The fact that Central Switzerland is not a blank spot on the advertising map could be seen last week in Emmenbrücke near Lucerne, where the 1st Migros Spotnight was on the program at the Filmpalast MaxX - which means nothing other than a potpourri of the orange giant's most interesting TV and cinema spots from the last 40 years. Not a bad idea at Migros Lucerne, which is why a committed partner for the "Migros role" was found in the Central Switzerland Advertising Club; more than four hundred guests found their way to the film temple on the Emme, where the brief welcome was given jointly by Marketing Communications Manager Michel Reber, Gyula Sövegjarto, President of the Central Switzerland Advertising Club, and of course the inventor of the Migros Spotnight, Advertising Manager Martin Koch. They did not miss the obligatory side-swipe at the competition. They could never pull off such an event because they lacked the necessary culture. What was meant, of course, was the advertising culture, as Migros was already considered a pioneer in communication for everyday consumer goods over 20 years ago. And who wants to spend an evening watching Coop-Studio?
The series of commercials, starting with black-and-white productions from the early 1960s, provided an excellent opportunity to analyze continuities and breaks in the Migros communication process. Not to mention the prevailing general taste in terms of clothing, furnishings or music; from today's perspective and despite various retro trends, these sometimes seemed downright bizarre. The Migros Spotnight could also pass for an empirical ethno-study.
In addition to groundbreaking works, there were also some absolute embarrassments (by our standards, of course!): These included the five-minute song "Eusi Migros" with the Migros family from 1976; a prime example of "creative" copywriting and actually almost cult again, because from today's perspective it's an absolute hoot. On the other hand, it was downright revolutionary for a claim from the seventies: "Cover Girl! New York - London - Migros."
Another revelation: there were two types of advertising for Migros. The one before and the one after the Collioud era. From 1982 to 1986, the current Publicis CEO, who was responsible for marketing communication for food and non-food, completely changed the concept - the turning point could not have been more striking. Suddenly Migros was cheeky, lively and funny - dusted off and rejuvenated by years.
As is well known, this began with a jingle that mutated into a catchy tune and was used again and again in new variations. The Migros sound was interpreted in the style of Matt Bianco, Huey Lewis, Devo or Michael Jackson. The multiple award-winning "Besser-auch-Spots" with the claim "It's better to buy product X at Migros - and product Y too" also had a lasting effect. Yes, exactly the ones with the flying toasters and toupees, slipping swimming trunks or lawnmowers running amok.
A long round of applause rewarded the organizers for their brilliant event idea. And because the archives are far from exhausted, there will probably be a sequel at some point. After all, in the age of the Matrix and Harry Potter, that's common practice. Or the Migros reel will go on tour in Switzerland like its Cannes role model. By the way - at the end, Migros even served alcohol for a change; in complete contrast to the statement in one of the commercials we saw. At the aperitif that followed, the Central Swiss showed stamina and chatted for quite a long time over Gourmessa canapés and white wine.
Relief and tension were written all over the faces of certain participants at the Spok-PMK class graduation ceremony at the Giesserei in Zurich-Oerlikon. Relief because they could finally enjoy their free time again without a guilty conscience; tension because the official results were sent out just one day later and so the trembling was not quite over yet. However, most of them took it in their stride - after all, you learn for life, not for school or the exam board.
And what these youngsters presented, who have only just completed their retreat: Chapeau! A seasoned senior account manager could not have done better; the concept did not even forget the advertising week as an external influencer. Only when the video file wouldn't play did principal Ursula Krebs intervene briefly. She helped out of the predicament by saying that the video could also be ordered from her. But beware, dear PMKs: the next time you visit a customer, Ursula will no longer be there; it has to be right!
The ideal accompaniment to the Migros reel: popcorn.
Beat Fritsch slept in front of Mr. Bean's cannon at the MaxX movie palace. However, it turned out to be harmless - the dorky secret agent was a cardboard cutout. The Migros commercials without the interrupting feature film were much more exciting that evening anyway. Also on the program: the Spok diploma ceremony for the graduates of the PMK course - one day before the exam notification was sent out.
Where the communication, media and publishing scene meets for its events, we will be attending a wide variety of events. Do you already have something to report? Pick up the phone (telephone
01 296 97 98) or write to us (info@ werbewoche.ch). Event tips and further shortlist images are available online at www.werbewoche.ch

Business press HandelsZeitung relaunch not until fall The relaunch of HandelsZeitung scheduled for the end of May has been postponed to an as yet unspecified date in the fall. Publishing director Ralph Büchi justifies this with the "current climate", which is "not very encouraging" for a relaunch. There is a danger "that it will just fizzle out". By the fall, the general mood may be more optimistic again, and the relaunch is intended to reinforce this. Büchi emphasizes that there is currently no urgent need for action regarding the layout of HandelsZeitung. "The paper is not in such a bad position: we are losing fewer advertisements than the competition and are gaining market share. Our readership figures have also stabilized again." (mk)

FeldschlösschenSummer is coming, the next beer-filled campaign is rolling towards the Swiss. This time for the superbrand (extinguisher) from Rheinfelden. Clicks and hicks on www.werbewoche.ch/adratingCardinal
Welsh owls don't fly to Athens, they fly right into the middle of the Cardinal merriment. Cheers to Simko.
Top 86,00%
Flop 14,00%

Christof Kaufmann, Managing Director of OMD Media, appreciates the low advertising prices of the Coop titles, but not their diffuse readership.WW Mr. Kaufmann, what does the marked increase in the proportion of young and male readers in the Coop press audience mean? Christof Kaufmann The great popularity of the young target groups is also due to the success of 20 Minuten - this experience whets the appetite for something similar and means that many young people also take a look at the Coop newspaper. Nevertheless, I am very curious to see whether or not the figures from Mach Basic will be confirmed in the fall.
What are the ingredients for the success of the Coop newspaper? The newspaper is very close to the target group - both in terms of the selection of reading material and in terms of service. But what I also noticed after studying a few issues is that the customer newspaper has no bite. Opinions are mostly served up without counter-opinions - there is no polarization whatsoever.
Looks like this is the philosopher's stone to exclude as few potential readers as possible.
Sure, you can clearly drive wider this way.
Will the Coop press become more interesting for you to advertise in due to the readership figures? No. Precisely because of the very broad target audience. Because there are no clear affinities. When we develop a media strategy, we define our target groups very narrowly and we check which media we find concentrated in the segment we are looking for. It is clear that the Coop press, with its diffuse readership, cannot offer this.
But wouldn't the rather low advertising rates at least be a reason to choose the Coop Press as an advertising platform anyway? The price/reach ratio is basically attractive. However, if I am looking for a narrowly defined target group, for example 30 to 39-year-olds, then the Coop newspaper quickly becomes very expensive. But this is generally the case with titles with a very broad readership. Another negative effect on its status as an advertising platform is the fact that the Coopzeitung is a free paper - and this naturally results in much lower reader loyalty than with a paid-for title.
Coop titles have low advertising rates, but unclear readership profiles.

Interview: Daniel Schifferle

Wine producers No other wine appellation triggers as much controversy as Bordeaux, and to this day, hardly any other winegrowers' guild in the world has managed to achieve as much international interest and renown as the winegrowers from the Bordelais. However, the wines from the top Châteaux, which have been classified since 1855, only account for five percent of the 660 million bottles bottled each year. The rest is mediocre to below-average wine, with a finish that is more scratchy than flattering. In other words (and drunk): You don't necessarily get the feeling of being kissed by delicate, seductive lips, but by Ötzi himself. When it comes to wine, Germany is far less well-known than Bordeaux. This has probably led to a short Seppl with his lederhosen having to stand in for their wine culture. Apart from the fact that no wine is produced in Bavaria, they tend to quench their thirst with beer. In other words (and not drunk): The little Bavarian got lost on the shelf pars pro toto.
Despite all this, the two advertisements from wine magazines show that wine can also be advertised with a wink using stylish to hearty subjects. The best way to toast this is with a glass of Philipponat. Millesimé, of course.
(ck)

Accident prevention The Swiss Council for Accident Prevention is campaigning for greater safety awareness in recreational sports with a fruitcake campaign.accidents should not result in deaths or serious injuries in the future - this is the vision of the Swiss Council for Accident Prevention (BfU). The private and politically neutral foundation has been campaigning for greater safety in road traffic, private households, leisure and sport since 1938. Despite all the information provided, one million people still have accidents in Switzerland every year - only a quarter of them at work. Under the motto "Enjoy sport - protect yourself", the advice center has been running a new prevention campaign against the consequences of accidents in sport since mid-May. A commercial and posters are designed to encourage people to wear protective equipment. Unlike their Zurich colleagues for the Sportfactory (see page 2), the team from the Bern agency Fruitcake, which is responsible for the concept, refrains from "scaremongering". Instead of showing the consequences of a fall without a helmet, they show what happens when you protect yourself. The plot is as simple as it is astonishing: the balls of a click-clack game become helmets that protect the heads of laughing men and women. "The campaign is linked to an emerging trend," CD Lahor Jakrlin comments on the strategy and explains: "Protective accessories and helmets are becoming increasingly attractive, i.e. lighter and better in design." What used to be rejected for aesthetic reasons is now part of the sporting lifestyle, the CD continues.
However, only a small proportion of the population wear helmets, as the helmet wear rate among cyclists in 2002 shows: Only 23 percent of Swiss people wore helmets. According to the BfU, the almost 300,000 sports accidents cause annual treatment costs of around one billion Swiss francs. Added to this are indirect costs of 2.3 billion Swiss francs. It is therefore no wonder that the Swiss Insurance Association is a cooperation partner of the campaign, which runs until 2006.
Simone Keller

IT-Magazine It is a child of the Internet hype, but it still exists: Netzmedien AG and its Netzwoche.Heinrich Meyer and Thomas Brenzikofer, the two owners of the Basel-based company Netzmedien AG, are rather reticent when it comes to disclosing internal company figures. Neither certified circulation or readership figures for their ICT industry magazine Netzwoche nor turnover or reasonably informative percentage figures on business performance are available. But both claim with conviction: "Netzmedien AG is in the black and Netzwoche, which currently has seven editorial staff, is self-financing." However, this required some not entirely painless cost-cutting: the formerly outsourced areas of acquisition and administration are now handled internally, and a few weeks ago an employee was made redundant. "A difficult decision," says Meyer, not without regret. One thing is clear: Netzwoche is also not bedded on roses when it comes to advertising. The last few weeks' editions have had between 1.33 and 3.33 advertising pages. "Best of Web" for the third timeBut unlike some other Internet newspapers, which only came onto the market when the Internet bubble was at its most bursting (and about to burst), Netzwoche continues to appear. On May 28, together with Simsa (swiss interactive media and software association), whose publication organ it is, it is also holding the "Best of Swiss Web" event for the third time. The 337 project submissions to be evaluated show that The web media operate in an industry that has had to scale back, but has remained lively.
Weakening trade fair businessNetWeek is published with a circulation of 12,000 copies, 400 of which go to Simsa members, around 6,000 are subscribed (according to Meyer, the "trend is rising"), 4,000 are used for target mailings, and the rest is published at events and trade fairs. Netzwoche launches two issues each for the industry events Internet-Expo and Orbit because of the many advertisements. In the meantime, however, the industry is discussing a merger of the two trade fairs. "We expect trade fair business to be weak," concludes Heinrich Meyer. Which is why "something new" is being considered for Orbit. However, he is equally unwilling to say what strategies he is pursuing in terms of trade fairs.
New ideas for a new market are and will probably remain the main strength of Netzmedien, which, in addition to its weekly title, also produces the daily Netzticker, the new six-times-a-year compendium Netzguide and commissions semi-annual market studies under the name Netzreport. "77 percent of our customers use two or more of our products," says Meyer.
However, Netzwoche remains the lead medium, also in terms of revenue, he emphasizes. But the 130-page Netzguide is hardly inferior: Although it is not exactly brimming with advertisements, the back section contains around a dozen paid portraits of IT companies.
Markus Knöpfli

The Swiss Advertising Association (SW) appointed a new eleven-member board at its general meeting. The following seven members were newly elected: Saverio Progano (Managing Director Mediaedge|CIA) as representative of the French-speaking Swiss association FRP, Beat Mühlemann (Head of Marketing Communication
Federation of Migros Cooperatives), Bernhard Eggli (Head of Brand
Management & Communication UBS), Cornelia Harder (Managing Director Publicis), Urs Schneider (Managing Director Media Agency M&M), Otto Meier (General Director Publicitas AG) and Guido
Wietlisbach (President of the Swiss Direct Marketing Association).
...
The former advertiser and Blick
Editor-in-Chief Walter Bosch has been appointed to the Board of Directors (BoD) of Swiss International Air Lines. He was elected for a term of office of three years.
...
Head of Communications Andrea Hemmi is leaving McDonald's Switzerland. She has tendered her resignation due to "differences of opinion in corporate communications".
...
The Director of the General
Plakatgesellschaft (APG), Christian Kauter, becomes the new President of the Employers' Association of the Canton and Region of Berne. Kauter's predecessor, Bernese publisher Rudolf Stämpfli, will take over the presidency of the Swiss Employers' Association in the middle of the year.
...
Lars Rupprecht joins the team of the communications agency Karl F. Schneider AG in Schlieren as an editor and junior consultant.
...
Thomas Ramseier, Unit Manager
and member of the management board of Wirz Werbung, is leaving the advertising agency to pursue a new direction. Manfred Hager is the sole Client Service Director of Wirz Werbung.
...
Nadine Ott joins the team at Zurich-based communications agency Lienert ComBasis.

Weekly newspaper The WoZ continues to break taboos and is financing its relaunch with a capital increase.The last major collection for the WoZ was called "Eine Million mit links" (One million with the left), was over five years ago and was purely a fundraising campaign. With the introduction of economic and consumer topics announced for September 4, the left-wing Swiss central organ is also breaking new, unorthodox ground financially: this time, the 500,000 francs required for the relaunch are to be raised via an ordinary increase in the share capital of the WoZ-controlled "AG für internationale Medienerzeugnisse" ("AG für internationale Medienerzeugnisse").The centerpiece of the campaign concocted by Spillmann Felser Leo Burnett is the book "Die Kapitalerhöhung" ("The Capital Increase"), according to the advertisement the most important work since Karl Marx's "Das Kapital" - at least for the new WoZ. In addition to its own paper, the self-deprecating subject is also published in the Tages-Anzeiger and the NZZ. In the book, political, cultural and even business celebrities describe their relationship with Switzerland's most controversial weekly newspaper. The owner of this epoch-making reader survey is automatically and only those who register by the end of July
subscribes to one of the 500 participation certificates. If you believe the prospectus, this is "guaranteed to be the only return on this investment in media diversity".
(oc)

Column Communication at any price is as counterproductive as keeping quiet. Communication is not everything, but without communication everything is nothing. This truism had to be fought for long enough, against the deniers of information and discussion here and elsewhere. Tempi passati. Today, an open and active communication policy is almost a matter of course. In any case, nobody disputes the corresponding demands and requirements any more. Anyone who wants to mean, achieve, defend or change something today must want to communicate and be able to communicate. In other words, they must not only be factually and socially competent, but also communicatively competent. The trust of voters, taxpayers, members, employees, social partners, customers or journalists is won by those who can justify and make plausible their plans, decisions and interests so that they can be understood and accepted by those affected (or their administrators and interpreters). After a long period of silence and stonewalling, many decision-makers in politics, business, society and culture have now embraced this imperative to an extent that gives cause for concern: People are communicating at the drop of a hat - even if they have nothing or nothing new to say.
Or sometimes it is even communicated prematurely with good intentions. For example, when a project is not yet fully developed, not yet sufficiently supported. Or if the decision to be communicated has not yet been made and the decision-making process is still open. The unpleasant consequence of such overzealousness for everyone involved: either words are not followed by deeds, which is paid for dearly with a loss of trust and credibility. Or you are suddenly obliged to follow up your fine words with good deeds that you neither wanted nor considered in terms of their impact.
Finally, the sin of one-sided information policy, which takes place exclusively or at least initially via the media, is also widespread. More and more executives are craving public attention before they have informed those affected by a project or decision - and trigger unnecessary irritation or even outright resistance. Or they use the producers of publicity as an instrument for placing interest-driven messages without considering that the media often pursue other interests. Or without
to bear in mind that the intended recipient of the communication is unlikely to enjoy reading it in the press first.
Communication as a fetish has its pitfalls and downsides, which need to be carefully considered and taken into account. At the heart of communicative professionalism must always be the question of what exactly should be communicated to which address via which channel and when. The consistent application of this maxim means that a somewhat more restrained, better dosed communication that is not only handled via the media is sometimes the wiser option.
Kenneth Angst was a member of the editorial boards of Weltwoche and NZZ and is now Managing Director of the communications agency Mediapolis, Zurich.

The third edition of the brochure "What is advertising" has just been published in German and French by Schweizer Werbung (SW) and presents over 50 professions in commercial communication. Around 30,000 copies of the previous editions were distributed. The brochure was made possible by UBS,
Migros and other sponsors. "What is advertising" can be ordered by
Fax 01 211 80 18 or by e-mail at [email protected]. Single copies are free of charge. For larger orders, CHF 1 per copy plus postage will be charged.

Intellectual property The flying postal parcels from the current ExpressPost campaign have apparently inspired Swiss CEO André Dosé: Just under the name "Swiss-Express "Intellectual property The flying postal parcels from the current ExpressPost campaign have apparently inspired Swiss CEO André Dosé: He wants to spin off the former Crossair fleet under the name "Swiss-Express" - just like Swiss Post's express service. While those responsible at Swiss are still racking their brains over the logistics of the operation, ExpressPost is still puzzled by the name of the future regional carrier. Swiss Post filed the "Swiss-Express" trademark with the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property two years ago. Last Sunday, the company showed "its sportiest side" and placed a "congratulatory advertisement" designed by Lang Gysi Knoll for the future namesake. Let's hope that Swiss management doesn't take the advertisements with the "murderously flying postal parcels" (WW 15/03) too literally.