One significant difference remains
Advertisements Despite an agreement with the P at the Advertising Commission, Tamedia is sticking to its direct booking fee for media agencies.
contract with the advertising commission, the differences between the
Tamedia and PubliPresse: These are the so
direct booking compensation - a clear advantage for P.
direct booking discount - of 1.5 percent, which Tamedia has offered since the beginning of the year.
14 larger media agencies. The condition is that instead of
via P directly with the Tamedia titles an annual minimum volume of
of one million francs.
Different positions
One thing is certain: Jürg Brauchli intends to continue receiving this compensation in the future.
and extend the contracts with the agencies for 2006. "We
want to keep an additional channel open for our advertisers",
says Brauchli. In contrast, PubliPresse General Director Otto
Meier, this discount contradicts the interests of the print genre,
because another channel would simply make access to the print media
complicate it instead of simplifying it. "Ultimately, it is a
Eigengoal, because this measure primarily affects Publimedia, which
print genre marketing," says Meier. That is why Publimedia
the service packages it has concluded with the agencies,
check. "If an agency has lower volumes via Publimedia
bookings, it also has fewer claims to certain tools from
Publimedia," says Meier.
How does this go down with media agencies? Peter Hofstetter, owner of
Mediaxis-MPG, is astonished. "This would mean that the P would deny us market access.
which, in view of the pending AdX complaint before the
Competition Commission can hardly be in their interest." (See WW
40/05). And Urs Schneider,
owner of MediaSchneider, doubles down: "If the P really does take the
restrict access to tools, the publishers with P-direction would be the
bruised, as the P makes access more difficult for us." So far
None of the agencies approached had any concrete information from Publimedia. "I
do not have the impression that the topic is currently very hot for the P
is," says Andy Lehmann, Managing Director at Aegis Media Group
Switzerland.
What are the agencies' experiences after the first ten months?
who have entered into the direct booking agreement with Tamedia?
"Of course, we book Tamedia titles directly for the most part today," says
Urs Schneider. Aegis Media also handles this very consistently:
Tamedia titles are booked there directly in a media mix, says
Andy Lehmann. Stephan Küng also took more direct bookings with Tamedia,
CEO of Initiative Media - not only because of the "already low"
financial incentive, but "because I stand up for a
non-monopolized market". After all, Publimedia is the largest
competitor to the media agencies. Services such as those offered free of charge by the P
the agencies would have to charge their customers. The P, on the other hand
they are financed by the publishers' commissions, says Küng.
In contrast, there was no major change in booking behavior for
Mediaxis-MPG. "It is our credo anyway to do as much as possible directly
with the media providers," says Peter Hofstetter.
The situation is different at Konnex: the product booked directly with Tamedia
Volume has not grown significantly. Co-owner Peter Döbeli explains
as follows: "We let the customers decide, because they ask us for
and would pay them Tamedia's compensation in full.
pass on." Most customers would have dared to make the attempt, but some
would now advertise via Publimedia again, because the
Direct booking offers too few advantages, says Döbeli.
Not much has changed at MediaBaier, either: "We will continue to
year at Tamedia did not even reach the level required for compensation.
minimum volume," says owner Robert C. Baier.
One of the agencies approached to sign the contract with Tamedia
did not wish to comment publicly on the subject. Gar
The OMD agency has also not yet signed up. "Until now
we consider the benefits of the P to be greater than the benefits of the
direct booking compensation," says OMD CEO Christof Kaufmann.
Markus Knöpfli
