The Zurich agency Flowcube has been commissioned by the French-speaking Swiss fashion label Teddy's to handle its PR work. The brand is to be positioned and profiled more strongly. According to Flowcube, Teddy's sells 4 million items of clothing every year in department, fashion and mail-order stores, jeans stores and trend stores. A shop-in-shop concept has also been implemented since 2003. The first "Teddy's Store" was opened in Lucerne at the end of November.

Diploma At the University of Lugano, 25 candidates completed the fourth Master of Science in Communications Management course, with Tanja Passow, Corporate Communications Manager at Mettler-Toledo International, receiving the Burson-Marsteller Award for the best diploma. The list of the new Masters of Science in Communications Management can be found on the Werbewoche website.

The St. Gallen PR agency Zahner & Partner (Z&P) announces four new clients: Z&P has been advising the abrasives manufacturer Sia Abrasives from Frauenfeld in the areas of corporate communications and investor relations since the summer. The St. Gallen waste disposal company Texta AG and the Swiss Real Estate Appraisers Association are also now being advised by Z&P. Following a competition, the agency was also commissioned to organize and implement the first Museum Night St. Gallen in September 2004.

E-Commerce I The PWA index rose by 0.2 points to 102.1 points in November, and apart from the summer lull (July and August), the index, which shows the development of online advertising expenditure, recorded growth throughout the year. The trend for 2004 is still very positive, according to the online media consultant Publimedia Webadvertising (PWA).

Posters The Lucerne poster submission has been suspended, in Basel APG has been confirmed as concessionaire.
The Lucerne Administrative Court has suspended the tender for the poster concession launched last October and granted suspensive effect to an appeal by outdoor advertiser Clear Channel Plakanda (CCP). CCP had submitted the appeal to the court before the submission deadline had expired. It was directed against the tender criteria, which were unclear and incomplete, said CCP CEO Beat Roeschlin. CCP had therefore not yet submitted an offer. Daniel Bernet, a lawyer at the Lucerne Building Department, now expects a delay of "a maximum of six months". In Lucerne, 250 poster sites on public land are at stake, and a new situation has also arisen with regard to the poster concession in Basel. Shortly before Christmas, the administrative court there dismissed an appeal by CCP and confirmed the decision of the building department and the Basel transport company. Following a tender, the latter had awarded the billboard concession to APG because its billboard concept was better than that of CCP. The Basel court has now agreed with this opinion. According to Roeschlin, it remains to be seen whether CCP will lodge a constitutional appeal with the Federal Court. However, he regretted that the court had expressly not assessed the tender according to submission criteria, thus allowing the building authorities a very wide margin of discretion. In fact, the administrative court went out on a limb by specifying in its ruling when, in its opinion, a poster submission was mandatory and when it was voluntary (see p. 16).Markus Knöpfli

Outdoor advertising Patrik Ducrey, Deputy Director of the Competition Commission, on the unresolved problem of poster concessions.
WW: Three years ago, the Competition Commission (Weko) recommended that municipalities put poster concessions out to public tender. Did this recommendation make a difference? Patrik Ducrey: We haven't looked into this any further. But we assume that a recommendation will also prompt poster companies to complain to us if such a contract is not put out to public tender. This is exactly what happened in Lucerne.
In Basel, however, the Administrative Court has just ruled that an invitation to tender is only mandatory if street furniture is procured in return for the award of the concession. However, if - as in Basel and Lucerne - only financial compensation is required for the concession, no invitation to tender is necessary. The court based its decision on
to a 1999 Federal Supreme Court ruling concerning the city of Geneva.
However, it seems to me that the Basel court has gone one step further than the Federal Court did at the time. The latter had merely confirmed that the municipalities were not obliged to put such concessions out to tender. It justified this by stating that the awarding of public poster sites was essentially a matter of concession income and not actual procurement. And even if the concession income was provided in the form of street furniture, this was not the same as a direct purchase of this furniture for a fee. In our opinion, however, the Federal Court was not very correct there. In any case, we cannot understand this distinction. And from a competition law perspective, tenders are of course still sensible. This is also the reason for our recommendation at the time, which we based not on public procurement law but on antitrust law.
A year and a half ago, the Competition Commission ordered the city of Lucerne to
was forced to issue an invitation to tender following an investigation. What was the legal basis for this?
We relied on the Cartel Act, which states that the abuse of a dominant market position is not permitted. We assumed that the city of Lucerne, as the awarding authority for this billboard concession on public land, was in a dominant market position at the time of the award. If it does not conduct a public tender in this situation, we believe that it is restricting or even preventing competition.
Would you have had a legal basis for an investigation when, according to the Federal Supreme Court, tenders for poster concessions
are voluntary?
That should have been left to chance. We are of the opinion that we could have enforced such a tender based on the Cartel Act. Ultimately, the Federal Supreme Court should have said how the Cartel Act and the Public Procurement Act relate to each other.
Assuming that the Competition Commission had initiated the investigation:
Would Lucerne then have been able to appeal to the Federal Supreme Court?
Not against the investigation itself. But if we had come to the conclusion that the city was in breach of antitrust law, it could have appealed first to the Competition Appeals Commission and then to the Federal Supreme Court.
Wouldn't a federal court clarification be desirable for all sides?
In principle, yes. But you also have to consider the time factor. It would take around three to five years to fight through to the Federal Supreme Court - probably too long a time span for the municipalities.
Does the court ruling in Basel offer an opportunity for this?
Perhaps. It also depends on whether the company in question takes the decision further.
What is the advantage of invitations to tender compared to the previous practice of municipalities not issuing invitations to tender or concluding so-called consortium agreements with several providers?
A submission has the advantage that other interested parties can submit their bids, concepts and offers. This is more transparent for all sides. And it can also lead to additional income for the municipalities.
However, the examples of Basel and Lucerne now show that tenders
of poster concessions tend to be disadvantageous for the municipalities: They are prone to complaints, cause long delays, high legal costs and result in a loss of revenue because the new concession agreements cannot be concluded.
Of course, because there is not yet a culture of this type of tender in the big cities. But if they become a habit, if they are carried out correctly and if the criteria are clearly formulated and properly applied in the decisions, the risk of a complaint is reduced.
Eternal dispute over concessionsCommunities in which a poster concession is about to be awarded,
must expect lengthy legal proceedings. In Lucerne
The disputes are entering their third year, and in Basel their seventh. Every year, the city of Basel loses out on around three million francs in concession income.
The delays on the Rhine bend are partly self-inflicted. A former member of the cantonal government slipped a concession to APG for 250 new illuminated billboards past the cantonal parliament, which led to building objections, a long political debate and years of uncertainty about the form of the remaining concession, which is now the subject of dispute (see p. 1). The situation is different in Lucerne. There, the building authorities wanted to renew the contract with APG without a tender, whereupon CCP filed a complaint with the Competition Commission.
Under pressure from the Competition Commission, the city then issued the tender in October 2003, which has now been suspended. In Lucerne, only one price offer is required. Bern showed that it can also be done without problems: after a problem-free submission, the contract was also awarded to APG uncontested (mk).
"Municipalities should put poster concessions out to public tender": Patrik Ducrey, Deputy Director of the Competition Commission.
Markus Knöpfli

Award Exxtra Kommunikation has won a top prize at the 33rd Mobius Awards, with the TV commercial "X-ray Flower" for Migros' Nendaz mineral water being awarded a Mobius statuette by the US creative competition. The "Boy or Girl" spot for Blox chocolate bars (Migros) receives a Certificate for Outstanding Creativity, which is equivalent to 2nd place. Lowe wins three of these certificates with spots for Orange and a poster for VW.

Address directories Publicis launches new commercials based on proven concept for LTV Gelbe Seiten AGThe yellow question panels from the multi-award-winning Yellow Pages campaign have been well-known at least since the TV commercial with the supposed entertainers Clinton/Jeltsin. LTV Gelbe Seiten AG has been relying on the proven concept from the creative kitchen of in-house agency Publicis for over four years. This concept has not been changed for the current campaign. However, instead of spending hours visioning news material from various TV stations, the team around CD Jean Etienne Aebi hired the film distributor Buena Vista International in Zurich without further ado. With edited film trailers of brand new Hollywood productions, the creatives want to prove that the strategy does not only work with black and white archive films. What initially looks like a normal movie trailer is put into a new context by the sudden appearance of the yellow panels. For example, Captain Hook's terrifying hooked claw is given an almost ridiculous touch by the question "Manicure?".
Failure, bad luck and pleasure
Eddie Murphy also offers unintentional situation comedy in the Disney project "The Haunted Mansion", as does wrestling star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in "Welcome to the Jungle": Aebi & Co. use their misadventures to draw attention to the services and companies in the Yellow Pages. And to draw advertisers' attention to the publications: The directory from PubliGroup's PubliDirect division is published annually with a circulation of around 1.3 million copies.
The first three commercials have been on air since the beginning of January and will flicker across domestic screens until February. A second wave of new trailers is due to start in the spring. However, the agency team does not want to reveal which movie premieres will be recut for this. If you still want to know, look it up in the Yellow Pages under H for psychic.
Hollywood action: TV commercials for Gelbe Seiten AG.
Simone Keller

In a pitch, Publicis has secured the budget for the new soft drink Mei Ling. The soft drink is based on green tea and tropical fruit juices and is produced by the Zurich-based company Asian Concepts and bottled in collaboration with the Bischofszell food group. Publicis has been commissioned to develop Mei Ling as a branded product. A national print campaign for the mango and kiwi flavors will be launched in summer 2004 under the slogan "Feel the Asian Spirit". According to the company website, the name of the drink means beauty (Mei) and soul (Ling).

The German television channel RTL wants to acquire a majority stake in the news channel n-tv. The Federal Cartel Office has already approved the project, said a spokeswoman for the authority, adding that RTL currently owns 48.6 percent of n-tv. The US media group CNN/Time Warner holds 49.8 percent. The remainder is held by the publisher Norman Rentrop, whose share RTL would like to acquire. n-tv was founded in 1991 and was launched at the end of 1992 as the first German special interest channel for news and business.

The Bern-based pharmaceutical group Galenica has acquired 68 percent of the medical specialist publisher Documed from the MediMedia Group.The Bern-based pharmaceutical group Galenica has acquired 68 percent of the medical specialist publisher Documed from the MediMedia Group.
Galenica intends to acquire a further 20 percent in two stages by the end of 2005. The parties have agreed not to disclose the price of the transaction. At the same time, the publishing house Editores Medicorum Helveticorum has acquired a 12 percent stake in Documed. EMH is majority-owned by the Swiss Medical Association (FMH).

Matratzen Bico still provides a "tüüfe gsundä Schlaaf". Otherwise, almost everything is new.Nothing looks sleepier than an advertisement for mattresses. Especially if it is very good and therefore operates for years with the always the same, and once in a while also soporific claim "Für ä tüüfe, gsundä Schlaaf". For 17 years, until 1991, Bico AG in Schänis advertised with the twins Martin and Sepp Müller from Näfels. The two weird birds with the Glarus dialect became so famous that, according to a study, many people still associate Bico with these two sleeping caps today, even though advertising with the two originals was discontinued more than ten years ago. The campaign originated from the FCB Leutenegger Krüll agency. The well-known comedian Emil also contributed to later concepts as a copywriter.
Back to the root agency
Then, with the change of ownership at Bico, the advertising also went to another agency. The last four campaigns sold Bico mattresses via a sleeping woman as the new sympathetic figure. "We lacked differentiation from other products," says Roman Corbat, head of marketing at Bico, now explaining the return to FCB Leutenegger Krüll. There, CD Mike Krüll is naturally "very proud" that they won back this prestigious account in a pitch. At the same time, the agency was aware that even public favorites have an expiration date.
On the other hand, the company was determined to save - or rather revive for a new generation of sleepers - the claim "Für ä tüüfä, gsundä Schlaaf".
Three cheeky-looking spots have now been realized. "Alarm Clock" shows a young man setting a whole battery of alarm clocks before falling asleep, so that he doesn't miss out despite the most blissful Bico sleep. The advertisers venture further into the realm of dreams with their "Flood" spot. In a flooded area - visualized with newsreel footage of a flood disaster - a woman can no longer be rescued by helicopter. Instead, she finds rescue at the last second on a mattress. On the bico-raft, she soon drifts peacefully slumbering towards the end of the natural disaster. A third spot, "Healing," is intended to tease the viewer in a way that has not yet been approved by the client, on the subject of miracle healers and back problems.
For a bright audience
The spots are designed as an image campaign to rejuvenate the brand. In parallel, more factual spots and advertisements highlighting the benefits of Bico's ClimaLuxe, BicoFlex and Privilège mattresses are running.Bico AG, which has also been temporarily part of Valora's portfolio, is now part of Hilding Anders, Sweden's largest bed group. Bico is the market leader in Switzerland with a 35 percent share of sales.
The stuff dreams are made of: Spot "Flood" for Bico
Andreas Panzeri