Local BZ customers are angry
Newspapers: The Berner Zeitung’s new city subscription rate—and, more specifically, the lack of communication surrounding it—is causing fresh controversy.
Newspapers The new city tariff of the Berner Zeitung, and in particular its (non-)communication, is causing new annoyance: according to the tariff plan of the Berner Zeitung (BZ), the paper continues to offer a city tariff for local customers. But in contrast to other BZ split tariffs, which have increased by between one and three percent compared to 2003, the city tariff has become a whopping 31 percent more expensive. The reason is simple: as with the BZ total edition, since the beginning of January the additional service provided by the federal government has also been added here, except that this is not mentioned anywhere in the short tariff. There is also no information on performance (circulation). No wonder that not only national but also local advertising customers are astonished and angry. This is confirmed by Walter Althaus, Director of Publicitas Bern, who distinguishes between three reactions in this context: "Those who previously booked both BZ and Bund are happy about the discount. Those who only booked the BZ will be disappointed. And for customers who only advertised in the Bund, it's really bad, because the combination is much more expensive for them." The latter tend to look for alternatives, while the former BZ-only bookers tend to place smaller ads or less frequently.
Jürg Siegrist, Director of the Swiss Advertising Association (SWA), was also annoyed by the lack of information about the city tariff. He only found out about its existence shortly before Christmas and then only incompletely. Migros Aare, which can use the tariff in individual cases - such as branch openings in Bern - was not even aware of it this week. This (dis)information policy seems to have a system. Since November, BZ advertising manager Michael Seiler has left several Werbewoche inquiries about the city tariff unanswered.
Publicitas, on the other hand, provides offensive information: according to Althaus, the new BZ city split is made up of the entire Bund circulation (66,242 copies) and the 8,6429 copies of the BZ city edition.
Markus Knöpfli
Jürg Siegrist, Director of the Swiss Advertising Association (SWA), was also annoyed by the lack of information about the city tariff. He only found out about its existence shortly before Christmas and then only incompletely. Migros Aare, which can use the tariff in individual cases - such as branch openings in Bern - was not even aware of it this week. This (dis)information policy seems to have a system. Since November, BZ advertising manager Michael Seiler has left several Werbewoche inquiries about the city tariff unanswered.
Publicitas, on the other hand, provides offensive information: according to Althaus, the new BZ city split is made up of the entire Bund circulation (66,242 copies) and the 8,6429 copies of the BZ city edition.
Markus Knöpfli
