- Ernst & Young, one of the big four accountancy companies, has approached media agencies ahead of a pitch for its global media planning and buying requirements.
- McCain Foods, the frozen food manufacturer, is installing the smell of baked potatoes to 10 bus stops around the country as part of its £1.4m push for Ready Made Jackets.
- The Economist has launched two sets of posters as part of its 'Where Do You Stand?' campaign.
- Unilever has introduced 'The Cleaner', the man whose job it is to clean up any tell-tale signs of partying, in a new campaign for its Axe brand (known as Lynx in the UK) in Argentina.
- Lacoste, the French fashion brand, has appointed MPG Media Contacts to its media planning and buying account for its clothing and leather goods ranges, after a pitch.
- Initiative has boosted its senior team with the hiring of Anna Watkins, the group managing director at the digital shop Grand Union, as its managing director.
- Absolute Radio has launched the latest phase of its long-running 'Faces For Radio' campaign and will target in-car and roadside audiences by using a live "now playing" feed on digital outdoor screens.
- Betfair, the online betting company, has appointed Havas Media-owned Arena Media as to its £2m media planning and buying account, without a pitch.
- The Newspaper Marketing Agency (NMA) has created a set of stop-frame animation films as part of a campaign to emphasise the passion readers have for sports coverage in newspapers.
- Jo Bacon, the former business director at Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R, has joined MTV Networks UK and Ireland as its vice-president of marketing, creative and publicity.
- Bray Leino, the Mission Marketing Group-owned full service agency, has appointed former Delaney Lund Knox Warren creative director Jon Elsom as its executive creative director, replacing Steve Hall.
- The Radio Advertising Bureau is backing its £350,000 drive to champion higher standards in radio creative with the appointment of Clare Bowen to the new role of head of creative development.
- Channel 5 is locked in a trading dispute with the Havas Media agency MPG Media Contacts.
- Channel 4 has appointed Damon Lafford, currently head of trading at BSkyB's Sky Media, as one of its two heads of agency sales, in the first major appointment of the new Channel 4 sales structure.
- Netflix, the movie-streaming service which officially launched in the UK and Ireland yesterday, has kicked off a major multimedia advertising campaign today (10 January) in its first salvo against rivals LoveFilm and Sky.
- Wonga.com and other payday loan companies are to be banned from signing major corporate sponsorships with Transport for London (TfL), following the highly criticised deal with Wonga for New Year's Eve 2010.
- The consensus among media agencies suggests the TV ad market will be flat year on year in the first quarter, a result many would welcome given the comparatively strong start to 2011.
- Media owners with share of a market in excess of 50% should automatically be "subject to undertakings which would prevent them from abusing their position", the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) has told Ofcom.
- Simon Pardon, global chief trading officer at Aegis Media and the former managing director of ITV sales house Granada Enterprises, has left Aegis to "pursue other interests".
- The television advertising market is expected to have grown by around 2% in 2011, with the biggest year-on-year rise achieved by Channel 5, while Channel 4 is expected to have performed the worst on a like-for-like basis.
