After long preparations, the T-Online.ch portal is now due to go online at the end of MarchBy Alessandro MonachesiThe German telecom provider
T-Online is pursuing ambitious goals in Switzerland: in 24 months, the company wants to become the leader in the local portal market. The Swiss Managing Director Günter Nierlich is convinced that this can be achieved even without Access customers.
There is no way around it on the Internet: whether horizontal or vertical, orange, blue or yellow, every player in e-business wants a portal. The spoiled Swiss user is spoiled for choice between comprehensive nationwide offerings such as Bluewin, SwissOnline or Yellowworld and local sites such as Züri Online, Espace Mittelland or Basel Online. In addition, there are the portal sites of the telecom providers. Is there still room for another portal?
Yes, says T-Online. Preparations are currently underway at the Deutsche Telekom subsidiary for the launch of T-Online.ch. On the sixth floor of an industrial building in Uster ZH
T-Online Switzerland with 25 employees. With a wonderful view of the Alps, the employees are working towards the launch of the test phase in a few days. The Swiss T-Online portal is scheduled to go public at the end of March.
Establishing a new portal in such a saturated market is not easy, one might think. Günter Nierlich, Managing Director of T-Online Switzerland, is self-confident. "In 24 months, we want to be among the top three in Switzerland," he says, explaining the Germans' ambitious plans. Unlike the established Swiss portals, however, T-Online.ch will not offer its own Internet access. How does the portal intend to penetrate Bluewin's traffic areas without its own "access customers"?
For Nierlich, success depends on three factors: Added value, convenience and trust. He does not believe that Internet access is absolutely necessary. Content and services will count in the future: "The other portals are too focused on their access services," explains Nierlich. "But the access customer currency has had its day!" T-Online wants to shine with attractive services. However, Nierlich does not want to reveal his instrument, his "secret weapon", which is intended to provide considerable added value, before the official launch.
According to Nierlich, the opportunities for the new portal in the Swiss market are definitely intact. Thanks to T-Online's international orientation - the company is active in France, Austria, Spain and Portugal as well as Germany - the best content from the sister portals could be mirrored. Nierlich's declared aim is to avoid embarrassing mishaps such as those in Austria, where portal content had obviously referred to Germany.
Vertical in the horizontal with classified partners
T-Online.ch attempts a balancing act in terms of topic coverage:
On the one hand, the portal aims to provide broad horizontal coverage, while on the other, it will also go into greater depth in a number of selected areas. Nierlich is focusing on the topics of travel and leisure as well as finance and business.
T-Online has developed a three-level partnership program to meet the demand for verticality. The first level comprises an unspecified number of "Selected Partners" for standard advertising contracts. On a second level, there are six to twelve "Premium Partners" for co-marketing with longer-term cooperation agreements. Finally, at the top of the pyramid are one to two "Favorite Partners". Here, the cooperation can extend to financial participation or the establishment of joint companies.
A large number of these partnerships have already been forged. In the travel sector, T-Online.ch has chosen Kuoni as its "Favorite Partner", while Imholz and Hotelplan are the "Premium Partners". "We only want good brands," says Nierlich. "This allows us to retain customers, which also benefits the other partnerships."
Despite all the optimism, Nierlich is also aware that the goal he has set himself will not be easy to achieve. But the parent company is not letting itself down: the T-Online.ch project is worth tens of millions. Nierlich expects to break even in three years at the latest.
T-Online Switzerland benefits in Switzerland from the presence of its sister company on German television. Nierlich: "We were surprised at how well known the brand already is. In a supported survey of Internet customers, we achieved fourth place."
T-Online Switzerland can therefore save itself an expensive branding campaign and instead advertise its services directly, using traditional media as well as the Internet. It has not yet been decided who will get a slice of the lucrative cake: The distribution of the advertising budget has only just begun.

Zurich artist Max Grüter has created a new trophy for the Advertiser of the YearBy Andreas PanzeriWith his kit art, Max Grüter has developed a new kind of sculpture. The Zurich sculptor has also become known to a wider audience through his regular cover pictures for the folio of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, as well as through his computer graphics in the SonntagsZeitung. Now, commissioned by WerbeWoche, Max Grüter has found an ideal form for the Advertiser of the Year.
"Working on the computer can have a great sensual appeal. It doesn't bother me that I can no longer feel any material with my hands," says Max Grüter when asked whether he wouldn't miss kneading, soldering or casting if he only created his three-dimensional objects on the computer. The newly created sculpture for the Advertiser of the Year is also exclusively a screen birth. "In the past, I still worked relatively classically. But then the computer kind of hit home with me," says Max Grüter about his changed working style.
A sculpture is first created in the form of three-dimensional plans using a powerful CAD program on the computer. Then the data is transmitted by e-mail to the foundry or other artisanal production facility, where the figure is ultimately physically produced. "With this method, you approach a story differently, more in your head and more playfully at the same time," Grüter believes.
As a sculptor, he was probably one of the first artists to use this method. In the industrial sector of designers, however, this computer technology is already the norm in many cases. It is therefore no coincidence that Grüter has chosen mass production as the subject of his current artistic works.
Serial art as a critique of mass production
"Prefabricated" is what he called, for example, his 99-fold construction kit parts, which were available individually 66 times, but which could also be purchased 33 times as a unit. The various 33-fold objects, which at the Alte Fabrik Rapperswil on the occasion of Grüter's last major exhibition in 1998 were intended to provoke reflection on the absurdity of mass production, are made from plastic forms of everyday objects.
Whole rows of gold bars - or rows of brown branches, each bearing five green triple leaves punched out in exactly the same size, or a human family in a "clone union" form Grüter's witty but at the same time oppressive paradoxes of industrial society.
Grüter is also occupied with such "repetitions" in his current work. He is represented on the art market by the Schedler Gallery on Josefstrasse in Zurich. He has recently moved his studio from Oerlikon to Kernstrasse in Kreis 4. "There is a greater chance that someone will visit me in person from time to time," Grüter says.
Born in 1955 in Langnau am Albis, he completed his studies in 1976 at the Zurich School of Applied Arts as a graphic designer. He then worked freelance as an illustrator, painter and object artist. "I also worked for advertising in my younger years," Grüter reveals.
Later he taught at the Kunstgewerbeschule or was responsible as art director for the legendary theater troupe Zampanoo's Variété. Various solo and group exhibitions, from the Hannibal Gallery to Andy Jllien or at the Düsseldorf advertising agency Grey showed Grüter's work.
His Master's Voice reveals paternity
In 1998, Grüter received a gold award from the Type Directors Club New York and an award from the Art Directors Club New York. Since 1991, the artist has worked as art director for the cover of the magazine NZZ Folio. Graphic works can also be found regularly in Tamedia publications. What is special about these illustrations is that they are also designed on the computer like three-dimensional sculptures. "You can bypass the object in your mind," says Max Grüter about the idea of this special visual effect.
When designing the award for the "Advertiser of the Year," Grüter "first thought of a trophy, because a trophy is the classic winner's prize." Oscar from Hollywood was also a bit of a godfather. Grüter was inspired by the old logo "His Master's Voice," because the advertiser basically also has to be the most obedient voice possible of his master.
The tube symbolizes the shouting of the market. Between it and the victory pyramid, the advertiser seems almost a little squeezed in. "The advertiser seems to me to be in an unfortunate situation there between the pressure to succeed and the audience," philosophizes Max Grüter. But it is a particularly successful refinement that the little man (advertiser) wedged between the mission (pyramid) and the means of communication (megaphone) is located in the successful sculpture exactly at the interface where success is also brought to the point.
Whether the newly created advertising Oscar in Switzerland will ultimately be christened Rudolph, Jean Etienne, Markus, Jost, Reinhold or Hermann, the public will not find out until January 18 at the Zurich Rohstofflager. The election party will be hosted by Radio 24 man Christian Handelsman. For the trophy presentation, including the winner's kiss, WerbeWoche has been able to engage none other than the reigning Miss Switzerland, Mahara McKay.
PARTY PROGRAM

All readers of WerbeWoche are cordially invited to the "Werber des Jahres" party. You can register at www.werberdes
jahres.ch or tel. 01 296 97 98.
The action starts on Thursday, January 18, with an aperitif at 5:30 p.m. at Rohstofflager. The Zurich scene club under the direction of Arnold Meyer is newly installed at Binzmühlestrasse 86 in Oerlikon after the demolition of the property on Heinrichstrasse. Accessible by S-Bahn or streetcar to Oerlikon station, then 5 minutes on foot. Only 200 parking spaces are available directly on the premises.
To compensate for this, some trendy bars, a culinary interesting buffet, a smokers lounge, a lot of emotions around the award ceremony as well as relevant sound for dancing with a trend DJ from 11 p.m. are waiting.

StrikingThe Italians have a reputation for cultivating an endless delight in food and drink. Yet there is less and less beef on the domestic menu. No wonder, even more important to Italians than food is their sense of well-being. Two companies reacted to this in the New Year's Eve edition of the Corriere della domenica. Coop informed that for their cows vegetables are not just a side dish. O. k. More macabre and in the style of "Monty Python" the ad of the private television Stream TV. Their copy: "If the cow is insane, why not enjoy 'Piggy Babe' on New Year's Day?" What was presented in culinary terms read in fine print as a reference to the animal movie "Babe." Well, in Switzerland this subject would certainly get the animal protection or the Ursula Schäppi fan club cooking. Chandra Kurt
Column

War of the Roses
By Christoph Dill
January hole in the head! With what does the unimaginative columnist address the illustrious readers? Uranium ammunition, Palestine conflict...how about something stupid for the people? I look at the TV. It makes me feel sorry for him. And that with someone I never liked. First he beat everyone, then he was in, now he's in the shit. Poor Boris. Bad Babs.
It's a pity that the nation-bonding sex drive, which despite Teutonic testosterone has known quite un-German color, must fail in the face of reality.
Fortunately, Boris is not alone! The original War of the Roses, a war of the clans and not of the genders, cost the national economy millions as early as the 15th century. The houses of Lancaster and York in England fought each other to the death. Why do you think? For the throne!
In Danny De Vito's "War of the Roses," Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner reach for the chandelier in a tussle over home and self-esteem, plunging to their deaths for the sake of the audience's tearjerkers.
In the Franco-German War of the Roses, launched in May 1999, France Télécom wants to sue Deutsche Telekom for several billion euros because the latter wants to cheat with the Italos without asking its partner for permission. Don't we ever learn from history?
There are three approaches.
Approach 1: The state makes it difficult to marry - not to divorce.
Approach 2: Addiction prevention agencies recognize that drug problems are statistically insignificant compared to men's female addiction.
Approach 3: We advocate the manipulated quantum leap in evolution. No problem! The difference between chimpanzees and humans is only a paltry 1.5 percent (this relationship is thus greater than that between horse and zebra). So it should be easy for genetic engineers to eradicate this small difference.
Language Observer

One hundred questions for the new year (1-25)
1. what do you do with a white sheet of paper lying around somewhere?
2. How old are you inside? Are you younger or older than your real age?
Can children be educated? To what?
4. do you live in the past, in the present or in the future?
5. do you value what you perceive?
6. do you approach people or do you wait for them to come to you?
7. how much freedom can you stand?
8. do you often think that you will die?
9. do you feel your body? Your heartbeat? When neurons form in the brain?
10. how long have you been happy in your life - all things added up?
11. is there something you are addicted to?
12. what is your earliest memory?
13. would you choose your parents again?
Do children have a right to a functioning relationship with their parents? Up to what age?
15 What does it take for a relationship to work?
16. how do you feel when you are naked?
Have you become more self-confident in the course of your life?
18. must the bad out of the body?
19. How often do you look at yourself in the mirror? Do you realize that this is you?
20. Do you grasp the rhythm while dancing, or does the rhythm grasp you?
21. How do you get rid of your aggression? Violence? Criticism? Curiosity? Letters to the editor? Illness? Different?
Would you live your life again the same way you did the first time? At what moment would you do something differently?
23. which animals have you eaten from? What animals have you eaten from?
24. what connects you with others: Similarities or differences?
25. are there people who can make you happy?

Beat Gloor,
www.textcontrol.ch

Metropol Editor-in-Chief (CR) Ueli Haldimann unexpectedly resigned from his post on January 8.NewsCommuter newspapers with new bosses
He had only resigned in mid-December because he was moving to SF DRS as head of "Rundschau". The editorial team will be headed by Christian Maurer on an interim basis. At 20 Minuten, on the other hand, a new CR was elected following the death of Urs Weber: Danni Härry, currently deputy CR of the Berner Zeitung. He will take up his post by the end of March at the latest and will also become a member of the management of 20 Minuten (Switzerland). Because of Härry's election, on the other hand, Hanspeter Eggenberger, who heads 20 Minuten on an interim basis, resigned.
WEMF pacifies ZE and 20 Minuten The two free newspapers Zürich Express (ZE) and 20 Minuten want to get along again. In February 2000, a dispute had arisen over readership figures. 20 Minuten had published a ranking list of Zurich newspapers on which competitor ZE was not listed. ZE now announced that both papers considered "their difference settled" now that binding Wemf figures were available.
Capital injection for Metro InternationalMetro International S.A., publisher of the commuter newspaper Metropol, receives new funding. In a private placement, Metro is selling shares for around 110 million Swiss francs to a group of institutional investors from the USA and Europe, but none from Switzerland. This is to finance further expansion.
Anzeiger Region Bern is launchedOn January 4, the Anzeiger Region Bern, the new publication organ of the city of Bern and some surrounding municipalities, appeared for the first time. It replaces the previous free newspapers Stadtanzeiger and Anzeiger rund um Bern. The paper is published by Bund Verlag, has a total circulation of around 141000 copies and is produced in two editions. The one for the city is published four times a week, the one for the Bern region twice a week.
TV 3 goes to Federal Court TV 3 is taking a decision by the Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (Uvek) to the Federal Court. According to the Uvek, TV 3's short news programs do not fulfill the terms of the license. TV 3 is obliged to broadcast a full program with a focus on information and entertainment. The station is thus required to broadcast news between 7 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. and to use the largest staff budget in the information sector for this purpose. TV 3 sees this as a restriction on its programming freedom and complains that the concept of information has subsequently been reduced to political information. The short news bulletins were more successful than the earlier detailed news bulletins and also contained - in a condensed form - the same number of reports.
Berner Zeitung in third placeThe Berner Zeitung (BZ) has been the third largest Swiss daily newspaper since January 3. Thanks to the cooperation with Berner Oberland Medien AG (BOM), BZ now has a print run of 175,000 copies, an increase of
28 percent. As of today, the Thuner Tagblatt and the Berner Oberländer, including the Oberländisches Volksblatt, will be published with the layout, jacket and inserts of the BZ. Front page and local sections are produced autonomously.
faz markets NZZ in Germany
Leadermedia Deutschland GmbH, a member of the FAZ Group, took over representation of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) in the German advertising market on January 1, 2001. The cooperation between NZZ and FAZ has already proved successful in England and France, it was announced. Malte Rubarth, Managing Director of NZZ (Deutschland) GmbH, is retiring.
NZZ in Germany with DIZThe New Media division of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) provides all articles for an electronic press database to the Documentation and Information Center Munich GmbH (DIZ). DIZ is a subsidiary of Bayrischer Rundfunk and Süddeutscher Verlag.

Fast-food chain Burger King has awarded its advertising budget for the adult target group in the U.S. to McCann-Erickson.NewsMcCann makes Burger King palatable
Who will oversee the advertising for children will be decided in the next few weeks. So far, the entire budget has been with Lowe Lintas. In September, Burger King invited a pitch because it was unhappy with its sales figures. Campbell Mithun, Grey Worldwide and McCann-Erickson made the shortlist.
End for Kennedy magazine George The political magazine George, founded by John F. Kennedy Jr. will appear for the last time in March. The publisher, Hachette Filipacchi, justified the end with the weak response in the advertising market. With advertising spending slowed in the U.S., the publisher saw no future for George despite a 25 percent increase in circulation last year. The website Georgemag.com, which had been very popular during the election campaign, is to remain.
Philips advertises with DDBAfter ten years, the Philips electronics group is parting company with Euro RSCG. From mid-2001, DDB Worldwide will be the new agency on the worldwide agency list. DDB handles consumer electronics, semiconductors and components, and group branding. D'Arcy remains in charge of household appliances and personal care, and is now also responsible for lighting and medical devices.
Guinness at BBDO and SaatchiIrish beer brewer Guinness is cutting its global agency roster from six to two. In the future, its budgets will be handled only by Abott Mead Vickers BBDO and Saatchi & Saatchi. Originally, Guinness wanted to consolidate with a single agency. A Guinness spokesman justified the decision, saying it had opted for good creative work rather than global uniformity.

It's not like Babs and Boris," Dominique von Matt emphasizes, because he and his partner David Honegger went their separate ways on good terms.Honegger is looking for a fresh start and is selling his 50 percent share in the agency. The German agency Jung von Matt, headed by Dominique's brother Jean-Rémy von Matt, will take over most of this stake. The two new heads of creation, Daniel Meier (40) and Alexander Jaggy (30), will also be involved. Dominique von Matt's share will remain unchanged. As of April 1, 2001, the agency is called "Jung von Matt an der Limmat" and moves to new premises at Wolfbachstrasse 19 near the Zurich Schauspielhaus.
"I'm not leaving because Jung von Matt is coming, they're coming because I'm leaving," explains outgoing creative director Honegger. For about a year, the idea had been brewing in him to try something new again with a fresh pioneering spirit. Honegger is keeping his plans under wraps for the time being. "Various options" are under discussion. What is certain is that he will continue to work for the agency as a freelance creative consultant for the time being and that he will definitely remain in advertising.
According to David Honegger and Dominique von Matt, the cooperation with Jung von Matt was an obvious choice. The two agencies have already worked together in the past and looked after joint clients such as Sixt or USM in Germany and Switzerland.
"Our agency cultures and mission statements are very similar," von Matt finds, "so we can also maintain our values." On the other hand, Jung von Matt brings a lot of infrastructure and know-how to the table, especially in the area of TV commercials and film. Dominique von Matt sees synergies and mutual inspiration as the most important advantages of the collaboration. "There will be a certain shift in rhythm," he is convinced, however, "Jung von Matt is a benchmark for us to whose level we want to adapt."
The new partners, Daniel Meier and Alexander Jaggy, will take over the creative leadership of the agency. Meier has spent the last two years as CD at Honegger von Matt, developing campaigns for Ikea, Panasonic, ABB and Cablecom. Jaggy started his advertising career at GGK in Zurich and joined Jung von Matt, Hamburg, via Springer & Jacoby, Hamburg. According to Dominique von Matt, he brings with him the agency's "stable smell". Most recently, Alexander Jaggy worked as a concept developer for Springer & Jacoby International in London. (ba)

Muse & MussePeter Graf
Which cultural event did you attend last and why this one in particular?
Peter Graf: The musical "Chicago", because my 13-year-old grandniece has never been to a musical.
What are you reading right now and why?
Graf: "The School of Stupid" by Sasha Sokolov, because it is a masterpiece and yet hardly anyone reads it.
Which CD do you currently prefer to listen to?
Graf: I don't own a CD player. My hi-fi system consists of a Thorens record player and a Fisher tube radio from the early fifties.
Which movie would you most like to see again and why?
Graf: My video library contains about 1300 feature films, there is no favorite film.
What TV show did you fall asleep during the other night?
Graf: At the New Year's jump after a long New Year's Eve.
What is your latest discovery on the Internet?
Graf: I'm not saying that, otherwise the site will be busy all the time again.
Love is...?
Graf: ... nothing, except a complete acceptance of a being, which arises from the acceptance of your own being.

The Berlin branch of WHS is on the verge of bankruptcy.Due to the insolvency of serviced dotcom customers (Vivity, MyMedia, Yoolia), the branch, which opened two years ago, had to accept the loss of several million DM in budget volume and reduce its workforce from twenty to five employees. Five to seven members of the terminated Berlin crew will be hired by WHS Zurich. "We were unlucky and overestimated the growth," says Reini Weber. The WHS boss is already planning to rebuild: he is negotiating a partnership with an independent Berlin agency. The name of the agency, "which functions in a relatively networked and integrated way," says Weber, was not known by press time. Weber would not say anything about his future involvement.
His capacity is currently needed in Zurich: "Twelve presentations for Swiss and German mandates are lined up this month," says the two-time Advertiser of the Year, who plans to resume creative direction of the Zurich head office for the time being. Weber will be supported by his long-time business partner Yvonne Hodel, who has been interim head of the agency on the lake since he left for Berlin in summer 2000. (ew)

Spherix relied on participation in web design competitions for their publicityPR or word-of-mouth is cheaper and more useful than classic advertising." - This is the motto of many young Internet and software companies. They usually use self-developed software or a customer project from which it originated as a drawing card for their publicity. The start-up company Spherix, which specializes in Flash, from
St. Gallen, founded last November by Paquale De Sapio, could not rely on this strategy for its PR campaign. The web design agency did not yet have any customer projects to show, because the founding team had previously worked full-time in other fields. The team, which had been working with Flash for about two years, designed an elaborate website and entered it in five prestigious design competitions.
Any awards should help to make the young company known and attract customers. As an accompanying measure, the founders entered the URL of their website in several relevant Flash forums and communities. After all, even the best awards are of no use if there is no networking in the industry.
De Sapio was well aware that, in the worst case, the award hunt would only plunder the company's coffers without bringing in an award for the trophy case and the future PR campaign. But the plan worked: Just a few weeks after its official launch in November 2000, spherix.ch won awards at two international design competitions and hung the awards on the big PR bell. De Sapio is particularly proud of the Silver Spheres Gold Award (www.sil verspheres.com), which has only been awarded to 30 projects out of a total of 969 submitted since its launch.
What value such a design award and a pretty website have when it comes to executing a concrete customer order is another question, however. De Sapio does not want to overvalue the two awards. It is much more important to establish references as quickly as possible through customer projects. Spherix will soon have the opportunity to do so, as the first customers have already been acquired: Atraxis and the KS Group St. Gallen, Zurich, Basel. Clemens Hörler

It's not the environment that determines the advertising impact, but primarily the quality of the advertisingBy Wolfgang KoschnickIn a magazine for deep-sea fishing, ads for power saws have no place. True. But the editorial or program environment is not always responsible for the high or low advertising impact of ads or commercials. This is the conclusion reached by numerous studies on the interaction between editorial content and advertising.
A large part of practical media planning is environment-oriented. Tourism advertising is placed in travel supplements, food advertising in food magazines, advertising for fine perfumes in classy glossy magazines, and sex programs on TV are avoided as an environment for "serious" products. But what if all this is based on a plausible but fatal error in thinking?
The media-related environment hypothesis on factors influencing advertising impact states quite generally that the environment in which an ad or commercial is placed has an influence on advertising impact. One naturally assumes a positive influence: Regardless of the content of the advertisement itself, the advertising has a stronger effect.
Why should that be? If a lot of good things are written about liquor in an editorial article, why should a liquor ad next to it have a stronger impact than if the article describes how a chainsaw works? Science offers three psychological theories to explain this:
According to the Gestalt theory, the perception of a "Gestalt" is co-determined by the conditions of the entire field of perception.
According to the field theory, the percipient's field of perception is structured by his own needs.
According to learning theory, learning success also depends on the way the content to be learned is embedded in other content.
The first study on this topic was conducted in the USA in 1959. A larger number of further studies followed up to the present. These measured the same ads in different magazines and compared them with the effect of these ads in a "neutral" environment.
The decisive influence of the advertising medium on the ads was particularly evident among regular readers in the "image" and "purchase stimulation" impact dimensions. Among readers as a whole, the impact dimension "credibility of the advertising message" stood out in particular. In practically all the studies in the USA, there were no significant findings for advertising effects that could have been attributed to the editorial environment.
In Germany, there are two studies on this subject that are already several decades old: "The Significance of the Editorial and Advertising Environment for the Effect of Advertising Messages" by Erich M. Ruczinski and Karl Suthoff from 1971 and "Advertising Environment and Advertising Effect" by Axel Springer Verlag from 1972.
The overall alignment determines the advertising environment
In the survey by Ruczinski and Suthoff, there was "no clear clarification of the problem of the environment effect on ads." The study summarizes, "The null hypothesis, which states that the environment in the sense we defined would not be...effective on the test ad, could not be rejected because of the consistently low correlation. Thus, the likelihood that such environmental effects exist is low."
The findings of the 1972 study by Axel Springer Verlag are even clearer. It states: There is no significant difference between the attention, use and evaluation of advertisements that are placed in a thematic or neutral page environment.
The results of other studies on the magazine environment, i.e. the overall thematic environment of an advertising medium, on the other hand, show that the overall thematic orientation of a magazine has a favorable influence on advertising attention. This, in turn, is rather self-evident: in a magazine for deep-sea fishing, advertisements with equipment for deep-sea fishermen can naturally be accommodated much better than in a magazine for chainsaw owners.
Do you have to do empirical research to find out? Better not. It is possible that science will not find out the connection at all and will bother the experts for decades with the statement that, according to their findings, there is no connection at all.
There are always some findings, such as a study "Parents Shopping Magazine" by Parents magazine, which show that thematically fitted ads get higher attention than ads that are not thematically fitted, and that ads presented cohesively in a coherent block, namely in a kind of ad magazine, get higher attention than individual ads.
Environmental influences are also overestimated
The topic environment seems to reinforce the latent product interest and leads to an intensified selection for "suitable" ads. As soon as the ads are given their own environment as an advertising magazine, the differences between ads that are appropriate to the topic and those that are not are largely blurred. The ads that are appropriate for the topic only improve their impact in the magazine to a lesser extent; the ads that are not appropriate for the topic catch up strongly and are just as well noticed and used as the ads that are appropriate for the topic.
Environmental influences only in eighth place in impact research
In 1976, the German media researcher Klaus Peter Landgrebe prepared a comprehensive analysis on the subject of "Advertising Environment and Advertising Impact" for the publishing house of the news magazine Der Spiegel, Hamburg. He found that, although there were contradictory results, there was no clear finding in favor of the influence of the environment. The overall thematic environment probably had a certain effect, but less in the sense of improving the impact of ads appropriate to the topic than in the sense of intensifying selection.
As soon as the thematic influence is neutralized by a separate advertising environment, this selectivity is also cancelled out. Moreover, Landgrebe concludes that - even if there were environmental influences - they would only become effective as an eighth-order factor in the context of the overall success of marketing measures - i.e. they would in any case end up in the lowest ranks among the factors of advertising and media impact.
In Austria, by the way, copy tests by the Institute for Market and Social Analyses (Imas), Linz, have shown that the editorial environment can have a detailed effect, namely when an ad is placed next to a boring article that attracts little reader interest. This can reduce readers' attention to such an extent that they no longer notice anything about the ad next to it either.
Strenuous TV scenes reduce perception
The programming environment is somewhat different in electronic media, especially television. Studies have shown that viewers' and listeners' attitudes toward the program have a strong influence on advertising effectiveness. The more viewers like a program, the higher the recall values for "spot seen" and for "recall of the advertising message.
In 1991, an American study by Norbert Mundorf, Dolf Zillmann, and Dan Drew on "Effects of disturbing televised events on the acquisition of information from subsequently presented commercials" examined how television commercials are perceived, retained, and judged when they are shown after a very exciting, emotionally stirring scene.
As part of a news program, 50 test subjects first saw a real suicide scene - the American politician Ed Dwyer shot himself in front of running cameras in 1986 - after which the program continued with news and commercials. The commercials were either placed directly after the suicide scene or after two or four minutes and were each 30 seconds long.
The commercials that followed directly or two minutes after the scene described were followed much less attentively compared to a control group. Memory and recognition tests further showed that the test subjects could hardly remember the product information contained in the commercials.
Only for the spot placed four minutes after the initial scene did the subjects' attention and recall return to the level of the control group.
Until then, it had usually been assumed that the stimulus content of "strong" scenes with a lot of action supported attention over interrupting advertising. However, these results suggest that very strongly emotionalizing scenes have the opposite effect, namely a decrease in attention and retention.
The authors saw the reason for this in the limited processing capacity of the recipients, who are already busy mentally coping with a highly emotional scene for a certain time.
Funny commercials belong in a fun TV environment
Two studies, also published in 1991, investigated how emotional program quality affects the evaluation of interruptive commercials. In these studies, subjects watched television programs in which both the actual program and the emotional quality of the television commercials varied systematically: They were either cheerful and upbeat to funny or more somber and serious to sad.
Funny and entertaining commercials were rated best in such a program environment: Attitudes toward the commercial itself, toward the commercial, and product evaluation and purchase intention were more positive than in a negative program environment.
Serious and/or sad spots achieved better results in a correspondingly serious environment. If, on the other hand, they were placed in a funny-entertaining environment, a negative rating was achieved. Funny spots in a sad environment, on the other hand, were rated rather undifferentiated. Thus, a consistency hypothesis can be assumed: The best advertising effects are achieved when the mood of the program environment and the advertising match (matching).
A study also published in 1991 examined the influence of cognitive involvement on the effectiveness of radio versus television advertising. Depending on the category of effect, different effects were found:
When the number of spontaneous thoughts (cognitive elaboration) and personal connections (personal connectedness) that the advertising triggered in the recipient was measured, no differences were found between radio and TV advertising at low levels of involvement. At high levels of involvement, however, the radio ads triggered significantly more thoughts than the TV ads.
In brand recognition, low-involved individuals achieved better results after a television commercial. Subjects who were highly involved produced identical recognition performances after radio and television commercials.
? recall of specific product information was also better under the Low Involvement condition after the TV commercials than after the radio commercials. Under the High Involvement condition, radio spot listeners did as well as TV spot viewers. However, for both media, higher involvement produced better overall recall scores.
Thus, both media genres have specific characteristics: Radio enables a more "undisturbed" cognitive processing due to the advantage of no interference between image and sound. Television, on the other hand, offers the possibility of immediate emotional access. The cognitive activities in television advertising are more related to the perception of an overall (image-based) impression, especially when viewers are only slightly involved.
Television advertising thus has clear advantages in the low-involvement area. Radio, on the other hand, is particularly effective at high levels of involvement; here, product-related thoughts and assessments as well as personal evaluations tend to predominate compared to TV advertising.
Because of their different impact qualities, it therefore seems sensible to use radio and TV advertising in a coordinated way in media planning, for example to advertise a product in different media with the help of different copy strategies.
According to findings from the German "Seherqualität" study, environment-related placement has a high priority in the planning of advertising television. "Seherqualität" also sorted the spots by the content of the program that follows each commercial break.
By far the highest impact levels were found for commercial breaks before or within sports programs and feature films. Advertising before or in quiz programs also has a slightly higher chance of having an effect, while all other programs had a below-average effect.
Short commercial breaks
guarantee attention
However, the relatively high impact level of feature films and sports broadcasts is not only environment-related. There is another influencing factor: the average block length. The advertising blocks before and within feature films and sports programs contain on average only about ten spots. And the study found that advertising in very short blocks has almost three times the chance of being effective than advertising in long blocks with 16 or more spots.
Since sports programs often have very many small advertising islands with few spots, this explains the relatively high impact level of these programs. On the other hand, the findings on spot length also give rise to a practical planning problem: feature films also have a shorter spot length on average than other programs, but only on average.
Especially the attractive feature films with high ratings often have very long commercial breaks. This cancels out the environmental advantage. If you switch to feature films with short blocks, you can take full advantage of the environment advantage, but you have to accept lower ratings.
In Germany, the MGM MediaGruppe Munich, together with the Nuremberg research institute Icon, developed "ad pro" in the mid-1990s, a continuous instrument that examines the influence of various environments on advertising impact in several survey waves.
In each wave of the study, which is announced as a program test, five test groups are each shown a different program, into which two commercial breaks of nine spots have been integrated. The commercials are always the same, only the environment changes. Afterwards, a total of one thousand test persons are interviewed about both the environment and the commercials. In this way, the experience profile of the program as well as the individual spots and the advertising impact can be determined. Indicators are unaided spot awareness and likeability, which is calculated from various positive statements. The central result of the study is the finding that the program exerts a significant influence on the communication performance of a commercial. Although the effectiveness of a commercial depends primarily on the advertising presence and the product group; the program environments can also significantly control the advertising success. Between individual commercial appearances, average recall varies by 43, and within a commercial type by as much as 4 to 15 percentage points from environment to environment.
All in all, advertising and media research has had to make some pretty sweaty contortions in order to prove the little bit of environmental influence that is now indisputable.
Was it worth it? Yes. It has been proven that both the editorial environment and the program environment are among the least influential in advertising impact. It is not worth the effort to try very hard to find the right environment. There are more important things to do. Media planners should not make it a priority. And ad and advertising people should stop bugging editors and program makers about matching programmatic or editorial content to surrounding advertising. And if the clients don't want to believe that, then they'll just have to read this article where they can read all about it....
Various environmental effects

Transfer effects: Program environments with a positive mood promote retention, recall and evaluation of the spots and vice versa.
Contrast effects: Program environments with negative mood promote retention, recall, and evaluation of the spots and vice versa.
Congruence effects: Similar mood of program environment and spot promote the advertising effect and vice versa.
Divergence effects: Different moods of the program environment and the spot promote the advertising effect and vice versa.
Curvilinearity: A medium level of arousal in the program environment promotes the advertising effect; particularly low and particularly high levels of arousal are a hindrance.
How advertising really works

With this article by Allensbach-based specialist journalist Wolfgang J. Koschnick, WerbeWoche continues its series of articles on advertising impact. Each article in this series aims to provide answers to burning questions about the current state of knowledge on the impact of advertising. This should also be seen as an invitation to the readers of WerbeWoche. If you have any questions about aspects of advertising impact, please send them to us (info@werbe woche.ch). We will answer them to the best of our knowledge.
In selecting topics for this series, Koschnick can draw on several hundred scientific studies on advertising impact that have been published in Germany and abroad over the past 50 years.

Shutdown "Unacceptable
The draft revision of the Radio and TV Act (RTVA) wants to take sponsorship and special-interest programming away from SRG and exclude the introduction of SRG radio advertising. Set-up or shut-down for the Swiss Advertisers Association (SWA)?
Fredy Schwab: An absolute turn-off. The restrictions according to the draft would weaken the advertising platform of electronic media in Switzerland. To the detriment of the advertising industry, which would lose sponsorship opportunities.
With what negative consequences?
Schwab: The sponsorship millions would not be fully redirected, but simply no longer invested. Because for sports and cultural sponsorship, private TV broadcasters are no alternative to SRG. They make completely different program formats and thus reach different target groups. That's why they are an important supplement and not a substitute for the SRG's offerings. In addition, the use of sponsoring would no longer be possible in French-speaking Switzerland. That is absurd.
How will the SWA avert the regulations that are negative for it?
Schwab: We are drawing up a paper with our positions. We are also persuading the political parties to liberalize the advertising regulations for private TV broadcasters immediately. To this end, SW President and Council of States member Carlo Schmid has submitted a parliamentary initiative.
What are the expectations?
Schwab: The relaxation of advertising rules for private broadcasters comes too late - I expect 2006 for the introduction of the revised RTVA. If Carlo Schmid's proposal is successful, the private broadcasters could expect to have Euro-compatible standards in about a year's time.
Interview: Daniel Schifferle

The Japanese car giant pokes fun at the American way of life with decorative leprechaunsBy Thérèse BalduzziTen humorous spots are being used by Toyota to advertise in America. The ads aimed at men poke fun at macho attitudes, while spots addressed to women poke fun at "family values." The four spots for the Toyota Tundra pick-up truck even feature a garden gnome made of cement. The absurd combination achieves a deliberately ridiculous effect.
The new Toyota commercials for the Tundra truck, Tacoma compact truck, Camry, Avalon and Sienna minivan were designed by Saatchi & Saatchi, Los Angeles. These five models account for 65 percent of Toyota's annual car sales.
The spots for the Tacoma compact truck model explain in a not-so-serious way how courageous Tacoma drivers must be, for example, by showing two campers driving off bears. The Camry spot demonstrates how the car has to offer values cherished by women, such as relationship skills and "family values".
The four Tundra spots aim to counter the popular belief that imported trucks are not as strong and rugged as American ones. They highlight the technical advantages and invite visitors to take a fresh look at Toyota models. The new perspective is sometimes literally helped by an axle-high garden gnome, which thanks to its size can see the details from below. Dressed in jeans and a denim jacket and never at a loss for a witty quip, he embodies the attitude of the truck drivers and forms a counterweight to the lists of technical information in the commercials.
A garden gnome is
nothing impossible
In the "Ground Clearance" spot, a Tundra drives towards the garden gnome at great speed. While the image alternately shows the car and the garden gnome, an off-screen voice enumerates the advantages of the model. The distance of the car to the ground is demonstrated by the fact that the garden gnome can be driven over without being damaged.
In "Forklift," the garden gnome watches as a forklift loads bags of cement onto the Tundra. The off-screen voice explains the advantages of the Tundra, which allow it to hold a 2000-pound load. While driving away, the dwarf expresses his ideas for the next plans: that the driver builds him some girlfriends out of the cement. Just because the driver is single doesn't mean he has to stay single.
"Overheat" shows a tundra driving through a desert landscape, pulling an Airstream trailer along with it. This time, the garden gnome is in the truck bed, complaining about the heat. The voice off-screen explains the engine's cooling system, which allows the Tundra to hitch up a 7200-pound trailer even in the greatest heat.
The tagline at the end of each spot reads, "The Toyota Tundra. Better from the Ground up." The garden gnome also appears in the print version of the campaign.