their audiences really want. Otherwise, they should not be surprised that the daily newspaper is not being missed on more and more breakfast tables and office desks.
> Stephan Russ-Mohl is a professor of journalism at the University of Lugano.

Advertising statistics Wemf plans to publish the first AIS data this week, and the data for the month of January 2004 from the Advertising Index Switzerland (AIS) is expected to be available on the Wemf website from February 27. This was announced by Hans-Jürg Gränicher, AIS project manager at Wemf. Accordingly, the AIS definitely shows the gross advertising volume (including freespace) for TV and cinema, while print, radio, posters, teletext and online appear as invoiced gross (without freespace). "Intermedia sales comparisons between TV/cinema and the other media are not permitted," says Gränicher. In future, he wants to publish the AIS data "in the third week of the following month". This time it won't work because of delays.
The AIS currently collects data from around 160 print titles from all parts of the country, from all SRG stations, from 8 advertising windows, 3 outdoor advertisers, 18 private radio stations, 7 private TVs, from all Cinecom cinemas and from 15 online marketers and independent portals.
There are gaps in the private TV and radio sector: Viva (Switzerland), Star-TV, Tele Ostschweiz, Tele Ticino, all stations in French-speaking Switzerland and smaller TVs do not provide any figures. Among the private radio stations missing are Basel 1, BeO, 105, most stations in French-speaking Switzerland, all stations in Ticino and all foreign radio stations broadcasting into Switzerland. "Providers or individual media are constantly being added," explains Gränicher.
At competitor Media Focus (MF), the list of data suppliers is longer, but also not complete. Almost 340 print titles are analyzed, according to MF Managing Director Lukas Zihlmann. Radio 105 and other radio stations are included in MF, as are Star TV and Viva (Switzerland). There are gaps in French-speaking Switzerland.
Zihlmann promises that the data will be published on the 25th of the following month.
Markus Knöpfli