I am also an agency

René Worni on the end of the equilibrium in the media business. late this summer, it will be two years since NZZ and PubliGroupe sealed their joint venture. The upheaval in Zurich and the neighboring cantons is still reverberating, with two publishers battling it out for supremacy in the regional business. Since this paradigm shift, P (as the industry calls the Lausanne-based group with a slightly mafia-like air) is no longer the guardian of balance in the Swiss-German press landscape. The Group itself has become an active player and freed itself from its self-imposed passive role as a service provider. Over the years, it had - by the way and without a declared strategy - acquired shareholdings in this or that publisher when they were not liquid. P became a bank, so to speak. The group was thus in a tolerated position of power, which the publishing houses had and still have to incorporate into their strategies for better or worse. Wolfgang Mecklenburg, one of the first founders of a media agency in Switzerland, recently expressed his fears in Werbewoche: If PubliGroupe sets up a kind of agency of its own with its range of media, then there will be major restructuring in the advertising industry. How right he was. In future, the group wants to offer the marketing of print, online, TV, radio, cinema, ad screens and mobile - including cross-media - from a single source. The new electronic media in particular, which are constantly evolving and come up with new features practically every day, are complex and require explanation. In addition, the media are becoming increasingly intertwined, with target groups becoming blurred and the audience breaking down into its constituent parts. As a result, Lausanne anticipates that advertising customers will have a growing need for advice. The Group wants to be seen as a competent marketing partner for agencies and advertising clients. At the same time, however, the Lausanne-based company wants to expand its business in a direction that was previously the domain of media agencies. It is therefore also clear that a strong wind will soon be blowing in their faces.
René Worni, Editor