Outdoor advertising The poster submissions in Basel and Lucerne are making slow progress:In Basel, the hearing between Clear Channel Plakanda (CCP) and the Basel-Stadt Building Department before the Administrative Court has been set for October 31. A decision is not expected until the end of the year. CCP is challenging the decision of the building department, which had awarded the contract to APG. In Lucerne, the overall concept, which is to be part of the tender, is still being fine-tuned.

Advertising Festival The 17 members of the jury for the Eurobest Awards 2003 creative competition have been chosen and Switzerland will be represented this year by Danielle Lanz. The co-owner of the Zurich advertising agency Ruf Lanz will be judging the entries in the "Film" and "Print & Outdoor" categories in London at the beginning of December. For the first time, prizes in gold, silver and bronze will be awarded at the Eurobest Awards. Another innovation concerns the composition of the jury: it will be strengthened by four producers or directors for the evaluation of the "Film" category.

At the beginning of September, Bettina Cohen, most recently Head of Marketing and Communications at IT service provider Systor, will take over as Head of Corporate Communications at Bern-based technology group Ascom. She replaces Fred Rohrer, who has been in charge of the function on an interim basis since March. CFO Rudolf Hadorn will continue to head the Investor Relations department....
The Swiss Schulthess Group is merging the marketing and sales of all subsidiaries active in the household sector under one overall management. Hans-Peter Stamm, who will also become a member of the Executive Board, will take over this position.
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Pierre Gwinner has recently taken up his position as Head of Marketing and member of the Executive Board of Switzerland Cheese Marketing AG (SCM).
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The marketing department of Pick Pay Betriebs AG has been headed by Roland Berner since August 1. Berner succeeds Martin Ramp, who is moving to Usego AG as Head of Marketing.
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The Zurich office of McCann-Erickson Switzerland welcomes four new colleagues: Pascal Meichtry, most recently responsible for events at Credit Suisse Financial Services, joins the consultancy. The new AD Fabian Esslinger comes from the ADC/BSW creative school, copywriter Nemanja Gajic graduated from the Hamburger Texterschmiede, graphic designer Barbara Müller is a trained typeface and advertising designer.
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Nils Deparade has been a junior consultant at the Adliswil-based dialog marketing agency Fisch Meier Direkt since August. He was previously a client consultant at MRM Partners Worldwide. Christa Steffen has also joined the team and is taking over the Human Resources department.
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Anita Geiger and Cornelia Clavadätscher join the consulting team of the Zurich advertising agency Bonaparte.
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Graphic designer Steve Stoll and junior consultant Andrea Zeep on board the Liechtenstein marketing agency Waggner Communications.
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The production company Das Werk, renamed Treibhaus Postproduction AG, has strengthened its team with the addition of colorist Roger Sommer.

For 40 years, the Jahrbuch der Werbung has been the renowned standard work of the advertising and marketing industry, and the 2003 edition has now been published, providing an overview of the past advertising year in German-speaking countries. Facts and figures on the advertising year 2002 show the development in all important advertising segments. Insiders analyze the past advertising year in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The book is published by Econ Business with ISBN 3-430-15023-6. Individual texts can also be viewed at www.jdw.de.

"Markets are conversations" was the first of the 95 Cluetrain theses, as many as Martin Luther once posted on the Wittenberg church portal. It has been almost three years since the American New Economy priests around web pope Doc Searls tried to spread their happy business message - the list of demands included greater transparency, directness, decentralization and fault tolerance as well as "more (self) irony" - among the pinstriped people. However, the moderate success of this attempt at reformation is due less to its idealistic substance than to the steadily worsening economic situation since then.
Sure, you first have to be able to afford to experiment. On the other hand, nothing is more detrimental to fun and creativity than cutting costs without any further rethinking. On the other hand, the former bestseller still offers the literal
Freight train full of tips and suggestions ("cluetrain"). For example, the appeal for authenticity in 21st century marketing. Because "soon the inhuman sound of advertisements, commercials and brochures will seem as affected as the language at the royal court of Louis the Fourteenth".
>The Cluetrain Manifesto: Theses for Corporate Culture in the Digital Age by Doc Searls, Rick Levine et al. Econ Verlag, Munich 2000. 287 pages, Fr. 33.-.
(oc)

Cinema marketer Cinecom is launching the popcorn bag as an advertising medium. From September, the bags, printed in four to eight colors, will be made available to cinema operators nationwide free of charge. high target group affinity, good contact quality and long-lasting impact are the advantages of the new advertising vehicle for Cinecom. The minimum print run of 50,000 pieces means a presence time of two to five months in the cinema.

Starting this year, the Eurobest Awards creative competition will offer prizes in gold, silver and bronze. Previously, only winning entries from a shortlist were chosen, but the Grand Prix categories for print, outdoor advertising and TV/cinema remain. It will be interesting to see whether this increases the chances of winning a Eurobest Award. In previous years, Switzerland has been one of the most diligent participants, but has only ever managed to win one award and most recently none at all. The competition for the Eurobest Award begins at the end of August.

From September, the cinema magazines Film demnächst and Avant première from the Geneva-based Quorum Group will not only be available free of charge in many cinemas, but also in all 14 MediaMarkt stores throughout Switzerland (14,000 copies) and at 24 Resa+ and Tic Tec ticket outlets (12,000 copies). The circulation of Film demnächst is around 134,000 copies, that of Avant première 98,000 copies, together they reach 49,000,000 readers. MediaMarkt and Resa+/Tic Tec are filling a distribution gap for the magazines left by Swiss Post. The latter had been distributing the magazines to youth account holders since 1998, but terminated the contract after the Federal Council intervened. The reason: the magazines contain tobacco and alcohol advertising. (mk)

Local radio station Radio Sunshine, a local station in Central Switzerland, has decided not to launch its planned cable radio station Sunshine Gold and has returned its license to the Federal Office of Communications. Last fall, the project had already been scaled back from a national to a regional broadcast. Radio Sunshine justifies the complete abandonment with the "enormous costs of broadcasting in Central Switzerland.

Public transport Such luxury can only be found in Zurich: Because the thermometer has been steadily rising above 30 degrees for weeks, the streetcars of Zurich's public transport company VBZ have been equipped with air conditioning systems, which is particularly pleasing for bicycle couriers who, plagued by ozone, find a welcome cooling off in the streetcars. This is what comes to mind when you take a closer look at the latest subject of the VBZ campaign in the blazing afternoon sun. When the photo was taken, the Ruf Lanz agency had no idea of the "summer of the century". This made the idea all the more far-sighted, with the message that changing city transport is also worthwhile for Zurich's most agile road users. "Thanks to the tight timetable, streetcars and buses not only get you to your destination quickly, but also without breaking a sweat," says Markus Ruf mischievously. Air conditioning in Zurich streetcars remains a pious Christmas wish - for next year...(pan)

Print Before it can prove itself journalistically, the "Bern model" must be economically viable. The new Bund marketing partners Espace Media and Publicitas believe that there is no need to expand the regional advertising market. The Bernese version of the Stuttgart model - two newspapers that compete with each other in the reader market merge their printing, sales and advertising operations - has already been ready for signature twice, most recently in November 1994. At that time, the deal between the then Bund owner Ringier and the publisher of the Berner Zeitung (BZ) failed for two reasons: the lack of reserves of the up-and-coming Bund competitor and its associated fear of having to bury the venerable central organ of the Bernese patriciate itself and thus creating influential enemies in the domestic market against its will.eight and a half years later, this fear seems to have evaporated. The main reason for this is probably the financial strength of the BZ publisher, which in the meantime has become the astonishingly crisis-resistant Espace Media Groupe (2002 profit: 22.6 million francs), but also a bargain offer from the recession-hit NZZ Group. The latter had stepped into the breach for the Bernese in 1994 and is now giving them half of its 80 percent majority stake in Bund. Publicitas continues to hold the remaining 20 percent. As a shareholder and advertising agent, Publicitas has a dual interest in the rapid recovery of the struggling capital city paper, which from the beginning of 2004 will only be marketed as part of the overall BZ edition - piquantly, the "P" has joined forces with its former favorite enemy, BZ.
However, Publicitas boss Otto Meier does not expect this relaxation to lead to an expansion of the regional advertising market. "I would be pleased to see such an effect, but I would also be somewhat surprised. In our experience, maximum market exploitation requires economic competition as well as journalistic competition." The only way "P" can influence the success of the new BZ edition, which has a circulation of 230000 copies and therefore a much wider reach, is through its advertising price policy. And even this is only consultative: Espace Media Groupe has the final say here, as in all other Bund Verlags AG business.
Its CEO Polo Stäheli also does not expect the advertising volume to increase in 2004 once the integration of Bund is completed and operational. However, he tells Werbewoche that he is convinced that the expanded BZ total edition will make the national advertising industry in particular "an irresistible offer". "A good 40 percent more circulation for a maximum surcharge of 30 percent", is how Stäheli summarizes the advantage of his "sustainable business model", which is intended to reduce old costs and at the same time generate new income to finance two full editorial teams - and must do so.
Stäheli, who went into the negotiations with NZZ with "scepticism" and claims to have calculated everything down to the last detail, used the net-net revenue that the Confederation was still able to realize nationally and locally in the first half of 2003 as the basis for calculating the announced break-even in 2006. Meier also considers this to be "the only realistic, because current, basis for keeping the promise to ensure the survival of one and a half newspapers".
P" also cuts jobs
The task for the two sales organizations is now to exploit synergies. In contrast to Espace Media, Publicitas already has know-how in such interface optimizations. According to Meier, the creation of the in-house title Aargauer Zeitung (AZ)
organized a similar exercise. And with great success, as the AZ confirms. "We were able to fully exploit the savings potential at the time," says publisher Peter Wanner on request. And would like to take this opportunity to clarify that he never wanted to take over the Bund, but merely submitted an offer for the delivery of the AZ jacket section. "The impetus for this came from our Solothurn partners at Vogt-Schild, who would have liked to print the Bund in their Subiger printing center," says Wanner.
Meier anticipates a restructuring phase of three months and a reduction of "some jobs" for the "P" branch in Berne. The reason for this is the disappearance from the advertising market of the Bund, which was previously marketed exclusively by his organization. At the traditional title itself, which will continue to exist as a publishing brand, all 25 jobs in the publishing division will be cut by the end of the year.
Mutates commercially into a BZ supplement: Der Bund.
Oliver Classen

Daniel Schifferle on new scope in the local radio market in the city on the LimmatEnergy Zurich has already performed a minor miracle: the Zurich radio market has been given a lot of new scope in one fell swoop. The mutual embrace of the two competitors Z and 24 has blocked the development of Zurich's radio landscape. The grueling fight for market share has tied up forces for years and paralyzed the joy of experimentation. The best thing about the current repositioning is that Z is giving away the upper 15 years of its target group - an attractive audience package that is on a platter for redistribution. Resourceful radio producers now have the chance to grab a slice of the now homeless audience segment of 35 to 49-year-olds. But beware, the "surplus" audience of the former Z is not for free. In return, Energy Zurich wants to attract young listeners from other stations - DRS 3 or Radio 105.
Z had nothing left to lose, as shown by the marked loss of listeners in the latest half-year figures. But many other Swiss-German radio stations also lost their audience - DRS stations, on the other hand, have been gaining listeners for two years now. Private radio seems to have lost its enthusiasm in its 20-year history.
Fresh ideas are in demand.
It remains to be seen whether Energy Zurich has the best recipes. The people of Zurich are showing a great deal of trust by handing over full responsibility for the program to the NRJ Groupe.
The Basel-based company operates more cautiously. Although NRJ also holds shares in Basel One (formerly Edelweiss) and is represented on the Board of Directors, NRJ's recipes were hardly used in the current relaunch.
From the audience's point of view, however, the latest changes are ambivalent. Energy Zurich, and even more so the announced youth station, are courting the very young audience - radio in Zurich is completely mutating into a youth medium. In this environment, Roger Schawinski's proposal - a radio station for the over-35s - could soon find plenty of support.
> Daniel Schifferle, Head of Media