Media policy The Swiss Private Radio Association (VSP) has called for various improvements to the draft of a new Radio and Television Act (RTVA) at the hearings of the National Council's Committee for Transport and Telecommunications. Among other things, either a ban on advertising and sponsorship for SRG radio stations should be enshrined in the law or the third channels (DRS 3, Couleur 3, Rete 3) should be privatized. According to the VSP, private radio stations' share of FM frequencies must be increased from the current 25 percent to 40 percent. It is also calling for an increase in fee splitting from the current CHF 7.5 million to CHF 16 million.

Advertising The St.Gallen government rejects a cantonal ban on advertising alcohol and tobacco products. It does not intend to support three motions to this effect in the Grand Council, arguing that only a nationwide solution would be effective. The government shares the concern about the increasing consumption of alcohol and tobacco by young people and is aware of the health risks, according to a statement issued on Wednesday. The government refers to parliamentary initiatives at federal level with the same thrust.

At the 50th International Advertising Festival in Cannes this June, Philip H. Knight will be named Advertiser of the Year.Knight is co-founder, chairman and CEO of the sporting goods manufacturer Nike. This is the second time he has received the award since 1994. The award honors not only the quality of Nike's advertising, but also its significant influence on creativity and lifestyle over the past decade. No other company has won more Cannes Lions in the last five years than Nike.

Alcohol prevention A new poster campaign by cRDDB Basel takes a close look at the effects of high-risk drinking behavior. "High-risk drinking behavior" is the technical definition for the few "Cüplis" among girlfriends at the disco or the loud toasts among real men at the regulars' table. "Look at yourself and not too deep into the glass" is the text from cRDDB Basel for the Federal Office of Public Health's new poster campaign. The new campaign runs under the motto "Everything under control" and aims to show how people can be tempted to have one too many drinks at social gatherings. The now familiar campaign glass developed by cRDDB is intended to guarantee visual continuity for the campaign. This is the fifth time that the advertising agency cRDDB has been responsible for the Federal Office of Public Health's alcohol prevention campaign, which was launched in 1999, and the new posters stand out thanks to their sober limitation to a magnifying glass effect. The words associated with general drinking behavior, such as "going out", "full of relish" or "weekend", are placed behind a glass of alcohol in such a way that negative syllables such as "end", "full" or "ko" appear as eye-catchers thanks to the magnifying effect of the glass.
These messages are intended to counteract the desire for intoxication in accordance with the prevention campaign's mandate. It "takes a close look" at how initially normal situations can turn negative if alcohol consumers do not take care of themselves. The campaign, which is also supported by the Swiss Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Problems, therefore does not want to take a fundamentally anti-alcohol stance, but rather propagate the message "Drink with moderation", as Hans Tanner, CD at cRDDB, explains.
Accordingly, the posters are also aimed at a broad target group. "We want to appeal to young alcopoppers in the disco as well as older beer drinkers at the regulars' table," says Tanner. In the religious war over shock images in prevention advertising, the concept developer deliberately did not work with deterrent subjects for this campaign. "Addictive behavior has something to do with mental consent," Tanner is convinced. His ideas are therefore intended to encourage people to form their own opinions on the subject of alcohol.
The posters are used throughout Switzerland. To ensure that the wordplay works, the agency also had copywriters of Italian and French native speakers work on the subjects. In addition to posters with general arguments, various special posters have also been designed for use in prominent locations. A poster with the enlarged "weg" for the word "wegtreten" is displayed in barracks squares. A poster with a large "aus" for the word "Führerausweis" can be found in parking garages. "No" for "snowboarding" is intended to encourage moderate drinking in ski resorts.
In contrast to the public posters, the new cinema spot for the 2003 campaign is "media-friendly", as Tanner says, and is particularly tailored to the young cinema audience. The film "Herd instinct", which will be shown in over 450 cinemas throughout Switzerland from February 13, uses three simple symbolic scenes in the group to compare young women drinking in a lounge and men in a garden pub with sheep in a herd. Just as the sheep in the flock have no will of their own and therefore show no individual behavior, drinking in a human group is often determined by others, as in a herd. The commercial uses this animal comparison to humorously encourage people to make their own decisions instead of mindlessly following a "leader" and giving in to peer pressure.
The campaign is supported by the website www.alles-im-griff.ch. The information section provides professionals, those affected and those seeking help with detailed information and further links. In "The Club", a young audience can playfully find further interactive offers, links and prevention messages. The electronic game "Spacebar", launched in March 2002, has already reached the "magic number" of 140,000 downloads.
Lambing along is to be frowned upon among young people.
Andreas Panzeri

Film Euro RSCG creates the largest photo gallery in Switzerland with the advertisement for Alberto Venzago's film "Mounted by the Gods" and has the unusual "teaser" campaign published in Facts magazine.everything about this story is unusual - the idea for the campaign, its implementation and the cooperation with the news magazine Facts. And even more unusual is the story of how the product being advertised came about. Euro RSCG wants to arouse curiosity for Alberto Venzago's first film "Mounted by the Gods" with 50 mystical photographs, which are hung without text or logo in very specific poster sites of the Allgemeine Plakatgesellschaft (APG). The campaign is conceived as a photo exhibition - on the APG advertising spaces. No address, no intention and certainly no explanatory text can be found on the pictures. And there is also no resolution at these points, as is usual with a normal teaser campaign - the solution to the riddle will only be given in the Facts magazine.
"I'm totally happy about the whole thing," reveals Venzago. He was inspired by the campaign with Angie Becker for the idea. Christian Kauter from APG was then contacted via various people, and at the same time Frank Bodin took up the cause. He submitted the proposal to the news magazine Facts, and editor-in-chief Hannes Britschgi liked the idea. Facts is now producing an "art guide" to the exhibition. The "exhibition" itself is taking place simultaneously in Bern, Basel and Zurich, making it the "largest exhibition in Switzerland" in terms of area.
Mahounon's storiesIn 1988, photojournalist and now well-known advertising filmmaker Alberto Venzago was traveling across the West African country of Benin on a Vespa. When his vehicle breaks down in front of a voodoo monastery in the town of Quidah, a man named Mahounon offers him help. The black man is one of the most powerful voodoo priests in Africa. He reveals an oracle to Venzago and tells him things from his past that the priest has absolutely no way of knowing. Venzago is fascinated. Mahounon becomes his friend.
For almost ten years, he takes the photographer to the most mysterious places of African voodoo rites. Venzago is allowed to film secret voodoo ceremonies and sacrificial rituals. The Swiss photographer gains access to sacred places. The photographer also witnesses an extraordinary story: Mahounon's search for his successor, his training and ordination as a voodoo priest.
Venzago's first feature-length film "Mounted by the Gods" was created from these images after more than twelve years of work. The production, which has already met with great international interest, is being presented by Traumwerk Filmproduktion in Munich. Wim Wenders is responsible as ex-
cutive Producer. Venzago developed the narrative structure together with screenwriter Kit Hopkins, who was awarded the Bavarian Film Prize for her successful film "Irren ist männlich".
Venzago envisioned and discussed the visual material with Mahounon in Africa at all stages of its creation. "Filming doesn't mean stealing exotic images, it means giving each other images."
From color to black and whiteJean-Claude Piroué spent almost a year editing well over 100 hours of footage into a film that is now 89 minutes long. The video material was digitally processed in the laboratory company Das Werk and then exposed in high resolution on 35mm film. "Mounted by the Gods" was largely "desaturated" from color to black and white in an interesting mixed form. In this "often bold montage, my experience in advertising helped me a lot", says the new filmmaker. His editor Piroué comes from the cinema side and has also worked for Michael Verhoeven, Percy Adlon and Rosa von Praunheim.
Choirs, percussionists and a total of 40 other musicians were recorded in Benin for the music. These recordings were used as samples for new compositions. Jochen Schmidt-Hambrock, who was nominated for an Oscar for his soundtrack in the film "Beyond Silence", finally recorded his music with the Babelsberg Film Orchestra in Berlin. Kruder and Dorfmeister also mixed the sounds. Peter Scherer in New York and Boris Blank from Yello contributed further music to the soundtrack. The film music has recently been released on CD by Universal. In addition to the film, a large and "heavy" photo book will also be published by Prestel Verlag in Munich.
No public fundingThe film was made without film funding. "Every trip was paid for out of my pocket, with money I had earned from commercials," explains Venzago. Wim Wenders and Jürgen Biefang's production company Traumwerk only got involved from the editing phase onwards - also without funding or pre-sales. "It's an unusual situation in Europe to finance a film like this yourself," says Venzago. "But everyone believed in this project."
"When someone works on something for over twelve years, this will alone radiates a special power in our short-lived times," says Frank Bodin, explaining his commitment to this film. The Chief Executive Officer of Euro RSCG finally went through with the idea of exhibiting the photographs "from hot Africa in the currently cold Swiss cities of Zurich, Bern and Basel". Not in a heated room, but in the open air in public. And not small, but in large formats on billboards.
"It's actually a small movie, but we're making a campaign like for a big movie," says Venzago happily.
The regular budget for this advertising would have been "higher than the total budget for the film", reveals Venzago. The campaign was only possible thanks to a lot of goodwill from APG. The precise locations provided and the perfect organization made it possible to implement the idea of showing the large-format photographs. Fosag, the lettering, screen printing and mounting service, was responsible for the elaborate individual printing of the 50 poster subjects.
Facts guide to APG jobs
Finally, the news magazine Facts wants to accompany the campaign with a "Voodoo exhibition guide". The small booklet will be enclosed with the February 13 issue as a special print, just as Facts has already published a catalog for the best restaurants, a bar guide and a crime thriller guide. "We are aware that a campaign like this is not intended for the general public. Nevertheless, we were interested in the opportunity because the photos in the three cities will certainly lead to many questions," says Ralph Pöhner, Head of Culture at the Facts editorial office. The Facts guide will show the way to the exact locations of the Voodoo posters with maps and also provide background information on Venzago's work.
"Normally such documentaries are made for narrow target groups. But this movie seems special to me. Venzago's voodoo film is very exciting and deserves the attention of a wider audience," Frank Bodin is also convinced.
As a copywriter at Aebi, the advertiser previously created the first commercial with
with Alberto Venzago, who was new to commercials at the time. The two have been friends ever since, and Bodin has repeatedly witnessed "the creation and suffering of this film" at close quarters.
However, the agency Euro RSCG also wants its sponsored contribution to this advertising concept to be understood as a "cultural percentage". Frank Bodin also believes that the creation of such a campaign can be very inspiring for the internal spirit of an agency. "It gives us new ideas."
Still images from Alberto Venzago's debut film "Mounted by the Gods": Euro RSCG has them hung in selected locations by the Allgemeine Plakatgesellschaft.

Mystical images: Motifs from Venzago's voodoo film.
>> The largest photo gallery in SwitzerlandMystical images: Motifs from Venzago's voodoo film.
Andreas Panzeri

Background If Kurt W. Zimmermann is to be believed, the "clash of cultures" between public relations and journalism is old news. A post-ideological analysis of two professional and self-images.The joke about the difference between journalists and PR people may be getting old, but I'll bring it up again anyway. The PR boss of the big bank and the journalist meet the CEO in front of the bank building, with whom an interview appointment has been arranged. At this moment, on the other side of the street, a wild Rottweiler attacks a child. Without hesitation, the CEO pounces on the huge dog, and after a few bloody minutes, the Rottweiler lies dead on the ground. The bank's PR chief runs into his office and formulates his communiqué: "Banker risks his life to save a child". The journalist runs to his office and formulates his headline: "Bank boss strangles pet!
It is the different viewpoint that separates the two industries in the cliché: PR people are only obliged to their client, whom they try to put in the best possible light in public. Journalists, on the other hand, are not beholden to a client, but only to the public, to whom they convey the unvarnished truth.
Romanticized objectivityThe textbook would put it this way: PR is impact-oriented, it wants to make a certain opinion through information. Media products are content-oriented, their information performance is to make different opinions possible.
My present impression questions this doctrine. My thesis is a kind of convergence theory. I believe that the two fields have converged in their day-to-day work and in their professional image. The PR profession has become more journalistic in its claims, that is, more interested in objectivity and less interested in advocacy than before. Journalism has integrated PR models, it is less interested in objectivity and more interested in advocacy than before.
I grew up in Solothurn. Forty years ago, there were three newspapers there, "Das Volk" (Social Democratic), the "Solothurner Zeitung" (liberal) and the Catholic-conservative "Solothurner Nachrichten". All three looked at the world from a purely party-political point of view, all three were unrestrainedly tendentious, all three editorial offices engaged in prurient disinformation.
In retrospective romanticism, we call that diversity of opinion. I think that 40 years ago it simply didn't make much difference whether you worked as a PR man or as a political journalist. Either way, you were a lobbyist. Journalists in Solothurn and elsewhere were a kind of PR people for the parties, right, left or liberal.
Only when they began to form nationwide monopolies did the political line have to disappear from the newspapers. The forum model emerged. Responsibility to a political party was replaced by a new, somewhat diffuse mandate: responsibility to the public. Objectivity and factual accuracy were now the target concepts, and consequently, so-called investigative journalism became widespread from the 1970s onward.
The majority of the PR industry, however, continued to work in the style of the former direct representation of interests. It followed the mentality with which Rudolf Farner would have made a potato sack a federal councilor for a million francs. Now, in the public perception, there was suddenly a wide gap between the two industries: on the one hand, the noble search for the truth and incorruptibility, on the other hand, the disdainful manipulation and venality.
Relapses everywhereAs the third phase, the convergence of the two fields of communication has now begun. Information overload, especially in the press, is putting an end to the former model of the open information forum. Orientation is once again in demand; attitude and opinion are thus in demand, and inevitably also bias and prejudice. The claim to provide citizens with the material to form their own opinions seems increasingly passé to me. Today, opinion is once again being pushed into its market by the media themselves, and by no means only in the comment columns. A PR-related strategy, to say the least.
One consequence of this trend is the enormous moralization of the media landscape, which culminated in last summer's CEO bashing. Zurich sociology professor Kurt Imhof has brilliantly analyzed this trend in his text "The Revenge of Morality". Quote, "A new specter is haunting, it is the extraordinary pervasiveness of public communication with moral judgments." Earlier investigative journalism set in where a prejudice or opinion was measured against the facts. The journalism described by Imhof ends where the factual situation could endanger the prejudice or opinion.
Two or three examples: Whatever Christoph Blocher does or says, Blick attacks him. Almost the entire business elite is in the same position. They are always wrong, over the years - which is hardly possible objectively. Fact-oriented analysis has been stowed away in the mothballs of the eighties and nineties and replaced by bias or - less disrespectfully - attitude. It must be acknowledged that this is, after all, openly declared bias. Political and business journalists at Blick are in this sense related by marriage to PR journalists.
One could also mention the Tages-Anzeiger, which in recent years has once again developed into a social democratic platform. When city president Elmar Ledergerber presents an objectively rather thin paper on the asylum issue or Federal Councilor Moritz Leuenberger presents an objectively rather miserable negotiation result on the airport issue, they are nevertheless sure to receive applause. Critical journalists would castigate such an attitude as a PR syndrome on other occasions.
Lest I be accused of political one-eyedness, Weltwoche too, judging by the response, pushed its deregulatory antithesis all too deliberately in the early days of its relaunch. The impression that it had at times become a PR platform for the exponents of Helvetic neoliberalism was certainly not entirely wrong.
In short: Journalism is currently moving in the direction of subjectivism; the PR industry, on the other hand, is also moving in the direction of objectivism. Good PR has always conveyed factual information and avoided heavy-handed propaganda. This approach now seems to be becoming more and more typical of the industry. The professional code of conduct of the PR association now prominently features the sentence that "no false or misleading information" may be disseminated. This formulation could also have come from the Press Council.
From what I hear, much of the PR industry has moved in that direction. When I talk to the management of larger companies, for example, they tell me that today their own PR consultants often ask the more critical and competent questions than the media, which very often struggle to deal with complex problems due to a lack of time, staff or expertise.
So that public relations staff don't pat themselves on the back too hastily now, the caveat follows immediately. The PR industry had no choice but to adopt a more open, customer-critical style. All the communications failures - from Adtranz to Expo.02 and Holocaust funds to Swissair and Zurich - scratched the reputation of this profession and also caused it a credibility problem.
The convergence of the two industries described above is naturally also reflected in the personnel merry-go-round. Journalists, regardless of where they stand politically, have recently been happy to switch to PR jobs. In the recent past, a large number of major companies have had or have had former journalists in PR management positions: Migros, Swiss, Novartis, SRG, Vontobel, Sulzer, Centerpulse, Hotelplan, ETH, not to mention the PR forecourts of the federal administration, which are teeming with ex-colleagues.
But the reverse path now also seems to be accepted. Let's not forget: Before ex-journalist Peter Hartmeier became Editor-in-Chief of the Tages-Anzeiger, he was also Tamedia's Head of Communications, responsible for its public relations. A PR man.
No longer a problem in our time. Ten years ago, I'm sure, the Tagi editorial team would have immediately called a protest meeting in a similar case.
> Kurt W. Zimmermann was Editor-in-Chief of the SonntagsZeitung and Facts, among others, and then a member of the Executive Board at Tamedia until the end of 2001. Today he is the owner of the management consultancy Consist Consulting AG. This text is about ...

The Bern-based communications agency Faktor plus has won the advertising budget from TopPharm, an association of independent pharmacies that aims to establish its members as the first port of call for health issues among its defined target audience. Faktor plus won out over three well-known competitors with an innovative TV commercial concept, according to a statement from the small agency.

300,000,000 US dollarsCoca-Cola There's no question that this account win was celebrated with champagne: The Berlin Cameron/Red Cell agency in New York has won the contract for Coca-Cola Classic. The budget is just under 300 million US dollars. The previous budget holder McCann-Erickson, on the other hand, probably only rinsed the change with still water. For comparison: in Switzerland, Coop, the largest advertising client, spent CHF 206 million on advertising last year, or around half of Coca-Cola Classic.

Media policy In a hearing before the National Council's Parliamentary Committee for Transport and Telecommunications on Monday, the SRG criticized, among other things, the excessive density of regulation in the draft bill for a new Radio and Television Act (RTVA). The SRG also spoke out against the quantitative definition of production and broadcasting quotas in the law. At an entrepreneurial level, the draft envisaged a series of new restrictions for SRG that would jeopardize its ability to develop.

Local TV The regional broadcaster Tele Südostschweiz will also be available in the canton of Glarus and the Linth region from May 14 and will be distributed by the cable network operator LinthSignal, which supplies around 12,000 households. Reports will be broadcast daily from the new broadcasting areas.

Marketing Moneycab is returning to its first (marketing) love, Adlink.Moneycab and Swisscontent, which separated from Goldbach Media at the end of December via a management buyout, have new boards of directors (BoD). At Moneycab (Finanzfachmarkt AG), Georg Hess is Chairman and Helmuth Fuchs is a member of the Board of Directors. Both hold 50 percent of the shares. Perhaps the BoD will be strengthened, Fuchs said on request. Fuchs named Markus Gisler, the ex-Moneycab managing director and new editor-in-chief of the Aargauer Zeitung, as a possible candidate for the board. The share capital of CHF 9.9 million will also be reduced to the "reasonable size" of CHF 500,000 by means of a capital cut.There will also be a change in the marketing of the stock exchange platform: after a year with Goldbach subsidiary Active Agent (AA), Moneycab will return to the arms of Adlink, albeit in a modified form. Although Adlink will be the lead agency for technical processing, Moneycab no longer wants exclusivity for advertising acquisition, but is also seeking cooperation with AA, Publimedia Webadvertising and Internet Medien AG, says Bernt Maulaz, Head of Marketing at Moneycab. The contract with Adlink is already in place, while negotiations are still ongoing with other marketers.
Adlink was Moneycab's partner from the very beginning, but was given the boot when the financial portal came under the Goldbach umbrella at the end of 2001. The new Moneycab crew now remembers that Adlink "put a lot of effort into the portal at the time", says Maulaz, explaining the revival of the old relationship.
Revivals also at Swisscontent (SC): Hans Ueli Keller, previously Chairman of the Board of Directors of the content provider and also a Board delegate at Goldbach Media, will retain his dual role. Andreas Z'Graggen, Editor-in-Chief of Berner Zeitung, will also remain on the SC Board of Directors. SC sole owner Fredy Hämmerli will be the new BoD delegate. And Bendicht Luginbühl, the first SC Managing Director and recently Program Director of DRS 3 and Virus, is also on the new BoD.
(mk)

The Media Research Group (MRG) has examined the Swiss cross-media market for the first time, and the advertising market study has revealed a clear trend towards the clever linking of media, according to the press release. In a new study, MRG therefore asked over 100 companies and institutions from the top 500 Swiss companies about their cross-media publishing strategies. The evaluation is aimed at clients of cross-media services, media production companies, direct advertisers, CP solution providers and consulting firms. It is available in digital and printed form.