Publicitas expresses surprise at Tamedia separation
A bombshell in the advertising industry: The Swiss media group Tamedia has terminated its partnership with the advertising agency Publicitas effective immediately due to «increasing payment defaults.» This development came as a «surprise» to the struggling Publicitas. Tamedia refers to it as «deliberate misrepresentation.».
"A long string of missed payment deadlines and unfulfilled assurances, as well as the outstanding payments that have accumulated over the past 12 months, leave us with no other choice," Marcel Kohler, head of advertising and commuter media at Tamedia, was quoted as saying in a statement Wednesday.
Tamedia will now inform all advertising customers who have booked advertising through Publicitas in recent weeks accordingly. In addition, customers will be asked to make payments only directly to Tamedia, according to the statement.
The media group emphasizes that it is interested in providing the best possible support to the affected customers together with other Swiss media companies. Discussions are currently underway to determine whether and in what form joint solutions are possible.
Publicitas works on restructuring concept
Like the publishers, Publicitas is suffering from the marked decline in newspaper advertising. The company has already been in the red several times. For several weeks now, the company has been working on a restructuring concept to stabilize Publicitas in the medium term, the company announced on Wednesday.
An essential part of the concept is the commitment of the major publishers to continue the cooperation under revised conditions. Tamedia, to its "great regret," has decided against further cooperation and support of Publicitas and has terminated the contract with immediate effect. The other major publishing houses have verbally signaled their interest in a solution, the statement continues.
Publicitas considers Tamedia's request that payments for advertising booked via Publicitas only be made directly to Tamedia to be "not sensible" in the case of collective invoices and asks that the money be transferred to Publicitas as usual.
Publicitas separates the Tamedia amounts and transfers them to a Tamedia account as agreed. This is the only way to maintain an overview and prevent money from other publishers from flowing to Tamedia. The new situation is now being analyzed. The development was a "bitter setback" and "came as a surprise". No further information is available at this time.
"Deliberate misdirection"
Tamedia firmly rejects the content of the statement sent by Publicitas (see below). "Publicitas already assigned all receivables from its customers for services in our media to Tamedia in 2016," Group spokesman Christoph Zimmer told Werbewoche. "If customers continue to pay invoices to Publicitas, they risk double payment. Publicitas' request to continue paying Publicitas therefore lacks any legal basis and represents a deliberate misleading of customers to the detriment of customers and Tamedia," Zimmer said. Legal action is being considered on the part of Publicitas as a result of this breach of contract. (hae/SDA)
