Publigroupe remains in the red
In the past financial year, the loss amounted to CHF 20.9 million. In the previous year, the loss amounted to 42.1 million francs. Turnover fell by almost a quarter to CHF 1.6 billion. In its communiqué, the advertising marketer attributes the lower turnover in particular to the decline in the print advertising markets. The Group's operating loss fell from CHF 40 million to CHF 4.5 million. This was the result of massive cost savings and the positive development of some business segments. A moderate improvement in results is expected for the current financial year, the press release continues. Costs are to be reduced by a further CHF 38 million. The company had already cut costs by CHF 55.1 million in 2009. The top management body is to be expanded. Kjell Aamot and Andreas M. Schönenberger have been proposed for election. Aamot was President and CEO of the international media group Schibsted ASA from 1989 to 2009. Andreas M. Schönenberger was responsible for the Swiss market as Country Manager at Google.
Appenzell boycott posse
The Innerrhoden government is dissatisfied with the reporting of the Appenzeller Zeitung. The President of the Innerrhoden Grand Council, Ruedi Eberle (SVP), thinks it is right that the government's Ethics Committee is setting an example by boycotting the Appenzeller Zeitung and stopping the publication of information. The reason for this is the commission's dissatisfaction with the reporting. Eberle told SDA that the Appenzeller Zeitung had portrayed them as backwoodsmen. The editorial team had clearly gone too far with its reporting on tourism marketing, the trial in the case of the dismissed public prosecutor and the associated criticism of members of the Ethics Committee. Eberle believes that the decision taken by Carlo Schmid (CVP), the mayor of the canton and former member of the Council of States for Innerrhoden, was the right one. Schmid had canceled all Appenzeller-Zeitung subscriptions to the Innerrhoden administration and the Ethics Committee and shortly afterwards imposed an information ban on the paper with a circulation of 14,000 copies. According to Eberle, the editorial team will not be denied access to the council chamber.

Flop of the week 1: Swiss companies are "social media grouches"
The PR agency Burson-Marsteller Switzerland has published a study on the use of social media platforms by SMI companies. The result: in contrast to US companies, Swiss companies make little use of social media for corporate communications.
The study entitled "How SMI companies use social media" analyzes which of the companies use Facebook pages and groups, Twitter profiles or blogs for corporate communications. Only 30 percent of the SMI companies surveyed use one or more social media platforms, while, according to a study by Burson-Marsteller USA, 60 percent of Fortune 100 companies already use Twitter, Facebook or blogs strategically to achieve their communication goals. Those SMI companies that already use social media platforms primarily use these channels to disseminate information. "The companies publish news and campaigns in classic push mode and are therefore still barely exploiting the dialog potential of social media platforms," says Daniel Jörg, Head of Burson-Marsteller Crossmedia.
Flop of the week 2: Advertising revenues down by a fifth in 2009
After advertising revenues fell by six percent in 2008, the Swiss press earned a good fifth less from advertising in 2009. Income still amounted to CHF 1.59 billion last year. The decline mainly affected the financial and business press as well as the Sunday press. The volume of job advertisements shrank particularly sharply last year. According to Wemf AG für Werbemedienforschung, revenues fell by a good 45 percent to CHF 167.6 million. Commercial advertisements fell by 16 percent to 1.25 billion Swiss francs. Real estate ads were placed around a fifth less (CHF 63.8 million) and publishers took in almost 12 percent less with brochure inserts (CHF 107 million). The financial and business press and the Sunday press were hit particularly hard, with advertising revenues falling by around 30 percent in each case. Revenues in the daily press and the general press each fell by around a fifth. The trade press (-16.5 percent) and the specialty press (-8.8 percent) recorded less severe losses. Only the regional weekly press was able to practically maintain the previous year's level.

Flop 1: The media freedom campaign on the Bakom director's fee proposal
Aktion Medienfreiheit is not very enthusiastic about the proposal to introduce a general TV and radio tax. The argument that technological progress also allows access to electronic media via cell phone and PC does not hold water. "Such an approach would be comparable to every Swiss person having to pay for a highway toll sticker - regardless of whether they use the highways or not, simply because everyone is theoretically able to do so," writes the media freedom campaign. A fee is compensation for the use of a service. It is incomprehensible why someone who does not use this service should still be asked to pay. The TV and radio fee for everyone is an additional tax that is to be introduced through the back door without having to hold a political discussion about it. The general statement of the Bakom director on Billag was also surprising. He does not appear to be seriously willing to examine alternative fee collection models.

Flop 2: Swiss Post withdraws Red Bull advertising material
The "Red Bull Mobile" cell phone subscription is sold exclusively via post offices. From now on, however, parachute scenes will no longer be used to advertise the product. Due to the fatal fall of Ueli Gegenschatz during a promotional jump, Swiss Post is removing all advertising material featuring skydiving. This is Swiss Post's reaction to the death of Ueli Gegenschatz. The fall has no consequences for the collaboration between Red Bull and Sunrise. The joint "Red Bull Mobile" service will continue as planned, according to Sunrise. However, it can be assumed that the product will be advertised in future without Ueli Gegenschatz's aerial shots. "The marketing is entirely in the hands of Red Bull," spokeswoman Sevgi Gezici told 20 Minuten Online. However, Sunrise is trying to influence the further campaign. According to the news portal, two days after Ueli Gegenschatz's accident, an advertisement appeared in French-speaking Switzerland showing Gegenschatz plunging into the depths. The corresponding advertising images appear to have been removed from the Red Bull Mobile homepage in the meantime. Red Bull did not wish to comment on the further course of the campaign.

Emancipated newspaper criticism à la Meyer
It's not just Blick that has reverted to hard-hitting tabloid formulations ("Geld her Marcel"), Frank A. Meyer can also get a bit angry when it comes to his intimate enemy Blocher. In his last column in SonntagsBlick, FAM wrote: "Weltwoche, a formerly renowned newspaper, regressed to the journalistic boudoir of its disciplinarian, the editor-in-chief to his journalistic boy toy. Even the otherwise brittle Neue Zürcher Zeitung, once the self-confident think tank of the Freisinn, indulged in embarrassing obeisances and scratching feet. One particularly devoted disciple turned the intimate dialog with his patriarch into Blocher television: the most perverse servitude that Swiss journalism has ever produced since the end of the party newspapers."
Fake Clooney annoys Nestlé
"Cheaper. Nothing else". This is the slogan used by the Martello coffee system in double-sided advertisements, which are designed exactly like the Nespresso subjects with George Clooney down to the last detail. The only difference is that Martello from the Coop range is - as the claim says - a cheaper brand. The idea for this allusion came from the KSB/SJ kitchen. Coop thinks it's funny. Nestlé an annoying plagiarism. Actually unnecessary, because the target audience is different. And the accompanying noise from Nestlé in many media outlets only serves to further promote Martello.

Nobody from the talent pool of our creative U-28 team came up with this idea in the "Only an advertisement can do that" competition organized by the Swiss Press Association. The idea would probably have been taken as a bad joke. In fact, advertisements were placed in the Italian press and in the English Financial Times at the beginning of this week in which the insolvency administrator Augusto Fantozzi was looking for a buyer for Alitalia, which was threatened with grounding. Over the past two years, there has been countless speculation about the imminent demise of the company, which in good times had even flown the Pope around the world several times. At the time of going to press, it was not yet possible to confirm whether the truth had finally emerged on the publication date of this advertising week.
However, as a communications industry specialist, we dare to hope that the idea of the advertisement will work a truly Italian miracle after all. A lion in gold for this advertisement would be the least we could do in Cannes next spring, although the creative design of the Alitalia advertisement hardly goes beyond a little play with typography and logo, as we saw in La Stampa. In any case, a pan-European Effie would also have to be considered if this advertisement for the sale of Alitalia could actually save thousands of jobs.