Ringier The Head of Magazines at Ringier and Director of Ringier Romandie, Gérard Geiger, is dead. According to press reports, the 43-year-old took his own life and his suicide was probably related to his professional activities, the NZZ am Sonntag quotes an anonymous Ringier management member. On Wednesday last week, the company's top management had dismissed Geiger without notice. An audit of the accounts revealed that Geiger had embezzled a "very large sum". Geiger had been Managing Director of Ringier Romandie since April 2001.

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Column A grand old man of Swiss advertising wonders why he ever believed in its wonderland. And at the same time says goodbye as a columnist for Werbewoche. Adieu notre semblable, notre frère! It was only a few years ago that I was convinced that Jules Verne would find advertising there in his "Journey to the Center of the Earth". A few years earlier, of course, it was journalism. Today I know that neither is the center of the world. I'm no longer even naive enough to want to assume a new center.
But it's interesting how you experience advertising once you've left it behind. What was once the great theater stage for dramas of Shakespearean proportions, where advertising atriums were created and perished, where kings fought bloody battles and every hiccup of a court jester became an industry rumor, looks more like the theater on the Winkelwiese from a distance.
The unspectacular truth is: In the big wide world of business, nobody is actually interested in the colorful appendix called advertising. It's progressive if you can even spell the word marketing. The gentlemen in
The people on the carpet are busy doing other things. What used to annoy me to no end now seems completely understandable to me. There are simply more important issues than the next campaign, let alone the size of the logo on the poster.
My God, when I think today of how we argued at the ADC judging sessions about the originality of a flyer in some mailing, what Socratic discussions the judging mode triggered and how we fought for every bronze nomination, I am not only overcome with nostalgia, but also almost a little emotion. I remember how we almost had to send for the Cardiomobile for Ernst Meier because of an Arosa poster, how Jean Etienne Aebi stood up so threateningly that the room temperature dropped noticeably, and how Reini Weber, with the ingenious strategy of a chess player, deliberately praised or punished competitors before his work was judged.
If I still had an advertising agency today, I would certainly be a lot smarter. Above all, I would follow three maxims. Firstly, I would see advertising not as an end in itself, but as a subordinate tool of marketing. Secondly, I would focus exclusively on my client's problems and not on my own or those of my employees. Thirdly: use marble cubes exclusively as paperweights. Or as a bookmark in a Jules Verne novel.
> Walter Bosch was editor-in-chief of Blick, Ringier manager and co-founder of the advertising agency Bosch & Butz. Since selling the agency in 1998, he has been an entrepreneur and, more recently, a member of the Board of Directors of Swiss.

NZZ Online and 20min.ch are now offering a joint advertising combination under the name "Powerpackage", whereby a half-banner (234 by 60 pixels) is booked on the front page for a fixed period (at least one week). According to the communiqué issued by the two partners, one week corresponds to around 1.5 million page impressions. The combination of NZZ Online and 20 Minuten enables advertising customers to optimize their reach with little target group overlap, the press release continues.

ADC Under the title "Off Side Art", Haus Konstruktiv is showing the works awarded by the ADC until mid-September. An amateur performance by Wirz invites as many visitors as possible to the exhibition. "We don't consider advertising to be art," emphasizes the Art Directors Club Switzerland (ADC) emphatically. Nevertheless, the best agency work of the past year is currently on show at Haus Konstruktiv. "The Best of Art Directors Club of Switzerland 2003" is the prelude to the exhibition cycle "Off Side Art", with which Haus Konstruktiv wants to "build a bridge to the current design scene". The starting signal for the multimedia presentation was given at the beginning of June - with the opening of the ADC yearbook. However, the summer of the century threw a spanner in the works for the organizers: so far, the stream of visitors has failed to materialize. "It would be pleasantly cool in Haus Konstruktiv," smiles ADC member and Wirz CD Matthias Freuler. He and his team are now planning a campaign to fill the halls of the EWZ Selnau substation.
"What would award-winning advertising look like if it was created by amateurs?" The seasoned creative guard at Uetlibergstrasse got the answer to this question from graphics apprentices Charis Arnold and Ada Tanner. With a budget of 200 francs, the future professionals were asked to produce the VBZ commercial for Publicis.
The result made for wet eyes, especially among the colleagues on Theaterstrasse: two plastic ducks and a toy streetcar glide over a puddle of water to the sound of a xylophone - the original by Schubert is still barely recognizable. "This is the amateur version of an award-winning commercial. You can see what professionals make of it at Haus Konstruktiv until September 14," the claim resolves the unusual spot. It was filmed with the agency's own video camera.
However, the two budding graphic designers have already mastered their craft so well that they occasionally had to be reminded to be more dilettantish, as Freuler admits with a light heart.
ADC received professional support for the placements: IP Multimedia donated advertising time for the 35-second film on RTL, Kabel 1 and Pro 7 until the end of August, while Ringier sponsored advertising space in its tabloids Blick and SonntagsBlick for the print presence. Finally, the football subject of the Schweizer-Illustrierte campaign served as the model for the amateur ad.
In the end, Peter also took pity on so much commitment and is now providing encouraging museum weather.
Spot realization by the Wirz apprentices: toy streetcar and plastic duck attract museum visitors.
The award-winning Publisuisse original spot for ZVV can be seen in the ADC exhibition.
Simone Keller

Most agencies claim to be fully responsible for a communication problem. However, the communication situation in most companies is no longer that simple, and more and more people want to have a say in the concept, planning and implementation. An independent group of media specialists has now sat down together to lay the foundations for managing communication processes. The result is available in the form of a 40-page brochure entitled "Working better together in communication". It costs CHF 40 and can be obtained from the IG KPM office, tel. 01 451 35 11.

Malstube, the Zurich agency for visual communication, has been entrusted by Soirée Events with the redesign of its corporate website, the first results of which should be visible at the beginning of October. Soirée Events organizes exclusive party series such as Soirée Blanche in Zurich, Skyline in Lucerne and Schneebar in St. Moritz. Malstube was already responsible for the Soirée Events logo a year ago.

Free newspaper Flavio Spiess, owner of the Rotostampa Ticino SA printing company together with Lega President Giuliano Bignasca, is planning to launch a new free newspaper for the greater Lugano area. "The project currently only exists as an idea," Spiess confirmed a report by the Giornale del Popolo to SDA. Only three points are clear at the moment: The new paper will appear once a week, be politically independent and be produced by a mini-editorial team. He is not aiming for political power; he is more interested in launching a profitable product, said Spiess.

Private TV Swiss publishers are moving cautiously in the TV market. The Board of Directors of Presse-TV wants to postpone the planned program expansion on SF info by one year. Unlike SRG, Presse-TV is likely to use the channel not only for reruns, but also for new productions financed by advertising. Technically, live broadcasts could even be realized on SF info today. But the effort does not pay off: in its third year of broadcasting, the channel currently only has a market share of 0.5 percent. The press TV publishers therefore prefer to tweak their offerings. Ringier, for example, is returning to TSR with the "MotorShow TCS". And Jean Frey is looking for a new presenter for the "Bilanz Business-Talk". CEO Filippo Leutenegger only wants to step in in an emergency, as he said.
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Following its pictorial compendiums on US advertising in the forties and fifties, Taschen Verlag now invites us to travel back in time to the decade of unconditional faith in the future and technology, celebrating the Roaring Sixties not only as the era of packet soups (...just add water) and other consumerist achievements, but also as the birth of the search for the "Big Creative Idea", which continues to this day.> All-American Ads of the 60s edited by Jim Heimann. Taschen Verlag, Cologne 2003. 960 pages, Fr. 50.-.

TV advertising Marketers consider last year's decline in TV advertising spending to be only a temporary slump. So far, TV marketers have had every reason to be satisfied with their customers' bookings: The share of TV advertising in total gross advertising expenditure in Switzerland rose steadily to 17.7 percent by 2001. Last year, however, the curve took a dip and the share fell back to 17%. However, the loss in the advertising market is attributable to German-speaking Switzerland, where TV spending fell by 9.5% last year. In French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino, on the other hand, they rose by 3% and as much as 12% respectively. Giordano Giordani, Head of Media Research at the marketer IP Multimedia, explains this as follows: "TV 3 and Tele 24 have cumulatively accounted for around 10 percent of the TV advertising volume in their short time, but the loss of this advertising money could not be fully absorbed by other channels because they were not fully equivalent to TV 3 and Tele 24. "The TV marketers Publisuisse, IP and Cinecom are therefore unanimous in their opinion that the market share of TV advertising will continue to increase. However, Cinecom media manager Michaela Krouzel expects market share gains of just 0.5 percent per year until around 2006. Publisuisse sales manager Martin Schneider expects an increase to 20 percent in three years, "and 22 percent could be possible in five years," he says. Giordani points to Austria, which has achieved a TV share of around 23% despite lower cable density and massive advertising restrictions at ORF. "In the long term, this is also a benchmark for Switzerland," he says. In the short term, however, growth will remain weak as the attractiveness of TV as a medium is limited by the RTVA. Giordani: "The full potential will only unfold with the liberalization of the RTVA from 2006."
No sprinkling mediumGerman conditions (TV market share 43%), on the other hand, are not expected, not even in the long term. "A figure approaching that of Germany can only be achieved through a more liberal TV policy (fewer restrictions, lower entry thresholds for new Swiss private channels) and higher TV usage," says Krouzel. However, the latter is only increasing in small steps - at least in German-speaking Switzerland. "Here, TV is simply not an accompanying medium. When people watch television in Switzerland, they do so purposefully and intensively and not primarily for entertainment," states Schneider.
Opinions are divided on the question of whether German program and advertising windows will increase their current 32% share of TV spending. Krouzel clearly sees windows as the winner. "In the next three to five years, we expect an approximate gross expenditure split in TV of 50:50 between the advertising windows and the SRG stations," she says. Her reasoning: In the 15/49 target group, SRG has a market share of 20 to 25 percent in German-speaking Switzerland, but accounts for 51 percent of advertising expenditure. The advertising windows, on the other hand, achieved an audience share of around 40 percent and 42 percent of advertising expenditure. Krouzel argues that the imbalance between SRG's performance and income would therefore develop in favor of advertising windows.
Giordani does not go that far. "There will certainly be no quantum leaps, but we still see a small shift in favor of advertising windows." One reason for this is the different customer structure: the main customers of advertising windows are providers of low-price products that are not dependent on economic cycles, while SRG customers offer high-price products that are more dependent on economic cycles.
Schneider's view is different. "The advertising windows have reached their ceiling. Their blocks are pumped full," he says. To generate more sales, they could only increase prices.
Will Print regain its lost market share when the economy recovers? "No," says Krouzel, "this is a shakeout in the market." Giordani also speaks of a "natural correction of print's previously excessive share of the overall market", but believes that job ads will return to print. For Schneider, too, print has not lost everything. However, he does not see the future of printed media as all too rosy. "Readership figures have plummeted everywhere. Sooner or later, this must lead to price corrections and therefore also to lower sales," he states.
Development of TV's share of the overall advertising marketTV advertising expenditure appears to have recovered in the first half of 2003. But be careful: the year should not be praised before its end. The first half of the year is usually better than the second. However, last year it was exactly the opposite.
According to the Prognos study "Advertising Market 2012 Switzerland" published last fall, net advertising sales in Switzerland will increase to CHF 5.3 billion by 2006 and to CHF 6.3 billion by 2012. For the TV sector (including sponsorship), Prognos predicts an increase to CHF 605 million in 2006 and CHF 757 million in 2012 (market share of around 11.5 percent). By contrast, newspapers will reduce their market share to 45.1 percent in 2006 and 43.8 percent in 2012 (mk).
Markus Knöpfli

Location marketing 95 years after its legal expulsion from Val-de-Travers, the "green fairy" is returning to its birthplace. According to the responsible Council of States committee, absinthe, which was banned in 1908, "no longer poses a particular risk to public health". The Neuchâtel valley benefits twice over from this overdue rehabilitation: as a production location, but also as a tourist destination to be discovered. The new advertising medium (pictured) is already busy waving her magic wand...