Oliver Classen on profile neuroses and Ringier's "Parzival" projectIt has only been two months since Michael Ringier finally flushed out the "anti-observer" called "Thesis" and put his ominous "Gegen-Weltwoche" on ice. At the time, the self-confessed project fetishist announced that the Swiss German market was simply too small for the former and that the latter did not yet have a coherent marketing concept. And it had to be fixed. Edipresse's offer of a stake in Le Temps came at just the right time. The only problem was that the intellectual and moral weight of the French quality title was disproportionate to that of the aforementioned journalistic disgrace.
Bigger, more significant things were sought in order to finally mend the still painful breach - and at the same time end an intellectual profile neurosis from which the tabloid king and his court are clearly suffering.
Ringier's Berlin ambassador Frank A. Meyer has now found what he was looking for. Of all people! Didn't he recruit the journalists who were held solely responsible for the failure of the system at the time? Regardless of this, the Germanophile string-puller and his patron continue to rely on German workmanship. And with "Parzival", they have immediately snapped up the most Teutonic of all current magazine projects - in terms of name and claim.
Which is not to say that a German-language New Yorker equivalent is not desirable or feasible. But why should this prodigy emerge from the just-officialized amour fou between the Swiss headline publisher and an ex Springer editor-in-chief? And why cheat when Tamedia's "you" could be used to rescue a Swiss gem and bring it back to life?
could breed a world-class brand? In any case, the large-format magazine would be at least as suitable as a fig leaf.
> Oliver Classen, Editor

Fairness in advertising The Swiss Fairness Commission (LK) has rejected Terre des Femmes Switzerland's complaint against the Sloggi poster "It's string time!" According to a statement by Sloggi manufacturer Triumph International, the LK ruled that the way the poster is presented "does not involve any general disparagement of women. Terre des Femmes had complained that the poster, which shows four extremely slim women dressed only in a thong from behind, depicted women as objects and belittled their dignity. Triumph is launching a follow-up campaign for "Sloggi string time" in September with a new, autumnal motif.

The yearbook of the Epica Awards has been published for the 16th time, presenting all the winners and finalists of the European creative competition on around 380 pages - over 800 advertisements, commercials, websites, mailings and packaging designs. The film entries are also available on videocassette. At the same time, the call for entries for the Epica Awards 2003 was opened. Participants in the competition will receive yearbook no. 16 free of charge. Further information can be found at www.epica-awards.com.

Wirtschaftsmagazine Die Bilanz is replacing its editor-in-chief, and publishing director Uli Rubner is leaving no stone unturned. "Producing a new Bilanz every month is and remains fascinating," said Medard Meier in an interview with Werbewoche ten months ago. He is not thinking about quitting. "Ultimately, however, my superiors have to judge me." They have now done so - and have apparently been able to convince him in lengthy discussions that the paper needs a blood refresher - in the person of René Lüchinger.Indeed, the balance sheet, which Meier likes to compare to an "aircraft carrier", is currently bobbing in particularly rough waters. According to VSW statistics, it started in January with 55 percent fewer advertising pages than a year earlier, followed by two months with minus 24 and minus 21 percent. April, with the relaunch number, showed a plus of seven percent, but in May the volume plummeted again to minus 28 percent. June saw a drop of eleven percent, while July saw an increase of eight percent.
Even if the storms surrounding comparable titles such as Cash, Finanz & Wirtschaft or Facts are much more violent, the total advertising revenue of Bilanz in the first seven months is 16.3 percent below the same period in 2002. "Nevertheless, Bilanz has been more profitable in the first seven months of this year than in the same period last year," says Uli Rubner, who has been publishing director of both Weltwoche and the business magazine for three months. However, she does not want to give more precise figures.
The increase in profitability was made possible thanks to higher average revenues and partly thanks to cost reductions: The Manager-Bilanz, which is published four times a year, has been canceled until further notice due to the lack of a new sponsor. The specials, of which up to 16 were published each year, will be cut in half. The range of books will also be reduced. Rubner: "We want to focus our energy on the main magazine." Despite a drop in circulation (minus 14.6 %), it could at least increase its readership figures.
Slogan: Move closer together
The publishing and advertising teams of Weltwoche and Bilanz are also being brought together under Rubner. A few weeks ago, Christoph Waeber was appointed advertising manager for both
This also applies to French-speaking Switzerland, where the former Weltwoche regional sales manager Servais Micolot now offers the balance sheet in the portfolio. Internet activities, reader marketing and books are also each under
a joint management. In total, approximately one position has been cut, but there will be three more departures by October.
Rubner also does not rule out the possibility of further downsizing. She comments on rumors that the two advertising departments are to merge as follows: "I don't have that in mind at the moment, because I want to test the new structure first. It is the first time that two publishing houses are under one management," she says. However, the new organization is not set in stone. "It could also be that the unified advertising management doesn't work out."
Must get the balance sheet out of the trough: The new editor-in-chief René Lüchinger.
Online currentWith the publication of the September issue of Bilanz-
Internet platform has been updated. In future, it will be updated weekly. In addition to selected articles from the print edition, a press review, a newsletter and short weekly updates from the editorial team will also be available. Added Values will continue to be offered, but will remain reserved for Bilanz subscribers. The online share guide, on the other hand, will not be reactivated. (mk)
Markus Knöpfli

Private TV The ProSiebenSat1 Group has secured the exclusive free TV broadcasting rights to Paramount Pictures' feature films from 2002 to 2005, including "The Core", "Star Trek Nemesis" and the third part of "Mission Impossible", which will be filmed in 2004. The package also includes TV series from 2003 to 2004. "The Paramount package will complete our supply of high-quality Hollywood productions over the next few years," explained ProSiebenSat1 CEO Urs Rohner.

Youth radio station Radio 105 is fighting hard for a Zurich youth radio license. The submission deadline for the youth frequency expired on Wednesday, August 27. By Tuesday afternoon, only the application from Radio 105 had been submitted to Bakom and one from Radio Max had been announced. It can be assumed that other applicants waited until the last moment. The 105 application is likely to be the most comprehensive ever submitted for a license. 105 boss Giuseppe Scaglione has precisely clarified the radio needs of Zurich's youth, among other things with an IHA-GfK study (see page 18), the essence of which is a concept for a new station called Music First for 15 to 24-year-olds. The name says it all: lots of music with a mix of current top hits, trendy pop music, electronic music, black music and rock. Information and services are a top priority. In addition to political and social topics, these will primarily cover the music, culture and leisure sectors, but the youth-sensitive topics of education and careers will also play an important role.
The fact that Scaglione is striving for broad support for his project is also reflected in the 25-member program advisory board made up of exponents of Zurich's music and youth culture.
(dse)

As the new CD, Enrico Bachmann wants to lead the network offshoot Grey Zurich back into the top creative league.
At the beginning, you learn and listen. Then you form your own opinion, but you are not always listened to. And then there comes a point when you want to make your own decisions. At this point, Enrico Bachmann has now joined the management team of Grey Worldwide in Zurich as a new CD. After five years as a freelancer, he is returning to being an employee. He used to enjoy coming and going, "with the requirement to do something well, but without having to worry about the agency stuff". At some point, however, he realized that his work should also have a perspective. "I no longer wanted to just deliver. But you can only make a change if you stay in one place a little longer."
As Enrico Bachmann describes himself as an "impatient person", this was not always easy for him in the past. His CV is correspondingly varied. After leaving school, his father wanted his son to study medicine. Enrico gave it a try. After two years, however, he realized that there might be another life beyond pipettes and tweezers. At the Basel Autumn Fair, he saw the Clio roll more by chance than anything else. "That's cool," he said to himself. And because he would have had to go back to school as an AD or consultant, he took a different path and became a copywriter. With success.
After just nine months as an intern with Roger Mayer, he is said to have told him: "You've learned everything we can give you here." So the junior copywriter moved north and transferred to the Communications Academy in Haburg. "You don't learn how to do it there. But you realize whether you've made the right choice. For yourself and for others."
Back in Switzerland, he ended up at a "very important school", the legendary creative floor at GGK Basel. The new Grey CD characterizes his former colleagues as "horny bastards". And the best thing about the story is that Enrico Bachmann was also there. "At the end of the 1980s, GGK Basel was top in Switzerland." One consequence of this: "You had a status, so customers didn't always want to talk you into it - there was a lot of trust."
When the GGK era in Basel came to an end, Bachmann was drawn back to the waterfront. This time to Scholz & Friends. The now award-winning copywriter was asked to work on a large BMW budget. At the same time, Springer & Jacoby was realizing creative advertising for Mercedes. Bachmann was therefore looking forward to competing with the best. Far from it, as he sums up today: "The agency didn't want to take any risks. So they didn't change anything." His further path led him via GGK Zurich, Lintas Hamburg to Weber Hodel Schmid, where he won the German Media Markt account with the claim "Ich bin doch nicht blöd.
What attracts him to Grey is the fact that this agency network is undergoing global upheaval. Grey London, for example, has poached a renowned chief strategist as well as highly decorated copywriters and CDs from well-known creative agencies such as Bartle Bogle Hegarty.
Bachmann has therefore made "Turn Grey into Gold" his inner leitmotif. Business was going well, but the company wanted to improve. And the only way to achieve this is through creativity. "There are no customers who have anything against good ideas," Bachmann hopes again - just as he did in his younger years.
Bachmann, a passionate reader and motorcyclist, thinks it's a good idea for Grey to move from Rüschlikon back to Tödistrasse in Zurich: "An advertising agency belongs in the city, where things happen," he says with conviction.
Andreas Panzeri

The number of air passengers at Swiss airports continued to fall overall in the first half of 2003, but there are bright spots locally. Zurich's Unique Airport recorded 7.9 million passengers by June 30, 5.9 percent fewer than in the same period last year. At Basel's EuroAirport, passenger numbers are 19 percent lower at 1.2 million passengers, while Lugano-Agno still has 88049 passengers (-25.8 %). Geneva-Cointrin, on the other hand, is on the rise, with passenger numbers increasing by
7.2 percent to 4.14 million. Bern-Belp also grew, by 2.8 percent to 84,189 passengers. Falling passenger numbers affect airport advertising providers: most of them are losing reach. Unique is managed by out-of-home advertiser Clear Channel Plakanda (CCP), Geneva and Lugano by Allgemeine Plakatgesellschaft (APG), Basel by CCP as well as APG and JCDecaux, and Bern-Belp by Publiscreen since May.
(mk)

Politics The canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden is examining a ban on alcohol and tobacco advertising, and a working group set up by the health department must draw up a prevention concept by the beginning of 2004 on the basis of a postulate. It calls for a ban on alcohol and tobacco in public places and facilities, a ban on selling tobacco products to young people under the age of 16, smoke-free sports facilities and the creation of smoke-free zones in public areas.

Creative competitions Swiss advertising agencies have won seven medals at the New York Festivals print and design competition. Gold went to the Mammut campaign by Spillmann Felser Leo Burnett, two silver medals to Jung von Matt/Limmat (for Bündner Kantonalbank and SBB) and a silver medal to Ad-vico Young & Rubicam (for Hakle). Euro RSCG (for Evian), Publicis (for Snowboard Garage) and Jung von Matt/Limmat (for Panasonic) each received one bronze.

Political advertising Hollywood hunk Arnold Schwarzenegger's new role - candidate for governor of California - is boosting the advertising industry in the bankrupt state: An estimated 100 million dollars are flowing into the campaign for the Terminator and his opponents. The 246 Swiss members of the National Council and Council of States are worth just around 50 million francs to the advertising industry.

Publishers Stock markets are trending upwards, but Swiss business newspapers are stuck in a slump in readership and advertising. A new campaign for the expanded Stocks aims to change this quickly. Are the advertising and readership markets missing out on the economic upswing that the stock markets are leading worldwide? Or are traders once again building towers in the (investment) sky on shaky foundations, as they did in the New Economy era? The fact is that private investors are currently still extremely sceptical about the clear recovery on the financial markets. And this skepticism continues to affect business publications (see chart), with circulation and advertising volumes for practically all business publications not budging. Or worse still, they are continuing to decline. Even if only a few publishing houses publish the corresponding figures, they are likely to look equally bad for all titles. Tamedia's Finanz und Wirtschaft, for example, suffered a 23.8 percent drop in sales. A look at the advertising statistics of the Swiss press illustrates the misery: Between January and July 2003, the volume of advertisements in the business titles shrank by 16 percent (HandelsZeitung) to 40 percent in the case of Stocks.
When asked about the slump in the investor magazine Stocks just six months ago, publisher Ralph Büchi was positively surprised by the drop in circulation of "only" 18 percent to 21,000 copies. "Our target group has shifted heavily towards wealthy private investors," he reassured Werbewoche at the time. Because this exclusive core apparently does not want to grow despite rising indices and consequently advertising from the financial sector is also failing to materialize, Stocks editor-in-chief Reto Lipp and the publisher pulled the emergency brake two and a half years after the magazine's launch and reduced the publication frequency. Instead of weekly, the investor magazine is now available at newsstands and in mailboxes every two weeks.
Relaunch in the business doom
To compensate for the reduction in expenditure, the bitter pill has been sugar-coated: "Stocks is expanding its editorial section and providing more analyses, more background information, more selected ratings and more investment topics that would otherwise not be covered in the media," explains Lipp. This goes hand in hand with a gentle facelift of the magazine, which will be presented to the public for the first time on August 29 and will be supported by the in-house agency Matter & Partner with a new advertising campaign. For these innovations, the creative team asked the editors-in-chief themselves to appear in front of the camera - not as proud representatives of the editorial carpet, however, but in a classic spy pose. The "economic agents" hide behind an issue of Stocks and make it clear: The investor magazine gives readers a look behind the scenes of the stock market. Advertising manager Musti Asaf does the same job for advertisers: he provides media planners with the most important information about Switzerland's most affluent readership.
As an accompanying measure, a funny e-board spot is being broadcast at Zurich main station. "In it, a stock market curve begins to rise just as the new Stocks appears," CD Daniel Matter explains the content.
Matter & Partner hid the Stocks boss as an "agent".
Slump at a low level: Stocks must turn the tide.
Advertising statistics business journals Cumulative figures January to July 2003 "The potential for stocks is there"
Anlegermagazin Reto Lipp, Stocks editor-in-chief, on the new editorial direction of the money magazine, which is now published every two weeks.
WW Some publishers seem to be looking for a way out of the slump in readership and the advertising market. For Stocks, they chose the
The recipe for reducing publication costs. What convinced you that you were doing the right thing?
Reto Lipp: Ultimately, it's not about brains, it's about getting the content right. The financial market has changed a lot in the last three years. Investors have become more critical and mature, are no longer chasing every trend and have realized that you have to look at and manage your portfolio holistically. We are trying to take this into account with a thematic expansion into other investment categories such as bonds, structured products and funds as well as an improved advisory and service section - without, however, neglecting our core competence, the analysis and valuation of equities.
When Stocks was launched, 34 percent of Swiss people held shares directly or indirectly, which is why your publishing house saw great potential for an investment magazine. How large is the proportion of investors today, and what does this mean for your magazine?
According to the latest survey by the Swiss Banking Institute at the University of Zurich, the proportion of investors who hold shares directly is still almost 25 percent. But that is not the end of the story: we are all ultimately linked to equities via funds, personal and occupational pensions, and even the AHV. This means that interest in them remains high, as the spectacular upswing on the stock markets since mid-March shows. Despite the crash of the last three years, shares are absolutely indispensable as an investment category.
Your parent publisher Axel Springer has adopted the classic divestment strategy for similar problem products in Germany. What is holding it back from taking similar steps in Switzerland?
The situation in Germany is completely different. There were many similar products at the height of the stock market boom. In Switzerland, Stocks is unrivaled as an investor magazine. In addition, Switzerland is a classic investment country with a very mature financial sector and a large number of wealthy people. The proportion of equities in the portfolios of Swiss investors is also almost three times as high as in Germany, which means that the equity culture in Switzerland is very different from that in Germany. The potential for stocks is therefore clearly there.
The targets for Stocks were very ambiguous: when do you now expect to break even?
With the significant reduction in costs brought about by the switch to a fortnightly publication frequency and the improved situation on the advertising market, it is realistic that we will be able to present a balanced account next year. We have noticed a good response from the advertising industry for our next issues. The new publication rhythm, which we introduced at the beginning of July, has been well received by readers and advertisers alike.
What changes to Stocks apart from the cover?
Of course, the editorial team will approach the stories differently. The cost-cutting measures in the daily press in particular have meant that there are fewer investment topics to be found there. The field that Stocks can cover is therefore expanding. As diversification will become even more important in the future, we have also broadened our content, as mentioned above. This includes a whole range of investment-relevant statistics that cannot be found in this form anywhere else in the Swiss media. With more research and comprehensive analyses, Stocks aims to be an indispensable tool for anyone who wants to make more of their money. Interview: Luca Aloisi
Luca Aloisi