SF DRS will broadcast large parts of the World Economic Forum (WEF), which takes place from January 21 to 25 in Davos, on SF Info.SF DRS will broadcast large parts of the World Economic Forum (WEF), which takes place from January 21 to 25 in Davos, on SF Info. The Federal Office of Communications has approved SRG's application for the short event under the title "WEF-TV". The plan is to broadcast all the more interesting debates, panels and press conferences of the WEF, the Open Forum and any other events live or at a later time, supplemented by live moderations and discussions on site.

Cinema The good old celluloid has to go: Cinema advertising can soon be transmitted digitally. The handling of cinema advertising is currently complex and relatively expensive. The number of cinemas alone - there are 500 cinemas in Switzerland - speaks volumes: this medium incurs high costs for film copies (not to mention film wear and tear), the booking lead time is around three weeks and controlling is time-consuming, but this will soon be a thing of the past. As Cinecom marketing manager Jean-Claude Bruhin explained to Werbewoche, the cinema advertising marketer is currently investing a "seven-figure" sum to equip its 400 leased cinemas throughout Switzerland with the technology to transmit advertising spots digitally from the second half of 2004. Specifically, each Cinecom cinema will be equipped with an ADSL line, a 16:9 projector and a Cinema Media Player. Each player has an internal drive that can store up to 30 movie soundtracks.
Significantly lower costs
And this is how the Cinecom system works: The booking tool in the Cinecom control center transfers the individual playlists to the individual servers, which in turn send a completion message back to the control center after the screening has taken place.
The advantages are obvious: screening control is greatly simplified and improved, Cinecom saves a "low six-figure sum" annually on shipping costs, and customers no longer have to pay for copying. In addition, uniform standards can be set for lighting and sound quality, reel changes are no longer necessary and the projectors allow cinema owners to use their auditoriums in a variety of ways, for example as lecture or conference halls on mornings, for events and TV broadcasts.
Thanks to digitalization, the booking lead time for advertising customers is also reduced to one week. "If necessary, individual spots - such as a Blick spot with the headline for the following day - can be replaced at even shorter notice," says Bruhin.
And the range is expanding: "We will offer movie premieres as standard, for example," says Bruhin. There will also be the option to select according to the genres action, art, drama, comedy, family and kids.
Even for local customers, the medium of cinema should become more attractive: As projectors are replacing slide projectors, simple animations of up to 15 seconds with or without sound will also be possible in future. Still images combined with a radio spot are also conceivable.
All in all, Cinecom is hoping for increased demand for cinema advertising. Expressed in figures: Cinecom Managing Director and co-owner Matthias Luchsinger expects 10 to 15 percent more sales from the second half of the year: "If cinema also becomes bookable like TV, TV customers will consider advertising in the cinema as well. In this way, we may be able to attract some of the TV budgets to the cinema.
One spot for three media
Cinecom not only markets cinema and TV, but recently also screens. The overall strategy behind this is now suddenly becoming apparent thanks to cinema digitization: the same spot can be used in all three media. The combination of home (TV) and out-of-home media (cinema, screens) is now possible and entire packages can be offered.
Thanks to digitalization, but probably above all thanks to the
Cinecom is currently also in pole position with cinema owners due to its somewhat earlier planning (see box). They seem to appreciate the advantages of the projector, which both simplifies handling and promises additional income, even if they have to pay for installation and maintenance themselves. This was presumably one reason why Mediavision was unable to acquire any further cinema leases in 2003.
Triple delight: Digital cinema advertising spots are more advantageous for marketers, customers and cinema owners.

Under pressureMediavision, which markets around 100 auditoriums in French-speaking Switzerland, is also upgrading in terms of digitalization. "Of course
Mediavision will also install the cinemas it leases digitally by the end of the year," said Olivier Bloch, Director of Mediavision Suisse. No further information was available. The decision comes as no surprise: both cinema owners and advertising customers are now under great pressure to follow suit. Advertising customers in particular would hardly have been prepared to produce another handful of advertising film reels just because of the Mediavision cinemas. (mk)
Markus Knöpfli

will become Head of the Magazines Division at Ringier in April and will join the Executive Board in this role. Most recently, he was Head of Magazines and a member of the Management Board of Tamedia.Alexander Theobald Tamedia CEO Martin Kall will assume his duties on an interim basis....
At the beginning of December, Sonja Hürlimann took over responsibility for strategic planning at Euro RSCG Switzerland. She was previously a strategic planner at Advico Young & Rubicam for eight years.
...
Sylvie Sengelin-Ritter is the new head of the Basel Watch and Jewelry Show Baselworld. The previous Head of Watches, Martin Fergusson, is now responsible for supporting exhibitors as Sales Director. The Head of Marketing and Communication, Monica Guarnaccia,
is leaving the trade fair at his own request after five years. Bernard Keller will be responsible for communications in future. Exhibition Director Sylvie Sengelin-Ritter will take over marketing on an interim basis.
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Regional editor Norbert Waser replaces Claudio Willi as deputy editor-in-chief at the Bündner Tagblatt.
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At the beginning of April, Marc Görtz will take over the management of Ringier-TV from Fibo Deutsch. Deutsch will remain responsible for Ringier's television activities at Group level. He also retains the management of Presse-TV.
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Yvette Häfliger is now responsible for customer service at Blickle
responsible for direct marketing. She takes over from
Myrtha Fotsch, who is leaving the company after eight years.
Häfliger was most recently Head of Direct Marketing at Zurich Invest Bank Ltd.
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The PR agency Zahner & Partner welcomes two new employees. At the beginning of January, Sabine Egger, previously a presenter and producer at Tele Ostschweiz, joined the team at the St. Gallen head office. In February, Mona Sieber joins the Zurich branch, where she will work as a project manager.
will be active in the new company. Sieber previously worked for the Bern-based PR agency
Zoebeli Communications.
...
At the beginning of the year, Renato Oliva took over the advertising representation of Axel Springer (AS) in Switzerland. The position was newly created. Oliva was previously jointly responsible for advertising sales at Stocks as a customer consultant. Musti Asaf, Head of Advertising at Stocks, and client advisor Antonia
Aerni take over his duties.

6000 children die every day worldwide from diarrhoea and a further two million people suffer from diseases directly or indirectly linked to a lack of clean water and inadequate sanitation facilities.NPO Marketing This is reported by the Water Supply & Sanitation Collaborative Council, a sub-organization of the WHO based in Geneva. As part of Geneva WASH Week (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene), the organization commissioned the Swiss agency McCann-Erickson with an awareness-raising campaign to draw attention to the precarious situation. The team around CD Timo Kirez amazed with dramatic subjects and cross-media implementations.

Advertising market For the first time, PrintOnline (POL) is not lowering its rates, but keeping them the same - because more and more small advertisements were not generating higher revenues. At the beginning of 2003, PrintOnline (POL) has almost reached its target for the transmission of advertisements smaller than a quarter of a page (110,000 advertisements)," says POL Managing Director Kurt Obrist, and - to emphasize the importance of POL - he adds: "The volume of advertisements mediated by POL in 2003 corresponds to around 50 percent of all advertising pages reported in the VSW statistics. "5.5 percent under budget
The flip side of the coin: the non-profit company, in which Ringier, NZZ, Tamedia and Publicitas each hold a 25 percent stake, fell 5.5 percent short of its budget with a turnover of CHF 1.9 million. The reason: "The number of orders for small advertisements increased more than expected," says Obrist. POL had budgeted for a 25 percent share, but in the end it was a good 40 percent. As a result of the lower price category, this led to a reduction in revenue compared to the budget and the previous year (2002 revenue: just under CHF 2 million). For the first time, POL is therefore not reducing prices in 2004 - previously, rates were reduced every year. According to Obrist, the increase in small advertisements is partly due to the economic situation and partly to the fact that, thanks to the lower prices, POL is also being used more frequently by job advertisers.
POL will soon be launching POLAS, a new service for advertisers who want to make their ads regionally customizable (so-called dealer ads), for example. POLAS stands for PrintOnline Advertisement System. In future, this should make it possible to save a basic advertisement - with the CI of a car brand, for example - in the POL system in such a way that authorized garage owners can access it directly. They will then insert their individual text, a new title or their own address, select a different image if necessary and then place a booking order for their regional newspaper. "We will be launching POLAS this month and are currently still looking for pilot customers," says Obrist. The client will be charged for storing the data in the POL system and generating it, while the recipient will continue to pay for the individual order.
Avoid "smearing"
POL also wants to help improve the print quality of advertisements. A quality club is being initiated for this purpose, which data producers on the one hand and print shops on the other can join. The aim is to switch to the ISO standard PDF/X-3 for data transmission in the current year, which will avoid a "smear effect" in future, particularly in newspapers, according to Obrist. However, this would require software adaptations on the sender and, above all, the recipient side. For publishers of large newspapers, who are in the process of installing new printing presses anyway, the changeover to the international standard is not a problem. For smaller publishers, however, it is. This is why POL wants to provide all those publishers who would not be able to cope with a changeover with the appropriate tools.
PrintOnline boss Kurt Obrist
Markus Knöpfli

The editorial team of the 'Magazin', the weekend supplement of the Tages-Anzeiger, is waiving 7.5 percent of its previous salary The editorial team of the 'Magazin', the weekend supplement of the Tages-Anzeiger, is waiving 7.5 percent of its previous salary. This is intended to achieve the savings target of 20 percent set by publisher Tamedia at the end of November. "In view of the 2004 budget, we were faced with the alternative of Job cuts or wage cuts," explained Editor-in-Chief Res Strehle. The wage cuts can be reversed if the economy picks up again.

Documentation With "The poster - 2004 in brief", the Allgemeine Plakatgesellschaft (APG) has published its offer documentation in a handy pocket format. 80 pages of the outdoor vademecum contain an overview of all geographical Wemf/BFS target areas in Switzerland, all APG poster network offers, shopping centers and city parkings, tariffs, conditions and display calendars. The brochure is available free of charge from any APG branch or at www.apg.ch.

Insider Verlag has given its magazine a facelift at the turn of the year. The Lucerne-based advertising agency Ideart was commissioned to implement the redesign, which will be published this week with a new logo, claim and color concept. The claim "The leisure magazine for central Switzerland" is intended to highlight the content and geographical focus even more clearly. The Insider is published with 18,750 copies in the cantons of Lucerne, Zug, Unterwalden, Schwyz and Uri as well as in the neighboring districts of the cantons of Aargau, Solothurn and Zurich. In terms of content, the Insider remains focused on leisure and lifestyle tips with an emphasis on the party/nightlife and gastronomy sector.

The Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) starts the new year with a competition for the mandate of the Stop-Aids campaigns for 2005 to 2008.The Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) starts the new year with a competition for the mandate of the Stop-Aids campaigns for 2005 to 2008. In addition to the long-standing budget holder cR DDB Basel, three agencies may participate. Briefing documents will be available on the FOPH website from January 6. Applications will be accepted until February 13. The pitch winner is to be determined by the end of May 2004. The search is on for an agency that can present the best innovative strategic approach to ensure that safer sex continues to be taken seriously in Switzerland. The budget for the prevention campaign is CHF 3 million per year.

Self-promotion Everyone knows that incentive trips are a popular means of VF, but hardly anyone can afford them any more, so the agency FCB Leutenegger Krüll was not impressed by the current lament and recently published such a catalog under the imperative motto "Only the prices count". The foreword states where the agency wants to take its clients in 2004. On the following pages, the advertisers present creative award destinations such as Cannes, New York, London or Essen - clearly laid out as in a travel brochure with information on ambience, accommodation, entertainment and the value of the award. By mentioning entry and vaccination regulations as well as the industry-standard travel guarantee, the agency team demonstrates its poliglotte and customer-oriented philosophy.

As is tradition, last week at the Epiphany meeting of the Media Institute of the Swiss Press Association, its president Hanspeter Lebrument opened this year's round of events.The gathering at the WTC in Oerlikon is, in addition to all the networking opportunities, always a welcome opportunity for those present to wish each other best wishes for the New Year and to encourage each other.This year, there was even a certain sense of industry optimism. The year is new and the prospects (still) good. One of the goals for the coming months should actually be to be able to dine extensively once a quarter in Horst Petermann's Kunststuben without the head of finance immediately dividing you into four and standing on your head with his department, said a sales manager who did not want to be named.
Peter Hartmeier, editor-in-chief, and Gilbert Hirzel, head of sales, said that things were looking up at the Tages-Anzeiger. There were increasing signs that the Tagi would be able to maintain its circulation for the first time in five years, the two told PR doyen Aloys Hirzel. This certainly put the matter in the right place in terms of communications.
Sebastian Turner from Scholz & Friends was also positive about the coming year, although arch-competitor Springer & Jacoby has announced the founding of a Swiss branch in the spring. This shows that the step into the Helvetic realm was the right one. This is not the first time that S & J has followed in the footsteps of Friends.
had made. The guest speaker told his Zurich board members Yvonne Hodel and Diana Strebel that this had already been experienced in the German home countries during Europeanization or the reorganization of the corporate units.
In short, it seems that an entire profession is expecting an upswing. Well, if only these hopes are not disappointed!
Beat Fritschamüsiert himself also after New Year's Eve royally and thanks in this way all card, SMS and mail writers who made him happy to the New Year. So many good wishes came that answering and thanking them would simply have taken too much time. Exactly for such cases one has one's own column. And we also met a few colleagues at the traditional Epiphany meeting.
We locate where the communications, media and publishing industries meet for their parties at the scene's various events. Do you already have something to report? Pick up the phone (01 296 97 98) or hit the keys ([email protected]). Event tips and more shortlist pictures are available online at www.werbewoche.ch.
Hans Peter Lebrument (l.), President of Schweizer Presse, and Filippo Leutenegger, President-to-be of the FDP Zurich.

Marco de Stoppani and Tobias Trevisan (r.) joked and called AZ Editor-in-Chief Markus Gisler (l.) "the new employee of the NZZ".
Paolo Placa (l.), Advertising Manager of Reader's Digest, talked to Bruno Oetterli of Radiotele about the industry outlook.
Top management of Scholz & Friends Zurich: Chairman of the Board Sebastian Turner with female board members Yvonne Hodel (l.) and Diana Strebel.
Frank Schneider of Schaffhauser Nachrichten with J. Pepe Wiss of the Swiss Confederation and Toni Vetterli (from left) of the Swiss Press Association.
Barbara Dohner (l.), Zürichsee Presse, and Michèle Meissner of Compress posed with direct marketing expert Edi Häusler.
Exchanged New Year's wishes: Radiotele sales manager Felix Kilchsperger (l.) and
Cinecom CEO Matthias Luchsinger.
Verena Nicole Giehse had news for Christian Gartmann - she is now a consultant at Publicitas Zurich.
Constantly laughing merrymakers: BZ advertising manager Michi Seiler (l.) with Werner Baumann of Ad.X AG at the Epiphany lunch.
Cautiously optimistic: Tagi Editor-in-Chief Peter Hartmeier (l.) and Tamedia Sales Manager Gilbert Hirzel (r.) with PR veteran Aloys Hirzel.
Advertisers in the TV marketer clinch: Frank Bodin between Martin Schneider (l.), Publisuisse, and Michi Frank (r.), IP Multimedia.
Andy Lehmann, Erik Keller and Urs Zeier (from left) quickly put the Coke bottles in the best light before taking the pictures.
NZZ Marketing Manager Christoph Bauer (l.) with Anita Haberthür and Daniel Matter from the advertising agency Matter & Partner.
The ladies from Tamedia: SonntagsZeitung Publishing Director Sandra Geiger (l.) and Tagi Marketing Director Gabi Wettstein.
Old BSW companions at the Epiphany meeting: Urs Beer, Walter Merz and Peter Leutenegger (from left).

Agencies I In April, two former creative directors of Publicis are opening a new agency in Zurich: Daniel Krieg and Uwe Schlupp are launching the first branch of the German advertising network Springer & Jacoby (S&J) in Switzerland. Krieg did not want to give any details about the ownership structure, nor about the first clients. When it launched just over a year ago, S&J Vienna had the network clients Mercedes and Smart as well as the new acquisition Kika, an Austrian furniture retail chain.