The French-speaking Swiss daily newspaper Le Temps is successful, but expensiveBy Christophe Büchi The French-speaking Swiss daily newspaper Le Temps is costing its shareholders more than expected. The premature launch of two weekend supplements is partly responsible for this. However, according to Editor-in-Chief Eric Hoesli, they should generate new growth.
The bosses of Le Temps, which was created in March 1998 from the merger between the Nouveau Quotidien and the Journal de Genève, are currently experiencing the well-known fact once again: making newspapers is almost always more expensive than you think. Although Le Temps itself does not publish any figures, the new annual report of the Journal de Genève publishing company, which together with Edipresse holds 47 percent of the share capital in Le Temps, sheds a glaring light on the darkness of the figures.
The existing shareholders are in trouble
This report shows that Le Temps made a loss of around four million francs in 1999. This puts the public limited company of the Journal de Genève in a delicate situation. The accumulated deficit (loss in 1999 plus loss from previous years) in the balance sheet of the AG amounts to a whopping CHF 7.1 million, with a balance sheet total of CHF 12.98 million and equity capital of CHF 6.86 million.
In view of this imbalance, Chairman of the Board of Directors Gilbert Coutau has promised a vigorous restructuring program. In particular, the AG wants to work towards drastically reducing the losses at Le Temps. "The situation is still acceptable for 1999, but it can't go on like this," explained Coutau to his shareholders.
A loss of four million on a turnover of 44.9 million - isn't that really a bit much? Le Temps Editor-in-Chief Eric Hoesli answered this crucial question: "It is indeed a high loss. But the important figure for us is the operating loss, which is much lower." However, the balance sheet is additionally burdened by depreciation, which includes the publishing rights owed to the main shareholders (AG des Journal de Genève and Edipresse).
Property gazette as competition
In fact, the operating loss in 1999 should "only" amount to around 1.5 million francs. About two thirds of this is due to the two weekend supplements that were recently added to the Saturday edition (reported in WerbeWoche). Nevertheless, Hoesli admits that advertising income in 1999 was also slightly below the budget prepared by Publicitas. Property advertisements in particular did not quite reach the level hoped for, as the Geneva real estate managers had launched their own advertising medium. However, the trend was corrected in the second half of 1999, adds Hoesli.
However, the editor-in-chief does not see the early launch of the weekend supplements as a source of loss, but rather as an investment in the future. Thanks to them, the Saturday figures have improved considerably. Le Temps hopes that this will also attract readers for the other days of the week. In any case, Hoesli's legendary optimism and "positive thinking" were not affected by the loss reports for 1999.
In fact, in view of the latest Wemf figures, he has every reason to be satisfied. They show 52432 copies sold for Le Temps, 1564 more than in the previous year. This is the strongest growth of all French daily newspapers. Le Temps has thus established itself solidly in fourth place on the list of French-speaking "quotidiens", behind 24Heures, Tribune de Genève and Le Matin - but far ahead of the regional newspapers Nouvelliste, La Liberté and L'Express.
Opponents of the merger continue to rumble and publish white paper
For the fathers of Le Temps, the baby is well on its way. In Geneva, however, the discontent over the merger of the Journal de Genève has not yet completely dissipated. A few days ago, the former professor of law, Pierre Engel, who leads the opponents of the merger, published a pamphlet entitled "Le livre blanc d'un noir dessin" ("White book on a black project").
For Engel, Le Temps is still the devil. With the Journal de Genève, the Republic of Geneva has been robbed of its traditional mouthpiece, he writes. A small clique of ambitious technocrats has caused permanent damage to the French press. However, the opponents of the merger seem to have given up hope of succeeding in legal action against the "famiglia" of "press concentrationists".

The Basel agency Schenk, Müller & Partner is in the middle of a restructuring process, with the owner duo Hannes Müller and Rolf Schenk taking on advertising expert Marcel Bider as a partner. Bider was until recently co-owner of Bider, Prange & Partner, and Bider's new agency also made the change visible in its name, renaming itself Schenk, Müller, Bider AG Integrated Communications on April 18. Schenk and Müller each still hold forty percent of the shares, Bider twenty percent. By the end of the year, there should be equality.
The restructured agency intends to build its future on four equally important pillars: Advertising, Design, Publishing and E-Commerce. Bider sees the establishment of a loose international network as a strategic goal. Contacts already exist with agencies in South Africa, Hamburg and London.
Preparations are also underway for the move to a new domicile near Basel's main railway station. There, Schenk, Müller, Bider and their eight employees can move into the lobby of the former Hotel Savoy and continue to serve clients such as UBS, the health insurance company CSS, National Versicherungen and others. (ba)

A study by ergonomist Pascal Magnenat criticizes the internet presence of Swiss companiesBy Anita Vaucher Nine Swiss companies were scrutinized by ergonomist Pascal Magnenat to test the user-friendliness of their websites and e-commerce. The internet presence, which is supposed to contribute to image building, leaves a lot to be desired, even at companies such as SBB and Nestlé.
Eight out of thirteen of Pascal Magnenat's test subjects were unable to order a train ticket from SBB online. 46 percent of the test subjects stated without hesitation that they would never return to this website. These facts are alarming because the test subjects, aged between 26 and 45, are familiar with the use of PCs and the Internet.
Last fall, 34-year-old Pascal Magnenat from Geneva set up his own business as an ergonomist. His job is to test the user-friendliness of websites, make suggestions for improvement or take the design into his own hands right from the start. To avoid making empty claims to his future customers, he staged the study as a kind of reference work.
The mail order company Ackermann, Apple, SBB, Nestlé, the CD retail chain Frequence Laser, the winery La Cave, Le Shop, Office World and Ticketcorner were put under the microscope. The test subjects had to purchase two predetermined items from each company. Five criteria were used as parameters: ease of use, duration of the purchase, comprehensibility and logic in connection with the purchase process, ease of use and the likelihood of using the website again.
Too little feedback, too complicated language
Despite Internet experience, it was more time-consuming for the test subjects to buy their goods online than if they had made their purchases by telephone or in the store around the corner. Surprisingly, SBB and Nestlé caused their customers the most trouble. In the case of the latter, goods mistakenly placed in the virtual shopping cart could not be returned to the rack. In addition, there was confusion about quantities. The test subjects also had great difficulty with the terminology. The language on the sites is obviously too complicated and leads to misunderstandings.
The testers complained about spending a lot of time where they could not make their purchases. On the other hand, it is far less annoying to spend a long time on a website if users feel they have spent this time usefully, if they have received additional information or have been made aware of other products.
None of the test subjects would return to Nestlé's Easyshop website, both those users who were unable to make their purchases and those who were successful. The structure of this website was too complicated.
Finally, companies that guided their customers through the purchasing process with text instead of symbols were more successful. The detailed study can be viewed at www.interactions.ch.

The Smart Cabrio campaign by Weber Hodel Schmid placed the highest demands on craftsmanship and logistics, and the Swiss spring weather did not seem ideal for the presentation of a smart convertible. Guaranteed sunshine, an excellent infrastructure and the variety of attractive locations with European flair spoke in favor of a shoot in Miami, Florida. "The effort was huge, almost like being on a film set," Scheffold and Vizner recall. A crew of forty people and shoots lasting up to 16 hours were necessary to realize the four motifs. In order to achieve the desired visual result, the car had to be photographed while driving. "Such shots are associated with considerable technical difficulties in terms of focus and lighting," explains Istvan Vizner.
Solving these problems with technical skill and unconventional visual approaches is the ambition of the photography team. "A work is good when it optimally implements the task at hand," the two photographers agree.
For Scheffold and Vizner, one of the images for Wyler Werbung's campaign for the Tages-Anzeiger magazine also represents a perfect result. Above all because the mental vision and the real result matched exactly, the photography corresponded exactly to the client's idea. "That's where I get my sense of achievement," enthuses Fabian Scheffold, "when I see that my vision was right and it worked." Bruno Amstutz

Canadian Naomi Klein has written a book that puts her at the forefront of the "sweatshop" movementBy Thérèse Balduzzi In Seattle, "anticorporate" activists paralyzed the World Trade Organization conference, in Washington they demonstrated against the World Bank's meeting with the International Monetary Fund. The young Canadian Naomi Klein gives the heterogeneous protest a face. Her book "No Logo: Taking Aims at the Brand Bullies", which has been on several bestseller lists in Canada and the USA since January, has become a bible for the youth movement.
The real anarchists at the WTO meeting in Seattle were not the black-clad street demonstrators who called themselves that, but the businessmen who oppose any regulations on global trade, claims Naomi Klein.
The new youth movement, on the other hand, is probably the first to advocate more rather than fewer rules, she observes. This refers to international regulations that would regulate the global economy and put an end to the exploitation of workers in "sweatshops", which borders on slavery, and the unbridled destruction of the environment in poor countries. Klein denounces the widespread view that the weaker members would ultimately benefit from the global economy despite unfair distribution as a myth.
Klein has been filling American and Canadian lecture halls and bookstores in Manhattan with such provocative statements since the publication of her book. "No Logo" was reviewed by the New York Times and USA Today and earned her a column in the Toronto Star. The company Nike, which was strongly attacked in the book, published a rebuttal on its website criticizing the book as biased and unbalanced.
In "No Logo", Klein explains the role that branding played in the emergence of the movement. She links multinational branding with grievances in the First and Third Worlds and vividly describes how the backlash came about.
Since the early 1990s at the latest, companies such as Nike, Reebok, Microsoft, Disney, McDonald's, Tommy Hilfiger, Levi's and others have left traditional product advertising behind and invested billions in brand imaging instead, she writes. Instead of products such as sneakers, companies are now selling lifestyle, attitudes to life and religious-like meanings.
The ever-increasing marketing budgets were financed, among other things, by relocating production to poor countries. Branding took up more and more space, be it through Gap stores at every second street intersection in America or the omnipresence of the Nike "swoosh". Efforts to bind consumers to brands as young as possible also led to a massive flood of advertising in American and Canadian schools and universities.
The omnipresence of advertising provokes a backlash
When brands like Nike and Diesel appropriated the feminist and anti-racist demands of the "Identity Politics" then current at the universities for their image advertising, their advertisements had penetrated the university toilets.
Students who felt that the appropriation of their political concerns by advertising was cynical took the opportunity to vent their anger. Calvin Klein models were transformed into skeletons using felt-tip pens, the "Just Do it" slogan was rewritten as "Justice. Do it" was rewritten. Apple's "Think Different" advertisement was altered with a picture of Stalin and renamed "Think Really Different".
According to Klein, companies became victims of their own image cultivation: when brands identified with social goals such as tolerance of racial diversity, they inevitably exposed themselves to criticism of their own behavior.
If they sponsored not only rock concerts, but also professorships, research projects and school meals, they would become vulnerable. Klein cites as a prime example the protest against the sale of Pepsi-Cola in the dictatorship of Myanmar, which began in 1993 at Carleton University in Ottawa and spread via Harvard and Stanford to England. Had Pepsi not been fighting at countless schools for exclusive contracts to sell Pepsi-Cola and its Taco Bell fast food, students would have seen little reason to scrutinize the company's trade practices on the other side of the world. However, the concentrated protest of countless students led to Pepsi's withdrawal from Myanmar in 1997.
Spurred on by such successes, activists discovered how they could burst the image bubbles that had been pumped up into monstrous soap bubbles with little effort. The cooler the brand, the better: poor African-American schoolchildren who have just discovered that the Nikes they bought for over 100 dollars were produced for just five dollars and angrily dumped their old sneakers outside Nike stores have more impact than another appeal from an unknown third-world organization. And television has the story to go with it.
A demonstration against "sweatshops", which begins in front of the Disney flagship store in New York's Times Square and moves alongside huge Tommy Hilfiger and Nike advertisements, also attracts media attention. TV reporters also don't miss excited mothers declaring in the middle of the Christmas shopping season that they won't buy their children toys made by child labor.
Well-known brands become symbols of grievances
The jiu-jitsu strategy benefits from the general obsession with brand logos and can count on the same attention paid to celebrity scandals.
Nike became a symbol for the downsizing of American jobs and the exploitation of Asian "sweatshop" workers. Shell became the epitome of the environmental sinner through its plan to sink the disused oil storage island Brent Spar in the Atlantic. McDonald's and the Starbucks coffee chain became prime examples of how corporate empires use illegal bribes, threats and dismissals to prevent their workers from unionizing and get away with it. Virgin Megastores and the Barnes & Noble bookstore chain, which are replacing youth centers and town squares in America, have become examples of how public space is being increasingly privatized.
In "No Logo", Klein is concerned with exposing the betrayal of the central promise of the information age - increasing freedom of the individual, increasing interactivity and more choice. According to Klein, the Global Village offers exactly the opposite: instead of cultural diversity, a homogeneous one-size-fits-all culture is being imposed on the entire globe via MTV, in which a few interest groups are gaining more and more power.
Instead of a lively exchange, brand culture offers a one-sided monologue: Klein mentions various examples in which artists and activists who wanted to express criticism of cultural symbols such as Barbie dolls or McDonald's were silenced with copyright lawsuits.
Nothing against a global village, but with a fair economy
Despite all the campaigns that spread the image of the Global Village with a colorful palette full of cute children from all over the world, the possibility of students at Harvard exchanging emails with textile workers in Manila was obviously underestimated. The "Anticorporate Movement" unites highly diverse groups: students who have found their way to the "sweatshop" movement via "identity politics", environmentalists, third world organizations that are in contact with workers' movements in poor countries, and trade unions that are fighting against the export of their jobs and deregulation measures in the West. Thanks to the internet, the movement is more internationally connected than ever before.
The cross-connections that the author points out between the various approaches and interests are extremely exciting to follow. Although an activist herself, she does not lack analytical distance. Klein also outlines the limits of the jiu-jitsu strategy against well-known brands: Ultimately, she says, it is not about the sins of individual companies or pitting Shell against Exxon. The long-term goal is more democratic conditions worldwide in order to make the global economy fairer.
Naomi Klein, "No Logo: Taking Aims at the Brand Bullies", Picador USA, US$ 28.00, 528 pages, ISBN 0-31220343-8

In future, Coca-Cola's brand campaign will no longer be imported from the USA.Fax Coke is looking for a European agency The beverage multinational is regionalizing its communication and is looking for an agency for an independent European presence. The regular agencies Leo Burnett, McCann-Erickson and Publicis have been invited to pitch. The London agency Soul, which was only founded in May by former Bartle-Bogle-Hegarty managers and was immediately entrusted with a British Coke campaign, is also involved.
Y&R wins Xenical budget The slimming drug Xenical from Roche is now managed by Young & Rubicam in the USA. The drug, which has potential side effects, was unable to achieve the hoped-for sales figures under the previous manager Lowe. Y&R has around 80 million dollars at its disposal to convince consumers to take Xenical.
EuroDisney goes to Leo Burnett Disneyland Paris will be advertised by Leo Burnett in future. The Paris-based Leo office prevailed against budget holders Ogilvy & Mather, Euro RSCG, DDB Worldwide and D'Arcy. The budget amounts to around
65 million francs. Burnett already manages Disney World and Disneyland in the USA.
Brussels for CLT-Ufa and Pearson TV Europe's largest television and radio holding company CLT-Ufa may merge with British Pearson TV. Following a standard review, the EU Commission decided that a dominant market position would not be created. Although there are links between the companies in the film and television industry, there are no risks to competition.
Smart in Japan The DaymlerChrysler subsidiary Micro Compact Car plans to launch the Smart compact car in Japan and Taiwan this year. An advertising agency for the launch campaign has yet to be found. Dentsu, which looks after Mercedes-Benz in Japan, has a good chance.

Edelweiss Kids observed kids in the adventure world for the TV commercial campaignThe Swiss Museum of Transport's cash registers are no longer ringing as loudly as they used to, even though there is no shortage of attractions. In recent years, the institution has made major investments in the entertainment sector. For example, the first Swiss Imax cinema was opened in 1996, followed by the redesign of the rail hall, the opening of the Gotthard tunnel show and the renovation of the Cosmorama. "We have to fight for visitors every day," says Claudio Rossetti, Head of PR and Marketing at the Swiss Museum of Transport. A TV campaign commissioned to increase the flow of visitors is now intended to remedy this problem. "With the six commercials, we want to better inform the public about the expanded offer and at the same time polish up our dusty image," says Rossetti, describing the aim of the new advertising campaign.
To this end, the museum's diverse world of experiences is to be integrated into a single campaign. "It smacks of an appeal to all the senses," says Sigrid Baumann, consultant at the Edelweiss agency commissioned with the project, describing the initial idea behind the implementation. With a budget of 400,000 francs, this claim was ultimately implemented in six commercials.
The Primetimet tariffs were elegantly avoided, as the commercials are placed in the youth program and the core target group is aimed directly at without going beyond the financial framework. "The power to determine the Sunday program increasingly lies with the kids today," adds Rossetti. It is therefore important to win their favor.
Three Lucerne school classes were engaged for the low-budget production. Not a bad decision, because the shining children's eyes in the infrared shots are more convincing than shining model eyes. The commercials are also extremely emotional: the happy faces, the excited shouting and the spontaneous laughter make every child's heart beat faster. Zoom shots also convey a feeling of closeness and security. Thanks to trendy color filters, the films don't come across as bland as you'd expect from low-budget productions. Carole Koch

There is something to celebrate. Business is going great. We've seen growth like never before in the history of Plakanda," said host Peter Gmür, who was in a great party mood on the meadows of Gockhausen. By Andreas Panzeri Gmür, who is ranked among the 300 richest Swiss by the business magazine Bilanz and still owns 20% of Plakanda AWI shares in addition to Clear Channel (80% stake), was visibly delighted with the large crowd.

Over 900 advertising people and customers accepted the invitation to these "knights' games with food and drink" just outside Zurich. They enjoyed fanfare music, the sound of lutes and a sumptuous meal of suckling pig, goose pâté, carp, wild mushrooms, hares, bread soup and other "boiled" food.

All these specialties were cooked by caterers Bernhard and Gaby Attinger from Rossweid in Gockhausen according to original recipes from the Middle Ages. As a further loss in the style of the time, 40 horses with knights, servants and damsels performed an elaborately staged tournament battle.

"The field of poster advertising can sometimes be compared to a battlefield. Nevertheless, the knights' games have been chosen as this year's motto without any particular ulterior motive," said Plakanda Managing Director Beat Sulzer, denying WerbeWoche's profound assumptions. "We discovered the new party trend in Germany," revealed Christian Dür. With his Visualix advertising agency in Zurich, Dür has been in charge of the Plakanda fetes, which are always surprising with new ideas, for seven years.

For those who were more interested in the crisp calves of today's football mercenaries than the metal-clad legs of knights, a modern bar with TV sets was set up behind the medieval tent city. After all, the European Championship semi-final between Holland and Italy was also on the program that Thursday. Among the Italy fans, Roger Furrer stood out with a lot of "Caliente". The music promoter from Sound Managers revealed that he wants to (re)export his Zurich festival Tropical to Havana for the first time this summer. Furrer is the first Western organizer to receive a permit from Fidel Castro's Ministry of Culture for such a festival in Cuba.
Robi Weber's small talk also revolved around a festival. The jazzy advertiser has been commissioned by sponsor Chrysler to set up a jazz café in Montreux this summer.

Not exactly a new festival, but at least a "class reunion" could be announced by Astrid Kägi. The recently elected managing director of the business magazine Boom has organized a meeting for all former employees of her former ZüriWoche on Thursday this week.

The conversations in a neighboring tent with Rafael Müller also revolved around a celebration, albeit one that some poster advertisers have missed so far. "APG, with its 100th anniversary this year, will probably have to go over the books again. In any case, APG will have to come up with something after this Plakanda evening," said the outdoor advertising specialist from Werbehaus Zürich, speculating on a possible next poster party. After all, the summer has only just begun...

Andreas Panzeri

Two competitors are pulling in the same directionSRG and Presse-TV (PTV) have announced that they will apply to the Federal Council for a definitive license for their recycling channel SF info (SFi). The joint channel, which has been available via cable on a trial basis since May 1999 and can only be received in the Zurich region, is to be launched on January 1, 2001, financed by advertising and broadcast throughout German-speaking Switzerland. Although SFi only achieved a market share of 0.4 percent in the last twelve months, according to SRG boss Armin Walpen, the channel was mainly used by opinion leaders "who cannot watch our programs at a certain time every evening".
Even though the two initiators want to run one together, they do not have the same ideas. In other words, a new channel is being created with two different sub-concepts. As a result, SRG and PTV want to share the channel (channel sharing) and are therefore each submitting their own license application. The current experimental license for SFi is in the hands of SRG, PTV is only a program supplier.
PTV would like to update existing SFi programs
While SRG Director General Walpen only wants to repeat the expensive SF DRS info programs on SFi - possibly in abridged form - and expects "very low additional costs", PTV Managing Director Hans Jürg Deutsch thinks further ahead: He would like to update his own programs if necessary.
He also envisions additional information such as stock market commentaries or the broadcasting of (business-related) press conferences - especially for opinion leaders. The PTV Board of Directors, which is made up of representatives from NZZ, Basler Mediengruppe and Ringier, has also commissioned a feasibility study. The aim is to clarify how much additional funding is required for this idea - and what advertising revenue can be expected.
At present, only sponsor information may be recycled on SFi. The project manager for the PTV part is Anton Schaller, who is currently trying to coordinate another private TV project in Eastern Switzerland (WW 22/00) and also coached TeleOstschweiz. Markus Knöpfli

Brands are showing their teeth again, according to a study commissioned by the branded goods association Promarca, which examined the position of branded goods compared to retailers' own brands. Retail sales over the last three years show a positive trend in favor of branded products. More on page 15

The Swiss News Agency (sda) and the dpa subsidiary news aktuell have jointly founded news aktuell Switzerland. Starting in September, the new venture will offer PR services related to the distribution of text, images, and graphics to the media. At the same time, the sda is spinning off its existing PR platform, the Original Text Service (ots). The Original Image Service and Original Graphics Service, on the other hand, will be further expanded. Hardy Jäggi is the managing director of the new sda subsidiary in Zurich. Terend on desire. «People have more and more free time that needs to be filled with some activity. As a result, sexuality is becoming increasingly socially acceptable and less taboo.» This thesis can be found in the book *SexSells*. In it, Thomas Jendrosch analyzes how a potential for frustration—constantly present due to a lack of sex—can be skillfully exploited by marketing for advertising purposes. «The trend is on the rise,» concludes the German business consultant and marketing researcher. Through insightful analyses, Jendrosch demonstrates how the fundamental motifs of «eroticism» and «sexuality» find their way into advertising. And there they certainly have an impact, because «those who can’t do it want to pretend they can.» The book also provides an overview of how and where sex is becoming increasingly prevalent as content in today’s media. «SexSells» is published by GIT-Verlag and, of course (of course!), is richly illustrated.

Trouble for Tina. Tina Turner’s two concerts in Zurich over the weekend were a huge hit with the audience. For a high-profile Swisscom delegation, however, the opening night was nothing but a source of frustration—so much so that they left the Letzigrund Stadium before the concert even began. A film commissioned by Swisscom «for a great deal of money» about Tina Turner’s career was simply forgotten to be played by someone amid the chaos surrounding the live performance at the stadium. Consequently, none of the 45,000 fans in attendance on opening night noticed the Swisscom logo—as the concert’s main sponsor—in the film’s enhanced visuals.
SVP Campaign: Heading to Court After All? «No to Kosovo Albanians» was printed in large letters on the 1998 referendum posters of the Zurich City SVP. And in much smaller letters above it: «Yes to the contact network.» Nevertheless, the Zurich District Attorney’s Office recognized the factual context and therefore deemed the statement non-racist. It closed the criminal investigation in December 1998—and must now reopen it. According to a report in the Tages-Anzeiger, the District Court upheld an appeal and disagreed with the District Attorney’s Office: Due to the difference in font size, the primary message was «No to Kosovo Albanians,» and it must therefore be assumed that commuters from outside the area were unaware of the local political context of this message.
Unique is raking it in. First, Zurich Airport’s expensive CD was met with fierce criticism; then, it rained awards: At the Excellence in Airport Communications Awards, the Unique concept took home three awards. The awards were presented by the European Section of the Airports Council International. The Unique airport magazine won gold and can now claim to be the best in Europe. Zurich received bronze for its brochure and website. The new communications concept is thus highly regarded, at least within its own industry.
Uppercut by WHS. «Life is a headline. We’ll stay on top of it.» That’s the title of a book recently published by Werd Verlag, which traces the power and prestige of the printed word through the lens of the *Tages-Anzeiger*«s advertisements from recent years. A visual designed by WHS Zurich and featured in »Kopfauslage” takes the book’s title literally: The double-page spread, depicting the typewriter’s arms—adorned with boxing gloves—sends the reader on an inward journey. In a single stroke, the ad sparks a never-ending stream of reflection—on the value of written verbal exchanges, on mental agility, on the blows that life deals out, on psychological resilience, and on the meaning of fighting your way through. Let the reader decide what appeals to them: the advertisement for the book or the book itself.
TV 3 must stop airing commercial breaks. Programs such as «Fohrler live» are continuous broadcasts, even if a weather segment is inserted halfway through. They may therefore not be interrupted by commercials. The Federal Office of Communications (Bakom) has confirmed this decision, and the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy, and Communications (UVEK) has upheld it, dismissing TV 3’s appeal. The broadcaster now has three months to make the necessary program adjustments. TV 3 is disappointed with DETEC’s decision and plans to appeal it to the Federal Supreme Court. Managing Director Jürg Wildberger stated that the department is interpreting the law too strictly.
Bye Bye is courting fare evaders. «Rode without a fare?…Take a day off!» This slightly jarring slogan is currently being used in Zurich Public Transport (VBZ) trams to attract fare evaders. According to the fine print on the VBZ poster, anyone who receives a fine for fare evasion from VBZ will immediately get the 50 francs back when booking their next trip with Bye Bye Holiday and Travel. «VBZ thought the idea was funny and had their legal department review it,» explains Bernard Germanier from the Bye-Bye office in Bern. «People aged 14 to 29 are media pros. They know how traditional marketing strategies work. And they want to be marketed to in a clever way. Youth marketing can’t be reduced to just flashy jargon,» says Bye Bye Travel, where the idea was «launched and developed together with young people.» In Bern, the first fines from Zurich have already been accepted as payment for a budget trip.
Editorial

Zurich Marketers Off the Hook: Three years ago, the digital TV experiment plunged Leo Kirch into billions in debt. But this venture also had its bright side: Kirch was finally forced to make his TV stations more profitable. It makes sense for the low-profit Sat 1 to model itself after the successful Pro 7 stations.
But whether the new design is also a good solution for the advertising market,
Whether this will ultimately strengthen the TV platform as a whole remains to be seen. According to the letter of intent, the merger of the broadcasters is about much more than just saving a few million in back-office costs. Synergies are also to be leveraged on a larger scale in programming. But opinions are divided on this. Strengthening content distribution chains while simultaneously sharpening the profiles of the participating channels is a contradiction in terms. If the same content is rehashed even more intensively across different channels, the channels will ultimately end up looking just like the eggs on the Migros shelves. And even the new joint news provider, N 24, which supplies all the channels, could contribute more to blurring their identities than to the promised differentiation of the channels.
On the other hand, the consolidation of marketing efforts offers tangible benefits
from all broadcasters. It promises to simplify things for the advertising industry and lead to better offerings thanks to a stronger competitive position
among the RTL Group's channels.
However, this does not apply—for the time being—to advertising window marketers in Switzerland: IPM is allowed to keep Pro 7 and Kabel 1 in its portfolio for the time being, even though they
It also markets the competitors RTL and RTL2. Cinecom, on the other hand, which would be open to adding more channels, must make do with Sat 1 for the time being. Thus, while Pro 7/Sat 1 CEO Urs Rohner is keeping things local in his hometown of Zurich, the promised more aggressive competitive landscape in Switzerland falls by the wayside. The advertising industry is left behind—for now, at least. Daniel Schifferle

To limit the TV rating risk for advertising clients in summer, Cinecom is once again launching the "Free Booking when it's Cooking" campaign in July and August:Service Free Booking when it's Cooking On days with maximum temperatures of over 28 degrees, spots booked in Sat 1's advertising and program window are rebroadcast free of charge.
Produktion + Kreation The 2000 edition of Produktion + Kreation provides over 3000 addresses from the Swiss advertising and advertising production industry. The data is organized according to 330 keywords and ranges from agencies to their clients and associated service providers. The yearbook also serves as a practical handbook. Produktion + Kreation is available for CHF 100 from Verlag Media Daten AG, Kanzleistrasse 80, 8026 Zurich, phone 01 296 97 98, fax 01 296 97 02.
Press 2000 The VSW's Swiss Press 2000 magazine catalog now lists general-interest magazines, specialty and hobby magazines and trade journals in A4 format with all relevant data on circulation, publication frequency and advertising prices. The directory costs CHF 28 and can be obtained from: VSW, Avenue des Mousquines 4, P.O. Box 339, 1001 Lausanne, phone 021 213 61 41, fax 021 312 67 09 or via www.vsw-assp.ch