Striking Daily I brush my teeth, while Dr. med. dent. Richard Spielmann drinks Coca-Cola every day. Interesting, but it seems to me that we are no longer in the 1950s, when Mr. and Mrs. Consumer were told during long and detailed commercials what a fantastic effect some product would have on their everyday lives.
But apparently the backlash is taking place not only in the women's movement, but also in the advertising revolution. At least that's what you get when you look at the current Coca-Cola publicity report. In it, two experts explain in epic breadth why it is good to drink Coca-Cola and what positive effects the American soft drink has on our organism. I realize that we live in the age of information and that people want to know as much as possible about something. I also realize that everything that can be labeled medical and health has suddenly become much more suitable for the masses since the omnipresence of National Doctor Samuel Stutz. Until now, however, I was of the opinion that Coca-Cola is the best known and most popular of all soft drinks. Or is our Valser water giving the multi a hard time?
On the other hand, these ads seem very American. After all, there are always experts with good advice in the ads. So these are two adaptations, aren't they? Or maybe they are just belated reactions to last year's cola problems in Belgium. Either way, they just seem ridiculous. Instead of sticking to its true identity, which is that it has been successfully selling a sweetened and artificially created drink for years, it's now suddenly going serious. As if to apologize for its product. Chandra Kurt
Sex & the city

From Anna Esposito
There are few real reasons not to give up hope in life. For me, one of them is the soap opera "sex & the city. It stars a super pretty columnist (!) who goes through thick (English reading) and thin with her three girlfriends. Last Sunday's episode of "sex & the city" told me all about dealing with Mr. Not Right and I felt reconciled to my existence. Until Monday morning. Via email, a fellow fan sobbed, "It's no longer going on with our favorite show. It's summer break. What?!?! Excuse me!!? Summer break? In the sense of: Dear Mr. Müller, we now unplug the heart-lung machine, it is summer break? Nobody can say of me that I have no idea of the tides of rest and renewal, of soul feng shui and all that. Hectoliters of tears have already been shed on my shoulder because he, she and it just took a break. I know nature has its own laws, and summer is hot, especially for program directors. But is the summer break an excuse when a copywriter has to deliver the complete strategy, the unprecedented positioning, plus two campaigns, everything written out down to the coupon ad, exactly 7 minutes after the briefing? Not at all. Come to a customer, a consultant or a CD with summer break, Schreibebbe and deadline flood, thought darkness and emotional storm. Immediately stamped as a super-unprofessional, you can go weeding until you retire. If you don't run out of steam under extreme pressure, but also come up with one or two commercial ideas, you're set for life. At least until the next time. But I'll leave the commercial idea alone for now. One summer in the city long.
Language Observer

Second half - live!
Nothing has changed in terms of temperature. It has become even colder. Gerd Delling
I'll venture a prediction: It could go either way.
Ron Atkinson
I am an optimist. Even my blood group is positive.
Toni Polster
I see a positive trend: it can't get any lower.
Olaf Thon
Yes, statistics. But which statistics are true? According to the statistics, every fourth person is Chinese, but there is no Chinese playing here. Werner Hansch
Now the fans are chanting again: "Turkiye! Turkiye!", which means: "Turkey! Turkey!" Heribert Fassbender
Stankovic still has the future ahead of him. Sascha Rufer
Balakov has plenty of room - and space without end. Erich Laaser
Basel's free kicks are like real life: sometimes soft and short, sometimes hard and long.
Jörg Wontorra
No, dear viewers, that's not slow motion, he really is running that slow. Werner Hansch
Christoph Daum (about a stinky finger from Ulf Kirsten): He has indicated that he wants to be substituted in one minute.
If you concede a 0:2, then a 1:1 is no longer possible.
Aleksander Ristic
We didn't want to concede a goal. That worked out very well until we conceded the goal.
Thomas Hässler
The goal we conceded came at the worst possible time psychologically. But at this point, we must also ask whether there are goals that are conceded at a psychologically favorable time. Christoph Daum
Hate doesn't belong in the stadium. Such feelings should be acted out together with your wife at home in the living room. Berti Vogts
I never make predictions and never will.
Paul Gascoigne
Yes well, the result won't change much unless someone scores a goal.
Franz Beckenbauer
Yes well, there is only one option: win, draw or lose. Franz Beckenbauer
Beat Gloor, www.textcontrol.ch

Initiative Media, StarCom, and Carat have every reason to be nervous. They are participating in the largest budget review in the history of advertising: $2.6 billion is at stake. That’s the size of General Motors« U.S. media planning budget, which the automaker intends to consolidate under a single agency. Until now, a total of 17 agencies have handled media planning for GM’s various brands. Lovely is sleeping outdoors. AY&R’s famous cow looks thoroughly sleep-deprived on its latest poster. Yet tough times lie ahead for Lovely: at eight open-air events and festivals from St. Gallen to Nyon, the prominent dairy cow will be promoting refreshing milkshakes for tired concertgoers this summer. Sleeping in a sleeping bag is a must when it comes to staying close to customers. The color choice for Lovely’s »sleeping bag” turned out to be unfortunate. If you imagine the cow’s head gone, the lump of meat looks confusing. Internal editorial copy tests wavered between blood sausage and a gift from the humiliated circus dog in the 1998 milk commercial.
Archaeology of Everyday Life. Ten years ago, the Benetton magazine *Colors* was published for the first time. Under the title *Extra/Ordinary Objects*, *Colors* is celebrating this anniversary with an exhibition at the Stazione Leopolda in Florence. Through July 16, over a thousand exhibits await visitors. For example, underwear for priests is displayed next to a Ku Klux Klan robe, and a reproduction of the Auschwitz concentration camp stands next to a sculpture made of toilet paper. According to Benetton, the aim is to depict the world’s diverse cultures—and, once again, to spark conversation.
A politically correct watch. For more than a year, Wirz has been promoting the IWC watch brand with provocative slogans. The Schaffhausen timepieces are marketed as the last bastion of a closed, male-dominated world. But Federal Councilor Moritz Leuenberger, who sports an IWC Portugieser on his wrist, certainly did not want to be seen as a macho man. “It’s sexist,” Leuenberger complained about the IWC ad campaign, distancing himself from the slogans. To ensure the Federal Councilor could sleep soundly, Wirz was persuaded by IWC CEO Michael P. Sarp to design a politically correct poster. The agency used the opportunity to complain in the fine print about excessive sensitivity: If irony is no longer allowed, only one thing remains—utter boredom.
Cup finals and wine festivals for everyone. Major sporting and cultural events should not be reserved for pay-TV subscribers. Following the Council of States, the National Council has also approved an amendment to the relevant European convention on cross-border television broadcasting. The signatory states will compile a list of sports and cultural events that are of significant social importance and therefore may not be broadcast exclusively on pay TV. According to Federal Councilor Moritz Leuenberger, this includes events such as the soccer cup final and the Wine Festival.
Advertisements flow from the gas pump. The goal is to fill the spare time spent at the gas station with interactive advertising. The oil companies Chevron and BP Amoco are launching a pilot program in Atlanta: A screen on the pump displays—for as long as the gas is flowing—offers from local retailers and service providers. If a waiting driver is interested in an offer, they can have a discount coupon printed out.
Students in French-speaking Switzerland study longer. Polycom, the Western Swiss day school in Lausanne for communications professionals, has extended its program from two to three years. Founded in 1997 in collaboration with Sawi, the institute aims to offer its students an education that meets the rapidly changing demands of the market. Among other things, the new program allows for an in-depth study of finance and economics. It also takes into account the rapid developments in the field of new media.
Tokyo – New York – Bern. For the 13th time, the Bern-based trend magazine Soda is taking the world by storm—and bringing the world to Switzerland in the process: fashion shoots from New York and a graphic portfolio featuring impressions from Tokyo are featured alongside interviews with German pop stars. Ahead of the 13th issue, a vibrant mix of collages, photos, and articles unfolds across 113 pages. Soda has been in publication since 1997 and is published quarterly. The print run of 6,000 copies is distributed through Kiosk AG and select retail outlets in Switzerland. A portion of the print run is distributed to France, England, Germany, and the U.S.
Davidoff Rejected. The European Court of Justice has ruled that lawsuits filed by Davidoff and other companies against the EU’s tobacco advertising ban are inadmissible. The court held that the relevant EU directive does not constitute an individual decision affecting the companies in question. According to the Tobacco Advertising Directive, all advertising for tobacco products has been banned in the EU since August 2001. The directive does, however, allow EU member states to permit advertising for products other than tobacco that are marketed by the affected companies.
New Member Joins TeleCombi. The members of the private TV advertising pool TeleCombi (Tele M1, Tele Basel, Tele Bärn, Tele Tell) have welcomed Tele Ostschweiz as their sixth partner. However, three other candidates were turned away: Schaffhauser TV is not tracked by Telecontrol and therefore does not report viewership ratings, while Tele Top and Tele Südostschweiz, on the other hand, have jointly founded the Tele-Leader pool (WW 22/00) and thus forfeited their eligibility for membership. TeleCombi Managing Director Christian Stärkle explained that his private TV advertising pool does not accept sub-pools. The new TeleCombi rate will be finalized this week.
TA-Media is permitted to increase its stake in Radio Zürisee. The Federal Council has approved the increase in TA-Media’s stake in the local radio station Zürisee. TA-Media is increasing its stake from 1.7 % to 26.7 %. Changes in ownership interest of more than 20 % are subject to approval under the Federal Radio and Television Act.
Editorial

editorial: People are buried in their newspapers
No one would have expected that, in the age of the Internet, new free newspapers of all things would pose such a massive challenge to the media market. But even before there is any sign of an end to the race—which has now spread to Basel and Bern—between 20 Minuten and Metropol, one thing is already clear: The competition is good for everyone.
Traditional free newspapers across the country are now rapidly implementing long-overdue structural changes. All are gearing up to meet the market needs of the future. In Basel, the perennial problem child *Basler Woche*—which had never managed to climb out of the deep red throughout its entire history—is disappearing. The beneficiary is *Baslerstab*, which has been expanded into a commuter newspaper; it will inherit the editorial content of *Basler Woche*, thereby becoming more appealing to readers.
20 Minuten and Metropol also initiated a necessary learning process by doing away with an outdated understanding of their readership. The concept of commuter newspapers understands the readership as it actually functions—namely, as a dynamic group that wants to be reached where they are on the go and where they have time to read. Previous publications, which drew a distinction between the suburbs and the city center, had not adequately addressed this need. That is why it makes sense for the Berner Tagblatt Media Group to merge the Tagblatt, distributed in the city, with its suburban newspaper, the Berner Bär. This step, too, takes the readership’s actual lifestyle into account.
If the readers win, then the media wins too. This is already evident on the eve of the battle's expansion
to ensure a steady flow of free readers to Bern and Basel. Anyone traveling in the greater Zurich area who observes people on trains, trams, or at stations will clearly notice: Today, far more people are reading the newspaper than they were a year ago. For newspaper culture, this already means the goal has been achieved—even if, for 20 Minuten and Metropol, the costly battle over materials is only just beginning.
and it remains to be seen who will win either of them. Daniel Schifferle

Only a few international companies can afford an expensive study to measure the impact of their advertising campaign in GermanyWolfgang J. Koschnick If you ask market research institutes whether they do advertising tracking, you always get the same answer: "Yes, of course, we track like the world champions. But is all that called tracking? Of course not.
If you poke around a bit in empirical data and look at what happened before and what happened after, you call that bit of gawking a tracking study right away. There's no way to avoid that. After all, tracking is not a protected trademark. You can't stop someone from calling it that if they're just juggling around with some data over time. Nevertheless, one should only talk about tracking if it is a real wave survey with at least two (better more) survey waves based on reasonably sufficient sample sizes.
In the Anglo-Saxon world - where the concept was invented - the content of an advertising tracking study is defined much more narrowly: it must be a continuous study with personal interviews, conducted at least at monthly or half-yearly intervals, but better still at weekly intervals, and the samples of which must in no case be less than 200 or 400 individuals or households. Larger samples are desirable, and it is now considered acceptable for the data to be collected by telephone survey.
Modest Swiss tracking models
More important than these formal features, however, is that the study does what it promises to do, namely that it tracks advertising campaigns over time and thereby brings to light useful results about the effect of the advertising media used. It thus collects indicators of advertising impact and examines their development over the course of an advertising campaign - hence the good old term campaign development study.
It's an excellent description of what tracking studies do. They examine the course of advertising campaigns to find out whether they achieve their communication goals and are worth the money. But in our Americanized world, it's simply no longer possible to put it in such Germanic terms.
In this narrow sense, there are very few tracking studies in Switzerland that really deserve the name. Yes, one can write without great exaggeration that Switzerland is a barren wasteland when it comes to advertising tracking. In Austria, a country of comparable size, there are a total of eight fully-fledged tracking studies with all the necessary trimmings. Some of them - such as the RollMA of the Linz Institute for Market and Social Analyses (Imas) - are so successful that they have been exported to Germany and - under a different name - also to Switzerland.
There are around 20 standardized tracking studies on offer in Germany. Some of them - such as RTL's Advertising Impact Compass, Sat 1's AdTrend study, the NIKO Advertising Index or the GfK Advertising Indicator/ATS - are among the most highly developed and sophisticated methods of global advertising tracking anywhere. In comparison, the models available in Switzerland look rather modest. Very modest, in fact.
AX Print and AX TV only survey trends
In fact, it is very difficult to say how many standardized tracking offers there are in Switzerland, because a whole series of studies call themselves such, but in reality are not advertising tracking studies at all. This is especially true of the continuous advertising tests that Demoscope offers under the names AX Print and AX TV as part of its Market Radar. The abbreviation AX stands for Advertising IndeX.
At best, the two individual studies, which test several hundred ads and TV spots per year at monthly intervals, can be described as a tracking of general advertising trends. They can be used to determine which types and forms of advertising particularly appeal to certain target groups and which new trends are emerging. But that's just something completely different from campaign-accompanying impact research in the form of wave surveys.
The Market Radar software makes it possible to read test results from your own advertising tests (Ad) into the test results of the advertising environment (from AX). In this way, a kind of benchmarking can be achieved. This makes it possible to see how well one's own advertising performs in comparison to the competition and in its target group, and how the competition is performing. All of this may be very useful. But it has very little to do with campaign-related impact research.
Tracking is often as expensive as a campaign
The Swiss advertising industry has to do without a larger selection of standardized tracking methods. This is a question of supply and demand. Swiss companies are generally of a completely different scale than international companies. The costs of continuous monitoring of advertising expenditure and advertising success in Switzerland are dangerously close to the level of national advertising campaigns themselves.
So it's hardly worth it, or only in the rarest of cases. Nevertheless, this is no explanation for the Swiss advertising industry's extensive tracking abstinence; because in comparison, Austria is a true tracking paradise.
Probably the best established model on the market is the Print Advertising Monitor (PAM), although it has only been around for a year. Tracking is still as young as a fresh spring day in Switzerland. After a pilot test in 1998, Publimedia, the key account company of Publicitas, launched the Print Advertising Monitor in the spring of 1999. With PAM, it offers its customers the opportunity to check whether advertising campaigns in print media are achieving their advertising goals.
Whether the PAM is a fully-fledged tracking study at all is a matter for considerable debate, although the point is absolutely clear: it is far too puny in its layout and design to merit the designation of advertising tracking. In fact, PAM is nothing more than a cross-title copy test for German-speaking Switzerland, documenting the transport performance of print campaigns. But at least it goes into the field on a monthly basis.
As indicators of advertising success, the Demoscope Institute uses a series of standard questions on advertising impact (aided recall, product interest and ad rating) on behalf of Publimedia and is also able to include additional questions on defined campaigns in the survey.
While numerous international tracking studies sometimes draw on ten or more indicators and thus draw from a large wealth of data, PAM makes do with just a few indicators. That is very modest.
The important thing is whether the scale with which you measure is correct
However, this should not be judged critically in principle. Whether a study has a single scale or many scales is basically immaterial. The only thing that matters is whether the scale (or scales) measures what it is supposed to measure. And if it does, it is even a requirement of parsimony - the principle of scientific proportionality between effort and yield - not to overload a study with the gigantic fuss of numerous measuring instruments that all end up measuring the same thing.
It's no secret that many tracking studies rely on ten or more indicators out of sheer ignorance. You don't know exactly how things are related to each other. So you choose a lot of indicators. One of them will measure something useful. And if not, then all of them together will certainly measure something useful. Research can be that primitive. In any case, the multitude of measurements will produce some kind of results that can be used to juggle and, above all, to trade. After all, market research has to sell itself...
PAM certainly cannot be accused of using too many indicators. There is no doubt that he takes the requirement of parsimony into account. But the result is also quite parsimonious. Since PAM has only been in existence for a year, impressive tracking experience cannot yet be reported. After all, Publimedia has now tested around 60 campaigns. The pool of impact data on campaigns in various markets is gradually growing.
In any case, PAM is primarily an instrument of generic marketing for print media. It provides publishers, agencies and advertising companies with arguments for the use of print media. That is also the only higher purpose of its existence.
Psychometer optimizes spots and their length
The AdTrack model of the Lucerne-based Link Institute for Market and Social Research is of a somewhat different caliber, but it too is content to measure a few parameters for testing advertising impact, namely spontaneous and aided advertising recall. This study, too, which has so far been used for a single client and is only just about to be opened up to other clients, can therefore by no means be accused of disregarding the principle of parsimony in the use of indicators.
An almost - but only almost - fully-fledged tracking model is the Psychometer of the Lucerne research institute Interdata, which, however, did not grow on Swiss soil. It emerged from the Austrian TV RollMA developed by the Imas Institute in Linz toward the end of the 1980s.
This in turn evolved from the RollMA. Since 1982, it has recorded the awareness presence of brands from a variety of product fields every two months, alternating with the Austrian Consumer Analysis (ÖVA). In 1988, this measurement procedure gave rise to the TV RollMA, the aim of which was to determine, in a detailed TV spot analysis, which characteristics and features have a positive impact on advertising impact and consumers' willingness to buy.
Today, the advanced study is known as Psychometer. The advertising industry owes it a series of groundbreaking findings on the optimum length of commercials and commercial breaks on television.
Like most econometric models of advertising effectiveness, the Psychometer is based on ideas from the psychology of learning: Consumers "learn" the content of advertising. The memory of what is learned diminishes over time if there is no reinforcement. The stronger the competition from other "learning material," the lower the "learning performance."
Theories about advertising pressure gather banalities
This explains the great importance that such studies assign to advertising pressure. Accordingly, the advertising impact depends on the advertising pressure exerted by an industry as a whole (external pressure) as well as the pressure exerted by the individual advertisers themselves (internal pressure). The conclusion from this is only seemingly logical and actually also falls behind well-worn clichés: if all competitors advertise a lot, you have to spend a lot of money to be heard at all in the general advertising din. In the much-cited advertising holes, on the other hand, namely in summer and winter, you have to spend much less money to make an impact.
But even the premise is questionable. The idea behind the "summer slump" in particular is that it is not worthwhile to advertise a lot because most of the target group is away. And if this assumption is correct, then the whole theory about large and not so large advertising pressure is for nothing.
So at least no one is surprised that the many fine theories about the sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker advertising pressure very rarely get beyond banalities: You can achieve much more with a lot of money than with little. But sometimes even a lot of money doesn't help if, for example, you have a big appetite for chocolate and go to an electronics store only to find out that you can't get chocolate there even for a lot of money. You have to direct your advertising communication very precisely at the target group if the investment is to be of any use. Unfortunately, this is not a matter of course in the age of TV advertising.
The communication monitor measures by channel
As an indicator of advertising success, Interdata has been measuring spontaneous and aided recall of a spot, its familiarity and recall of individual scenes based on storyboards as part of the Psychometer in Switzerland since 1992. To date, Interdata has tested just under 2,500 TV spots.
However, the psychometer is missing two essential elements for a tracking study: It is not a real wave survey with a sufficient sample size, but a pretest, a posttest or even a combination of both, depending on the customer's wishes. And only if a pretest and a posttest are used in combination with each other can the whole event be described as advertising tracking, if viewed in the most benevolent manner and with two eyes firmly closed.
Probably most astonishing of all is this: The large, all-powerful IHA-GfM Institute in Hergiswil, which is by far the largest market research institute in Switzerland with around 300 full-time employees and annual sales of almost 54 million Swiss francs, currently has just one, largely unknown standardized tracking study in its portfolio: the Communications Monitor. Little can be learned about it because the entire area of communications research at IHA-GfM is in a state of flux.
The question of branding is only asked at the end
One of the ways in which the Communication Monitor differs from other tracking systems is that it records all communication influences separately by channel - i.e. TV, print, posters, radio, cinema, Internet, events/sponsorship, direct mail, personal conversations, editorial contributions - and uses the chain of effects to record their influence on attitudes, liking, preference and more.
In doing so, it not only asks about perceived advertising, but only poses the question of branding at the end, in order to prevent the results from being distorted by notoriously well-known brands such as Coca-Cola. The monitor measures all the classic parameters of advertising impact and shows the correlations in the defined market between communication, attitudes, (brand) positioning and behavior.
Identical target persons must be able to be interviewed
In principle, any market research company that offers a multi-topic survey such as IHA-GfM's Interbus can of course also carry out tracking by including a series of campaign-related questions in this survey. But standardized tracking is something fundamentally different.
The decisive advantage - the cumulative gain of data over a large number of campaigns - cannot be offered by such multi-topic surveys used for tracking purposes.
However, with more than 20 retail and consumer panels alone, the IHA-GfM Institute offers a large number of studies that are often much more productive than some of the very crudely designed advertising tracking studies. The ideal instrument for observing and monitoring changes - including the effects of advertising - in market and media research is, after all, panels, i.e. samples of identical (and not merely similar) target persons who are always asked the same questions in several survey waves. The instrument is eminently suitable for identifying and analyzing changes in attitudes.
Insofar as surveys aim to ascertain the changes in attitudes brought about by the use of advertising, panels would in principle also be an excellent instrument for measuring them. However, they have the disadvantage of conditioning respondents so strongly through continuous exposure to the advertising messages under investigation that the overall results would be distorted.
Autumn promises tracking improvements
Nevertheless, the nebulous gloom over the Swiss tracking scene will be lifted a little this year. In the fall, IHA-GfM will launch the first major tracking study, the Swiss ATS (Advertising Tracking System),
which also meets international standards. It is an adaptation to the Swiss market of the GfK advertising indicator ATS developed by the German parent company - Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung (GfK) in Nuremberg.
GfK*ATS has been able to establish itself as an internationally applicable and constantly improved instrument in the German-speaking countries. Austrian Fessel-GfK is currently working on implementing this instrument in Central and Eastern Europe. The aim is to use a standard questionnaire, standardized and more precise analysis processes and a harmonized reporting system.
The Swiss ATS also relies on the classic variables of advertising tracking such as advertising and brand awareness, advertising recall, slogan awareness and
-association, use, purchase and brand images. Compared to other models, however, it is characterized by a stronger consideration of advertising-specific elements over brand-relevant aspects. In this way, Swiss ATS aims to take account of the strong importance of advertising for the success of the brand.
Continuity of tracking with monthly survey waves, if possible, is important; because meaningful results can only be achieved with a sufficient number of measurement points. Approaches such as data agglomeration from smaller, rolling samples or pooling concepts, i.e. the integration of several product categories into one survey wave, help to reduce the costs of continuous advertising tracking.
Lack of tracking studies is not a disaster
Sophisticated and highly differentiated tracking instruments, which are based on complex theories of advertising impact and have been permanently optimized over the course of many years, are practically non-existent in Switzerland. Studies such as IP Deutschland's Advertising Impact Compass (WWK), Sat 1's AdTrend or even the Niko Advertising Index are not yet to be found in this country. And it doesn't seem as if this should change much in the next few years.
This is perhaps not a big catastrophe, because in most tracking studies, effort and performance are somehow blatantly disproportionate. Huge mountains of data are always scrambled to produce nothing but insignificant mice of knowledge. There is no doubt that Switzerland is a leader when it comes to tracking.
a single research desert. But this desert is also an island of the blessed, because it spares the Swiss advertising industry a lot of survey hullabaloo that sometimes yields little and sometimes nothing at all that makes sense.
Advertising tracking in Switzerland
With this article, WerbeWoche continues the multi-part series of articles by trade journalist Wolfgang J. Koschnick on advertising tracking in Switzerland. The article following this part on the situation in Switzerland looks at some of the most developed international tracking models, presents the state of the art in tracking research, and examines the question of whether the Swiss advertising industry could not gain considerable insights into the effect of advertising over the course of a campaign by introducing a proper, sophisticated tracking study.

FCB Leutenegger Krüll once again designed the program booklet of Theater NeumarktIt was an exciting and sometimes tough year, says Crescentia Dünsser, who runs Theater Neumarkt together with Otto Kukla. In order to get to know the city, they approached Zurich by staging events outside the theater, she says. In the new season, Theater Neumarkt is dealing with the changing role of the individual. Today's (adventure) society throws the individual back on himself, Dünsser said. The starting point for planning the play was an examination of traditional family structures.
Contemporaries form the focus of the program: six young authors, including three from Switzerland, are performed, one old as a counterpoint. The stories are primarily about young people who are searching for the role they have to play in a wide variety of life situations.
FCB Leutenegger Krüll continues to provide advertising support for the Zurich stage. The agency from Wallisellen implemented the season's theme with an eye-catching idea: a sensual program booklet shows macro shots of body parts. The images enable an association of individual experiences.
Furthermore, the shots communicate that the current season is about a close-up of the human being. The "skin pictures," not sexist but intimate, do not miss their mark: "People want to look into the program right away," says Crescentia Dünsser, who finds the concept "pretty awesome.
The bulkiness of the unwieldy A3-format publication also reflects a characteristic of the theater: namely, its non-conformity. "Theater Neumarkt is not a general store that offers whatever is trendy at the moment," says the artistic director. Ernst Weber

Ten "leading magazines" are launching an online ad auction in SeptemberBy Daniel Schifferle Determining the price of ads yourself - this is the motto of ten leading Swiss-German magazines launching an online auction where people can haggle over ten full-page ads.
Magazines - an expensive advertising medium? "A prejudice," say the "leading magazines," an association of the ten most important German-speaking Swiss titles that came together two years ago for a genre marketing campaign. The initiators want to get to the root of this prejudice with an awareness campaign. With the campaign, they want to show that the thousand-contact prices (CPM) of magazines are not only competitive compared with other print media, but are even outstandingly low.
A planning aid featuring the ten participating titles is now available on the homepage www.fueh rendeZeitschriften.ch. In a playful way, the CPMs can be determined and compared for a wide variety of booking options and target groups. The highlight of the campaign is an online auction in which ten four-color ad pages are put up for auction, one for each participating title. Total value of the ads: 164000 Swiss francs. The auction begins on September 18 with a minimum bid of CHF 10,000. Thereafter, bidding will continue for eight days. The highest bidder will be awarded the contract on September 26 at 12 noon sharp. The auctioned ads will be placed between October 25 and 28.
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a bargain? "The final bid will probably be very close to the real price," surmises Duke Seidmann, Head of Advertising Market Magazines at Ringier, "because we want to convince people of the magazines' strong price-performance ratio." In other words, if the final bid were significantly lower than the real cost of the ten ad pages, this would mean that magazine rates are generally considered too expensive.
www.fuehrendezeitschriften.ch

Two years ago, ten Swiss-German titles joined forces for joint genre marketing under the name "leading magazines": Annabelle, Beobachter, Bilanz, Facts, Glückspost, Schweizer Familie, Schweizer Illustrierte, Meyers, Tele and TR7. The aim: to profile the strengths of the magazine as an advertising medium in the advertiser market.
The first two campaigns in 1998 and 1999 tried to show that magazines know no summer slump, either in terms of content or usage. This year's campaign aims to draw attention to the magazines' comparatively low cost per thousand (CPM).
The current as well as the two previous awareness campaigns were created by Rüegg Werbung, Zurich. Bemberg Gedenk Media AG, Zurich, is responsible for media.

BaZ expands Basler staff, discontinues Basler Woche, and rides public transport with the free paperNow it's definite: The Basel Media Group (BMG) will discontinue one of its two free titles, the heavily loss-making Basler Woche (BaWo), on June 29 and, in return, will expand the editorial staff of Baslerstab from September 1. BMG hopes to be prepared for competition from the commuter newspapers 20 Minuten and Metropol, both of which are planning to come to Basel (and Bern) in the fall.The new free paper is to be distributed in Basel from Monday to Friday with a circulation of 8,000 copies to all households in the city by early delivery, and another 20,000 copies will be placed at 100 stops of regional transport companies.
On Wednesdays and Fridays, a regional edition with 95,000 copies is also planned as before, which will be distributed to almost all households in the Basel area. For years, the Baslerstab had a Saturday edition in the city and a fortnightly edition for southern Baden across the border. Both will now be discontinued, according to Daniel Sommer, Head of Publishing Basel in the BMG Group Management.
The new newspaper-format paper contains eleven pages (40 percent of the total) of current brief information, services and radio and TV programs. The editorial team with Editor-in-Chief Luc Bürgin (previously Deputy BaWo Editor-in-Chief) consists of eleven people. The previous BaWo Editor-in-Chief, Walter Schäfer, will take over the Communications/Human Resources division at BMG, while BaWo Publishing Director Matthias Hugenschmidt will be given an as yet unspecified "executive function" in the Basel Publishing Division.
The Baslerstab will not see any changes in advertising rates. Regional ads will be acquired by the crew under publishing director Daniel Weick himself, while national ads will be handled by Publicitas.
Despite the new free competition, the two other newspapers in the Basel region, Basellandschaftliche Zeitung (bz, 26100 copies) and Volksstimme (8100 copies), are currently doing nothing. For bz publisher Mathis Lüdin, early delivery is not an issue for financial reasons, but he would be interested in taking over Volksstimme. According to Volksstimme co-publisher Robert Bösiger, the paper is not for sale. Markus Knöpfli

More and more advertisements in the U.S. and Europe are using the trend color blue to steel blueBy Chandra Kurt Cool blue is in, according to the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA). At least as a background color on various ads, the primary color is being used more and more across the board, so to speak. SBB, Nissan, Nivea, Evian, Marlboro Mild and Elle are just a few of the brands that rely on the cool, futuristic connotation of the color in their advertising.
One of the most famous and significant sections of Pablo Picasso's work continues to inspire reverence for the great master around the world. It bears the promising name: Blue Period. National as well as international advertising campaigns currently seem to be likewise
The majority of the advertisements published are dominated by a slightly subdued navy blue color.
This empirically verifiable finding was recently announced in New York at an event organized by the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA). After all the major advertising agencies had presented their new campaigns, the new trend in color choice was clear to the experts. Those who back their prints and commercials with cool silver blue are keeping up with the times.
Blue is a typical man color for women
According to Mimi Cooper of Cooper Marketing and author of the reference book "Color Smart," "The first thing consumers notice about an ad is its color. It commands his attention and sends signals. Blue with a cool silver tone is the trendiest color these days. Therefore, those who keep up with the times make use of this nonverbal communication aid."
Rob Schwartz, creative director of TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles, also relies on steel blue: "Ads with this color are best remembered. Steel blue is also synonymous with new technology, millennials and urban individuality. Qualities that shape and influence today's consumer." What's more, blue is one of the world's most popular colors of all.
Jill Morton, color consultant and founder of colormatters.com, has a completely different opinion. In her opinion, it's mainly male creatives who go for this blend of blue: "Women are fed up with steel blue. They react very negatively to it because blue is a man's color in their eyes." If not blue, then what? According to Morton, the color of the future is heading toward orange. "Banana Republic, for example, has already launched various ads in orange, and I'm sure that color will replace blue period."

A new book by James B. Twitchell presents the 20 most important campaigns of the 20th centuryBy Thérèse Balduzzi James B. Twitchell, American author of critical books on pop culture and advertising, seems to have come to terms with the omnipresence of advertising. His new book "Twenty Ads That Shook the World" is an analysis of twenty campaigns that have become American cultural assets. It reads like an ode to advertising.
Whether you like it or not, the author says in the introduction to his new book that advertising has replaced the former literary common knowledge as a frame of reference in conversations. Twitchell, who has criticized commercial culture in numerous books ("Adcult USA: The Triumph of Advertising in American Culture", "Lead us into Temptation: The Triumph of American Materialism" and "Carnival Culture: The Trashing of Taste in America"), does not, however, attack this reality in great depth and takes a pragmatic stance. However, he criticizes the fact that far too little is known about the history of advertising and that it is not even taught enough in advertising schools.
With his new book, Twitchell aims to fill this gap in the historiography of advertising culture and analyze the development and success of campaigns that, in his opinion, have fundamentally changed American culture and thus the rest of the world influenced by American culture.
Advertisers also created the needs for the product
Twitchell does not explain his selection criteria in detail. Of course, he is not only interested in the most clever campaigns, but also in the art with which information is communicated and absorbed, and in the art of influencing consumers. He sees his list as an analogy to anthologies that compile the most important works of Western literature.
He enthusiastically recounts the ingenious pranks that advertisers have come up with over the years. Twitchell begins in the dark beginnings of the industry 120 years ago, when a certain P. T. Barnum described his cabinet of curiosities from New York as the "Greatest Show on Earth", making him the forefather of all superlatives and excessive exaggerations in advertising copy. (The word "jumbo" goes back to Barnum.) The sellers of the mouthwash "Listerine" also achieved a stroke of genius in 1924 by first creating a sense of shame for the "medical" problem of "halitosis" (bad breath) and then immediately offering a cure for it. The expression "Pepsodent smile" had a similar effect on perception and language.
Advertising is being brought close to promises of salvation
From the 1950s onwards, old acquaintances appear again and again in such compilations: The Marlboro Man, who stylized the former women's cigarette into the epitome of male independence; DeBeer's "Diamonds are forever" campaign, which made diamonds an integral part of mating rituals; the "Think small" campaign for the VW Beetle in 1962, which managed to sell Americans a small car, and Clairol's "Does she...or doesn't she?" campaign, which broke the taboo on hair dyeing. From the 70s onwards, we have Revlon's "Charlie" advertisement, which boldly pointed to the new self-image of women, the Absolut campaign as the perfect "packaging" for a boring drink, the legendary Apple 1984 commercial by Chiat/Day and, last but not least, the Michael Jordan phenomenon.
Advertising is a typically Western phenomenon, writes author James B. Twitchell, who also finds parallels to the Christian religion and its promises of salvation in his analysis. However, he considers the exaggerated criticism of the materialism of consumer culture to be misguided: we need the very meanings that advertising attaches to products because we are not materialistic enough. The claim that advertising creates artificial needs is based on the myth of a time when people only had natural rather than cultural needs.

Tiscali unifies its European Internet portals and launches a broad advertising campaignBy Clemens Hörler After some delay, DataComm's portal was relaunched under the name tiscalinet.ch - following the example of its Italian counterpart tiscalinet.it. An international communication campaign is to position the Internet group Tiscali, to which DataComm also belongs, in Europe.
DataComm, which was taken over by the Sardinian telecom company Tiscali in January, continues to exist under this name for the time being, but the DataComm brand is doomed to die. The lettering "Tiscali" dominates the display windows of DataComm stores.
"" it also says on the website www.datacomm.ch, the former portal of the Basel Internet provider. A link leads to the new portal in delicate lilac, which was launched a few days ago: this closely follows the Italian model, as do the sister portals in Belgium, Spain, the Czech Republic, France and Germany. Tiscali aims to standardize its presence throughout Europe with country portals designed along the same lines.
Since the launch of Tiscalinet.ch, DataComm has once again offered its users a modern portal. However, to be able to play at the top of the Swiss portal business, the offering would have to be expanded considerably. "We are currently still negotiating with potential partners and will gradually expand our offering in the regional and national area," announces DataComm Managing Director Eliseo Palmieri, who replaced DataComm founder Dino Trovato as CEO a few weeks ago.
In the news area, DataComm has already gained a partner for Tiscalinet.ch: News.ch, the news portal of Internet Medien AG and Vadian.Net AG, will supply the content for Tiscalinet.ch during a three-month test phase. Which partner(s) will subsequently deliver the content in three languages is still open. Among others, Swiss Txt is also under discussion.
International advertising campaign by Saatchi & Saatchi
Advico Young & Rubicam was originally commissioned to run a DataComm advertising campaign in Switzerland. However, Tiscali's international market development strategy and the standardization of its portals throughout Europe then led to the advertising campaign also being designed on a Europe-wide basis.
That is why an international TV and print campaign by Saatchi & Saatchi, Milan, is now being launched in Belgium, Germany, France and Switzerland. The black-and-white commercial and various print motifs focus on the role of the Internet as an integrative factor in society and as a catalyst for the merging of cultures.
The advertising campaign features portraits of the poor and the rich, the young and the old, American police officers and Maasai warriors. Opposites that limit in the real world, according to the campaign's message, become a source of information by being brought together collectively on the Internet, thereby generating added value. The campaign's slogan, "I became millions of people and together we are the Internet," is meant to document this diversity.
On its website, Tiscali describes the basic idea behind the campaign in the following words: "The Internet is expanding the boundaries of our being and our possibilities. Tiscali is working to enable more and more people and ideas to participate in the life of the Net."
With this advertising campaign, Tiscali picks up on an original idea of the Internet, but one that is still far removed from reality. After all, the Internet is still a marginal phenomenon in most of the world's cultures and far from connecting them with the rich industrialized countries. And even within Europe, there is still a gap between rich and poor when it comes to Internet use, despite free access in most countries.

At the 47th Advertising Festival in Cannes, the Swiss won a Cyber Lion and a Media LionBy Samuel Helbling Great Britain and the USA also dominated this year's advertising film festival on the Côte d'Azur. Despite Switzerland's record participation of 399 entries, only Futurecom won a Cyber Lion for a screensaver and WHS a Media Lion for its Graubünden campaign. In the prestigious Film and Press & Poster categories, however, the Swiss came away empty-handed.
Lightning, thunder, hail. A Mercedes driver confidently drives through the worst of the dog weather, while his wife enjoys herself at home with a lover. In the Springer & Jacoby TV commercial, the wife acknowledges the husband's fear that she will soon be surprised by him with a snide "But not in this weather! The husband, at the end of his stormy journey - and in the arms of his beloved - allays her suspicions with the same reply. Humor as understood in Cannes and awarded a Silver Lion by the jury.
Even if the annual ceremonies and rituals in the advertising mecca always follow the same scripts, time does not stand still, at least in the TV commercials. Whereas four years ago the notorious side-splitter received a slap in the face when he tried to blame his lateness on a breakdown of his Mercedes, today there is perpetrator symmetry: husband and wife no longer owe each other anything. The audience liked it.
It was to remain the only film medal for the entire German-speaking region. It could just as well have been a Gold Lion, but for that the TV spot came from the wrong country - "German bashing" is still a reality in Cannes, although not as vociferous as before. In Cannes, people are politically correct to the point of pain, but they remain trapped in an incomprehensible Germanophobia.
The Mercedes spot benefited from the fact that it was dubbed in English and not subtitled. "Germanic is still a stumbling block in Cannes," jury member Feico Derschow tried to put the German-speaking countries' still low Lion haul into perspective.
Otherwise, the Anglo-Saxons dominated the advertising film festival as they always have. The USA (26 Film Lions, including 10 Golden Lions) and England (24 Lions, including 7 Golden Lions) defended their reputation as the most creative advertising nations in the world. They left the rest far behind.
Firmly in the hands of the beer industry were the two main awards: Both the Stella Artois campaign by Lowe Lintas, London, and the "Whassup" spot series by DDB, Chicago, were awarded a Grand Prix. Both works rely on the "snotty effect" recommended by Advertising Age editor Bob Garfield to appeal to teens: "If you want to reach 14-year-olds, you either have to show tits or come across as snotty." Both works relied on the latter.
The Stella Artois ads feature valuable designer furniture or vehicles that have been damaged when a beer bottle is opened. The campaign does completely without the familiar elements of beer advertising: You don't see a bottle, you don't see happy people, you don't see beer foam - you only see, very small, a beer mat and a damaged design icon. These beer drinkers must be vandals or philistines or so rich that they can afford such exclusive consumer goods as bottle openers...
By contrast, the beer-loving male friendship celebrated in the Budweiser films "Whassup" by DDB, Chicago, is quite different. The spot series turned out to be an undisputed crowd favorite among the festival community in southern France. It shows a couple of couch potatoes sitting in front of the TV, talking on the phone and greeting each other with a bawling "Whassuuuuuup" (What's up) - spoken in the broadest slang, with their tongues out. The answer is always the same: "Watching the game, having a Bud.
In the USA, the campaign with the bawling dumbasses already enjoys cult status, and "Whassuuuup" is currently said to be the most famous greeting formula between Los Angeles and New York. The spots get down to business without frills, and are filmed sec and realistically. "Whassup" director Charles Stone - it's his first commercial, by the way - has since been hailed as a shooting star of the American advertising scene. As his numerous fans in Cannes showed, his beer humor is also extremely infectious in Europe thanks to his "Whassup" phrase: everyone can adopt it in their speech.
And "Whassup" with the Swiss? Of their 120 entries, three made it onto the film shortlist. Nominated were McCann-Erickson, Zurich, with the spot "Polizeikontrolle" (see WW 22/00) for Alcoholics Anonymous (produced by Pumpkin Film, Zurich), Seiler DDB, Basel, with the stop-Aids spot "Knopf" (Wirz + Fraefel, Zurich) and AY&R with the spot "Car" (see WW 21/99) for Kuoni (Outsider, London).
The latter received a lot of applause from the audience, but it still wasn't enough to win an award. According to Feico Derschow, the jury disliked the heroic perspective from which the "Knopf" spot was filmed. The Kuoni spot, on the other hand, was considered by the majority of the jury to be too awkward - the idea seemed to have been worked out - and was therefore eliminated from the running at an early stage.
This year, the Internet companies presented themselves as extremely unimaginative and lacking in strategy. At the final press conference, jury president Marcello Serpa expressed his disappointment at the level of the dotcom commercials. As dynamic as the new economy industry is, its advertising is boring.
Closeness to life is in demand - Hollywood is out
What else could be learned from Cannes? Hollywood is out - what's needed is reality and authenticity. Very expensive spots were the absolute exception. Even if the production was elaborate, everyone tried to tell simple, straightforward stories without frills. There is humanity everywhere in the spots; it seems that with the boom in reality TV shows, human strengths and weaknesses are increasingly attractive for commercials.
The work of the jury was judged in part critically by the Swiss advertisers. They probably picked out the most interesting works from the 6,000 submissions, but unfortunately did not do enough rigorous sorting out, it was said in circles of the Swiss delegation. The fact that the jury is not infallible and awards gold to a few undeserving spots every year is accepted by most like an inevitable natural disaster. What remains annoying, however, is that this year, too, some spots figure on the Cannes roll completely unmotivated, which would have been better off in the Raspberries competition for the worst films.
WHS wins Media Lion

Weber Hodel Schmid won a Media Lion in Cannes. The Zurich agency was honored in the Special Events/ Stunts category. The fake vacation photos that WHS smuggled in for Graubünden Ferien among the snapshots of photo lab customers convinced the jurors of the advertising festival. Universal McCann, Geneva, also made it onto the shortlist with its anti-landmine campaign for the ICRC.
Futurecom wins Cyber Lion

At the 2000 Cannes Advertising Festival, Advico multimedia offshoot Futurecom Interactive won a Cyber Lion (silver) with their screensaver "Peeping Tom," which listens to search terms on Internet search engines in real time and brings them to the screen.
Press & Poster Cannes 2000

In total, the Press & Posters jury under Marcello Serpa awarded one Grand Prix, 29 Gold, 40 Silver and 63 Bronze Lions. The most creative nation in this discipline was, as last year, England, which managed to collect 22 medals, including seven gold. The other gold lions went to France (6), Brazil (5), Spain (4), USA (2), Japan, Thailand and New Zealand (1 each). As already reported (WW 24/00), Switzerland came away empty-handed. Six Swiss works made it onto the shortlist, however: Beldoro "Nose Pierced" by Ruedi Wyler Werbung, Zurich, "Das Magazin" (TA-Media) by Ruedi Wyler Werbung, Zurich; Zelo Legs "Hairstylist" by Honegger von Matt, Zurich; Sportplausch Wider "Prince Charles" by Publicis, Zurich; Suva "The Gear" by McCann-Erickson, Zurich; IKRK "Stop landmines" by McCann-Erickson, Geneva. (sh)
Scandinavians score big at Young Creatives

At the Young Creatives Contest in Cannes, the Swedish team Joakim Karlsson and Filip Lindquist from Euro RSCG Stockholm took first place, ahead of the Norwegians and the British. Switzerland's Grischa Rubinick and Mark Rinderknecht did not make it into the wreaths, but stood out at the subsequent Young Creatives party for their particular steadfastness, as WerbeWoche party animal Beat Fritsch observed.

PCtip and Computerworld present the latest editions of their biannual Copytests.Service Copytests for PCtip and Computerworld In them, advertisers receive answers to the questions: How many readers pay attention to the ads, what reactions do they trigger and how is their design assessed? The market research institute IMR-IHA/GfM surveyed 150 readers for each of the copy tests. Both brochures can be ordered from: IDG Communications, Zurich, Tel. 01 387 45 55.
Merchandising according to plan Merchandising in the sports sector is a neglected area. At least that is the opinion of Peter Rohlmann, author of the recently published Merchandising Planner. The A4 workbook provides an overview of sales potential, planning and procurement sources, licensing and legal requirements, and distribution channels. The planning aid can be obtained from ESB Europäische Sponsoring-Börse. P.O. Box 519, 9001 St.Gallen. Tel. 071 223 78 82, e-mail [email protected]. ISBN 3-932624-29-7.
Learning modules via the Internet The Swiss Printing Industry Association (VSD) presents interactive learning modules that can be downloaded from the Internet. These are intended to help keep employees of printing companies constantly up to date with technological developments. A multi-media lesson offers around one hour of learning material and costs 75 Swiss francs. Information, demos
and full versions are available on the VSD homepage: www.vsd.ch, by e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at 031 351 15 11.

Tibère Adler, head of Edipresse Online, sees the future in crosspromotionThe western Swiss media group Edipresse is taking a 30 percent stake in Star-TV through its subsidiary Edipresse Online SA. The private station for film, lifestyle and entertainment, 50 percent of which is owned by CEO Paul Grau and 20 percent by media consultant Walter Bosch, targets an audience between 15 and 34 years of age. It reaches about 1.6 million households in German-speaking Switzerland. Tibère Adler, head of Edipresse Online, explained to WerbeWoche why his company suddenly has an appetite for TV.Until now, Edipresse had nothing to do with TV. Why now the participation in Star TV?
Tibère Adler: A few months ago, Walter Bosch asked us if we wanted to participate. We said yes and subscribed to a 30 percent stake because we gain know-how in dealing with the moving picture and sound at Star-TV. We are not acting under pressure and could have waited. But this is an opportunity.
But for a long time, the Edipresse Group swore on high and holy that it did not want to be active in TV, and it was only in a conversation with WerbeWoche three months ago that Lamunière opened the door a bit and declared the TV chastity vow invalid as soon as it came to special interest TV. Why this change?
Adler: Of course, the founding of Edipresse Online has changed a few things. But beware: We don't want to make classic TV. Once again, we want to learn more with Star TV.
Does this mean that Edipresse will not take on any operational tasks at Star-TV - in contrast to the previous principle of only taking on shareholdings if you are the strong partner?
Adler: Correct: We will not be operationally active, but it is planned that we will have a seat on the Board of Directors.
Edipresse has hardly shown any interest in the German-speaking media market. Should the channel also become active in French-speaking Switzerland?
Adler: It already is in the form of a window for certain local TVs, for example TVRL (TV Lausanne). We will work towards Star TV becoming a full cable TV channel. It would be the first truly national channel...
...but then you would have to become active in Ticino as well...
Adler: ...right. So let's say: We would be the first Swiss-German station.
When will this change to the first station crossing the Röstigraben happen?
Adler: We are talking about months, not years. It should be ready by the end of the year.
Why is the investment managed by the Edipresse Online subholding? What does Star-TV have to do with online?
Adler: TV and online are growing together more and more. There are plans to couple Star TV with a website. This website can offer information, but also become active in e-commerce.
A concrete example?
Adler: Star TV makes a program for snowboarders, among others. It would be possible for the site to offer specialized material for boarders. We are aiming at cross-promotion and cross-fertilization. It's also possible that Star-TV could one day do interactive TV, although we don't know exactly what that would look like yet.
As a subholding of the Edipresse Group, Edipresse Online has a prominent position in the organization chart. How many people do you actually employ at the moment?
Adler: There are about thirty people, including Edicom (Edipresse site).
Edipresse obviously has high hopes for the online sector. Do you think it's possible that in three years' time this subholding will generate sales equivalent to a third of the Group's total?
Adler: We want to grow quickly. But this seems a bit much to me.
But the investment in Star TV is just the beginning of a forward strategy, isn't it?
Adler: Sure...
And is it conceivable that Edi-presse will also work with major publishers like Ringier?
Adler: We already do that to some extent, for example at SwissClick. But we are practicing "low profile" when it comes to communicating such activities. But I will tell you this: Certainly, a good part of our growth will take place together with partners. In that respect, the Star TV investment is really just a start. Interview: Christophe Büchi