Print The French-speaking Swiss publishing house Edipresse acquires a stake in the Spanish publishing house Focus Ediciones. The subsidiary Edipresse Hymsa in Barcelona acquires 60 percent of Focus.Print The French-speaking Swiss publishing house Edipresse acquires a stake in the Spanish publishing house Focus Ediciones. The subsidiary Edipresse Hymsa in Barcelona is taking over 60 percent of Focus. The minority and the management remain with Daniel Medvene and Isabel Suárez, who founded the publishing house in 1992. Focus publishes the men's magazine Revista DT (DownTown) and the recently launched men's lifestyle magazine Nox. Its annual turnover is around four million euros.

Agencies Peter Hofstetter has landed a coup: His small agency Mediaxis is entering into a strategic cooperation with the Havas network Media Planning Group (MPG), with the Swiss branch of the network moving its headquarters to Mediaxis, under whose umbrella MPG clients will be served in future.
The previous MPG Managing Director Andreas Florek is leaving the agency.

Sexanzeiger In the middle of the recession, market newcomer Cherry is now being published twelve times a year again instead of just six. An indication of the well-being of an anti-cyclical industry? Far from it: the "biggest" (SAZ, founded in 1977) and the "most successful" contact gazette (Okay, 1984) were both already of age when Cherry, "the most lustful erotic magazine", began to stir up the Swiss market for sex gazettes in May last year. If you believe the publisher of the cheeky little fruit, Oscar Broghammer, Cherry has now overtaken the top dogs with its bi-monthly print run of a good 25,000 copies - which they of course fiercely deny (see box).The (only!) board member of Neue Publikationen AG is far less forthcoming when asked about the origin of the start-up capital of certainly well over a million francs. "Firstly, I wasn't on board yet. And secondly, even at Weltwoche we don't know who is financing it." However, if you ask around in the milieu, there is hardly any doubt that telephone sex king Philippe Gilomen - who had previously only been a major customer of the competition - decided during the recession to launch his own advertising and image carrier with Cherry.
The market demands hardcore In terms of concept and personnel, the most recent Hormonblatt was created from the Zurich-based Okay Verlag. Its then director Marcel Ljatifi and three followers wanted to finally get out of the dirty corner with even more lifestyle, high gloss and aesthetics - and into the adventure of relative independence. Cherry was to become a Swiss hustler with an erotic edge and no gynecological insights. If you leaf through the 180-page October issue, you can expect a lot of splayed and 0900 moaning. In addition to salon reports, fetish fun, sexy news and pages of private and professional personals, the buxom double cherry has also offered a porn section as a USP since the end of 2002, which - like book pages in the past - you first have to cut open before consuming. "We had the choice of either dying in beauty or fulfilling the wishes of our readers," says Broghammer, explaining the hardcoreization of his product forced by the market.
Rich cherry harvest
Cherry has long since made a pornographic virtue out of the journalistic necessity that the air between men's magazines and porn magazines is too thin in this country. And it has also been commercially successful. At any rate, if you translate into figures the third of the turnover confirmed by publishing director Broghammer between sales revenue, salon and private advertisements, then at a newsstand price of just under ten francs per issue, the total revenue is well over half a million francs.
Not a bad average for a publishing house with seven part-time employees, three of whom work in advertising sales. Broghammer hopes to at least maintain this level of profitability with the switch back to monthly publication in November. "Whether we come six times a year, as we did recently, or now twelve times a year again: As with a car magazine, this has hardly any impact on the fixed editorial and administrative costs."
So does the saucy little fruit believe in an imminent upturn? Or is sex publishing really not suffering from the recession, as is often assumed? "Neither," says Broghammer. Even the shorter interval between two issues is merely a response to readers' wishes. After all, sex has long been a "fast turning consumer good". In other words, the expiry date of professional and private ("a distinction that is becoming increasingly difficult anyway") personal ads is now a maximum of one month.
Cherry currently employs just one editor, the
The rest, which is also not worth mentioning, is done by external ghostwriters. Why not dispense with the editorial fig leaf altogether? "No content, no subscribers", is how Broghammer sums up a piece of publishing wisdom that also applies to a drive-driven audience. As ex-Fundgrueb publishing director, he clearly knows what he is talking about. And is accordingly proud of the fact that Cherry is well above the industry average, with "a good third of its readers being permanent subscribers".
While the fight for some seriousness in terms of content has effectively been abandoned, Broghammer still has ambitions in terms of advertising. Full-page image ads, such as those placed by the whiskey brand Jack Daniel's in the comparatively prudish first two issues, should definitely be a thing of the past despite the monthly rhythm.
Wemf-compliant sex magazines? the internet edition of the erotic and contact magazine Okay has long been certified by the Net-Audit of the AG für Werbemedienforschung. Managing Director Pietro Attardo would also be interested in the Wemf seal for his print edition, "but they don't seem to want to get their hands dirty with us". Wemf chief certifier Christel Plöger, however, says matter-of-factly: "A title is a title." She has reservations
at most in terms of objectivity in any range measurements. She shares this view with Oscar Broghammer, who knows from experience that everyone knows Cherry, but nobody ever wants to read it, let alone buy it. In addition, for obvious reasons, the double cherry is more likely to be left lying around than passed on, which does not have a positive effect on these values either. (oc)
Scandal marketing: Playmates with the Federal Councillor on the Rütli.
Oliver Classen

Tariffs Swisspool is increasing its prices, but lowering the thousand-reader tariff.
It was to be expected that the Swisspool rate would increase with the integration of the Bund into the Berner Zeitung (BZ). After all, the reach of Swisspool I (German-speaking Switzerland) also increased by 14.2 percent, excluding double readership of the Bund and BZ. Nevertheless, the pool consisting of BZ, Tages-Anzeiger, Basler Zeitung, Neuer Luzerner Zeitung, St.Galler Tagblatt, 24 Heures and Tribune de Genève is improving its price-performance ratio by lowering the thousand-reader price in all bookable modules by 0.2 to 4.1 percent.After last year's price increase despite the loss of reach, a reduction was more appropriate this time, as the Swisspool advertising volume fell by over 20 percent in the first nine months of 2003 compared to the same period last year, as Edi Battaglia from the Swisspool clearing office explains.
The weekend offer introduced at the beginning of 2003 met with little demand: Anyone who books an identical advertisement with Swisspool I on Saturday and the following Monday receives a 25 percent discount. "Only about three customers have taken advantage of this offer so far," says Battaglia. Nevertheless, the offer will be continued next year. Perhaps Marco Reale, the first Key
Account Manager of Swisspool, to arouse a little more interest. In any case, he has been on the slopes since October 1.
Pool promotes home shopping
Swisspool is ahead in the online sector: from mid-November, pool customers will be able to place their ads online for seven days for an additional charge. Specifically, the homepages of the member titles will contain a clear reference to the advertisement link. There, the advertisements can not only be viewed, but the individual products can also be clicked on and viewed in detail. Consumers can also order a regular newsletter from the provider, for example with weekly promotions or new products.
This is possible thanks to software from the Ticino-based company Ticin-
Online, as the responsible project manager Mar-tin Diem explains. The surcharge for the seven-day placement will be CHF 4,200 per ad. However, the additional service will be free during the initial phase (until around the end of the year) and will be available at half price during the following three-month introductory period. Customers can also book just one pool title and still request placement on all partner websites for the same surcharge.
Today, the websites of the Swisspool partners together record 250,000 users per week, says Diem. The new offer is expected to expand the market, as has also been achieved in the USA with similar systems. There, sales have increased by three to seven percent through such online placements alone.
Gross tariffs 2004 (in CHF) Swisspool I (5 titles D-CH) Swisspool II (all 7 titles) Swisspool III (2 titles W-CH) Change Change Change CHF in % CHF in % CHF in %
Base price/mm 14.41 +7.3 17.95 +6.0 3.82 +0.8
1/1 page bw 63404.- +7.3 78980.- +6.0 16808.- +0.8
TLP per 1/1 page bw 38.06 -4.1 37.88 -1.8 40.11 -0.2
1/1 page vf 93056.- +7.0 121381.- +5.4 29557.- +0.5
TLP per 1/1 page vf 55.86 -3.4 58.22 -1.2 70.54 -0.5
Readers 1666000 +14.2 2085000 +11.2 419000 +1.0
Circulation Expl. 810922 +5.9 974494 +4.7 163572 -0.7
Source: Swisspool
Falling TLPs should make Swisspools attractive again.
Markus Knöpfli

The Allgemeine Plakatgesellschaft (APG) and the Federal Department of Home Affairs (FDHA) are once again organizing the "Poster of the Year" competition.The Allgemeine Plakatgesellschaft (APG) and the Federal Department of Home Affairs (FDHA) are once again organizing the "Poster of the Year" competition. Customers, agencies and designers are invited to submit posters that were publicly displayed in Switzerland in 2003.
The closing date for entries is November 30. The posters will be judged by the FDHA jury in the categories commercial (single subject, series),
socio-political (public service) and cultural. Information is available at www.apgsga.ch

The corporate publishing agency Medianovis is now demonstrating what customer magazines can offer with its own customer magazine, called Medianovis, which provides communication and marketing professionals with a practical insight into corporate publishing. It will be published once a year for the time being, but is to be changed to half-yearly as soon as possible. The circulation is 2200 copies. Of these, 1700 are distributed by target mailing. The magazine is also available at Forum Corporate Publishing events. The 1st issue from October 2003 can be ordered free of charge at www.medianovis .com.

The Zurich advertising agency Publicis is launching the successor product to the NZZ Plus/Grandplus advertising combination for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ). The account was previously managed by McCann-Erickson.NZZ Plus is the combination of NZZ and Bund, with Grandplus adding Le Temps. It is not yet known what the new combination will look like. According to Stefanie Oechslin from the NZZ advertising marketing department
negotiated. What is certain is that the federal government will no longer be involved, as it will in future be jointly responsible for the management of the
newspaper is to be marketed.

Column The media, as the self-appointed guardians of democracy, have been degraded to the plaything of the SVP in the election campaign, and the parliamentary elections of 19 October also followed the trend that characterized the 1990s: the trend towards party-political polarization, the right-wing and national-conservative reshuffling of the middle-class camp and thus the weakening of the political center. As a result, the right-wing SVP has once again gained votes and seats at the expense of the liberal liberal and Christian democratic parties. This means that for the first time in its history, the SVP is not only the most popular party in Switzerland, but also has the largest parliamentary group in the Federal Assembly. Both the SVP's successful election campaign and its current fight for more government power once again underline the central role of the media - albeit as passive mouthpieces for competing opinion groups. In a media democracy, election campaigns and power struggles are essentially battles for public attention. The SVP's continued advance since the 1990s is based on the fact that it has succeeded better than its competitors in using the laws of media democracy to its advantage. It does not matter that most of the media in this country still have a left-liberal bias and are certainly not politically sympathetic to the SVP. Professional political and event marketing does not aim to achieve as much media coverage as possible, but rather as much media publicity as possible.
The SVP also won the most recent elections because it once again succeeded in attracting more media publicity - and thus also appealed most to new, floating and occasional voters in addition to its ideologically motivated and core voters. With these groups of voters in mind, the SVP organized significantly more press conferences than its competitors. Its countless podium events, always announced with snappy, provocative titles, were also aimed less at the public and more at news agencies and local and regional media coverage. No other party is more professional than the SVP in its efforts to bombard all media with avalanches of well-orchestrated "reader" letters, but also with standardized newspaper articles and interview offers - controlled by political strategists who determine which topics, messages and stories can best address potential voters through which channels. After all, no other party has invested more money in large-scale text or small picture advertisements in the final phase than the SVP.
The SVP is once again ahead in the battle for a second seat on the Federal Council that has been going on in recent days and weeks. On election Sunday, Christoph Blocher was "nominated" from above as the only candidate, and the Federal Assembly was threatened with the non-recognition of Samuel Schmid as SVP Federal Councillor in the event of Blocher not being elected. This finally promises to bring some noise and tension to the otherwise so balanced political scene in our country. That is why most of the media are unanimous in a rare display of unanimity: Blocher of all people, the master of uncompromising mockery of the government, parliament and political rivals, should be promoted to the Federal Council on the spot. And the media are also unanimous that one of the two incumbent CVP Federal Councillors should either voluntarily resign in December or else be voted out of office.
The media uncritically play along with the power game dictated by the SVP because noise and confrontation per se are highly entertaining and newsworthy. In line with the SVP, the media comments in the event of Blocher not being elected are already pre-programmed: Cowardly parliament! Fear of Blocher! Slap in the face for the people! Shame on the CVP's armchair politicians in the Federal Council! In fact, most of the media, as self-appointed guardians of democracy, have been degraded both in the past election campaign and in the current power struggle to playthings of the SVP, to vicarious agents of the party that has been running the best political marketing for years.
Postmodern siren song: SVP National Councillor Christoph Blocher skillfully uses the media to achieve his goals.

> Kenneth Angst worked in the editorial offices of NZZ and Weltwoche and is now an independent consultant for public affairs.

The Zurich agency TBS Identity has won the law firm von der Crone as a new client. TBS is developing a new corporate design program and a website on merger law (www.fusg.ch). The law firm also specializes in international and Swiss commercial law.

The Zurich School of Business and Administration (HWZ) is launching the "executive-mba-marketing" diploma course together with the Swiss Marketing Association (GfM). The three-semester course is designed to be part-time and practice-oriented and is aimed at managers of large and medium-sized companies who want to deepen their skills in the area of marketing.
University degree, marketing and marketing experience are expected.
Management experience. A maximum of 40 participants are admitted. The diploma course will be led by Armin Seiler, Professor of Business Administration at ETH Zurich. Dominique von Matt, Urs Beer, Peter Metzinger and Sacha Wigdorovits, among others, have confirmed their participation as lecturers. The first "executive-mba-marketing" will be held from April 2004 to July 2005. Information and registration forms can be found on the Advertising Week website in the "Worth knowing" section.

Furniture marketing In Belgium, all is still well with the world. Where the company Jori manufactures upholstered furniture in the style of fine seating, people still know what it means to live beautifully and, above all, what it looks like. The loft-like, heavy-industry idyll that top architects throw together by the dozen with steel columns, artificial patina and lots of concrete may be fine. But it is not essential. The quality of living is primarily determined by the view. And in this respect, the Belgian landscape artists are a sofa length ahead of us. Urban canyon and rustic
Natural landscapes are less in demand in the kingdom. Flemish and Walloons are much more likely to demonstrate their exquisite style by relaxing in a Jori armchair with a view of a beautiful backdrop after work - for Europe, for example. In front of a steaming chain of cooling towers, for example. Jori calls this "a question of savoir vivre". But the end of the day is only really successful when the crispy chicken is contaminated with dioxins and the lemonade contains pesticides. Only, even in Belgium, the last time that was the case was almost five years ago.
(la)

Car marketing A campaign for Chrysler's new Crossfire sports coupé from the advertising agency Matter & Partner not only gets the adrenaline pumping, but in 1998, the year of the merger, Chrysler's Swiss-born former vice-chairman, Robert A. Lutz, described the third-largest US car manufacturer as "the hottest car company". However, the "Spirit of America", which stands for the value of the product and the brand, is finding it increasingly difficult to gain a foothold even among Swiss car enthusiasts, despite the super manager's own praise.The dwindling interest of Swiss drivers in the car brand is also reflected in the sales figures: the sales curve is pointing steeply downwards. According to the Association of Swiss Automobile Importers (VSAI), 5349 new Chrysler Group vehicles were registered in 2001, but last year the figure was only 3605 or 32.6 percent lower. In the first three quarters of the current year, once again fewer new cars rolled out of Chrysler garages (-18.3%). This result is well below the overall decline in the Swiss car market (-9.1%). According to the Swiss Federal Statistical Office, the US brand's market share has thus shrunk from 1.4 to 0.7 percent since the merger with Daimler-Benz in 1998.
On the other hand, and this reads like a paradox, Chrysler is one of the eight most popular brands among German-speaking Swiss motorists. Thanks to new diesel engines, Chrysler has been able to increase its potential in Europe and defend its sales brand, even though Japanese competitors have introduced increasingly successful models in Chrysler's typical product categories such as vans, pick-ups and off-road vehicles. Clau-dia Meyer, Head of Marketing Communications Chrysler Jeep at DaimlerChrysler Schweiz AG, attributes the performance paradoxes to the orientation of the research, which is carried out from the company headquarters in Detroit for the five largest European markets. And Switzerland is not one of them. In addition, the model range is also reflected in the target audience, which values individuality. As Chrysler is predominantly a supplier of niche products in Europe, this does not allow for a large market penetration in the first place.
All that remains is to renew the model range in order to regain market share and boost sales. However, with its brand repositioning - from mainstream to premium brand - Chrysler is approaching existing and new customer groups rather cautiously. Moreover, advertising expenditure shrank from over CHF 8.5 million in 2000 to CHF 3.7 million last year. The PT Cruiser, which was launched in Switzerland as a volume model, also failed to boost sales due to the limited number of engine variants, something that should now be improved with the introduction of the GT Turbo version.
Against brand dilution
The forthcoming launch of the Chrysler Crossfire sports coupé is unlikely to improve the situation on a quantitative level, as the number of units is limited. The model is much more likely to improve the quality of the Chrysler image. Thanks to its design, the Karmann body and the proven V6 Mercedes-Benz engine, the Crossfire is well placed to counteract the creeping dilution of the "Spirit of America". Among other things, Chrysler's innovative spirit as an image component has gone almost unnoticed by the public, even though the car manufacturer has one of the highest conversion rates of concept cars into series models. The strategy of repositioning itself as a desirable brand with the sports coupé therefore seems very promising. After all, this is a vehicle type that has relatively low brand loyalty and appeals more to the emotions than to reason.
Matter & Partner's advertising communication supports this strategy with a bold print and poster campaign for the Crossfire. Actually a simple task, according to Daniel Matter and CD Philipp Skrabal: This car is an advertiser's dream. "You don't have to talk it up." That's why they had the two copywriters and concept developers Lukas Schmid and Michael Kathe write headlines to accompany the images that speak to the heart of the target group ("If the paintwork turns you on, you'll also enjoy the leather"). Despite the growing number of older consumers who really enjoy sports cars like this one, they stuck to the dry humor that is rarely found in car advertising.
The Crossfire is decidedly smart, which is likely to appeal to the 50+ generation.
Luca Aloisi