Classified ads The Swiss press is threatened with new trouble: EVP National Councilor Heiner Studer wants to ban sex offers in newspapers. The Aargau family man is still keeping the wording of his motion under wraps and tweaking the wording. Not until the spring session does he intend to submit it to parliament and thus force erotic advertisements in newspapers to be drastically restricted. If the Federal Councillors follow the National Council, newspapers will have to reckon with further losses after the massive slump in job ads. A report in the commuter newspaper 20 Minuten inspired him to do so, Studer explained to Werbewoche. In 2002, 46 percent more work permits for prostitutes were issued in the city of Zurich than the year before, it said. Studer sees a clear connection between sex ads and the increase in prostitution. "By the way they are made, the ads give the impression: this is an attractive, lucrative activity that you could try out for yourself," the politician says. Women in precarious economic situations, such as students, are particularly at risk as a result, he says.
Inaccessible for minors
Since a complete ban on advertising is unlikely to be politically enforceable, the EPP National Councilor wants to submit proposals for restrictions in his motion, which the Federal Council could use as a guide for implementation. The definitive wording has not yet been finalized, but Studer has two main options in mind. Either sex ads should only be allowed in publications that are not accessible to minors, or their content should be limited to pure facts.
The politician from Aargau is convinced that advertising that does not transport emotions is less seductive. "I believe there are areas where a protective function is necessary for overly unstable people," he clarifies his point of view. "There is an ethical limit to advertising."
Studer draws parallels to advertising for addictive substances and small loans. He has already advocated restrictions on these ads as well. He also points to the advertising restrictions for doctors and lawyers: "Why should these professions be banned from advertising if the sex trade is allowed to?
Heiner Studer accepts that the Swiss press would suffer a loss of revenue as a result of his motion. A newspaper like the Tages-Anzeiger would certainly not be threatened in its existence without sex ads, he says. Moreover, there are print media such as the Aargauer Zeitung (AZ) that would do without sex ads. Studer also wants to prevent the danger that these papers, in the face of declining sales like the Neue Zürcher Zeitung recently did with its weekly supplement NZZ-Ticket, might also move into the erotic market.
No uptight Aargauer
"It is true that AZ does not have any sex ads," confirms AZ publishing director Roland Oetterli. However, there can be no talk of a conscious decision not to do so. Rather, erotic ads within the AZ Medien Group are published by the free newspaper Aargauer Woche. "Our company does not have different morals than other newspapers," says Oetterli, "the cliché of the uptight Aargauer does not apply to us." He also said that he had already considered including eroticism in the daily newspaper, since sexual needs are actually a daily occurrence. So far, this has not been done, also in order not to endanger the advertising revenues of the Aargauer Woche.
The already sharply reduced sales of the Tages-Anzeiger (TA) would be hit hard by a sex advertising ban. This is confirmed by TA publishing director Dietrich Berg. However, he denies the figure of eight million francs per year reported by 20 Minuten. That is too high an estimate. Berg does not want to give exact figures because Tamedia, as a listed company, must observe an information embargo until the annual report is published. In addition, according to Berg, there are no internal statistics in which erotic sales are shown separately. It is relatively clear that sex advertising is not suffering from the current crisis. The volume has remained stable at one to two pages a day.
Cash payment is the rule
The fact that the erotic industry is a good, because reliable, customer is also emphasized by Andreas Wittausch, advertising manager of the Winterthur Stadtanzeiger. "Who else pays cash and net these days?" The free weekly newspaper takes in around 120000 francs a year with sex ads. This corresponds to about two percent of total sales (and is thus proportionately similar to the TA's estimated eight million francs). "That's not much," Wittausch explains, "but for weeklies, any loss is a drama."
As a salesman, a ban would hurt Wittausch - but for ethical reasons, he would welcome it. "The phenomenon is slowly getting out of hand," he says, adding that advertisers are also trying to smuggle more and more illicit, obscene expressions into the ads. That's why sex ads at the Stadtanzeiger first go on a blacklist, where they are checked for defensibility. "After all, with free newspapers they get into every mailbox, and even small children can open a mailbox," says Wittausch, explaining the precautionary measure.
CVP gets into trouble
Initiator Heiner Studer has already received such approval for his motion several times. After local radio stations had picked up on the topic, he had received some feedback. Studer does not want the motion to be understood as an election tactic. Nevertheless, it puts the CVP in a tricky position between the promotion of fundamental Christian values and the freedom of advertising, which the party has strongly advocated in the past.
Around eight percent of advertising volume is now generated by sex ads.
"WW Mr. Schmid, the motion against sex ads puts you in a dilemma: on the one hand, promoting fundamental Christian values in newspapers, on the other, restricting freedom of advertising. How do you decide?
Carlo Schmid-Sutter: I'm sorry, but as a rule I don't comment on proposals until they've been fully worked out and I've studied them. I would like to give Heiner Studer the opportunity to make something sensible out of it before I get involved with him.
The motion wants to allow sex advertising only in publications that are inaccessible to young people. It is launched in response to the increase in Zurich's sex trade.
That in itself is something I could support. But I will not comment on the motion as such until I have studied it.
Against the background of the parliamentary elections in October, can a Christian party like the CVP afford to favor economic arguments over ethical ones?
I believe that politics has fundamental ethical postulates to champion insofar as they are relevant to public life. Privacy, on the other hand, is of limited relevance to the public. Personal ethics, which regulate sexuality to a certain extent in particular, are not the subject of political standardization. There are intolerable things like depictions of violence or images that disregard the dignity of women or children; these are rightly prohibited. Advertising that does not respect the sensitivity of adolescents can also be frowned upon. I refer to the clear principles of the Foundation for Fairness in Commercial Communication. Apart from that, however, the area of eroticism is, for me, the responsibility of the individual.
Will you give Heiner Studer's motion a chance in the National Council?
I hardly think that the National Council will come out in favor of a legal restriction on sex advertising - precisely because today's sexual morals are largely liberal and most politicians do not see this as a task for the state.
The Swiss Advertising Association is committed to opposing advertising bans for tobacco and alcohol. What response can we expect to the motion against sex ads?
Swiss advertising will hardly throw itself into the fray against this motion. But it will probably adopt the soberly reserved stance that I have just outlined to you.
Interview: Stefano Monachesi
Early warning SWPolitical lobbying is the most important concern of the umbrella organization for commercial communication for the president of the Association of Swiss Advertising (SW), CVP Council of States member Carlo Schmid-Sutter. In doing so, the SW fights "the efforts to restrict communication". Monitoring it operates in the sense of an early warning system. (cb)
Stefano Monachesi

Sports campaign "You just have to be pretty, intelligent and sporty" is one of the headlines used by the Club Nautique Français à Zurich to recruit new members. "That's all you need to learn to row" is the resolution in the small text of the mysterious poster. The series of confusing headlines was conceived and written by André Engert Morales at Adzürich. The AD was Sergio Cajado. Posters, small posters and wild posters in bars, cafés and schools serve as advertising media. It is purely coincidental that one of these texts, "Rowing not only gives you muscles, but also a hangover" (namely during après-sports), which hangs in Zurich streetcars, can also be found similarly on a poster for David Gym. There, however, it is meant to be ambiguous: "More hangover than muscle? "The only thing that helps against the lack of a pay rise is rowing.

Real Estate Business Eight years after its launch, the industry magazine Immobilien Business is undergoing a very careful renovation. "This layout can certainly be described as conservative," says Rolf E. Jeker with a smile.
The managing director of Immobilien Business Verlags AG has given his industry magazine a makeover. Starting in March, a magazine format will replace the previous newspaper-like layout. Matte instead of glossy paper, larger pictures, uniform structure, four instead of five columns. Jeker is not experimenting with the in-house redesign. "We can't expect anything flippant from our target group," he explains. "Some people were already bothered when we put the titles in the picture in the old layout."
2800 billion real estate
The target group includes decision-makers from all sectors of the real estate business: investors, investment advisors, real estate managers, property owners, architects and public authorities. Above-average educated people from the highest purchasing power classes, as it says in the ad documentation. "Our readers own properties worth 2800 billion Swiss francs," Jeker explains.
These readers will soon be able to buy Real Estate Business at newsstands. He wants to sell 2,000 to 3,000 copies directly. With the new look, he hopes, the magazine will attract the attention it needs. He had to abandon a first attempt at the newsstand when the magazine was launched in 1995. The main sales channel for the circulation of over 10,000 copies has so far been addressed direct mail. Around 1400 copies go to subscribers. In addition, an increased number of copies of the industry magazine are also distributed at international trade shows and congresses.
Business worth billions
"Our relaunch is pure anti-cyclical behavior," says Rolf E. Jeker, explaining his strategy. Despite the advertising crisis, which brought a ten percent drop in sales to Real Estate Business last year, he said he wanted to dare to do something again after eight years. As he did in 1995, when, after many years of working as a publishing consultant, he was seized by the ambition to create his own product. "I looked around for a gap in the market and found it. No one had really realized before that real estate was a billion-dollar business!" Many experts would have shaken their heads at the time. But real estate business has survived and is gaining momentum again. According to Jeker, the sales curve for 2003 is already pointing upward.
High thanks to stock market weaknessIn the past four years, Real Estate Business has seen a clear upward trend, both in subscriptions and advertising revenues. Publishing director Rolf E. Jeker hopes for a further increase. In the current poor stock market situation, assets worth billions would be shifted from shares to real estate. Jeker is convinced that this will also increase the demand for independent market information, such as that provided by Immobilien Business. (sm)
Source: Immobilien Business Verlags AG/Stand: 01/26/2003
Stefano Monachesi

Column What unites creatives, clients and controllers? Their respective operational blindness and a rigid focus on fees, writes industry doyen Walter Bosch.what strikes someone who no longer sees advertising as a perpetrator, but as a victim? First of all, that the proportion of junk has increased even further. The ex-advertiser who wrote this was almost stoned to death with ADC cubes when he put this proportion at 90 percent in the past. It didn't help that he also applied this estimate to his own work. Today, with more distance, he is perhaps a little more open-minded about how this high number of accidents and crimes comes about - nobody wants to do or have bad publicity. Nevertheless, most campaigns - like in a Greek tragedy - run unchecked towards their worst possible end. Who is to blame? Quite simply: the four "C's": customers, creatives, corporations and - the money.
I. Customers know what they want, but can't say it. This speechlessness is eloquently embellished by advertising chimeras that have just emerged from the Sawi. In this Babylonian confusion, every idea, no matter how small, is talked about until in the end it is not reason but time pressure that decides. The client is not really satisfied, the agency even very unhappy, but the campaign starts on the planned date. And the normative power of the factual allows everyone to gloss over everything afterwards.
II The creatives have their pride. Unfortunately, this is not satisfied by successful customers, but only by a guildmate tapping them on the black-robed shoulder in a black bar on a black night. Of course, this requires a campaign that only people who hang out in lounges, read Kurt Cobain's "Diaries" and like splatter films will understand.
III The corporations, these global advertising giants, all mumble the same mantra: "Creativity, creativity, creativity." But what they mean by this is simply creative financial engineering. In other words, buying volume and profit, inflating the stock market price, buying new volume and new profit with the anabolic steroids shares, because the acquired agencies collapse as soon as the international management takes over. Consequently, no creatives are placed at the head of these branches of global financial acrobatics, but rather the human species that is able to deliver endless series of figures to headquarters month after month, which are then "consolidated" by corporate controllers. We don't even have to imagine the advertising that produces such sociotopes, as we see it every day.
IV. And finally the money. Advertising is not quite
as highly complex as quantum physics, for example. But you have to think a bit before you come up with decent solutions. This mental work takes time and money, because people who can think are not cheap. But if the client is primarily interested in low prices, he shouldn't be surprised if his advertising flops. He may have saved a percentage of the fee, but there is a 90% probability that his communication will be a disaster. Which brings us back to the scrap quotient.
The only comforting thing I can think of in all this is: Yes, there is life after advertising!
> Walter Bosch was editor-in-chief of Blick, head of all editors-in-chief at Ringier Verlag and co-founder of the advertising agency Bosch & Butz, which he sold five years ago. Since then, he has worked as an entrepreneur and consultant in Zurich and the USA.

RTVG The SP wants to keep media monopolists out of the fee pot If the Social Democrats get their way in the parliamentary fine-tuning of the Federal Council's draft radio and television law (RTVG), private TV broadcasters such as Tele Züri, Tele M1 and Tele Ostschweiz will miss out on the planned fee splitting. At an SRG podium in Zurich, SP Vice President and media expert Hans-Jürg Fehr announced that his parliamentary group would "to protect media diversity" prevent publishers of monopoly newspapers that also operate private TVs in their area of publication from benefiting from public funding. In addition to the two German-speaking Swiss providers Tele Top and Tele Basel, the traditionally publisher-independent private TV stations in French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino would be the main beneficiaries of such sanctions. (oc)

Roman Kilchsperger will not be appearing on TV for the time being: the tabloid Blick has had to postpone the planned sports show that Kilchsperger was poached from Radio 24 to present. Ringier had originally planned to broadcast "Blick Sporttalk" on Sat 1 Switzerland in the spring. Now fall 2003 is the next possible start date, as reported by the commuter newspaper 20 Minuten. "It just didn't all fit together," said Blick sports boss Ulrich Kühne-Hellmessen, explaining the postponement. According to reports, negotiations with a potential main sponsor have failed, according to 20 Minuten.

Swiss private radio stations are receiving support from young people: the newly founded interest group "Fairplay im Radiomarkt" (IGFR) wants to campaign for a more liberal and fairer radio landscape. Behind the lobby is 19-year-old Toni Stadelmann. The Young Finn is a member of the presidium of the Youth Session Forum, which is responsible for implementing the resolutions of the Federal Youth Parliament. According to Stadelmann, IGFR currently consists of ten people who cover a broad political spectrum. The target is 200 to 300 members. With regard to the revision of the Radio and Television Act, the IGFR is calling for private radio stations to have the same chances of obtaining FM frequencies as the SRG.

Currency conversion "Big Brother" and its successor formats were only haunting the minds of their makers when Georg Franck first came up with the underlying "how to become famous quickly" phenomenon. His socio-psychological "Economy of Attention" hit the nerve of the times in 1998, before the first media moralists cried "Ouch!" in the face of container reality shows. Five years later, Franck's analysis of the scarcest resource in our knowledge society has lost none of its brilliance and relevance. And this despite the fact that - at least in the communications business - the money economy has now largely been replaced by the attention economy.
If you want to know why fame is above power and why wealth pales into insignificance next to celebrity, nowhere will you find more profound information than in the real-life prophecies of this pioneering and lateral thinker. But beware: disillusioning side effects on private desires and professional aspirations cannot be ruled out.
> Economy of attention. An outline by Georg Franck. Hanser Verlag, Munich 1998. 253 pages, Fr. 34.60.
(oc)

Market research Gross advertising expenditure in Switzerland fell by 2.6% to CHF 3.763 billion last year, with only radio (7.9%) and billboard advertising (4.8%) performing positively, according to Media Focus. Furthermore, only teletext achieved a very slight increase (0.1 percent). All other media suffered losses, some of them steep. Among the losers, consumer magazines suffered the least (-0.5%). However, daily newspapers (-3.7 percent) and trade journals (-7.7 percent) suffered heavy losses. The downturn was no less dramatic for cinema (-5.8%), internet advertising (-11.9%) and television (-6.7%). However, Media Focus notes that this loss is largely due to the closure of Tele 24 and TV 3 at the end of 2001. The SRG stations remained at the previous year's level, while the advertising windows of foreign stations even increased by 12%.

Tobacco advertising "The world can wait" - at least for the length of a cigarillo - is what Lesch + Frei wrote for the Meccarillos manufacturer Burger Söhne AG around 20 years ago, and since January the Zurich agency has been using an advertising campaign to promote Meccarillos in French-speaking Switzerland as "genuine cigarillos in the style of the French way of life". To this end, the creative team and illustrator Markus Wyss are telling short visual stories about the decorative boxes with the diamond pattern. With just a few strokes and some profound wordplay, the cigarillo is to be presented as a "witty object of pleasure and joie de vivre".Fuma cum laude: Meccarillos ante portas in French-speaking Switzerland.

For the third time, the Keystone picture agency is honoring young Swiss creatives and sending the winner to the advertising festival in Cannes. young creatives up to the age of 30 are invited to take part. The only condition is the use of image material from Keystone archives and proof of a real client. The winning team can look forward to a four-day trip to Cannes with flight, hotel and participation in the "Print & Poster Award" category of the advertising festival in addition to the display of the winning poster at Central in Zurich. More information at www.cannes-open.ch. The closing date for entries is March 14. A bonus for the young creatives on their trip to Cannes: a Keystone trophy.

Samuel Helbling on sex advertisements in the NZZ-TicketAlthough the naked facts have been established since the Fall of Man, human history has known temporary relapses into the paradise of freedom from constraint. The collective sense of shame is by no means timeless. Every society searches for its emotional equilibrium, for a balance between prudery and libertinage, between strict morals and open-heartedness. "Make love not war" was the battle cry of the '68ers, who wanted to use the social revolutionary power of sexuality to make politics. According to the flower power apologists, anyone who resisted the anti-drive constraints of the capitalist system through heightened lust was building a free, anti-authoritarian society. And because the private sphere was interpreted politically, it belonged in the public domain from then on. The irony of history is that it was precisely this attitude that paved the way for the total publication of eroticism and sexuality. No matter how much the left deplored the instrumentalization of sexuality to secure power. Since then, one sex wave after another has rolled over society.
The current debate about sex ads in newspapers shows just how much public forms of shame have changed over the course of history. EPP National Councillor Heiner Studer even wants to launch a crusade against sex ads in Swiss daily newspapers with a parliamentary motion. Almost at the same time, sex ads appeared for the first time in Ticket, the weekly nightlife magazine of the NZZ.
A step towards normality, even if the "Old Aunt" was sure to attract the scorn of bourgeois rival newspapers (e.g. MittellandZeitung on January 25). However, the responsible citizen that the NZZ likes to invoke should know how to deal with the new marketplace offer. And what applies to other sectors should also apply to the erotic industry: what is legally available should also be allowed to be advertised.
> Samuel Helbling, Editor-in-Chief