Sports nutrition brand Elivar has awarded its integrated brief spanning branding, design, digital, social, experiential and PR to Cubo.

Aimed exclusively at athletes aged between 35 and 55, Elivar is set to roll out in the UK and Ireland before expanding into international markets.

Cubo has been tasked with developing the Elivar brand identity and digital presence as well as being retained to launch the range across sports and lifestyle media, social networks and carry our merchandising and sampling at select sports events.

Of the decision to appoint Cubo, Len Dunne, marketing and commercial director at Elivar, explained: “From the outset, Cubo showed the passion, desire and understanding that made the decision to appoint them an easy one. Their insights into the market and the need to effectively target and engage the older athlete were impressive. We’re really looking forward to working alongside Kerry and his team to make Elivar a success.”

Cubo CEO, Kerry Simpson, added: “Creating, developing, designing and launching a new brand is always a very exciting and rewarding project…The idea that a 45 year old and an 18 year old need the same fuel is clearly wrong. I, for one, believe Elivar has a very bright future ahead indeed.”

Boots has appointed M&C Saatchi to handle its digital creative account, including its leading skincare brand No7 and Boots Opticians.

The agency’s first piece of work for the brand is ‘Boots Camp’ – a content hub full of inspiration, hints and tips for getting people to make the most of summer.

Lisa Thomas, CEO at M&C Saatchi Group, said: “This is a significant win for the M&C Saatchi Group, and we’re very excited about working together with Boots on the brand’s longer term digital strategies. Driving digital innovation is imperative to maintaining Boots’ leading edge, and we are looking forward to developing engaging and innovative digital campaigns that will take the brands to the next level.”

Working together with Walker Media, the remit includes digital media planning and buying, and search; as well as social, mobile and digital campaigns.

Elizabeth Fagan, Marketing Director, Boots UK, added: “We want to inspire our customers to feel good, and deliver the high level of customer experience, care and expertise however they choose to engage with our brand. Bringing that experience of the Boots brand to life across all channels is key, and digital is becoming increasingly important to our strategy, particularly as a means of deepening the relationships we have with our customers. We were impressed by M&C Saatchi’s understanding of the Boots brand and their creative thinking, and we are looking forward to working with them as we continue to grow the Boots brand.”

M&C Saatchi was appointed following a competitive pitch.

YouTube’s Geek Week will include an advert scheduled to run in cinemas after The Wolverine film has finished rather than before.

The ad to promote Geek Week includes media planning by PHD in partnership with Digital Cinema Media (DCM). It will highlight that Geek Week is set to run from 4 August to 10 August.

David Wilding, head of planning at PHD, said: “This movie has an additional scene at the end so we already knew the super fans or geeks would stay until the very end to see it. This insight opened us up to the idea of tapping into this never-used-before element of the cinema experience and targets the proud geek audience we’re looking for perfectly.”

The week will include superheroes, comics, science-fiction and more, with over 100 YouTube creators set to release new videos over the seven-day-period, including a new episode of classic kids TV series Knightmare.

A compilation of drunken accidents at railway stations, including an inebriated man in a kilt trying to kick a pigeon and falling on the tracks, has been released by Network Rail as part of a safety campaign warning against heavy drinking before heading to a station.

As well as the tipsy Scot, the video shows one person falling down an escalator with their friend attempting to come to their aid and another man dropping beneath a moving train after trying to board before it had stopped.

“We do everything we can to make moving around our stations as easy and safe as possible, but our teams deal with far too many people who have injured themselves where it appears alcohol has been a factor,” explained network operations managing director at Network Rail, Robin Gisby.

In the 17 stations run by Network Rail more than 1,600 people have been injured over the last year, with the majority of accidents occurring in Leeds and at the London stations of Paddington and Liverpool Street.

British Transport Police deputy chief constable, Paul Crowther, added: “Somewhat inevitably, drinking alcohol can impair people's judgment and co-ordination.

"Encouraging passengers to be more aware of their surroundings - particularly when they have had a drink - and to be alert to the inherent dangers that exist in stations will, we hope, reduce avoidable slips and falls across the network.”

The stereotypical ‘tall, dark and handsome’ allure of the ideal man for women or the buxom blonde for men may have to be reassessed after a survey of the 682,000 online dating related search queries made in June by Britons found that Polish references topped the charts.

Digital marketing agency Greenlight’s Online Dating Sector Report found that the keyword ‘Polish dating’ came top in both laptop and desktop searches, accounting for 25 and 16 per cent respectively of 101,230 culture and preference searches.

This saw eastern European dating edge out ‘asian dating’, ‘christian dating’, ‘dating for parents’, ‘disabled dating’ and ‘single parent dating’ in a chart summary.

Location wise London was, unsurprisingly, the main hotspot with ‘speed dating London’ queried 4,400 times followed by ‘London dating’ and ‘dating London in laptop searches.

Mobile terms told a slightly different story with ‘NZ dating’ coming second to ‘speed dating London’ which again topped the list.

Looking at the most visible sites overall for online dating the survey highlighted telegraph.co.uk, eharmony.co.uk and then freedating.co.uk, which attained a 46%, 40% and 37% share of visibility on desktops, respectively, and 56%, 55% and 47% on mobile devices.

In 2007 South African rugby player Bryan Habana famously raced a cheetah and won, now British Airways has challenged Habana to take on its new A380 air bus.

The stunt, promoting the new A380 which will fly to Johannesburg from February 2014, sees Habana race alongside the plane describing it as ranking “right up there with some of the craziest things I’ve had to do.”

The video of the race released online also stars South African rugby player Jean de Villiers and Chris Robshaw England Rugby captain, rating Habana’s chances at his latest challenge.

One in six use their pet’s name as their password, while 67 per cent use their current partner’s name, research commissioned by Google has found.

The research found that almost half (48 per cent) had shared their password with someone else, while 10 per cent have guessed a colleague’s password.

Eran Feigenbaum from Google Apps told The Telegraph: “People often leave their information open to online security breaches without even realising it. Lax attitudes to online security can lead to serious consequences if strangers access your information.

"Simple steps such as choosing more complicated passwords, always logging out of services and considering two-factor authentication, which requires more than just a password to access your account, can make a real difference to your security online.”

Significant dates, child’s names, place of birth and ‘password’ were also top choices for passwords.

History has been kind to Michael Foot, the unelectable Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal opposition in the UK at the time of the 1983 elections. Revisionists praise his intellect and conscience, and in particular his non-Nuclear stance, which is appreciated as far sighted and rational, although it blew counter to the prevailing political winds of the time. Fatally, in electoral terms.

A tranche of confidential Cabinet papers from 1983, released to the public for the fist time today, contain an interesting and disturbing gem from senior Cabinet Office official Sir David Goodall, whose role as part of the neutral civil service was to implement the policies of the Government of the day, whomever it comprised of. This enabling function of the Cabinet Office persists to this day, where it describes its own role on its website thus: “We support the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, and ensure the effective running of government.”

But the papers disclose that in 1983, it was prepared to do no such thing.

“In the light of the current disagreement within the Labour party leadership about defence policy, I do not think it would be either sensible or practicable to try to prepare a detailed brief on how under a Labour government we might move towards 'a non-nuclear defence policy' or get rid of United States bases in this country," :Sir David Goodall, a senior cabinet office official said on 26 May that year, the papers disclose.

The scale of that revelation and what it implies is breathtaking to the uninitiated, revealing the extent of the illusion of democracy in the UK, and where true power actually lies.

In short, this means that an incoming democratically elected government, on a popular, publicly declared mandate, would have been prevented from carrying out its core policy by faceless, unelected civil servants, who weren't even prepared to bother looking into how to implement them.

In the intervening years, we have turned this syndrome into satire. The popular ‘Yes, Minister’ programme and ’The Thick of It’ played on the disconnect between political will and its implementation, but that is fiction. And comedy. This is reality. History tells us that Labour did not get in, but if they - or any other political movement that proposes the removal of United States bases and the adoption of a non-nuclear defence policy, as per the will of the electorate - is elected to power, the civil service has proven that it would not enable it.

This is one single example of a loose thread that, if pulled, would disclose the extent of the real power network that controls our affairs. It is nebulous, vague, hard to discern and challenging to define. But it occupies real offices, sits at a real desk, prepares real memos and commands real practical, loyal, hidden, unelected, uncontrollable power, and it makes decisions that lead all the way to the nuclear button, the most powerful technology ever devised.

Marketers are unsure how to accurately measure ROI amid increasing channels and streams of data, a new survey has revealed.

The study from Tagman and Marketing Finder concluded that big data was becoming a distraction for marketers and social media added a further complicating factor.

“The buzz about big data is almost a distraction: the promise inherent in data-driven marketing has always been that brands can, in real time, reallocate budgets to drive better results through the channels that work best,” said the report. “Social media’s contribution to big data has, some might argue, made channel attribution and a single customer journey view an even more elusive pipedream.”

Of more than 200 marketers surveyed, the report recorded uncertainty over how effectively marketers were measuring ROI.

“When respondents were asked how confident they are in their ability to measure ROI, to which a majority (58 per cent) replied with a tentative ‘somewhat confident’,” it continued. “When we pursued this, enquiring how they currently reward marketing partners such as technology vendors, email service providers and publishers, the overwhelming response (over 49 per cent) said they were ‘not sure’.

“It’s a finding that will not cause surprise, when you consider that C-suite and shareholders are constantly pressing marketers for better returns, with the result being increased pressure to get campaigns out the door.”

According to the survey, 20 per cent rewarded marketing partners based upon last click rates, with best click at 13 per cent and first click at six per cent. However, 51 per cent said they were not sure.

The survey also examined the dominance of Google in the search and display ad market. In the first quarter of 2013, Google’s share of the US display market had reached 24 per cent while Yahoo and Facebook held less than 10 per cent of the market share, according to IDC figures.

When asked if they were concerned about Google’s dominance in PPC advertising, 39 per cent of marketers said yes. On social media, while 43 per cent of those surveyed were confident their social media investments were delivering revenue, 32 per cent were unsure.

Commenting on the report, Peter Sensier, online marketing manager at Waitrose, said: “Our goal is fairly straight forward - we want to better understand the required mix of budget, targeting and messaging for each channel as part of one customer journey. With that knowledge, we believe we can better plan our activity across bought, earned and owned channels.

“That said, we recognise that there are many different variations of the customer journey, so this is not so much an exercise of identifying the one exact path for all customers, but rather identifying patterns in the channel mix that have the greatest positive effect on sales performance.”

Vice, the youth media company, has announced the appointment of Laura Franses as UK managing director, with immediate effect.

Franses will lead Vice’s content and partnerships in the UK, as the company looks to expand its video offerings ahead of new channel launches later this year.

She said: "I’m very excited to be marrying my background in television, with Vice’s preeminent digital content. The industry is going through profound and accelerated changes, and Vice is top of its class in identifying new opportunities and creating magnificent, acclaimed content.”

Franses will use the recent Emmy nomination of Vice’s news-magazine series on HBO as a launchpad to further the brand’s content offering in the UK to broadcasters and other platforms.

Franses will report into Matt Elek, Managing Director, EMEA, who said: "We're thrilled to welcome Laura to VICE. As we continue our rapid expansion, particularly in the online video space, having someone with Laura's experience and enthusiasm will be immensely important.”

As online music streaming continues to dominate the market research from Forrester and analyst Anthony Mullen reveals that marketers are still missing out on revenue from in-stream audio advertising opportunities.

According to Forrester data based on 58,000 responses, 28 per cent of US adults and 17 per cent of EU adults stream music on their PCs and mobiles. Only six per cent of US respondents were willing to pay to access online streamed radio, with the lion’s share using freemium and ad-supported models.

“Advertisers and marketers are largely stuck on preconceptions of over-the-air (OTA) and haven’t understood the unique opportunity for marketing within streaming services,” writes Mullen in his online blog. “It is data-rich and, unlike visual advertising, doesn’t fight for consumers' attention, with a single stream active at one time.”

According to Mullen in-stream audio advertising remains ripe with opportunity though it still largely underinvested in despite providing ROI.

He adds: “Over the past few years, it has matured to the point where it is part of standard campaign efforts, available through exchanges and even integrated into RTB platforms…for those looking to get into advertising traction on the difficult medium of mobile, in-stream audio is a particularly good method, with subscription models making opt-in advertising as part of the deal.”

In his research Mullen explores why in-stream advertising offers such a unique opportunity to advertisers, particularly in mobile, highlighting that in France 15 per cent of those surveyed stream on a computer but 27 per cent use mobile and that mobile streaming is likely to be the one trend that will continue worldwide with metropolitan regions of Hong Kong, Mexico and South Korea using mobile as their preferred listening method.

Channel 4 Online has today announced two retainer agreements with regional digital agencies, Leeds-based Numiko and Sheffield-based Rckt.

The two contracts, which are set to last for 12 months, will see each agency guaranteed a minimum spend of £100k.

Jodie Morris, production manager for online, said: “Through these retainer agreements, we’re able to make an on-going investment in creative talent outside of the larger, more established agencies across the UK. We work with a number of regional digital agencies already, but we wanted to demonstrate a longer term commitment to supporting them, and also to find fresh new talent to work with.
“We’ve been delighted with the projects delivered to us by both Numiko and Rckt in the past and look forward to working with them as trusted partners over the next 12 months. We’re also really excited to explore new project ideas with our shortlisted agencies – and to keep on finding new, regional companies interested in working with us as we remain committed to a broad and diverse supply base.”

Another six agencies were shortlisted for the programme support team: Corporation Pop, Chunk, The Connected Set, Fish in a Bottle, Aerian Studios, The Project Factory.

Jaron Ghani, technical director at Numiko, said: “It’s wonderful to be building on a very fruitful relationship that goes from strength to strength, and we’re very excited about the opportunities this new arrangement allows. It underlines a commitment on both sides to work even more closely and effectively, creating and delivering excellent digital content and experiences, further enhancing the channel’s exciting and thought-provoking output.”

Nick Crossland, senior digital producer at Rckt, added: “This agreement marks a significant milestone for Rckt and its relationship with Channel 4. It not only recognises the success of our past projects together, but also the ability and creativity of our team to deliver an original body of work which is enjoyed by a wide audience. We always enjoy working with the team at Channel 4 Online and over the next 12 months are really looking forward to working on a diverse range of projects which will help us to push our creative and technical boundaries. We're also thrilled that Channel 4 recognises the thriving creative industries in the North, and the cutting edge digital work that also takes place outside of London.”

The Channel 4 Online Product team has also agreed a retainer contract with London-based design and UX agency, Nice, to collaborate with Channel 4 on user experience and visual design for the channel’s video-on-demand service, 4oD.

CBS Outdoor UK is to bring cricket fans in London up to the minute scores and text commentary from The Ashes using its digital screens on the London Underground.

With The Ashes returning to Old Trafford for the first time since 2005 Cross-Track Projection (XTP) screens will be used to bring match updates throughout the five days of play. As part of a three way partnership, Livewire will supply editorial updates, which will feed into a new content management system – Broadcast on Demand (BOD), developed by Fin London.

Live tweets from Underground passengers will also be fed in via the delivery system.

Jason Cotterrell, managing director at CBS Outdoor UK, commented: “We are really excited to bring the very latest updates from one of the oldest sporting competitive rivalries - The Ashes to commuters on the London Underground.

"We have worked in partnership with Fin London and Livewire to deliver a true first, and we look forward to offering similar engaging content in the future, given the vast range of sporting activities which engender huge interest and passion in the capital.”

The campaign will run from today until Monday 5 August between 11am and 7pm on 60" screen within central London.

Energy drinks brand and anti-troll campaigner V Energy has launched an addition to its V-Hab anti-troll lab as a show of support for GQ magazine to combat enraged One Direction fans.

Real Madrid target Gareth Bale will continue as a brand ambassador for BT Sport, even if his transfer to Spain from Tottenham Hotspur does go ahead.

The Welsh International is reportedly the subject of an £85m bid from Real Madrid, which is widely expected to go through, but features in the BT Sport marketing activity in a Tottenham shirt.

The broadcasting rights to show Spain's La Liga in the UK rest with BT Sport's rival Sky.

But a BT spokesperson confirmed Bale would continue to act as an ambassador its sports channel even if it could not show its star in action.

“Obviously Gareth Bale is still a Tottenham player, but if he were to leave he would still be a BT Ambassador and will feature in our marketing going forward,” they told The Drum.

BT Sport went live this morning, and amongst a range of sporting centred programmes, also has the rights to live broadcast of English and Scottish Premier League matches, setting it up as a rival to Sky Sports.

This morning, BT Sport also revealed that Blue Peter presenter Helen Skelton would join its presenting team and BT Sport’s Football Conference and Women’s Super League team.

Brands will automatically rank higher in Google searches, even if they do not fulfil basic rules of SEO, research from Searchmetrics has found.

Marcus Tober, Searchmetrics’ founder and CTO, explained: “Brands rank high even if they fail to fulfil some of the most basic principles of SEO. For example pages from brands are positioned in or near the top of search results even if they have less text on the page and they don’t have keywords in the title.

“And it seems as though Google considers it natural for brands to have comparatively more backlinks with the name of the brand in the link text alone – what we refer to as "brand links" – and still not be rated negatively as would be the case for non-brand sites.”

The findings come from the UK Google Ranking Factors – Rank Correlation 2013 study by search and social analytics company, Searchmetrics, which also reveals that pages that rank higher in Google searches tend to have more Google+ plus ones and Facebook shares.

High street retailer River Island is introducing a series of eight prints from cult illustrator Tim Wolff AKA Tim Robot as part of a new menswear collection.

The range will be available in-store and online and features influences rooted in the creative Berlin lifestyle, with nods to the German capital’s street art and skate culture.

Launching 15 August, a new skating and illustration film from Tim Robot will also be included as part of the River Island Masterclass series.

The chairman of the Conservative party, Grant Shapps, has declined to apologise to Peter Cruddas when prompted seven times by reporters, following his libel victory against the Sunday Times.

The newspaper reported that the former Conservative party Treasurer charged £250,000 to meet the prime minister, David Cameron.

He has won almost £1.2 million in damages and costs over the 16 month legal battle.

Cruddas said the Conservative party had not supported him during the case.

“By not giving me support, by not listening to my side of the story and lining up to criticise me in public, just made the whole situation a lot worse," he said.

Grant Shapps, the Conservative party chairman, refused to apologise to Cruddas on behalf of the party when pressed by journalists. The Guardian reported that he declined seven times to offer an apology.

“I don't really think it's a question of that, I think it's a question of congratulating Peter Cruddas for managing to pursue this and get the right outcome," Shapps said.

Lord Ashcroft, the former Conservative treasure said the Prime Minister should apologise.

"I hope that Mr Cameron will now offer Mr Cruddas an apology for his criticism of him, and for forcing him to step down as treasurer with such haste when Mr Cruddas was fulfilling his unpaid role well and effectively. That would be the right thing to do," he said.

Cruddas said: “Unfortunately, it is very disappointing that the Conservative party gave a knee-jerk reaction when this story broke without first listening to my side of the story, and haven't reached out to me since, as they should also be celebrating this victory with me today.

"The party's motives should have been about truth and fairness but instead they chose to focus on what was politically less damaging."

Mobile forms the centre of a new advertising campaign from William Hill set to launch on the eve of the new football seasons in England and Scotland.

The ad promotes the bookmaker’s mobile betting site and the format will now feature match facts and statistics alongside betting options. The campaign was created by Leeds-based Bark & Bite and London production studio Mainframe.

Alex O’Shaughnessy, UK marketing director, said: “We’ve pushed the technology to provide viewers with facts and stats around the match, to increase engagement and talkability, and to promote our increasingly wide range of betting opportunities.

“The new live odds adverts really show our appetite to continually evolve.”

William Hill sponsors the Scottish Cup, is an official supporter of the England football team and the official betting partner of the FA Cup.

The new campaign will first air on 2 August.

Nissan Motor GB Limited has worked with Microsoft to help launch MSN Innovation, an editorial channel on MSN.

Designed to showcase innovation across all walks of life, the dedicated content complements the brand’s ethos of ‘Innovation that Excites’ and is tailored to appeal to Nissan’s target audience as well as those who are passionate about all things innovative.

The year-long deal between Microsoft Advertising and Nissan, which sees display advertising featured throughout MSN, was brokered by Manning Gottlieb OMD, and sees TBWA creating Nissan content and digital assets. Channel content created by MSN’s editorial team, aims to reflect Nissan’s brand positioning with products showcased including the 100 per cent electric LEAF, Juke, n-tec, Note, Qashqai, NISMO, GT-R and GT Academy.

“We see the launch of the Innovation Channel with Microsoft as a great platform to continually engage consumers in the UK with unique and varied content, and the variety of exciting projects that Nissan have coming up in 2013 and beyond,” explained Nissan UK marketing director, Guillaume Masurel.

A dedicated MSN editor will commission original channel content to maintain the quality, with editorial focusing on five categories, ‘design’, ‘planet’, ‘personal’, ‘tomorrow’ and a fifth pillar dedicated to Nissan’s viewpoint on innovation both inside and outside the automotive sector.

James Hayr, head of solutions at Microsoft Advertising, commented: ““Our belief is that great advertising revolves around great storytelling….MSN Innovation enables Nissan to tell its brand story in a new, credible way that integrates original, engaging content to create a unique experience.”

Manning Gottlieb OMD account director, Glenn Burchnall, added: “With their heritage in innovation, technology, research and development – Nissan and Microsoft are a great match. Working with Microsoft will enable us to amplify Nissan’s rich innovation story to a mass, engaged audience and continue our commitment to providing innovative comms platforms on behalf of the Nissan client in the UK."