A new handbook has been published by Huber & Co., Frauenfeld, which is aimed at communication specialists in companies, SMEs, associations, non-profit organizations and non-governmental organizations. The new guide to "Public Relations" by Bernhard Müller and Angela Kreis-Muzzulini is billed by the publisher as "the first actual teaching aid for PR at the training level for marketing planners/sales coordinators and PR assistants/PR consultants". The two authors, who themselves come from a practical background and are also active in teaching and examinations, guarantee that all the latest specialist knowledge is conveyed in an easy-to-understand manner (ISBN 3-7193-1265-8).

Women's title Bolero is launching special editions and Elle is coming with a Swiss split Edelweiss, the women's magazine from Ringier Romandie, is not the only one planning to launch a separate edition for women in German-speaking Switzerland from February 28. Bolero and Elle also intend to focus more strongly on the local women's market. Bolero will launch the first of four special issues announced for this year on February 5, with the second to follow in March. The German monthly magazine Elle (Burda Medien) will appear from May with at least a 16-page Swiss German split (circulation 35,000 copies). Brigitte Hirt (NZZ, Financial Times, Swissair Gazette) has been hired as editor-in-chief. The new split will be marketed by Mediapresse, which offers the existing French-speaking Swiss split of the French Elle (Hachette Filipacchi). Advertisers in both Swiss splits will receive a combined discount of ten percent (mk).

In the middle of Berlin in the nineties: a dapper, unsuspecting young academic gets caught up in the maelstrom of hip agency life and succumbs to its surface phenomena in an amusing, touching way.Merkel's milieu study is a must for all those who have not yet given up the search for the right life in the wrong one.> Das Jahr der Wunder by Rainer Merkel. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2002. 283 pages, Fr. 35.20.

Fashion campaign Since "toujours", red has been the color of desire at Cartier, as have the mysterious little boxes in which you give your lady of the heart a piece of jewelry from the Cartier collection. Now Paris-based Glamour Engineering, in close collaboration with Michelle Nicol from the advertising agency's Zurich headquarters, has dramatized this ecrin, the red Cartier box, for a Cartier International advertising campaign. Ten visual artists, including the photographer and hyperrealist painter Richard Phillips, the architects Shigeru Ban and Asymptote, the urbanist Fernando Romero and the designers Erwan and Ronan Bouroullec, contributed a work on the theme of "red" for the campaign. The results are so beautiful that the January issue of French Vogue even discusses the advertisements in its editorial section and justifiably asks: is this advertising or art? In any case, the corresponding section in Vogue is entitled "Art".advertising graphics by Richard Phillips in the new Vogue.

Print men's lifestyle sells: The first issue of Playboy under the aegis of Burda Verlag has increased its circulation by 75 percent.Burda has taken over the license from Bauer and is focusing on a distinguished appearance with Cosma Shiva Hagen. Around 300,000 copies are expected to be sold at newsstands by February.

Airlines Swiss Air Lines has canceled already booked advertisements for its image campaign by Jung von Matt/Limmat. It was "a situational decision", confirms the Swiss press office, that the advertisements for the image campaign will expire this week "a few days earlier than planned". At HandelsZeitung, for example, advertising space that had already been booked was canceled, as Werbewoche knows from a reliable source. The official reason given by the airline was "the poor PR situation" surrounding the expert report on the grounding. This affected the advertisements from the Jung von Matt/Limmat agency with subjects such as Swiss gastronomy at lofty heights or the sleeping passenger. Swiss replied to "No Comment" when asked whether the advertisements had been removed for reasons of economy or other, possibly qualitative, considerations. Among Swiss employees, however, it is openly rumored that "more savings than expected have to be made everywhere".
According to the press office, however, the current tactical campaign with tempting price promotions will not be grounded. However, many experts fear brand erosion if an airline wants to offer low-cost tickets to its "Destination Excellence" in the long term.
According to the airline, no further cost-saving measures are planned for the continuation of the image campaign for the time being. New subjects are to follow for the next campaigns in April and fall.
(pan)

Regional TV St.Galler Tagblatt AG (SGT) wants to broaden the ownership of its 100 percent subsidiary Tele Ostschweiz (TVO) by the middle of the year in order to refute the accusation of a monopoly. We do not have any specific ideas about the future form of the sponsorship," says SGT CEO Hans-Peter Klauser when asked. The sale of TVO shares or the incorporation of TVO into a foundation like Tele Basel is conceivable. "Depending on the situation, however, we will also sell the entire station if this serves the cause more," Klauser says. "Our main goal is to preserve our child for eastern Switzerland, which we have raised with investments of between 10 to 15 million francs." There are no potential buyers in mind yet, but they will be on the lookout for "media-independent investors" who are based in eastern Switzerland and want to keep TVO alive, Klauser says. It was primarily non-financial reasons that gave the impetus for the planned broadening of the sponsorship, the CEO emphasizes. Admittedly, he estimates the investments still needed for TVO at around five million francs, and he makes no secret of the fact that the SGT Group is also seeing declining advertising revenues, which makes cost-cutting measures necessary everywhere. "But we are not on our last legs," says Klauser, adding that the SGT is perfectly capable of continuing to support TVO.
Fit for fee-splittingThe primary aim of the search for partners is to make TVO fit for the upcoming fee-splitting. According to the draft RTVG, TV stations with the greatest possible independence from other media companies will be preferred from 2005. "If we don't change our sponsorship, the authorities are more likely to grant Tele Top a fee-splitting license one day, but our chances would be zero," says Klauser. This would endanger the continued existence of TVO. A broader sponsorship of TVO "should defuse the monopoly accusations against the media house from eastern Switzerland," Klauser writes in the communiqué.
In fact, the SGT Group's own media power (print, radio, TV) has already become a problem twice: With the argument of "strengthening media diversity in St.Gallen", the authorities allowed TVO's competitor Tele Top to expand its broadcasting area to St.Gallen, but conversely TVO itself was prohibited from broadcasting to the entire canton of Thurgau.
Regions not yet definedIn an initial statement, Bernhard Bürki, spokesman for the Federal Office of Communications, described the broadening of TVO's sponsorship as "an element that we welcome. Nevertheless, it is no guarantee that TVO will one day be entitled to charge fees. However, TVO can keep its viewers interested for about twice as long as Tele Top (see also WW 3/03). So won't a TVO with a broader sponsorship and such a good audience automatically start from the pole position? Bürki explained that it is too early to make such predictions: neither has the new splitting regulation been approved by parliament, nor have the splitting regions been determined and put out to tender by the Federal Council. What is certain, however, is that the utilization figures will not be the most important award criterion (see box).
But how will the other TV operators in eastern Switzerland react? Does the new question of TVO bring the often vainly discussed topic of "cooperation" back on the table - a topic on which the adversaries had never been able to agree until now? The differences regarding quality, budget, concept, broadcasting area, ownership and co-determination were too great. The only thing that is certain is that initial informal talks have already taken place. Norbert Neininger, board delegate of Schaffhauser Fernsehen (SHTV), is sticking to his own TV, and Hanspeter Lebrument, head of Tele Südostschweiz, is satisfied with his current broadcast area, which covers the cantons of Glarus, Graubünden and Schwyz. "We certainly won't be tempted to react now," Lebrument said. And top boss Günter Heuberger let it be known only and rather monosyllabically that he would "certainly examine any proposals from TVO".
But what does TVO itself think about cooperation plans? According to SGT CEO Klauser, the focus is on a new attempt at cooperation. In the event that investor interest in TVO is small, he still wants to keep this option open, he says.
Is currently looking intensively for partners: Tele Ostschweiz.

TVO wants to participate in the fee-splitting according to the RTVG draft with new sponsorship.
Although TVO was able to increase its revenues (primarily from regional advertising) by 50 percent to 1.4 million Swiss francs last year, last year's deficit amounted to 2.9 million Swiss francs, according to Hans-Peter Klauser, but still 600,000 Swiss francs less than in 2001. For 2003, Klauser expects a further minus of two million Swiss francs. The announced cost-cutting measures have already been taken into account: TVO will cut a total of seven jobs and cancel the reportage program "Zoom".
Schaffhauser Fernsehen (SHTV) shows a deficit of about 200000 francs for 2002. This figure is also "realistic" for 2003, says Norbert Neininger, delegate of the SHTV board of directors. 2001
the loss was still 300000 francs.
A year ago, Günter Heuberger stated Tele Top's loss in 2001 at CHF 0.5 million. For 2002, however, he only wanted to talk about
a "six-digit deficit once again". Tele Top had more income, but also higher expenses, which is again budgeted for 2003. However, no job cuts are planned (mk).
...
This is what the draft RTVA says
In its message on the RTVA, the Federal Council first states that there is "too high a number" of TV providers in Switzerland today.
Therefore, in the future, he wants to license "no more than ten to a maximum of twelve television broadcasters with a fee share", and in addition, per
area only one organizer will receive such a concession. According to
Art. 55, Section 2 RTVA, the following selection criteria apply: The license is granted to the broadcaster who is best able to meet the legal requirements.
performance mandate. This has top priority. If there are equal applicants, the one who is least dependent on other media companies will be selected (mk).
Markus Knöpfli

The Südostschweiz Media Group is to lay off three journalists from the Romansh daily newspaper La Quotidiana (LQ), with the editor-in-chief and one journalist moving to the Romansh news agency ANR. According to a communiqué, this should strengthen the agency and provide more contributions to the daily newspaper. Südostschweiz publisher Hanspeter Lebrument explained that having one journalistic line each for LQ and ANR was a luxury.

The closing date for the Swiss Dialog Marketing Award 2003 is January 31, and entries can still be submitted at www.dm-preis.ch. The competition organized by the Swiss Direct Marketing Association SDV offers industry specialists the opportunity to have their outstanding dialogue marketing measures evaluated. A total of twelve categories are available. The best of the best will receive gold, silver or bronze awards.

Sari Katriina Simola is taking over from Christoph Marty as Publishing Director of the news magazine Facts. As previously announced, Marty will move to the AZ Medien Group as Head of Magazine Publishing at the beginning of May. Simola will take up her new position by June 1 at the latest, as announced by Facts publisher Tamedia. Simola most recently worked as publishing director for the Ringier magazine Glückspost. At the beginning of the year, the native Finn was replaced by Jean-Orphée Reuter and moved to the newly created position of project management. ...
The French-speaking Swiss publishers' association Presse Romande has a new president. Former Vice President Tibère Adler was elected to head the association on Friday. The new Vice-President is Gérard Geiger, Director of Ringier Romandie. Adler replaces Fabien Wolfrath, who held the office of President at Presse Romande for twelve years.
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Gérald Millasson closes his media agency Idémédia in Lausanne. All activities and clients will be taken over by Publimentor, a new agency founded in the same location. Behind Publimentor are Mark Casselle and Philip Reber, who previously worked for Mediaedge CIA.
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Isabelle Welton (photo) took over as Head of Communications at IBM Switzerland at the beginning of the year. She succeeds Alex Herrmann, who has taken a sabbatical and will return to the computer group in a new role at the end of 2003.
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Toni Loher has been the new Managing Director of the St.Gallen call center CallWorld Telemarketing AG since the beginning of the year. At the same time, he became a member of the management of the Trendcommerce Group. CallWorld was integrated into the Trendcommerce Group in November after the previous partner Friedhelm Lammoth left the company.

Medical advertisingSome variety is always good, which in my case means not always looking for the perfect image of a woman. Fortunately, medicine also provides ads worth dwelling on. The advertisement for the Holmes Health Club is very successful - in view of the fact that the whole body may not be fit for science, it's easy to overlook minor liver problems. The advertising for The Swiss Leading Hospitals is quite different. They are no exception: as soon as a woman is involved, common sense fails... because what professor would send a shod woman in a mini and high heels to the beach? The main thing is that the first step starts with a smile (copy). There have already been smiles, but primarily at the Werbewoche editorial office (ck).

Company bankruptcies After two quieter years with 50 bankruptcies each, the bankruptcy vulture circled more frequently over the advertising and promotion industry last year. In 2002, the forced liquidation of companies rose by 78 percent to 89.