The BBC has announced that its flagship iPlayer service will offer radio programmes up to a month after their broadcast from 2014, harmonising its radio and TV offer.

At present radio fans have just seven days to stream their favourite shows before they vanish for good but, starting next year, they will have seven days to download content, 30 days to store it and an additional seven days to view the content once opened.

A BBC spokesman said: "We are delighted with the Trust’s decision. We will now start work to bring download functionality to BBC iPlayer Radio, a process which we anticipate will take some months yet."

This follows a decline in the number of iPlayer requests to 257m in April from 272m in March - an anomaly in an otherwise consistent growth pattern which the broadcaster is attributing to the advent of British Summer Time and the Easter holidays.

Confused.com is kicking off a multimillion pound rebrand campaign this weekend in an effort to reposition the brand as an insurance expertise service.

This weekend will see the launch of a new character, Brian the robot, across all advertising channels, beginning with a TV ad during Saturday's episode of Britain's Got Talent.

The campaign was created by Publicis London and Confused.com also worked with Thompson Brand Partners, Ogilvy PR and PHD among a number of agencies to launch the rebrand, which aims to move Confused.com from its price comparison service to insurance expertise.

Brian the robot will be featured across all advertising channels in different scenarios helping people save money on car insurance.

Joby Russell, marketing director at Confused.com, said: "We are really excited to be rebranding our business and making a star of our new icon; Brian.

"When we think of a robot we think of something that is full of knowledge, something with quick-thinking processes and Brian embodies all of this. Brian is the embodiment of Confused.com.

"The new campaign, the website, the branding has all come from one brief. A brief to position Confused.com as an expert, clearly differentiated from the competition through innovation."

A list of personal information detailing the names, addresses and mobile phone numbers of 200 alleged English Defence League members, has been published online by a group claiming to be part of Anonymous.

The hacking collective warn members of the far-right group to ‘expect more’ such attacks going forward just 24 hours after the group promised to ‘disseminate’ the EDL’s message in a confused statement.

The EDL has risen to prominence in recent days as its leadership seeks to capitalise on a tense atmosphere brought about by the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby.

‘Operation EDL’ is touted as a bid to counter the ‘fear and animosity' being propagated by the hate group.

NatWest has unveiled a campaign with M&C Saatchi, which includes a YouTube homepage takeover and a special microsite to promote the Pay Your Contacts functionality of the NatWest mobile banking app.

The microsite, which is set to be live for at least the next three months, allows users to create a personalised video to remind mates about an IOU.

SapientNitro was the digital production agency involved and Zenith Optimedia handled media planning and buying.

Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch has unveiled a new logo for his News Corp media empire, based on his own handwriting.

The simple script supplants the previous spherical grid emblem and is designed to signify a fresh start for the business following a number of recent ‘spectacular’ mistakes.

Speaking to a group of investors in New York Murdoch said: “Y ou may be wondering why I want to do it all over again. The simple answer is: there is opportunity everywhere.

"I have been given an extraordinary opportunity most people never get in their lifetime: the chance to do it all over again."

The new-look design heralds the coming split of News Corp into two separate entities on 28 June; including a publishing division (which retains the News Corp title) and an entertainment division.

The new look News Corp includes wraps up titles such as The Times, Sunday Times, The Sun, Wall Street Journal and New York Post with book publisher HarperCollins and education unit Amplify.

Facebook has responded to the #FBrape campaign, which saw Women, Action and The Media, The Everyday Sexism Project and other organisations ask the social media network to end gender-based hate speech on its site.

The campaign started last week, with an open letter demanding ‘swift, comprehensive and effective action addressing the representation of rape and domestic violence on Facebook’.

In a statement on its site, Marne Levine, VP of global public policy at Facebook said: “Facebook’s mission has always been to make the world more open and connected. We seek to provide a platform where people can share and surface content, messages and ideas freely, while still respecting the rights of others. When people can engage in meaningful conversations and exchanges with their friends, family and communities online, amazingly positive things can happen.

“We’ve also found that posting insensitive or cruel content often results in many more people denouncing it than supporting it on Facebook. That being said, we realise that our defence of freedom of expression should never be interpreted as license to bully, harass, abuse or threaten violence. We are committed to working to ensure that this does not happen within the Facebook community. We believe that the steps outlined below will help us achieve this goal.

“In recent days, it has become clear that our systems to identify and remove hate speech have failed to work as effectively as we would like, particularly around issues of gender-based hate. In some cases, content is not being removed as quickly as we want. In other cases, content that should be removed has not been or has been evaluated using outdated criteria. We have been working over the past several months to improve our systems to respond to reports of violations, but the guidelines used by these systems have failed to capture all the content that violates our standards. We need to do better – and we will.”

Facebook announced steps that it will take, including updating its policies and soliciting feedback from representatives of the women's coalition and other groups; increasing the accountability of the creators of content; and establishing more formal and direct lines of communications with representatives of groups.

Jaclyn Friedman, executive director of Women Action and the Media (WAM!), said: “We are reaching an international tipping point in attitudes towards rape and violence against women. We hope that this effort stands as a testament to the power of collaborative action.”

Earlier this week the campaign hit over 50,000 tweets and saw several brands suspend their adverts.

BuzzFeed and CNN have launched a joint video venture on YouTube – ‘CNN BuzzFeed’.

Set up to help attract news readers from CNN’s 18-34 demographic to BuzzFeed, and push social media clicks over to CNN, the channel with will offer CNN’s news and archival content alongside BuzzFeed’s viral content.

Led by Ze Frank, executive VP at BuzzFeed, the channel will apply BuzzFeed’s web-strategies and will aim to create “shareable, emotionally compelling video content for a highly-mobile, video-driven generation.”

BuzzFeed CEO, Jon Steinberg told the Wall Street Journal that the company would be investing a low “eight-digit sum” over two years into the new platform.

The European Wax Center, a chain of waxing stores across the US, has launched a national radio campaign developed by StrawberryFrog New York.

Running throughout spring and summer, the campaign comprises six 30 or 60 second radio spots, entitled; Bikini, Denim Shorts, Little Black Dress, Short Skirt, Skirt and Tank.

Each ad has aimed to remind a woman to let her to “let her skin shine this summer and have a little cheeky fun.”

Commenting on the campaign, Jessica Coba, co-founder of European Wax Center said: "We have done a lot of creative advertising in Vogue, Elle, Cosmopolitan and other fashion magazines and on big outdoor boards such as in Times Square and on the side of the Mondrian hotel in LA to remind our guests that we provide a premium, high quality waxing experience at a reasonable cost -- and done it in a way that raises eyebrows.

“Now we are adding these fun and cheeky radio ads that inspire guests to try a complimentary European wax this spring -- and feel gorgeous."

Miami based Poh Media handled the media buying for the campaign.

Research from social media monitoring company Brandwatch has found that almost one in every 179 English words used on Twitter is spelt incorrectly, beating off Facebook, Google+ and online forums to become the top network for misspelled words.

The research, carried out over a three month period, found that women are more likely to elongate words, such as ‘soooo’ and use onomatopoeias such as ‘argh’, while men will shorten phrases, such as ‘gonna’ and ‘gotta’.

Brandwatch discovered the number one language deviation was a missing apostrophe, with the second being the use of acronyms and common web-speak phrases such as LOL.

Joel Windels, lead community manager at Brandwatch, said: “Whether through deliberate misuse or ignorance, it is clear that the nature of Twitter and its strict character limit continues to encourage a higher rate of unofficial English. But rather than bemoaning the loss of the language, shouldn’t we instead be recognising this for what it is – a natural evolution?

“Last year the Oxford English Dictionary added well over 1,000 new words and meanings, including web-speak words ‘lolz’ and ‘tweeps.’ Changes to language are nothing new, but this research highlights just how much of an influence social media is having on how we communicate.”

It was also found that around one in every 400 words used on Twitter now begins with a hashtag, and their use is slowly starting to extend into other platforms like Facebook and Google+.

Last week, code on the Facebook website seemed to suggest the site was gearing up to allow hashtags.

YouTube has released a new tool for budding cinematographers to use slow motion in their videos with an update to its built-in editor.

This adds to a roster of effects already provided by the tool and was developed in-house using a process of frame analysis to blend intermediate frames together – negating the need to own a high-speed camera.

Everyone’s favourite party trick is a near guaranteed views generator on the site with some users specialising exclusively in the format; such as the Slow Mo Guys whose channel has racked up 2m subscribers.

A coroner described the media coverage of a transgender teacher Lucy Meadows' sex change as "appalling" as he recorded a death of suicide on Tuesday at the inquest into her death.

Controversy surrounded an article by the Daily Mail's Richard Littlejohn in December and the piece was removed from the Daily Mail website following a complaint from Meadows in January. In the article, Littlejohn described Meadows - who was previously known as Nathan Upton before undergoing gender reassignment treatment and returning to St Mary Magdalen's primary school in Accrington in December as Lucy Meadows - as selfish and questioned her ability to do her job.

"By insisting on returning to St Mary Magdalen's, he is putting his own selfish needs ahead of the well-being of the children he has taught for the past few years," the article read.

"It would have been easy for him to disappear quietly at Christmas, have the operation and then return to work as 'Miss Meadows' at another school on the other side of town in September. No-one would have been any the wiser.

"But if he cares so little for the sensibilities of the children he is paid to teach, he's not only trapped in the wrong body, he's in the wrong job."

Meadows took her own life in March. The Daily Mail was among local and national titles which covered her story.

Coroner Michael Singleton said at her inquest: "Having carried out what can only be described as a character assassination, having sought to ridicule and humiliate Lucy Meadows and bring into question her right to pursue her career as a teacher, the Daily Mail's response was to offer to remove the article from the website.

"It seems to me that nothing has been learnt from the Leveson Inquiry or subsequent report."

An online petition set up in the aftermath of Meadows death calling for the sacking of Richard Littlejohn received more than 200,000 signatures.

The Daily Mail defended the article in a story featured in Wednesday's paper. A spokesman said: "Richard Littlejohn's column emphatically defended the rights of people to have sex change operations but echoed some parents' concerns about whether it was right for children to have to confront such complex gender problems at such a vulnerable young age.

"Among the many reasons Miss Meadows gave for taking her actions, none blamed the press coverage. Miss Meadows herself thanked the PCC for the way her complaint was amicably resolved."

A TV ad for LOVEFiLM’s ‘instant’ streaming service has been banned from further repeat broadcasts by the Advertising Standards Authority for failing to explain that the entire catalogue was not available on all compatible devices.

This complaint arose from the stated proposition which said: “Lovefilm Instant. Watch unlimited movies and TV series instantly on loads of devices for less than a fiver a month. Try it now,” with a range of devices including games consoles, computers, an iPad and Kindle Fire highlighted.

LOVEFiLM had argued that they ‘did not believe that the ad was inaccurate’ or required additional qualification beyond that given as unlimited content was available on every LOVEFiLM-ready device – even if that content regularly changed.

In their ruling however the ASA observed that LOVEFiLM conceded on their own website that ‘Availability of the Instant TV catalogue currently varies by device, but we're working towards all TV series being accessible on all devices in the near future.’

In light of this the watchdog concluded that not all content was available across all devices and thus labelled the ad ‘misleading’ and thus cannot be shown again in its current form.

Bulmers has launched its #beginwithabulmers summer marketing campaign, supported by 'hit squads' and the brand's augmented reality app.

Every Friday from mid-June 'hit squads' will give out samples of new Bulmers flavours in London, Manchester, Newcastle and Brighton, and will attempt to seek out a drinker who has used the hashtag in the bar they've been tagged in and "surprise them with an act of kindness".

The campaign has been created by Space and will encourage the social media hashtag with 10,000 point of sale kits promoting it.

Group account director at Space, Sean Kelly, said: "Begin with a Bulmers is a brilliant way to tap into the blending of offline and social. It plays on this demographic's existing habit of sharing the start of their weekends through social media and stays relevant by engaging with them through random-acts-of-kindness rewards in the pub, there and then."

The brand's augmented reality app has been refreshed by Space to promote #beginwithabulmers.

Authenticity is critical to all successful multiplatform storytelling, according to economist and author of Freakonomics Steven Levitt.

Speaking at Sapient Nitro’s Ideas Exchange (iEX) event in London this morning Levitt said marketers and businesses must ensure that authenticity is at the heart of their messages and relationship with consumers.

“In a marketing world in which people are constantly bombarded with false messages the one true thing, and what connects people to the world around them, is authenticity. That’s why social media is so powerful – because authenticity is at the heart of all good social media,” he said.

Brands must also ensure they have something worth saying and must also imagine how can they can bring an idea or service to people they had neither imagined nor knew they needed, according to Levitt.

Businesses that understand how to effectively mine their data and establish the authentic from the non-authentic data will be those that succeed in keeping pace with the evolving landscape, he said.

“Historically business people have always been the experts – it was their job to deliver what people wanted – but that’s totally wrong. The change brought about with big data means the role of the business executive is not to know the answer but to use or leverage the data effectively…and most companies are not doing this enough…. The future of business lies with the companies that understand how to use the data to inform their strategies and personalise their services,” he said.

Breaking down internal silos, and encouraging collaboration within departments is core to untapping the value of big data, according to Levitt.

He referenced music service Pandora as an example of a company that is using its data in a “genius” way, tracking and understanding what music preferences individuals like, and then serving them with related, but new music, they had never before heard, therefore introducing them to new things, which in turn leads to trust and love for that brand.

“That is the kind of genius that comes out of really good data analysis, but most companies are not doing this,” he added.

The PGA TOUR has selected independent digital advertising sales house AD2ONE to sell the digital advertising inventory across its website in the UK and Ireland.

AD2ONE has now been tasked with generating maximum advertising revenue for the website and well as securing deals with brands looking to connect with golf’s affluent and valuable audience. AD2ONE will target golf, sports and financial services and automotive brands for bespoke and relevant brand activity.

“The growth of British and Irish stars in the USA PGA TOUR has resulted in the golf market seeing significant growth and increased interest from fans and brands…There is no better time for AD2ONE and the PGA TOUR to work together to offer a wide range of brands the opportunity to connect with our unique and valuable audience,” said Lee Bushkell, VP of media sales, PGA TOUR.

AD2ONE’s group managing director, Grant Allaway, added: “The opportunity to work with the PGA TOUR is an exciting prospect for us…We are excited by the prospect of working with the full spectrum of brands to tap into this lucrative and passionate audience.”

Building supplier Travis Perkins has appointed Amaze as its lead digital partner following a four-way pitch.

Amaze has been tasked with providing digital consultation, strategy, digital marketing and thought leadership for the central Travis Perkins Group as well as advising on how to employ digital across its brands.

“We are looking to enhance our digital offering and enable our customers to operate at their optimum in today’s digital world,” said Linda Doughty, group marketing director at Travis Perkins.

“In a marketplace where most brand interaction happens in person, it is essential that we keep customer service central to all campaigns and use digital to support, not replace, personal relationships.”

She continued: “The team at Amaze impressed us and we found they excelled in strategic thinking, with clear technical and digital strengths whilst demonstrating an understanding of our customer base and the marketplace in which we operate.”

One of Amaze’s first tasks has been to introduce digital campaigns and solutions designed to make tradesmen’s lives easier. Initial campaigns will include SEO, PPC, social media and website design and build.

The account will be managed through Amaze’s Communications practice.

Sandra McDowell, managing director of Amaze Communications, added: “The Travis Perkins account is a hugely exciting win for us as we are delighted to be able to bring our team of specialists together to form channel-neutral communications plans, for the Group and its brands in the building and construction market.”

Penguin is encouraging families to share storytime together in a new and interactive way, no matter where they are in the world, with the launch of a new experimental app developed by BBH London.

The Storytime Hangout app for Google+ brings the classic Ladybird tale ‘Three Billy Goats Gruff’ to life by augmenting special masks over the video feed in Google Hangouts in order to put people at the heart of the storytelling experience, despite being in different locations.

“The experience of reading with children is so much more than just the text and the pictures on the page. It's the sound effects, the voices and the funny faces pulled when acting out a character that make it magical - and this app does that in a new and exciting way. While nothing will ever replace the act of snuggling up with a book and reading a story with a child, we're using technology to give it a twist, enabling it to happen at long-distances, and connecting stories and readers as Penguin has always done,” said Anna Rafferty, MD of Penguin Digital.

The app transforms children into storybook characters allowing them to act out the story while they read along with their parents with the text displayed on the screen.

Greg Titica, creative director at BBH, added: “Technology can be seen as the biggest enemy of modern days families, with every member glued to their own individual screen. Or technology can be seen as the most powerful tool, bringing every member of the family together.”

The vignette in the middle of this ad which has a blond steward wrongly assuming that one of his passengers speaks a Chinese language might be the most cringeworthy moment of the year so far. Presumably the effort is supposed to be commendable but it manages to make the airline's staff seem uninformed, condescending and vaguely racist. Well done.

Walkers has launched its new crispy-coated peanut brand, TigerNuts, with a campaign by Karmarama.

Using the tagline ‘Not crisps. Crisp nuts.’, the campaign features characters with human bodies and tiger heads.

This is the first campaign Karmarama has created for PepsiCo since its appointment earlier in 2013.

The campaign will run across national print, radio and online.

Mini has partnered with Deezer to integrate the global music service into its entertainment system.

Mini has been aiming to increase its range of online services inside its cars, and this partnership with Deezer will allow drivers to access millions of songs with a subscription.

“You can’t have a road trip without the right music, and you can’t enjoy a car without an amazing stereo. We’re excited about joining the iconic Mini brand in giving people the soundtrack they need for the open road,” said Deezer CEO Axel Dauchez.

“25 million songs and one simple app should help people find the right song for the moment – wherever they’re going.”

From today, 29 May, the Deezer app can downloaded and immediately linked with Mini Connected, the in-car entertainment system. It can be used alongside other apps, and has been designed to make it easy to use for drivers with a Mini joystick, dash screen and steering wheel controlling the app.