From March 22, the new radio station M24 will be available on the Geneva cable network under the slogan "La musique puissance 24" (music to the power of 24), offering music around the clock as well as features on music and musicians. The sponsoring association Radio.m24.fm aims to provide a platform for local and regional bands and DJs. The target audience is 15 to 55-year-olds. M24 received its license from the Federal Office of Communications in July 2002. In the consultation process at the time, local competitors and the Union Romande de Radios et de Télévisions Régionales spoke out against the license.

The "Radio Data 2003" published on the Internet a few days ago by the advertising time marketer Radiotele AG is now also available in printed form. 32 pages of documentation contain planning-relevant information on all private radio stations in Switzerland and the most important foreign stations broadcasting into Switzerland. A multicolored map of the broadcasting area is also included. The brochure can be ordered free of charge at www.radio tele.ch.

Fashion Ruf Lanz uses pictograms as clothes racks to advertise Big's girlie fashion. "Women who wear Big fashion are not only loved for their intelligence," jokes Markus Ruf. Big is the fashion chain for girls aged between 16 and 30. The chain operates seven stores in Zurich. Markus Ruf and Danielle Lanz have been running the label for six years. Since 2001 under the umbrella of Ruf Lanz. The campaigns have won awards time and again - probably due to the not insignificant fact that Ruf Lanz has never shown models in the campaigns before. This is because Ruf Lanz has always wanted to "dramatize the effect of clothes and not simply show trendy clothes on hip models".
This year, the subjects show boys distracted by girls standing at the side of the road in perky minis. Markus Ruf and Danielle Lanz, who had to take endless driving lessons to get their license (Ruf 80 driving lessons, Lanz 50), were inspired by the pictograms of traffic theory.
"The target group has just passed their driving test or still has it ahead of them and therefore lives very intensively in this world of images," Ruf is convinced. An additional advantage is that the subjects are independent of the current fashion trend. More importantly, Big does not end up in an interchangeable corner with other labels that may show similar fashions on their posters. With the girl standing out with her abstract miniskirt spike, Big is positioned as a "hot store for girls of coquettish age who like to stand out".
The abstraction of the depicted accidents is not dramatic, but the pictograms, which also borrow from comics, have "something nice, fresh and young", says Danielle Lanz. All road users have veered off the right path because of the sexy big girl at the side of the road, failed to turn in time, overlooked traffic signals or missed entrances.
The campaign starts in March. There will be a 12m2 poster on Weinbergstrasse in Zurich, as well as B12 and streetcar posters on the lines that pass Big stores. The posters in the streetcar are positioned in a way that is appropriate for the target group, because most girls in the city travel by public transport. Which is why no streetcar accidents are dramatized, as the girls are in the streetcars and Ruf Lanz work for Zurich's public transport company anyway...
Driving test for boys: Big posters by Ruf Lanz.
Andreas Panzeri

Postal taxes The Federal Council enacted the amendment to the Postal Act at the beginning of 2004, limiting federal subsidies for indirect press promotion to 80 million per year until 2007. According to the Postal Act, Swiss Post grants preferential rates for the transportation of newspapers and magazines to which it subscribes. To date, this has cost the Confederation CHF 100 million per year. In the winter session, Parliament approved the amendment that has now come into force. It serves as a transitional arrangement until a total revision of press subsidies.

Commuter newspapers Despite the imminent launch of its own commuter newspaper "Express", Tamedia is still trying to acquire a stake in its competitor 20 Minuten, reports Bilanz without citing a source. The Zurich-based media group has been negotiating with the shareholders of 20 Minuten Holding, the parent company of the free newspaper, for two weeks. They are discussing a "phased entry of Tamedia as an investor for years to come". According to Werbewoche, a decision is due to be made at 20 Minuten Holding next week.

The Goldbach Media subsidiaries Active Agent and Media Agent are now also presenting their websites in French.Active Agent markets websites, while Media Agent acts as a neutral planner of online marketing campaigns. All the services offered by the German-language sites (information, processing, reporting and more) are now also available to customers and partners in French-speaking Switzerland in their own language.

Andreas Meier, Client Service Director of Metzgerlehner Worldwide Partners AG, has also been a partner and co-owner of the agency since the beginning of the year. "It fits," says Andreas Meier. The 50-year-old counts analyzing facts and motivating people among his strengths of character. In his day-to-day dealings with employees and customers, his maxim is "nothing is impossible". This "can-do mentality" has always accompanied him - since 2001 also in his work as Client Service Director and member of the Management Board of Metzgerlehner Worldwide Partners AG. At the beginning of the year, Meier became a partner and co-owner of the agency. Here, he can "make a difference thanks to the multi-faceted client structure and owner-managed network". Meier also appreciates the fact that the Erlenbach team pulls together. For Metzgerlehner, this means providing customers with clear, continuous and creative appearances according to the "3-C formula" and attracting new business. Meier sees potential in this despite the economic downturn: "Our level of awareness can still be increased," he is convinced. The fact that Metzgerlehner is practising modest restraint also has disadvantages in his eyes: "We are not being invited to enough presentations at the moment."
The company is trying to counteract the industry's current woes with "high-quality efficiency": "There has been a fundamental paradigm shift - the days of superficial glamor and gimmickry are over," explains Meier. "Today's advertising has to implement and achieve the customer's goals much faster and more effectively." Based on this principle, Metzgerlehner wants to prove "that even a medium-sized company can hold its own in an increasingly competitive situation."
Even as a boy, Meier learned to fight for his goals: the son of a farming family of eight, who should have become a priest according to his father's wishes, spent six years at a Catholic boarding school. He explains the fact that he is now in the service of the substitute religion of advertising with his desire for freedom.
After secondary school, Meier studied economics. His first job as a consultant at the cR advertising agency in Basel should have been just a guest appearance. But the fascination of working for different industries and dealing with people never left him. In 1982, Meier was hired by Ted Metzger at Adolf Wirz Werbeberatung, where he was most recently unit manager and member of the management board. After 18 years, he wanted a new direction - Metzger brought him on board again.
Constance not only shapes Meier's professional life: The father of two still lives on the family estate in Stetten, Württemberg. "I am rooted in my village and need the exchange between contrasting worlds," he explains. The "Vereinsmeier" also drives developments in his private life as a "logomotive". Now and again, he even pulls a plow behind him. "I admit," laughs Meier, "I'll probably never get rid of the nickname."
Carole Koch

Magazines The NZZ's monthly supplement, NZZ Folio, is not only read but also collected by many, a fact that Ruf Lanz has been dramatizing for some time with a campaign in which world literature has to thin out on the bookshelf so that there is room for the collected folios. Five new subjects have now been presented. Ruf Lanz quickly turned Kafka's "The Trial" into "The Short Trial", and "Max and Moritz" became "Max". The new title for Tolstoy's tome "War and Peace" should go straight into current world history, as it has been hopefully shortened to "Peace".

Magazines The merger of Schweizer Musiker Revue and Volkstümlicher Veranstaltungskalender, announced in October, resulted in Alpenrosen, the first issue of which was published in March/April, and under editor-in-chief Martin Sebastian - who until last autumn was managing director and program director of the folklore station Radio Eviva - a new magazine with a modern layout and traditional content was created. Alpenrosen is published six times a year with a circulation of 10,000 copies by subscription and at newsstands.

Ambient advertising In its constant search for new advertising space, Spillmann Felser Leo Burnett has now discovered newspaper vending machines: the agency has a 30 x 30 centimeter Post-it advertising vacations with Kuoni affixed to 1,400 Sunday newspaper boxes throughout Switzerland. CD Martin Spillmann and his crew with Hélène Forster (AD) and Stefan Ehrler (text) have created five such Post-its, which are intended to remind readers for a week at a time of new vacation offers from the Swiss industry leader.

The Internet provider Green.ch has entrusted the Walliseller advertising agency FCB Leutenegger Krüll (FCBLK) with its communications mandate.Green.ch is based in Brugg and is aimed particularly at SMEs. FCBLK had already realized a campaign for Green.ch's ADSL offer in autumn 2002.

The insurance group Allianz is bundling the advertising and media budget for its international umbrella campaign with the advertising holding company Omnicom, with OMD taking over the media budget from Initiative Media in the middle of the year, as the trade magazine Horizont reports. BBDO will continue to be responsible for creation. In Switzerland, the media budget of Allianz Suisse will remain with Bemberg Gedenk Media, as advertising manager Urs Bretschger emphasized to Werbewoche. "The part of the international campaigns that we previously handled via Initiative Media will now go to OMD," said Bretschger, "instead of also to Bemberg Gedenk, as we had actually wanted."