DRS-1 program director Christoph Gebel has now also been appointed head of the Zurich radio studio. Gebel succeeds Andreas Schefer, who is moving to the management of Schweizer Radio DRS in Basel....
Hanspeter Lebrument is to replace Hans Heinrich Coninx at the head of the Swiss Press Association (VSP). The VSP Executive Committee followed Coninx's suggestion and nominated the publisher of Südostschweiz as President. Coninx will step down in September.
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Sabine Grebien joins the agency Brandpeople as a new Managing Partner. She will manage the subsidiary of the Bern-based advertising agency Contexta together with co-founder Florian Bausch. Grebien was most recently responsible for trade development at Japan Tobacco International.
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The Zurich advertising agency Bonaparte has strengthened its consultancy with Lajos Vizner. Vizner was previously Managing Director Consulting at Weber Hodel Schmid's Smart Factory. He then worked for Wirz and Glamour Engineering.
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Daniel Patrique Gauchat is the new Managing Director of the online advertising agency Publimedia Webadvertising (PWA) with immediate effect. He succeeds Marcel Bosshard, who is moving to IP Multimedia. Gauchat previously worked as Manager Planning & Consulting for PWA. Together with Ueli Weber, Managing Director of Publicitas Webservices, he is responsible for the operational management of PubliGroupe's Websales division, which is under the responsibility of Markus Ehrle at Publimedia AG.
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At the beginning of July, Daniel Meierhans will take over as Editor-in-Chief of the IT trade magazine Infoweek. He is currently Deputy Editor-in-Chief at competitor Computerworld. Meierhans takes over from René Dubach.

Tamedia A solution is on the horizon for three quarters of the commuter newspaper crew Around a month after the Express commuter newspaper was discontinued, Tamedia is still looking for solutions for around ten of the affected employees. Around twelve will continue to work at the Tagblatt der Stadt Zürich, while around 16 have been given other jobs within the company, as Express Managing Director Marius Hagger explained. Some of these 16 are permanent employees, most are temporary. According to Hagger, Tamedia is offering four different solutions: Those who do not want to stay with the company will receive severance pay equal to the notice period plus three months - an option that no one has chosen so far. Some were able to move directly into vacant positions. For others, new positions are being created on a transitional basis. After six and twelve months, a check is carried out to see whether a position has become vacant and whether the temporary position can be converted into a permanent position. If this is not the case by the end, the position is either extended for another six months or the employee receives severance pay. "What we are actually offering here is a social plan for up to 18 months," emphasizes Tamedia Group spokeswoman Franziska Hügli. For those cases in which an equivalent position cannot be found, either on a permanent or temporary basis, Tamedia offers the prospect of individual solutions.
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Trade fairs The Swiss Marketing Club (SMC) has agreed a cooperation with Reed Messen Schweiz for the X'03 trade fair with the aim of helping to ensure that X'03 focuses more competently on the core topic. To this end, the club is organizing a stage at X'03 where specialist presentations and discussions will be held and filmed. The SMC does not see this offer as competition to the simultaneous Xongress, but wants to coordinate the program with it.

Outdoor advertising company Affichage gains market share in Eastern Europe and a percentage of Swiss Sportart AG Europlakat International (EPI), the joint venture between the Swiss poster company Affichage and the French outdoor advertising company JCDecaux, acquired Alma Quattro, the leading poster company in Serbia and Montenegro, back in February. This was announced by Affichage CEO Christian Kauter on April 30 in Zurich. Alma Quattro has a rapidly growing network of more than 1,000 poster sites as well as a concession for the city of Belgrade (population 1.8 million). The combination of Alma Quattro with the existing subsidiary Europlakat Yugoslavia gives EPI a market share of 60 percent in Serbia and Montenegro (9.1 million inhabitants). Affichage has also made an acquisition in Switzerland: Affichage increased its 60 percent stake in Sportart AG, which it had held since 2001, to 80 percent by acquiring the 20 percent of the Zurich soccer club GC (Grasshoppers) in mid-April. The remaining 20 percent is still held by Sportart founder and board delegate Martin Blaser. Sportart AG markets sports stadiums, sporting events and sports clubs (with a focus on football and ice hockey) and recently acquired the overall marketing of the Swiss Football Cup.
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The term "integrated communication" has recently become one of the industry's magic words. It ranks just behind "sustainable" in the list of buzzwords, and since integrated communication often involves comparing apples and oranges, the Berne Advertising Club wants to shed some light on the subject. Together with the Bern Public Relations Society, it has invited Professor Manfred Bruhn to give a specialist lecture. The event will take place on May 15 in the afternoon in Bern. Further information can be found at www.werbeclub-bern.ch

Internet The online advertising platform Swissclick has been sold to the previous managing director Roger Baltensweiler with retroactive effect from January 1.Internet The online advertising platform Swissclick has been sold to the previous managing director Roger Baltensweiler with retroactive effect from January 1. Swissclick previously belonged to the publishing houses Basler Mediengruppe, Edipresse, Neue Luzerner Zeitung AG and Neue Zürcher Zeitung AG (NZZ)
and the advertising marketer Publicitas. Based on the experience of similar online platforms, the existing shareholders came to the conclusion that "securing the business activities of Swissclick AG is best placed with an owner who is fully active in the Internet business". No details were given about the purchase price. The NZZ speculated that in view of the company's losses, hardly any money is likely to have been paid.

Bonaparte from Zurich is the new advertising agency for the Club cigarette brand, which now belongs to Japan Tobacco International (JTI).Club dates back to GDR times and is only sold in the former East Germany. Creative Director Guillaume Borel explained that they had "completely unexpectedly" won a pitch against several agencies (including account holder Vaporisateur from Berlin). Bonaparte was invited to the pitch on the basis of previous contacts: Until 1999, the agency was part of the Ammirati Puris Lintas network, which at the time looked after JTI and its predecessor R. J. Reynolds respectively.

Print Ads The people of Basel will be amazed when they open their BAZ: Where there’s usually a page margin, bold blue letters stand out—Sunrise-blue letters.These letters announce that there’s hardly a place left in Basel where the telecom company’s network isn’t available. What with the new
The effectiveness of the newly introduced «all-around ad» is to be proven in black and white. The ad space was developed by the Zurich-based agency Wirz, which—more specifically, consultant Susan Baumgartner—had already «revolutionized» the center column for Tetra Pak two years ago. Baumgartner is pleased to report that this format is now even listed in the pricing documentation. While initial negotiations required a great deal of persuasion, the new placement—thanks to the economic slump—was likely introduced more quickly this year. After Basel, Sunrise and Wirz plan to continue their «coverage campaign» in Glarus, Biel, and Geneva.
The second central column revolution is taking place in Basel.

Association policy PR and BSW agencies to march together from January 1, 2004 The Federation of Public Relations Agencies in Switzerland (BPRA) intends to complete the merger with the Federation of Swiss Advertising Agencies (BSW) in the fall. The new unified association is expected to be called "Swiss Leading Agencies" and will become active on January 1, 2004. It will include 110 agencies with a combined workforce of 2,400, generating around half a billion francs in added value. Whether the president will come from the PR or advertising agencies remains to be seen. What is certain, however, is that he will remain in office for longer than one year. Dominique von Matt as BSW President has currently been elected for one year, Ulrich Bollmann as BPRA President for an indefinite period. The net fee turnover of the agencies covered fell by "only" seven million francs from 113.4 million francs in 2001 to 104.4 million francs in 2002. The Big Five lost the most in fees. The ranking remains unchanged with Farner PR and Consulting at the top, followed by Trimedia Communications, Wirz Corporate Communications, Burson-Marsteller and (not in the association) Peter Bütikofer & Company.
DBCOM, Lausanne, Vector Communications, Zurich, and Pr Access, Berne, joined the association in 2002. Toby Rodes in Basel left the association. At the members' meeting on April 23, Zahner & Partner, St. Gallen, and Creafactory, Zug, were admitted to the BPRA for 2003. The association now has 23 members.
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…and adults, too: Since it first aired in 1962, this refrain has been burned into the cerebellum of generations of TV-watching kids. And along with it, the colorful, bear-shaped gummy treats. According to a survey, 77 percent of Germans know this iconic alliterative jingle. On the other hand, even within the industry, hardly anyone knows that the Haribo CEO purchased the most famous of all German advertising slogans back in the 1930s «for a few marks from a copywriter passing through.» We owe this little bit of background history to Wolfgang Hars’s *Lexikon der Werbesprüche* (Encyclopedia of Advertising Slogans). In his seminal work, published in 1999, the Munich-based marketing expert lovingly researched and compiled 500 such stories about the evergreens of verbal sales promotion. Thanks to the affordable paperback edition, even underpaid copywriters can now afford this magnificent history book. After all, a bit of historical awareness certainly doesn’t hurt in this industry obsessed with the here and now. Especially when it’s conveyed as elegantly and amusingly as in Hars’s compendium. May the next generation be able to «not always, but more and more often» measure up to the great masters of the genre. Although the iconic catchphrases of the past century were almost as often the result of sheer chance as they were of brilliant wordsmiths. This legendary lexicon teaches us that, too. And yet, even in its title, it stirs the ambition of young copywriters.
> Nothing Is Impossible! The Encyclopedia of Advertising Slogans by Wolfgang Hars. Piper Verlag, Munich 2002. 463 pages, Fr. 10.80.
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Advertising Festival The co-founder of Weber Hodel Schmid and current board member of Scholz & Friends Zurich, Yvonne Hodel, joins the jury of the international advertising festival Golden Drum, which will take place for the 10th time on the Slovenian Adriatic coast from October 5 to 10, 2003.

Regional newspapers The Journal du Jura, Express and Impartial are moving closer together In mid-April, Marc Gassmann, publisher of the Journal du Jura (JdJ) and the Bieler Tagblatt, gave his French-language paper a fresh facelift and made it more attractive - and it has already found two new lovers in Impartial and Express. No wonder, the ties between the two publishers are already strong: Gassmann AG is a minority shareholder in the Société Neuchâteloise de Presse (SNP), which belongs to the French Hersant Group and publishes Express and Impartial.Until now, the three titles have been competitors, at least in the peripheral areas, but from June 1, 2003 they will now work together editorially there. This applies in particular to the districts of Courtelary and La Neuveville, where one correspondent will work for each title in future. This will lead to two redundancies at SNP, while an internal solution has been found at the JdJ.
SNP and Gassmann have already announced further areas of cooperation: For example, an agreement on the advertising market and printing cooperation is to follow. The latter is only about mutual protection in the event of breakdowns, explained JdJ publishing director Joachim Tillessen. In terms of advertising cooperation, nothing has been decided yet. However, it is possible that the combination of Impartial (20940 copies) and Express (29028) will be expanded with JdJ (12935). It is also possible that the 4×4 combination, which expires at the end of the year and includes the three titles and the Quotidien Jurassien, will be renewed.
No changes to the shareholder structure of SNP or Gassmann are planned, nor are any cross-shareholdings, according to a communiqué. However, the companies want to "consult with each other on all matters that affect them and develop joint positions".
Freshly revamped, the Journal du Jura strengthens its alliance with the SNP.
Markus Knöpfli