The association of over 40 IT companies in the Sursee region is launching the short program "Computer Valley-TV" together with the Central Swiss broadcaster TeleTell. The three-minute format will be broadcast on Monday evenings from February 9 and repeated every hour until the following afternoon.

Awards Swiss Advertising (SW) has awarded Michael Conrad the title of "Communicator of the Month". It honored the renowned German advertiser for the new ADC evaluation mode. Instead of the "usual confusing and inflationary amount of dice", there were only a few awards, writes SW: "Thanks to Michael Conrad, Swiss creatives have landed on the ground of reality and become compatible with Europe, so to speak."

Photography Tanya Mezzera and Urs Unternährer from the Lucerne agency Velvet took a photo every day on their journey from Mumbai via Cairo, Damascus to Tehran - 170 in total - of a predetermined concept such as bread, happiness, supermarket or sunrise and moon. Their friends who stayed at home did the same. These almost simultaneous, yet distant photographs have now been brought together as an "everyday juxtaposition". With the realization that the same terms have completely different meanings in different places and in different life situations. The book "Daily Picture - Ein Tag zwei Bilder" has been published by Velvet-Edition Lucerne. Velvet, which has been a household name in design and communication circles both locally and nationally for a good ten years, has been publishing books and magazines as a supplement to client projects and as a cultural ideology in its own publishing house since 2002.

69.1vertising A study by the Gesellschaft für Kommunikation (Communications Society) reveals that 69.1% of Swiss people have a positive attitude towards advertising. They believe that "advertising informs". 55.7% of people also think that "advertising entertains". The negative attitude towards advertising was also researched: 68% believe that we have "too much advertising" in Switzerland. In comparison: 91% complain about too much advertising in Spain, 84.7% in Italy and 78.2% in Germany. There, only 30.5% find that "advertising entertains".

Special Interest Swiss Tuner doesn't need pin-up girls to create the erotic effect of fast and tuned cars. Now the glossy magazine is also available in French-speaking Switzerland. "We didn't actually want to do the French edition," admits Khalid Widmer. Nevertheless, just one year after the launch of Swiss Tuner, the publishing director of X-Press Media AG is taking the plunge across the Röstigraben. Widmer says that advertisers, especially car importers, would have liked it to happen.Break-even this year Swiss Tuner is all about beautiful, powerful, souped-up cars. The glossy magazine is aimed not only at experts in the tuning scene, but above all at fans of sleek cars. But Widmer makes one thing clear right from the start: "You won't find any foxtails or pin-up girls here."
Swiss tuning enthusiasts are on a different level to their German neighbors, says the former regional sales manager of Automobil Revue. He also explained this to the two young publishers Roger Hugelshofer and Florian Tremp - who used to work for the trend magazines Insidemag and Vakum - who came up with the idea for Swiss Tuner. Widmer convinced them to focus on the high-price segment instead of "Volkswagen tuning" and immediately acquired a stake in the publishing house. German investor Dieter Neff also joined the company. Swiss Tuner was launched at the 2003 Geneva Motor Show with four issues a year. In 2004 there will already be six.
Khalid Widmer has not noticed much of the advertising slump. Swiss Tuner suffered more from the fact that the media budgets of the clients had long since been distributed at the launch for the Motor Show in March. This handicap will no longer apply in the new year. Clients such as Pirelli, Continental and Pioneer have already booked the entire year. Widmer hopes to close the year in the black in December.
Up to now, Swiss Tuner has mainly advertised domestic garages and accessory manufacturers alongside tire brands and car hi-fi manufacturers. Car importers are hardly represented. "Importers often resist with the argument that they have nothing to do with tuning," sighs Widmer. However, the cars shown in the magazine are always conversions of high-quality models such as Mercedes or BMW, all of which are approved for road use. The expansion into French-speaking Switzerland is intended to give advertising sales a further argument for attracting this customer group.
The next prank is already underway Clients from outside the automotive industry are hard to find in Swiss Tuner. The magazine does have a lifestyle section as a possible environment for car-related consumer goods advertising. But "motors and lifestyle are not an easy mix," Widmer knows. The publishing director already has a solution at hand: in the fall, X-Press Media plans to launch a second magazine that deals specifically with "car lifestyle".
Another lifestyle product has been on sale since last week: the music group EMI is producing the "Swiss Tuner CD Vol. 1" with numerous tracks by well-known techno DJs and "15 percent more bass for your car". EMI approached the publisher because a similar project had been marketed extremely successfully in Belgium, says Widmer. The campaign for the CD with TV commercials in all Swiss advertising windows cost EMI over 300,000 francs. If "Vol. 1" sells well, two to three CDs per year are planned.
The advertising potential for Swiss Tuner is obvious when the Swiss Tuner CD is soon blaring out of every open car window - so it doesn't matter if some people have a foxtail fluttering on their antenna.
Facts & FiguresSwiss Tuner will be published bimonthly from February with 35,000 German and 15,000 French copies. The French edition will be translated from German and will be expanded to include an original French article.
The magazine has around 2000 paying subscribers. All members of the Auto Tuning & Design Association Switzerland Liechtenstein receive 40 copies free of charge, and all members of the AGVS garage association receive one copy each. Swiss Tuner is distributed at its own stand at the motor shows in Berne, Geneva and Zurich.
The newsstand circulation is increased from 5000 to 7000 copies. New is
The magazine is available at all Kiosk AG branches. Sales are supported by the so-called "K-Promo" with poster displays. So far, Swiss Tuner has sold over 3000 copies per issue at kiosks. A single issue costs five francs. (sm)
Highlight for car freaks: Swiss Tuner magazine sets the pace.
Stefano Monachesi

Germany Ringier Verlag is launching its new magazine Cicero on March 25. He is editor-in-chief of the political and cultural monthly magazine, with which Ringier is returning to the German market. The editorial team has been expanded to include Martina Fietz, who will work as parliamentary correspondent. Fietz was most recently chief correspondent for Welt am Sonntag.

Wochenpresse Five months after the WOZ relaunch, those responsible for the paper have drawn a positive interim balance, according to which the compulsory newspaper of the Swiss left has "increased by a proud 800 subscribers since September last year to currently 12360 subscribers", Managing Director Verena Mühlberger told Werbewoche. This means that WochenZeitung has already gained almost half of the 2000 new subscribers targeted by the end of 2005. According to Mühlberger, the 1000 trial subscriptions, which the new member of the Swiss Press Association probably owes primarily to its "Press Show", also indicate that the target has been achieved.7 percent growth in the advertising market was also achieved by the former central organ of consumer criticism despite the crisis year. However, Kilian Gasser predicts that "it will probably take until 2006" before last year's turnover of around 750000 francs breaks through the million barrier. The WOZ advertising manager can take comfort in the fact that turnover when he took up his post two years ago was just 600,000 francs.
(oc)

Politics The Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC) has decided that the cable network company Cablecom does not have to immediately relaunch the local TV channel ZüriPlus, as the operator of the channel, HTV-Fernsehen AG, had applied for precautionary measures. Nevertheless, ZüriPlus continues to hope. ZüriPlus announced that only precautionary measures had been rejected, while the actual administrative complaint regarding Cablecom's obligation to switch on the channel is still pending. The broadcaster is relying on an expert opinion subsequently submitted to the Uvek. It should prove that there is room for ZüriPlus in the Cablecom network without another station having to be switched off. The ZüriPlus broadcasting slot went to U1 TV Station.

Wages The agreement between the social partners in the graphic arts industry expires at the end of April.wages The agreement between the social partners in the graphic arts industry expires at the end of April. The industry association Viscom is now appealing to the trade unions to retain the current system, develop it further and strengthen the competence of employee representatives. For the past four years, wage negotiations in the graphic arts industry have been conducted at company level rather than at association level. This has led to significant wage differences in some companies.

New grouping The Swiss Press Association has revised its press typology: The general press group now only includes titles that are perceived as magazines in terms of their appearance, and the customer and business information segment has been divided into four subgroups. The revised title classifications can be accessed immediately at www.vsw-assp.ch. Requests for changes must be submitted in writing to VSW/ASSP, Verband Schweizerischer Werbegesellschaften, Stefan Gsell, Head of Documentation Centers, Konradstrasse 15, 8401 Winterthur by February 15 at the latest.

Brands The increased anti-Americanism in the wake of the invasion of Iraq has not harmed American brands. 1800 people in 12 countries were surveyed by Harvard Business School before and during the war to find out which brands they would prefer to buy. 88 percent opted for global - American - brands instead of local alternatives. This figure applies to most countries, including developing countries. Global brands were preferred there because they represented a guarantee of quality.

Posters After the renovation of the Swiss National Bank building complex in Zurich (1999 to 2001), the idea arose to make the display windows available to the Museum für Gestaltung's poster collection for exhibitions. In practical terms, the posters prevented people from seeing into the workrooms behind them. Artistically speaking, this trick has made ten exhibitions possible to date. This anniversary is being celebrated with a stylish volume that provides a complete overview of the posters shown to date. Each theme is accompanied by a commentary text. The brochure can be obtained free of charge from the National Bank's porter's lodge.