Rimmel London has shifted its estimated US$113 million global advertising account out of JWT London, its incumbent of 14 years. The cosmetics giant has instead chosen the New York-based specialist fashion and luxury agency Laird and Partners.
SYDNEY - The sexualisation of young people debate is making waves around the world, as Australian fashion clothing brand Supre has found after its ad featuring a topless teenager was banned.
GLOBAL - Holding companies WPP, Publicis, Omnicom and Interpublic firmly put the recession behind them in 2010, all returning positive growth in annual revenue of up to 19.8 per cent.
Marketers can't ignore last week's pivotal Mobile World Congress in Barcelona - the biggest to date.
GLOBAL - A grassroots challenge to Nokia's proposed strategic alliance with Microsoft has begun, and an open letter has been sent to the telecom giant's shareholders proposing a rebellion at May's annual general meeting.
GLOBAL - Nokia is turning to a strategic alliance with Microsoft to compete against rival smartphone manufacturers and is splitting its operations into two divisions.
SYDNAY - Tourism Australia is reviewing its global media account currently held by Aegis network Carat.
GLOBAL - Groupon, the online collective purchasing service, has appointed Starbucks global chief executive Howard Schultz to the company's board of directors.
GLOBAL - Mobile brands are turning to social media in an effort to gain dominance in the competitive smartphone market.
GLOBAL - HTC is launching a large international campaign tomorrow, to promote its two mass-market handsets, the 'iPhone killer', Desire HD and entry-level Wildfire.
GLOBAL - A leaked memo, claimed to be from Nokia's chief executive Stephen Elop, has offered a blunt assessment of the company's performance and indicated the company could drop its Symbian operating system.
GLOBAL - Singer and actress Jennifer Lopez will star in a new campaign for Gillette Venus, the women's razor brand owned by Procter & Gamble, which will include TV, online, print and social media activity.
GLOBAL - LG will launch the world's first 3D smartphone, the Optimus 3D, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week.
GLOBAL - Oliver Loomes, the marketing and innovation director for Diageo Ireland, has been promoted to the role of global brand director for Guinness.
GLOBAL - Hearst Corporation has made a "binding offer" of €651 million (US$893 million) for Lagardère's international magazine business, which includes a licensing agreement for fashion magazine Elle.
GLOBAL - Microsoft has reported record revenues of US$19.9 billion for its second financial quarter, ending 31 December 2010, up 5 per cent from last year, as sales of its motion sensor controller system Kinect took off.
GLOBAL- Old Spice is releasing an ad called 'I'm back' to advertise its new collection and featuring the ever-popular 'guy' Isaiah Mustafa.
GLOBAL - Yahoo has nearly doubled its profits for the fourth quarter and reported 86 per cent growth for the year following a period of heavy cost-cutting across the company.
GLOBAL - HTC is reported to be on the verge of launching a Facebook-branded smartphone as part of the social media giant's push into mobile this year.
GLOBAL - Steve Jobs, co-founder and chief executive of Apple, is to take a medical leave of absence.
GLOBAL - Lagardère, the giant French conglomerate behind Hachette Filipacchi, has moved closer to finalising a deal with Hearst Corporation concerning the sale of its international magazine portfolio.
GLOBAL - Blackberry maker Research in Motion is set to enter the tablet computer market with the launch of a device later this year.
GLOBAL - Sir Martin Sorrell (pictured) has upped the forecast for WPP from flat to two per cent growth for the year, following three months of "stabilisation" today.
GLOBAL - The value of the world's top 100 brands has grown by four per cent in the past year to exceed US$2 trillion, according to the results of Millward Brown's 2010 BrandZ survey. Google remains on top while Toyota reflects on a difficult year.
GLOBAL - Facebook has marked its sixth birthday by revealing it has more than doubled its number of users in the last year to 400 million.
GLOBAL - Facebook's new payments system is predicted to haul between $125 million and $250 million in revenue this year, according to research from a US analyst.
GLOBAL - The Financial Times is to introduce day passes to give visitors 24-hour access to its website and says micropayments is something it has looked at.
LONDON - Twitter is looking to recruit a number of staff whose main focus will be to generate income for the microblogging site.
GLOBAL - Twitter is to allow businesses to personalise accounts used by multiple members of staff by adding their own "byline" to tweets in what is the first of a series of additions for business users.
GLOBAL - Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is set to partner with Time Inc, Hearst, Conde Nast and Meredith to launch a paid content venture that would create a digital storefront for a wide range of magazines and newspapers.
LONDON - Online giants Yahoo and Microsoft have cemented their search deal, a move that will result in Microsoft's Bing powering Yahoo's search engine.
GLOBAL - Facebook is reported to be considering yet more tweaks to its design only months after its last set of changes sparked more than a million complaints from users.
GLOBAL - Two more US newspaper publishers, MediaNews Group and AH Belo, have said that they are considering pulling their content from Google in the wake of News Corporation's threat earlier this week.
GLOBAL - AOL has unveiled a new brand identity ahead of its spin-off from parent Time Warner into an independent company next month.
GLOBAL - Sony is to incorporate Facebook within its PlayStation 3 games console, following rival Microsoft, which has added Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm to the Xbox 360.
GLOBAL - In the search for avenues of paid content, the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal is introducing an almost US$600 a year Wall Street Journal Professional Edition.
GLOBAL - Yahoo's third-quarter revenues dropped 12 per cent on last year to US$1.58 billion but cost-cutting has helped boost net income by 225 per cent to $188 million.
GLOBAL - Publicis Groupe, the world's fourth largest communications group, has finalised its purchase of digital agency Razorfish from Microsoft in a cash and shares deal worth in excess of US$500 million.
GLOBAL - Internet brands Google and Amazon.com have weathered the recession better than most other global brands, both seeing the value of their brands grow by over 20 per cent.
GLOBAL - Twitter's popularity continues to soar with the site's worldwide traffic rising to a record 51.6 million unique users in July, according to comScore, with the vast majority of new visitors coming from outside the US.
GLOBAL - Publicis Groupe is to buy digital agency Razorfish from Microsoft for US$530 million, having outbid rivals WPP Group and Dentsu in an auction process.
LONDON - Steve Jobs (pictured), Apple co-founder, is taking six months leave from the company after admitting his health problems are "more complex" than he claimed ten days ago.
LONDON - Carrefour, the world's second largest retailer, has appointed Publicis Groupe without a pitch to handle its $1bn global advertising account.
CANBERRA - An Australian court has approved the use of Facebook to serve a legally binding document on a couple that defaulted on a six-figure housing loan.
NEW YORK - Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are preparing to sign up to a global code of conduct that will help them avoid criticism over issues such as freedom of speech in China.
NEW YORK - Google will make its highly anticipated entrance into the mobile phone market with the launch of the G1, the first mobile device to use its Android operating system.
LONDON - Some of the biggest advertisers in the US, including Procter & Gamble and General Motors, are seeking to block Google's controversial advertising alliance with Yahoo!.
LONDON - Australia has finally topped Great Britain in an Olympic poll, by delivering more unique users a day to the official website of the Beijing games.