The organization has nothing to do with Ménard's political positions, the head of the organization explained on Thursday. The organization also pointed out that Ménard had already handed over the leadership of RSF in September 2008 (Werbewoche.ch reported). The leader of the Front National, Marine Le Pen, confirmed at the end of last week that Ménard would be standing for the party in the 2014 local elections in Béziers in the south of France. The announcement caused quite a stir.

Ménard had campaigned for press freedom worldwide for more than two decades at Reporters Without Borders. He then worked for several radio stations and maintained contacts with far-right movements. In 2011, he published the book "Vive Le Pen" ("Long live Le Pen"), in which he denounced the "censorship of the conformist media". (SDA)

Teaser image: Keystone

Nothing now stands in the way of the establishment of the new Swiss book company with the corporate name Orell Füssli Thalia. According to the announcement, the two companies will each take a 50 per cent stake in Orell Füssli Thalia, which will be formally established in the next few days. The company will be headquartered in Zurich. The board of directors has equal representation. The members are Michel Kunz, Chairman (Orell Füssli Holding), Jürg Bodenmann, Vice Chairman (Thalia Books), Michael Busch (Thalia Holding), Maximilian Hugendubel (Orell Füssli Buchhandlungs-AG). Michele Bomio (previously Managing Director Thalia Books) was appointed CEO.

The actual merger of the activities of the two previous companies and the start of the operational activities of Orell Füssli Thalia are scheduled for the beginning of October 2013. In the meantime, the management team will press ahead with the preparatory work for the operational merger.

With the merger, Orell Füssli and Thalia aim to meet the challenges in the book market. Those responsible are convinced that with the new company they have the prerequisites to stand up to the big international suppliers, particularly in the online sector.

The Executive Board of Orell Füssli Thalia is composed of the following executives:

Michele Bomio, CEO and responsible for Marketing and Communications (previously Thalia), André Banz, Head of Purchasing, Logistics and IT (previously Orell Füssli), Giulio Pè, Head of Stationary and Business Customer Sales (previously Orell Füssli), Pascal Schneebeli, CFO and Head of E-Commerce (previously Thalia), Barbara Valenta Lüscher, Head of Human Resources and Organizational Development (previously Orell Füssli).
 

With the newly launched reorganization, the company unites the individual specialist areas under one roof. The agency has designed a flyer to mark the relaunch.

Responsible at Krieger kitchen and bathroom + remodeling organization: Rolf Krieger (owner), Rene Tschopp (kitchen studio manager). Responsible at ideart Design & Werbung, Lucerne: Ludek Martschini (creation, consulting), Peter Martschini (production / organization), Andreas Troxler (freelancer: concept, text).

 

From left to right: Kurosch Hadinia, Indre Grumbinaite, Darjan Hil, Nicole Lachenmeier and Safak Korkut.

Do these situations sound familiar to you? A sprawling project presentation where the PowerPoint slides never seem to end? The overview has long since been lost, but the anticipation of the subsequent aperitif is all the greater?

Thick annual reports, alternating between loaded graphics and huge tables, while motivation slowly fades away? Today, more data and information is available than ever before. In research, IT, administration, in private companies, in short: everywhere. However, making this information and data accessible is not easy. If graphics first have to be laboriously deciphered, tables and files searched through, this costs time and nerves. A challenge for communication. The design agency YAAY was born out of these considerations. The team, consisting of specialists in the disciplines of graphic design, product design, computer science, economics and sociology, specializes in visualizing complex issues.

YAAY makes information and data that is hidden somewhere visible: in Excel sheets, work processes, concepts or studies. For example, the start-up ensures that study results do not disappear unused. "Research results often receive too little attention because they are not presented properly," explains information architect Darjan Hil. At YAAY, the study results are not presented in short summaries or PowerPoint presentations. "PowerPoint presentations are made for the moment, after which they are thrown away," says Hil. YAAY wants to create something that lasts longer and thus ensure sustainability in the handling of information. When furniture manufacturer Vitra commissioned a study on design factors in the workplace, YAAY analyzed, condensed and illustrated the results. YAAY used office scenes to illustrate how various factors - such as plants or lighting conditions - influence the productivity and creativity of employees. Simple, concrete and in a form that arouses the viewer's curiosity. YAAY designed and realized the year-end presentation for Burckhardt + Partner.

Previously, the architecture firm had presented the reports with a classic slide presentation. Now they wanted something that could be used beyond the event. In workshops, YAAY worked together with the architects to determine the form in which the implemented architectural projects should be presented. The result was a poster several meters long. At the top - in the form of a skyline - all the construction projects are lined up true to scale, with information on the dimensions, construction time and investment sum listed below. The architects' range of work is visible at a glance, and the buildings can be directly compared on a single sheet. An additional benefit: the project did not end up in the wastepaper basket after the ceremony, but was hung up in the meeting room as a new dynamic way of talking to customers. "This poster also strengthened internal communication and the awareness of our own employees themselves," says Hil. The company presentation folder had thus become obsolete.

YAAY also supports companies in ongoing projects with its visualizations. For example, the young company supported a development study for the area surrounding the new Vienna Central Station. In addition to Burckhardt + Partner, two other architectural firms were involved in the project. YAAY designed a visual working tool to simplify cooperation and communication between the parties involved in the project by providing an overview. The area around the main station was broken down into structures and typologized on a large poster. The requirements for the large-scale project - including spatial planning requirements - that the architects should keep in mind were listed in key words. "Visualizations simplify communication and decision-making," Hill is convinced. He had already experienced this during his previous job in project management at IBM and later at Credit Suisse. When the major bank cooperated with an external company for software development, Hil began not only to set out the requirements in writing, but also to record them. For the business IT graduate, this was the trigger to delve deeper into visual communication. He went on to study for a Master's degree at the Basel University of Art and Design (HGK). It was there that he met most of his current colleagues.

The idea to found YAAY was based on the desire to combine a wide range of disciplines with the skills of professional designers in an interdisciplinary way. The team set up their offices on the top floor of the old St. Johann SBB train station, which houses various start-ups from the creative industries. Hil is responsible for project management. He makes sure that the organization of the "colourful team" works. After all, YAAY not only brings together different disciplines, but also different cultures. Illustrator and product designer Indre Grumbinaite comes from Lithuania, video graphic and interaction designer Safak Korkut from Turkey, Darjan Hil's roots are in south-eastern Europe, sociologist and historian Kurosch Hadinia has an Iranian-Swiss family background and, last but not least, graphic designer Nicole Lachenmeier provides the Swiss balance. The common denominator at YAAY is not primarily a specialist field or a language, but visual communication. The agency name is representative of this. There is no verbal meaning behind YAAY, but rather a visual concept. The team played with the visually similar letters A and Y and created a logo (see image) that is memorable: "Once you've seen it, it stays in your mind." YAAY also used a visual approach to tackle a current social issue: social inequality. For an international competition for information design ("Out of Balance - Critique of the Present. Information Design after Otto Neurath"), they visualized data from a UBS study - and won the competition organized by the architecture magazine Arch+. The approach: YAAY received socio-economic data from various cities from UBS. Information on the income of various occupational groups, living and maintenance costs, etc. Their aim: to make social inequality visually tangible from the wealth of information.

YAAY has used the image of the income gap to illustrate the wage differences according to occupational groups (see right-hand side). The wider the gap, the greater the differences in the respective city. The higher a job is placed on the gap, the higher the salary. The gross domestic product was placed on the scissors as a reference point. If you compare the "scissors" with each other, you can see, for example, that a teacher in Beijing earns about the same as an engineer. However, if the teacher works in Dubai, he is paid less than the engineer, while in Moscow he is even on a par with a worker in terms of salary. On another subject, wages are shown with dots and purchasing power is illustrated with individual products and services.
Finally, a concept was developed for an exhibition in which visitors experience inequality first-hand. On entering, visitors are presented with a wheel of fortune. This assigns them an origin and a profession - financial analyst in Berlin or worker in Mumbai? With their new identity, visitors set off on the course. At one stand, they can measure their purchasing power by shooting a rifle. Depending on the profession and country, more or fewer balls are available to clear the pyramids of rifles - which are larger or smaller depending on the product. The financial analyst has tens of balls, the worker has to be accurate with his few balls if he wants to win an iPhone. Then it's on to a climbing wall. Here, visitors face an easier or more difficult climbing route, depending on their profession. Aesthetics are central to YAAY - but never arbitrary. There is a concept behind everything YAAY puts on paper. This can be seen, for example, in this year's campaign for the Basel club festival BScene, for which YAAY designed a trailer and various printed materials. At first glance, the campaign motif with triangles in various shapes, colors and positions does not suggest that it has a deeper meaning. If you take a closer look at the triangles, you will discover what the festival is all about: the countless ways in which a festival evening can be put together.

The background: at the club festival, various Basel bands perform in different clubs on two evenings. After each concert, visitors can change venues and make a pilgrimage to the next concert. Different clubs, different bands, at different times: Visitors have a total of 2916 alternatives for organizing their festival evening. YAAY has used these possible combinations as a design element. The color of the triangles stands for the day, the angle for the performance time, one length for the size of the stage, the other for the number of musicians. "We didn't want to present the bands, but rather get to the heart of the festival," says graphic designer Nicole Lachenmeier.

Festival visitors who are not interested in the combinatorics will read the program like any other flyer. The others have a means in their hands to engage with the festival in a playful way. The triangles created by the festival data were recombined for each application, sometimes strictly according to the program for the flyer, sometimes much more freely for the large festival poster. As the examples show, visualizations can be used in many different ways. To develop a new concept, for a company presentation or an annual report, to accompany a workshop, to illustrate large amounts of data or to prepare study results. One thing remains the same for all projects: whoever commissions YAAY buys design, but receives much more than that. Through the perspective of the various disciplines, YAAY offers a range of services that goes far beyond visualizations. "We scrutinize processes, ask questions and point out gaps," says Hil. YAAY forces clients to rethink their processes and workflows and to reflect on the key points at the end of a project. "Sometimes people can't see the wood for the trees." An outside perspective helps to regain an overview. "We sell information and data in a new way," says Hadinia. "We turn them into something aesthetic."

Isabel Imper

 

A request like this doesn't come along every day: Swiss Re wants to realize an idea that is as creative as possible and use this film or media project to make the 150th anniversary of the Swiss reinsurance company known to the public in the most contemporary - or even better, futuristic - way possible. Central condition in the briefing: The creative idea has to bring the topic of risk and "risk management" closer to the youth in Switzerland and worldwide in a playful and entertaining way. A video as funky as possible in the trendy film language of "today's youth" for a 150-year anniversary? - "Yes gladly, but ...", decided the creatives from the film production Boutiq in Erlenbach after their first proposals and searched a bit further.

"If we're going to be allowed to do something innovative, we want to go full throttle and do something big," explained executive producer Philipp Zünd and director Mike Huber. That was two years ago. Since then, various ideas have been drafted and pitched together with the client around the team of Project Manager Fritz Gutbrodt from Swiss Re. In the end, a classic adventure game won out. Says Gutbrodt: "Millions of young people play games like this. This is a language with which we can address the target audience in an attractive, future-oriented way and without false ingratiation." In the soon-to-be-released game, gamers will be able to immerse themselves in a 150-year journey through time that will last more than two hours. Ana is a teenager from Zurich. In search of her ancestors, the daughter of a family of scientists comes across a mysterious machine. This machine can calculate any risk - determine the "risk of incident", as it is called in technical jargon.

In this game entitled "Perils of Man", what is actually part of the everyday job for the specialists at Swiss Re is explained in a didactically sophisticated and entertaining way. "In terms of effort, our game is probably the biggest ever realized in Switzerland," explains Game Director Mike Huber. The second idea that convinced Boutiq was: "We're not launching the adventure game for the computer, but rather designing the game right from the start as an app that can best be played on tablets.

Pioneering role of Boutiq

That was a big challenge technologically. "There are many adventure games. But there are still very few that also work on a tablet in such an elaborate quality," says producer Nathan Ornick. Technically, a few compromises had to be made so that the adventure game could run "without problems" on the tablet, iPad or even smartphone, because Boutiq wanted to realize "Perils of Man" in 3-D, following the latest trend.

"That was a stinking decision, because games in 3-D are only just emerging. In Switzerland, we are taking on a pioneering role with this project," Huber and Zünd are proud to say. "You've never seen anything like it here before." In order for the game to be played on consumer devices without any delays with a 3-D effect, a solution had to be found with a "low poly" image resolution that still looks like a movie with high-resolution images. These are rendered in real time on the tablets or phones. "Such technology has only recently become possible. Boutiq relied on the Unity 3-D game engine for the implementation," reveals Executive Producer Philipp Zünd. As authors of the game, Boutiq called in additional specialists in Los Angeles, such as writer Stephen Beckner or Gene Mocsy, who previously also gained experience as a game designer at Lucas Arts. For the 3D animation, colleagues in Sweden were integrated into the Zurich project.

The adventure game "Perils of Man" extends over 8 chapters in 25 rooms. Involved in the plot are 40 characters. The total film time - or rather "gameplay" here - is 2 to 3 hours. Philipp Zünd and Mike Huber are convinced that Swiss Re is not taking a wrong risk with such a project. "Just recently, we at Boutiq traveled to San Francisco with the entire project team. There, at the GDC, the big game convention, we got confirmation that such interactive 3-D games have a great future as a new form of communication," analyze Zünd and Huber.

The new opportunity for advertising

Interactive games will also play a very much growing role in advertising. "They offer a platform that is very entertaining and is not only accepted but actively sought out by an ever-growing target group." "Perils of Man," as an anniversary gift from Swiss Re, can later be downloaded for free to tablets via popular app stores. After the launch, a first internal "Family Day" is planned in August. You won't find any direct advertising for Swiss Re in the game. All the insurance company needs is the image gain of having taken a completely new approach to communication with this project.

And as a side effect, the clients hope that by playing with the imaginary machine, which can calculate any risk, the young gamers will also gain an understanding in the course of winning that it is worth considering in each case when making important decisions in life: What influence will this decision have on my future? Is the risk worth it?

Andreas Panzeri

Article in PDF format (images)

Ana's time travel: The Story

Ana Eberling comes from a family of famous researchers and inventors. But she does not know their achievements. They have been a well-kept secret for 150 years. But on her 16th birthday, this changes abruptly. Because with a strange gift begins for Ana an adventurous journey of discovery into the past. Suddenly she finds herself in 1879, in a theater ablaze with lights. In 1918, she is adrift in the South China Sea on a cargo ship with a deadly load. In 1893, she is heading for the famous Ferris wheel at the Chicago World Fair in a gigantic zeppelin. Ana can hardly believe it: her ancestors have invented an impressive method of averting danger. But this presents Ana with a tough decision: Is a predictable world without risk a blessing or a curse for humanity?
 

The pictures went around the world, taken by the cameraman of French Israel correspondent Charles Enderlin (France 2) in September 2000. They show how twelve-year-old Mohammed al-Dura, whom his father tries in vain to protect, dies in a hail of bullets from the Israeli army. The correspondent's original quote: "Jamel and his son are the target of Israeli gunmen. Another volley, Mohammed is dead and his father seriously injured." Al-Dura has since been revered in the Arab world as a martyr of the intifada, and schools and squares in Arab countries are named after him. His likeness is printed on postage stamps.

In an initial phase, Israel apologized for the boy's death and trusted the correspondent, who is a respected journalist. In Paris, however, Philippe Karsenty, who runs a media monitoring agency, soon described the report as a fake. He used polemical words - and Charles Enderlein sued for defamation. As early as 2003, German journalist Esther Schapira filmed "Three bullets and a dead child" and also cast doubt on Enderlein's account.

There are countless oddities in this case and very little evidence. Enderlin's broadcaster France 2 only released the unused sequences under threat from the Paris court. Karsenty was convicted and acquitted on appeal, but the verdict was overturned by the Court of Cassation following an appeal by Enderlin. The final verdict was to be announced in May.
But the Israeli government beat the court to it: it published the report by its experts, which had only been announced for the summer. It states: Charles Enderlin's account is false. Prime Minister Netanyahu demanded a rebuttal and an apology. He spoke of a propaganda staging to "justify terrorism".

The fact that Israel only began investigating the case a year ago is one of its oddities. Just like the fact that Charles Enderlin himself now claims that the boy survived, at least directly: he was operated on in Jordan and visited by the king. That would be proof of injuries. He calls the report biased and says he himself was not even heard.

The way she has been treated since then remains worse than the reporting back then. For years, Enderlin refused to tell the truth in a desperate struggle to "save his honor" and served up "lie after lie", writes Luc Rosenzweig, long-time Germany correspondent for Le Monde. France 2 had put all French broadcasters "including Arte" under massive pressure not to show Esther Schapira's film: "Worse still, ARD was threatened with the termination of cooperation agreements if the film was sold abroad." The attempt at blackmail was unsuccessful: the documentary was shown in Israel and many other countries. In France, Esther Schapira was at least admitted as a witness by the court, which postponed its verdict again - until the end of June.

In the meantime, the French Jewish Central Council is also calling for an investigation that goes further than the court's inventory. "We only want the truth," explains its president Richard Pasquier. "We have neither suspected nor accused Enderlin and the broadcaster France 2. But the many ambiguities listed in the Israeli report raise the question of whether they were unwitting victims of a fake staged for propaganda purposes."
 

I've liked them ever since they were launched six years ago: the two ibexes from Graubünden Tourism. The talking ibexes are also popular with the public. In this advertising campaign, all the components I always preach come into play: a probably uncomplicated briefing; a creative idea and implementation that is ingenious for the Graubünden product, namely Graubünden dialect-speaking heraldic animals in front of a blue sky in the mountains. Through the variety of different episodes, the joke always remains fresh, entertaining and radiates a lot of sympathy to the viewers. The most important element, however, is that the campaign idea has not changed for six years. Keep it up for a long time. The Milk Cow has also been around for twenty years soon.

It is interesting that in both campaigns the protagonists are animals that behave like humans. This phenomenon is not new, of course. Walt Disney already built his global success on this formula. But I wouldn't now suggest that successful advertising is created under the motto "We'll take an animal that talks and dances". That can also go in the pants like with the tiger, which one should put into the tank. This cat became very famous. It was clear that it was an advertising figure for a gasoline company, but for which one? Esso or Shell or what? That's where the silent worm was.

I am particularly impressed by the website www. reisebuero-gianundgiachen.ch. It shows that a good TV spot solution can be ingeniously converted to another medium. Let the two bucks put together your individual travel program for you. Have fun and click around. Theophil liked it. There are two other projects that met my taste. One was the Blick am Abend of May 28. This fifth anniversary issue was written in dialect on 32 pages. Each journalist applied his own. Brings a lot of sympathy. The other pleasing thing: The Art Directors Club of Switzerland - as it now calls itself - upgraded me to the Hall of Fame together with Reini Weber at the AGM. An honor to which I pay my respects. If you continue to read my column so intensively, I hope you will keep this fact in mind.

By the way, I was also pleased to see that I was right in my analysis in the December 2011 column about the Gaydoul Group.

After so much praise and even self-praise, I would like to finish by not mentioning my obligatory put-upon, but nominate the deleter of the week: Did you notice the poster with a hairy man's chest shaved into a spade peeking out of an open shirt? Next to it, on top of everything else, is written, "Are you a playboy?" With this notice, the operators of the Swiss Casinos Zurich want to lure me in. With a bit of luck, I could even win a 5100-franc gold watch. Les jeux sont faits, rien ne va plus moche.

 

The international company has signed a contract with the SFA for the Swiss Cup that runs until June 30, 2016. As of July 1, 2013, the Swiss Football Association will once again market the Swiss Cup on its own, as the cooperation agreement with IMG expired after five years and has not been renewed, according to a press release issued by the Swiss Football Association and the Würth Group Switzerland on Thursday. SFA partner in the Würth Swiss Cup is also SRG as national broadcaster. SRG produces several matches per Cup round, which are broadcast live on the internet by the SFV (Football.ch and Cupplay.ch). The draw for the 1st main round of the Würth Swiss Cup 2013/14 will take place on July 1, 2013 at the House of Swiss Football in Muri BE and will also be streamed live on the official Portal of the Swiss Football Association.
 

Having already managed and built up Mediador as a specialized media recruitment agency between 2002 and 2008, Jana Nyvltova has since been successfully self-employed in the same field with the company Pearls Recruitment. She is now integrating her activities into Mediador and will once again be responsible for the newly merged companies, as was reported in a press release. "We are delighted to have gained back Jana Nyvltova, a proven personality in the recruitment sector, and we are confident that she will be able to exploit positive synergies for our clients," says Matthias Luchsinger, Managing Partner of Mediador.

Photo: ZVG
 

Entire underwater worlds have been created from banknotes, in which the "little fish" excel in cleverness and intelligence. At Bank Coop, people are well advised in every situation, according to a press release. The spots were created in close cooperation with Markenfilm Schweiz, the 3D artists from Sehsucht Hamburg and the composer Alex Kirschner.

Responsible at Bank Coop: Mathias von Wartburg (Head of Competence Center Marketing), Barbara Gürtler (Advertising Manager). Responsible at Ruf Lanz: Danielle Lanz, Markus Ruf (Creative Direction), Marcel Schläfle (Art Direction), Maren Beck (Text), Sebastian Durband (Consulting Direction), Nathalie Jakober (Consulting). Film production: Markenfilm Switzerland. Producer: Uli Scheper. Animation: Sehsucht Hamburg. Director: Ole Peters. Music: Alex Kirschner, Kirschnermusic.
 

This makes the portal of the "Swiss Foundation for the Promotion of Independent Information" easier to read on tablets and smartphones, according to a statement. In addition, the Infosperber.ch the introduction of a new section called "Sparrow Eye", in which the editorial team picks up relevant information but does not embed it in larger articles.