Objective: To publicize investment funds for 30- to 49-year-olds in German-speaking Switzerland. Opportunity to register online for a personal and free consultation with Allianz Suisse.Allianz Suisse advertising material: DHTML-Skyscraper. Use: From the beginning of September to the end of October.
Client: Allianz Suisse, Zurich; Responsibility: Jaël Fuchs. Consulting/agency: Active Agent; Project management: Eveline Steiner; Technology: Corinne Tobler, Jon Semadeni; Responsibility: Marzio Frei.

The Swiss Stock Exchange SWX has issued a "reprimand with publication" against PubliGroupe because the company "negligently" breached its duty to provide immediate information on facts relevant to the share price. PubliGroupe did not report a massive drop in profits in the first half of 2001 until September 4, 2001, although the Board of Directors had discussed the definitive figures on August 28. By waiting until September 4, PubliGroupe had therefore violated the listing regulations.Jean-Denis Briod, Head of Information at PubliGroupe, said on request that his company had acted in good faith at the time. He said he was pleased that the stock exchange had recognized this by claiming negligence (mk).

Corinne Pellerin What was the last cultural event you attended?
Corinne Pellerin: A wonderful exclusive concert at Lenzburg Castle as sponsor of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra.
What are you reading right now?
Pellerin: "Gaumenkitzel" by Anthony Bourdain.
Which CD do you currently prefer to listen to?
Pellerin: Le Soldat Inconnu, "C'est la faute à personne".
Which movie would you most like to see again?
Pellerin: "Amélie de Montmartre", because it is so full of joie de vivre.
What TV show did you fall asleep during the other night?
Pellerin: When I watch TV, I regularly fall asleep.
What is your latest discovery on the Internet?
Pellerin: www.bastide.ch - the tip for connoisseurs.
What could you never do without?
Pellerin: To a cozy evening with friends over a good glass of wine.
What do you do in a free minute?
Pellerin: Buy, read and try original cookbooks.
Love is...?
Pellerin: ...a constant challenge.

entenanstalt/Swiss Life wants to regain trust for its pension businessR The current popularity of Rentenanstalt/Swiss Life is hardly enough to achieve top rankings. What the brand value cannot express in francs can be seen in the share value. Despite focusing on its core business, Switzerland's most potent life insurer is one of the biggest losers of the stock market year in the SMI (minus 80%, 29. 10. 02). The erosion of equity goes hand in hand with an erosion of confidence. It began with the battle over the minimum interest rate in the BVG business and reached threatening dimensions due to further "faux pas". In this environment, the Metzgerlehner agency has taken on the challenge of communicating a realignment of the insurance company with an integrated image campaign: with tried and tested images such as proud fathers, happy children and bobbing sailing boats. page 6

Fritz Kuhn is Managing Director of the Zurich branch of the Bern agency WellComHead of the week "Our goal is deliberately not the Champions League" / There is something attractive about construction sites for him. Moving and building things has always been part of Fritz Kuhn's everyday communications work. It is therefore not surprising that at the beginning of his career he also dared to try his hand as a partner in a smaller advertising agency in Bern. But the fact that his new challenge - WellCom Advertising in Technopark - is currently surrounded by real construction sites is a coincidence. With 15 years of experience in large Zurich agencies and twice as many in the industry, he once again sought a new challenge.
After four years as Account Director at Zurich-based Euro RSCG, 50-year-old Kuhn - better known in the industry as "Gide" - has been at the helm of the full-service agency as Managing Director for the past nine months. The parent company has existed for 20 years in Bern (co-founder and partner is Urs Stauffer), the Zurich branch was founded a good seven years ago by Raffaella Iten-Metzger and has successfully established itself in the meantime.
"We play in the National League A," the father of three characterizes the advertising agency. "Our goal is deliberately not the Champions League, this makes no sense, there are enough elephants on the road. Our goal is the attractive niches that the big players - consciously or unconsciously - don't like to work on, or like to work on less," says Kuhn.
What does he enjoy about his job at WellCom? A lot: The fact that he is confronted with all the concerns of an agency, from management to new business to consulting and creation, says "Gide". On the other hand, the mix of the portfolio - including Bongrain, Coca-Cola Beverages, Kanebo, Freies Gymnasium Zürich, Lindt&Sprüngli, Johnson&Johnson, Ferienmessen, Stadler Rail Group - brings a lot of variety.
With WellCom, Kuhn wants to further strengthen Zurich as a mainstay, aim for good growth, exploit the existing potential and translate it into communication that resonates with customers and consumers. He is convinced that thanks to the positioning as a classic, but "nimble and clever" full-service agency, there is still a lot to be done and that a lot can be achieved with an interesting cost-benefit ratio.
He does not see the fact that his multiplier business model is like a constant test as a problem, "because we do our work with motivation, inspiration and the necessary commitment. As a typical example, "Gide" Kuhn mentions the project of the successful Coca-Cola bar in the Expo.02 club "Cargo" in Neuchâtel, which made great demands in terms of concept and time. The result was that the agency job was estimated and various other orders came in. Luca Aloisi

Objective: Online store to support the launch of a new office snack concept, accompanying the rejuvenation and modernization of the brand.Unilever Bestfoods Switzerland Advertising media: Website. Use: Since September 25 until further notice.
Client: Unilever Bestfoods Schweiz GmbH (Knorr); Responsibility: René Perron, Product Manager Unilever Bestfoods. Advertising agency: Assai Interactive; CD: Stefan Dätwyler; Consulting: Simon Künzler; Implementation: Quac Nguyen, Ursula Christen; Account Management: René Maeder.

A book and an exhibition explore the art of advertising in AfricaBy Andreas Panzeri Nowhere in the world is advertising more colorful and as close to its origins as in Africa. This is documented by an exhibition in the Iwalewa House at the University of Bayreuth with numerous pictures and documents. The catalog on the archaic power of imagery provides advertisers and ethnologists with deep insights into a continental advertising cosmos.
"Advertising creates a sense of community through participation in the utopia of beauty," writes Tobias Wendl from the Iwalewa House at the University of Bayreuth in the foreword to the book "African Advertising Art". Wendl is the editor of the 120-page exhibition catalog for the project of the same name, which opened in Bayreuth on October 24.
The exhibition in the festival city, which will be on display until February 16 and then move on to the Münchner Stadtmuseum from March 14 to June 30, is characterized by two main lines of thought. One is of a cultural-historical nature and aims to use advertising images to penetrate previously unexplored areas of African cultural history and present them to a wider audience for the first time: Advertising images as evidence of consumer culture.
The second purpose is to explore image and art theory. In collaboration with researchers from all over the world, Wendl attempts to explore the motifs and iconography of African advertising: Where do their borrowings, variations, recombinations and argumentation patterns come from?
The magic of goods and the import of new heroes
Today, advertising spans the entire globe as a large image narrative, "and the magic of goods increases with the experience of their scarcity", as a text contribution in the book says. Images precede goods via satellite and video cassette. In Africa, too, advertising has long been part of everyday culture and forms an art form in its own right, as the authors of the book note. Brand and film figures such as the Marlboro Man, Rambo or Bruce Lee have taken the place of the former heroes of the black continent.
Developing the topic of advertising in the context of African cultural history inevitably raises the problem of historical framing and thus the question of the media technologies available in each case. In the book, the development ranges from the voices of market criers, hand-painted signs and four-color printing to video advertising and finally the Internet.
The liberalization of parts of the television market in the 1990s and the establishment of new private television stations has not only multiplied the range of programming in most African countries, but advertising is also taking up more and more space. On Ghanaian television, for example, every feature film now has its own sponsor with the corresponding commercials around it.
The historical framework for the book and the exhibition is provided by the 20th century, from the colonial era to the present day. Colonial advertising focuses on soaps, drinks, household appliances and tools. A curiosity in the book tells how the introduction of canned food caused a stir in southern Africa in the 1940s. As the labels often depicted consumers rather than the contents, following the European model, the rumor that the can contained human meat spread like wildfire. In the case of margarine from the British manufacturer Stork, whose label showed a baby's head, it was assumed that the contents consisted of baby fat.
The exhibition and catalog are the first scientifically open attempt to develop the advertising theme within the framework of African cultural history. There have been a number of previous exhibitions on colonialism and advertising, in particular on the role of Africans in European advertising, as well as the book "Menschenfresser, Negerküsse" by Raymond Bachollet (Elefanten Press, Berlin 1991). In such works, however, little attention was paid to the vitality of African advertising practices and their fascinating imagery.
The designers of the new exhibition suspect that "ideological blinds" played a role in this. Such "reluctance to descend into the lowlands of the trivial" is no longer to be found in "African advertising art". "Advertisement" is an old-fashioned word, but it was chosen deliberately because, unlike advertising, its modern successor, it still has etymological connotations that are reminiscent of the act of shouting, "of complaining and shouting back".
The African lifestyle is moving closer to the West
European advertising is affecting African culture. It is increasingly overshadowing the still active sign-painters who have so far created an osmosis between the demands of commerce and their own pictorial style everywhere in Africa's cities. European advertising reinforces an idealization of the Western lifestyle that is already predetermined by cinema, video and the press, which "in no way corresponds to the facts, but causes frustration in every African and a longing for a different and supposedly better life," says Wendl.
In Africa, too, people use clothing, cosmetics, cars and much more to convey their own identity to themselves and others. This makes the phenomenon of advertising even more complicated, "because it not only sells products and goods, but also imaginary lifestyles and identities conveyed by the goods".
With such analyses, the exhibition catalog, with its extensive textual content alongside the very rich range of images, should be read more as a research work. Over 50 renowned communication experts and ethnologists from all over the world have contributed to "African Advertising Art". The catalog therefore also offers an extensive bibliography.
The book is organized more according to overarching themes. Within these, the "golden age of sign painters" is presented in the book just as fascinatingly as the new-fangled era of neon signs. Locally produced commercials are also analyzed. Product sculptures are presented as an African peculiarity, right up to the entry of advertising into contemporary art.
Emancipation from colonial advertising took place at the latest with the rise of the first independence movements in the 1940s. The colonial repertoire of images was transformed. A new profession emerged away from academies and art schools: commercial artists and advertising painters. Their signs primarily had an orientation function: they conveyed concise information at a glance. Hand-painted advertising became a collective treasure trove of images, acting as an iconographic framing of everyday life, increasingly shaping the appearance of cities and penetrating from there into villages.
The geographical focus of the exhibition is on West Africa with Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Mali and
Cameroon, but also South Africa, Congo and Uganda are covered.
The globalization push of the 1990s led to a decentralization of production and consumption that is unprecedented in world history. Most of the fabrics and clothing sold on African markets today are produced in Taiwan or India. With this globalization of markets, advertising has also had to adapt to new, less clearly definable target groups. At the same time, African advertisers are developing more and more forms that are oriented towards cosmopolitan ideas. The book illustrates this, for example, with the marketing and commercialization of Ugandan royalty.
The exhibition marks the start of a trilogy on Africa's modernity. After advertising art, a second exhibition in 2003, "The Return of Evil", will deal with horror cinema and expanding occult economies. The third exhibition is dedicated to the urban experience in Africa.
"Afrikanische Reklamekunst", edited by Tobias Wendl, Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal, ISBN 3-87294-923-3.

By Beat FritschThere is no better hell on earth than a gambling hell, said the SonntagsZeitung management once again, inviting guests to the traditional Gambling Night last Thursday at the crazy Giesserei in Zurich-Oerlikon. Once again - instead of playing poker for favorable rates - it was a case of ripping off the publishing executives at the gaming table with blackjack and roulette, with publishing director Sandra Geiger and sales manager Daniel Pauletto being joined by other members of the SonntagsZeitung team as croupiers, although the flow of the game tends to slow down during their guest appearances. This is why experienced guest croupiers are used for most of the remaining time. These and the gaming tables are organized by Ronnie Scholom from Showconnection. On the SonntagsZeitung side, publishing assistant Bettina Fürst ensured that the gambling event ran smoothly.
While the hobby stock market players among the advertisers have come to realize that the foreign exchange and stock markets are pure gambling arenas - which is why most of them have consequently opted out - the Sunday newspaper's Gambling Night continues to be extremely popular.
However, this event also seemed to be somehow caught up in the recessionary mood. At least as far as the winnings were concerned. Last year, Stephan Küng had to win a whopping 3.5 million Lucky Dollars, the generally accepted currency of Gambling Night, to make it into the crowns. This year, just under a million was enough for the winner. Thanks to the 960000 pennies that Touring Marketing Manager Reto Kammermann was able to show at the end of the game, he was able to collect the first prize. As he said, he only won the entire prize in the blackjack game, which reveals him to be a shrewd gambler. The winner of the Gambling Night is usually determined by a lucky punch in the roulette wheel.
Kammermann can now enjoy a nice evening in one of the new Swiss casinos at the expense of the SonntagsZeitung and try his luck again there with some pocket money. However, this is likely to be considerably less than the 40000 Lucky Dollars that each player had at their disposal as starting capital. Incidentally, the fact that only four people won more than 100,000 Lucky Dollars in this starting situation is also a rather meagre result from a statistical point of view.
Michael Schmid from the St.Gallen marketing agency Ammarkt also beat the average, coming in second place with his prize of 800,000 dollars. The third-placed winner, Corinne Kelly, said one spectator, was certainly the prettiest winner Gambling Night has ever seen. Incidentally, she will be working for the Konnex media agency from December, unless she changes her mind at short notice and becomes a professional gambler.
Apart from that, the event featured the usual, but also expected specials. As always, the food from the Giessereik kitchen was fine, and there was no need to ask for drinks for long, as the glasses were usually refilled before they were completely empty. Space was only tight at the gaming tables. Otherwise, there was plenty of opportunity to chat about the latest advertising gossip on comfortable sofas or at the bar.
Beat Fritsch

was able to have his picture taken again with a movie star after his porn starlet affair at the Facts Bingo event thanks to the SonntagsZeitung - a perfect Monroe lookalike. After that, there was no stopping her: Marilyn spent the whole evening posing for the family album.
We find out who meets in the communications scene at parties and aperitifs at various events in the industry. Do you already have something exciting to report? Pick up the phone (01 296 97 98) or hit the keyboard (info@werbewo che.ch). For event tips and further shortlist images: www.werbe woche.ch

Mani Hildebrand on the "tpc creaTVty award" for young audiovisual talentBy Andreas Panzeri The TV Productioncenter (TPC), together with the three Swiss-German universities of art and design, has created a prize for young audiovisual talent. The "tpc creaTVty award" will be presented for the first time on
November 15 and is based on an idea by TV editor Mani Hildebrand. The award-winning works show that the lines between art and commerce continue to blur.
What does the TPC want to achieve with the "creaTVty award"?
Mani Hildebrand: SRG SSR has been involved in film promotion for a long time. As a TPC, we are dependent on the availability of well-trained and creative young talent in Switzerland. And our customers, be they editorial offices, advertising clients or communications agencies, also benefit from this. Instead of promoting those who are already established, we have therefore decided to promote young talent - who may one day work with the TPC as employees or clients. We also want to take this opportunity to give the communications industry the chance to form its own impression of the work of young talent and the possibilities of audiovisual products.
What will be honored at the "creaTVty award"?
Hildebrand: An initial idea was to create a young talent award for all young people interested in film. However, we then decided to restrict the circle of participants to young people who have decided to pursue a career in the audiovisual industry and who already have a solid educational background. For the first edition of the new award, graduates from the three Swiss-German universities of applied sciences for design and art were invited to enter their final projects in the competition. The works could be submitted as a film or video, on CD-ROM, DVD or as a website. Multimedia, video and art installations were also permitted.
How many people applied for the prize and what was the standard of the work?
Hildebrand: 24 theses were submitted, six of which were shortlisted. Three of these nominees will receive the award. At least half of the submissions and of course the six nominated works are very good for me and promise real talent.
Is there any prize money?
Hildebrand: We quickly came to the realization that it's nice to get a trophy. But the young people could certainly make better use of 5,000 francs. Especially at a time when they are leaving school, looking for a job and perhaps even financing their own project.
Have you also looked for sponsors?
Hildebrand: We didn't look for sponsors because we didn't want to compromise on the interests of sponsors when designing the competition. It was important to us to reconcile the needs of the students, the schools and also those of the TPC, without one side having to feel that it was not benefiting or even being "abused". However, once the prize has become established, we can already imagine involving other credible partners.
Did the schools show any reservations in connection with this prize?
Hildebrand: At first, I feared that the schools would be reluctant to get involved. After all, a prize is judged, grades are awarded - and that is no longer so popular today. We then sought a discussion with the head teachers - and the exact opposite happened. They were extremely positive about the idea of sponsoring a prize for young people. Especially in today's situation, in which many young people have a degree and are being released into a rather uncertain economic future.
What criteria were used to evaluate the work?
Hildebrand: Creativity is something subjective that cannot be assessed with points. The focus was therefore on a general concept of creativity: how do I deal with the image, how do I tell a story, how do I communicate, what sounds do I have, how do I implement something? How did a work touch me?
Have you noticed a trend in the work?
Hildebrand: Zurich is very film-oriented. Basel is very art-oriented, and Lucerne is very open. Much of what we saw at Expo.02 - projections, splitting screens, a different approach to images, integrating sounds - also reflects the current playground of ideas at the three schools. In other words, today we have a mixture of art and commerce. There are also interactive works and many spatial installations where you stand in the middle and experience something. In addition to the cinematic solutions, around half of the submitted works consisted of installations. And these are increasingly moving into an event area. A trend can also be seen in the increasing convergence between art and commerce. Not only is art moving closer to commerce, but commerce is also moving closer to art. I have noticed that students have no fear of contact with commerce. They recognize the conflict and know that there is no point in simply rejecting it.
How will the award ceremony be organized?
Hildebrand: The award ceremony on November 15 is designed as a day of open encounters and will take place at the TPC. The TPC is organizing a platform where the art students can talk to people from television, interested people from advertising and also freelance producers, who we would like to welcome to the TPC on this day. Martin Heller will lead a discussion with the students about current developments in art and exhibitions, and former graduates will talk about their first professional experiences.
The jury

Jacqueline Burckhardt (President of the Federal Art Commission), Stefan Jäger (filmmaker/director), Cyril Böhler (film music composer), Martin Roth (CEO Belleville AG), Monika Schärer (editor SF DRS), Annina Zimmermann (video artist and curator), Alfredo Briccola (creative consultant) and Verena Zollinger (managing director and producer TCC Film).
Award Night

The Award Night begins on Friday, November 15, at 6.30 pm in Studio 1 of the TPC and will be hosted by Claudio Zuccolini. The program includes prominent guests and musical performances. All competition entries can be viewed at a video kiosk. To register, please contact Daniela Blaser, tel. 01 305 40 21 or daniela.blaser @tpcag .ch.

The new magazine Frauenland aims to close the fashion magazine gapYou won't find the latest party tips or the coolest shopping addresses in the new magazine that Schweizer Agrarmedien GmbH is launching in November. On purpose. Frauenland is aimed at female farmers, housewives and workers in rural areas. "In principle, we want to fill the gap left by the recently discontinued women's magazine Meyer's, as it used to be as a fashion magazine," says publishing director Rosmarie Ritz, explaining the direction of travel. Not a safe strategy in view of Meyer's inglorious demise, one might think. In the reader market, Frauenland is hoping for start-up support from the Swiss Rural Women's Association (SLFV). The association, with its 60,000 members, has been a sponsor of Schweizer Agrarmedien GmbH for three years. In future, it will use Frauenland for communications and internal information. These will be produced in a removable special section called Landfrauen.
According to Rosmarie Ritz, association members are also the primary target group for the magazine, which is published six times a year. "The idea of a magazine for rural areas had been floating around in our company for some time, but the target group was too vague," says Ritz. The collaboration with the SLFV has now solved this problem.
Not only the domestic plaice is an issue for Frauenland
Frauenland starts with two large print runs of 60,000 copies. The medium-term target is a circulation of 25,000 copies. As many of these copies as possible will be distributed via subscriptions. The magazine will also be available at newsstands. The launch issue will also be available in doctors' and dentists' surgeries, hairdressing salons and "anywhere else where you have to wait".
Rosmarie Ritz emphasizes that the SLFV is by no means only made up of women farmers. The majority of rural women work in ordinary professions. The range of topics in the Frauenland zero number therefore extends beyond the rural and agricultural and, between cooking and gardening tips, also deals in particular with (women's) politics.
Advertising sales are organized in-house
It remains to be seen whether this mix of topics and target group will meet with sufficient response in the advertising market. In the current market situation, Frauenland faces the challenge of selling a rather old-fashioned concept and a little-noticed target group to reluctant advertisers.
Unlike the flagship of Swiss agricultural media, the Bauernzeitung, Frauenland is not marketed by Publimag, but only internally. Rosmarie Ritz did not want to commit herself to specific sectors as preferred advertising customers. Naturally, Frauenland has to try to acquire products that have an affinity with rural women: "We probably won't get the really high-end stuff."
Stefano Monachesi

Objective: To provide information about the Hirslanden Group and its 12 affiliated clinics.Hirslanden Holding Advertising media: Website. Use: Since the beginning of October until further notice.
Client: Hirslanden Holding AG, Zurich; Responsibility: Julien A. Buro, Head of Marketing; Susan Liebe-Gallati, Project Management. Advertising agency: eMotions Media Solutions, Zurich; Project management: Domenic Rimathé.

With the website www. designnetwork.ch, the foundation stone has been laid for a future archive of Swiss design and its high-caliber exponents.Service Virtual Design Archive The lives and works of old masters such as Niklaus Stoecklin and Herbert Matter or the founders of the "new Swiss graphic" such as Hans Neuburg, Josef Müller-Brockmann, Richard Paul Lohse, Karl Gerstner or Max Bill will thus be just as accessible as those of the representatives of the middle and younger generations. Behind the webpage is the newly formed "Design Network Switzerland", a community of interests whose goal is to support individuals, institutions and companies that actively "promote the evolution of our visual environment". The Network replaces the Swiss Graphic Designers Association and aims to include "the best designers in Switzerland" and currently has 114 members. As an accompanying action to the launch of the new webpage, the designers present themselves until the
November 3 with 270 posters distributed in the city of Zurich. The action is to be repeated later in other cities.
Zündschnur and Pascal Sieber explain e-mail The Herisau marketing agency Zündschnur (www .zuendschnur.ch) is launching a course offering for e-mail communication. It was developed under the name "Move: mail organization very efficient" in co-operation with the Berne consulting agency for new media Dr. Pascal Sieber & Partners AG and is accomplished in St.Gallen and Berne. The half-day to one-day intensive courses address a broad target group.
Stern shows Cannes Lion winners For the third time, Stern magazine presents a special issue with the ads and posters that were allowed to pick up a Lion in Cannes. The 240-page Cannes special has been available since Thursday. It has a print run of 15000 copies and can be ordered free of charge at guj.schweiz @guj.de while stocks last.