Feta-type cheese brand Arla Apetina has refreshed its brand packaging in a bid to entice new customers and keep the product, which has been around since the 1970s, relevant in the current market place.

Designed by pi global the agency was briefed with creating a strongly branded Apetina range complete with a clear visual messaging. Product photography was reshot and displayed on-pack with the range segmented by type of cheese each defined by a strong, solid background colour to assist customers pick their favourite type of Apetina.

“Apetina’s complex and ever expanding assortment of products going across categories had to be pinned down into a clear system, whilst also delivering clear shelf standout and a more emotional connection with our consumers. The whole Apetina team here at Arla Foods are very pleased with the process and the results of the redesign. It has helped rejuvenate Apetina’s image,” commented a spokesperson from Arla Apetina.

Design director at pi global Daphne Hine, added: “The new Apetina range design was conceived and executed to help deliver a much needed breath of fresh air within the cheese fixture. The ‘food in motion’ photography of the cheese and ingredients expresses spontaneity and freshness and hints at a wide range of uses that firmly plants the idea, in existing and new consumers’ minds, that Apetina is a brand for cooking and not just for salads.”

A terminology study of Britain’s press intended to identify trends in the depiction of immigrants in the press has named the Daily Mail and Express as the papers most likely to use the phrase ‘illegal immigrant’ in their reporting.

It found that over the past three years 10 per cent of all stories covering migration incorporated this phrase in the Daily Mail and Express, compared with 6.6 per cent in tabloids and 5 per cent of broadsheet articles,.

Though in common usage the wording has been criticised in some quarters, most notably the Associated Press, for its derogatory connotations – prompting them to ban its usage in their own reporting earlier this year.
In America a number of leading papers; such as USA Today, the LA Times and the New York Times have also moved to purge its usage from their pages.

Researchers Dr Scott Blinder and William Allen, of Oxford University's Migration Observatory, said: "The predominance of 'illegal' as a modifier of immigrants, and to a lesser extent migrants, clearly stands out. 'Illegal' far outnumbered any other modifier of immigrants, across all three publication types.

"Aside from the political controversies around this very phrase, it is worth noting that immigrants with legal status far outnumber those without it, according to the best estimates of the size of both types of migrant populations."

Customer satisfaction is on the rise globally after more than a year in decline with UK customer satisfaction rates up to 87 per cent, ranking sixth in the global top 10 according to research from Zendesk.

The survey, based on interactions between 16,000 participating companies and their customers, found that self-service amongst customers is on the rise with one in every four people helping themselves on forums and communities submitting a request. Mobile was found to be a key driver for helping customers self-serve before resorting to contacting companies directly. In the past year, the percentage of customers accessing self-service content via mobile increased by 50 per cent.

“The mobile consumer expects to find information with just a few swipes of a touch screen. Companies are moving quickly to offer customer self-service that’s just as good on a four-inch screen as it is on a big screen,” remarked Matt Price, VP and general manager EMEA at Zendesk.

With the average customer satisfaction rate now reach 81 per cent – a rise of three per cent since last quarter – worldwide customer satisfaction is at its highest level since Q1 2012. Industries with historically poor ratings such as financial and insurance services also saw recent gains as global consumer confidence has improved.

Price added: “In the UK as well as globally, a majority of industries are seeing a rise in customer satisfaction. Interestingly, this coincides with news this week on the first signs of recovery for the UK economy.”

The best industries for customer satisfaction were education, IT services and property with scores of 95 per cent, 95 per cent and 94 per cent respectively. Social media, media and telecommunications, and entertainment and gaming had the worst satisfaction scores with 64 per cent, 73 per cent and 76 per cent respectively.

As part of a supplement looking at the world of social media, The Drum caught up with a cross-section of people working in the industry to discuss their views on a series of topics.

Stephen Waddington, European digital and social media director, Ketchum and chairman, CIPR Social Media Panel
In 2013 if a company creates a social channel as a marketing vehicle it is inevitable that consumers will use it as a mechanism for customer service and sales. It’s no secret that the fastest way to resolve a customer service issue is to complain noisily via Twitter. If you haven’t seen this consumer behaviour before, check out the Twitter profiles and conversations of any of the mobile, broadband or train providers. The simple fact is that it’s a lot simpler for consumers to complain via Twitter than to visit a retail store or deal with an offshore call centre. As a result businesses are starting to integrate social into all aspects of these business, not just communication, but internally to communicate with staff, and externally for marketing, customer service and sales.

Jan Rezab, CEO, Socialbakers
There have been a lot of exciting changes! From new video formats like Vine and Instagram to new hashtag options on Facebook, but for me I think the biggest change that will benefit brands this year is the new advertising options on all social networking platforms which are taking the industry to a whole new level, allowing companies to better amplify their social media. Promoted posts are becoming the new "SEM" equivalent in online, and one with a more promising outcome.

Kristin Brewe, director of marketing and communications, IAB
The medium’s legitimisation. People are no longer asking “Should I do social?” but often—quite urgently-- asking “How can I do more/do what I do better?” Acquisitions in the space have been so numerous this year, a definite signpost for a maturing industry. When you see companies like Yahoo! acquiring assets like Tumblr and platforms themselves like Twitter really leveraging their acquisition of Vine, you know you’re looking at a sector that’s serious business. Furthermore, efforts like the IAB’s social media effectiveness research have begun to outline the real return of investment of social media. Being able to effectively measure the value of interactions is another sign of a more mature medium.

Pete Durant, social media director, Manning Gottlieb OMD
This has to be the development of Facebook’s advertising products. Opening up the newsfeed and mobile to advertising, combined with the ability to track post-engagement and post-view on paid content in both newsfeed and run-of-site placements, has given the platform a long-awaited new dimension. We are now closer to an accurate, measurable assessment of return without relying on the simple ‘last click wins’ approach that has been used for the last two years. Although some will argue that this privileges those who can afford to promote, the platform has moved towards amplification, even at small increments, as a necessity for regular success.

Todd Herrold, senior director for product marketing, Kenshoo Social
Two seismic events stand out - both should have significant positive impact on social media marketing adoption. The first is the launch of the Twitter Ads API earlier this year and the expansion of the number of partners in the program. By opening its ads platform to third party technology platforms, Twitter greatly expanded marketer access to its audience and simplified the process of creating and optimising programs. Related to simplification, the second seismic event is Facebook's announcement that it will reduce the number and complexity of its advertising products.

A major obstacle to widespread adoption of social media advertising and increased budgets has been the overall complexity and rapid change in the ecosystem. These changes by Twitter and Facebook demonstrate that social media is beginning to mature and we should see broader adoption, better performance and increased budgets as a result.

Luke Farrell, social media strategist, Profero
The rise of user generated video content via Twitter’s Vine app and the newly launched Instagram video functionality has been stratospheric. Posting video content up to this point required far too much commitment from users and brands alike.

Till now, video content has been viewed as a costly option in comparison to far cheaper formats with comparable, and often better, engagement rates. Micro-video offers small brands the chance to play in the video content space, mix-up their content strategy (surely we’re all tired of brands posting up fluffy cats by now? No?) and tap into new audiences.

Iona St Joseph, social media account manager, A Social Media Agency

I don't think it's necessarily a change, but I think people are really starting to embrace the power of video, what with Vine and Instagram both becoming huge this year. Brands are now using video like nobody's business, from small start-ups to some of the world's biggest luxury brands and Instagram and Vine are battling it out to become the biggest video social networking platform. Apparently, 68 per cent of the top 50 internet retailers use video on their site, so it's no surprise that everyone is embracing video specific social networks. It's also yet another way of creating sharable content, with a difference.

Jim Dowling, managing partner, Cake
That the written word is becoming increasingly sparse. All the moves in platform development and usage are in images and video. The battle lines in the ongoing 'war' are now drawn around Instagram, Pinterest, Vine and Flickr. Social media is gradually eroding a younger generation's ability to communicate by writing.

Marketers aren't hugely fussed by that development just yet, but they might be if we consider that it is enabling users to reveal less about themselves. If the consumer is spending more time taking photos of coffee or looking at videos of cats, they are spending less time writing "I want a new shirt/phone/album/pair of shoes/trainers." That makes it a little tougher for brand marketers.

Wayne St Amand, executive VP of global marketing, Crimson Hexagon
The old saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words” springs to mind as one of the most notable changes in social media in 2013 has been the evolution of social media to incorporate digital images and videos. From Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram to Twitter introducing Vine, the focus is shifting from words, thoughts and sharing news, and moving more towards visuals. This greatly impacts the way users interact with one another as visual communication often yields a higher response than the written word. There is now a far greater ability to incorporate video and imagery into social networks than ever before, and this will most certainly continue over time as sites and users become more visually orientated.

Delia Goldsby, director PR and social, RBH
Social media continues its rapid progress. What to keep your eye on is a Big challenge in itself. Social-Local-Mobile (SoLoMo) from the Search perspective represents important current change as smartphone penetration ever increases. The growth of visual social media and what highly engaged user platforms like Instagram, Pinterest and Polyvore do next is definitely worth watching. It seems we love that images can communicate so much more than words…

But the BIGGEST change underpinning all social media is mainstream recognition that ‘Big Data” is really now crucial to the way organisations and marketers will move their marketing engagement strategies and activities forward. Smarter analytics tech now means marketers and PR’s can bring together their structured and unstructured social data - tweets & videos etc. - and correlate this information into one platform for more relevant customer insights.

Daniel Stern, account manager, Essence
The biggest change this year has been Instagram’s launch of video to improve its offering and compete directly with Vine. Since the platform has been acquired by Facebook it has elevated its offering, bringing visual-led social media to the next level. There will always be a place for longer-segment video, but for brands, well produced shorter video posts are a more impactful way of engaging with customer audiences, especially on mobile.

Steve Cater, head of digital, whynot!

In with the new. Consumers of social media in 2013 are hungry for faster, richer and fresher formats. Popular social has become exactly that, popular. Mainstream popularity over time is a pressure cooker for change and the past is littered with the gravestones of those such zeitgeist. Whilst 2013 so far has rapidly expanded our social ecosystem, it’s also apparent that consumers of social media are, well… starting to see other people. They’re expanding their comfort zones and picking up their phones to share more things with more people in more ways. Getting a Snapchat from your mum/client/supermarket is not as ridiculous as it sounds!

This interview is part of our social media supplement, out on 2 August.

Kantar has acquired a minority stake in TV social analytics business SecondSync following a partnership earlier this year.

The firm was launched in 2012 in Bristol and its clients include Channel 4, ITV, BBC, Shine and MediaCom. It was founded by Andrew Littledale, Ted Littledale, Lee Carre and Dan Fairs.

Kantar and SecondSync agreed a partnership deal in February to share data through social media channels. Kantar further expanded in this area earlier this month with the announcement of a partnership with Twitter to develop more detailed social analytics on TV shows for media agencies.

A statement from WPP said the deal further strengthened WPP’s digital and data investment management businesses as the group targets digital revenues of 35-40 per cent over the next five years.

“WPP’s data investment management business, with revenues of $4.5bn (including associates), is centred around Kantar, the second largest data investment management network in the world after Nielsen,” said the statements. “By connecting the diverse talents of its 13 specialist companies, the group aims to become the pre-eminent provider of compelling and inspirational consumer insights for the global business community.”

Former Manchester United teammates Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs have signed up Tangerine PR to help launch their hospitality management company, GG Hospitality.

Under the GG Hospitality umbrella Giggs and Neville will be launching two brands – Café Football in Westfield Stratford, London and Hotel Football next to Old Trafford, opening in November 2013 and early 2014 respectively. Both are designed to bring people together over their love of football and have been inspired by the former teammates’ experiences of the hospitality sector worldwide.

GG Hospitality had initially briefed Tangerine with helping develop its strategic development and brand positioning ahead of its official launch this summer. The agency has now also been tasked with the implementation of a targeted PR and social media launch campaign, aimed at raising awareness of the company with key stakeholders in the leisure and hospitality sectors.

Of the appointment, GG Hospitality managing director, Stuart Procter, said: “From the outset, Tangerine understood GG Hospitality’s vision and values…The brand work they have done for us already has been fantastic; they are the perfect partner to join us on the rest of our journey.”

Tangerine’s consumer team will also help GG Hospitality launch its business to consumers handling fully integrated strategic and creative campaigns.

Mary Harding, MD of Tangerine PR’s consumer team added: “We want to help GG Hospitality become one of the leading hospitality management companies in the market, so we’ve developed an extremely targeted, multi-channel PR campaign that will get key influencers on board and generate real cut through. It is a challenge we are incredibly excited to be tackling.”

Aegis Media’s Simon Pont has been named as the new chief strategy officer at Starcom MediaVest Group.

Pont brings 17 years’ worth of media experience with him to the role and will lead a team responsible for championing the agency network’s planning agenda and delivering strategic work for UK and global accounts.

As chief strategy officer Pont will report directly to Starcom MediaVest Group CEO Steward Easterbrook, and moves from Aegis Media, which he joined in 2009 as worldwide business director. Of the appointment, Easterbrook commented: “Simon is an author, commentator and brand-builder, and joins us with an inspirational outlook and a wealth of experience and insight into the world of brands, media and communications that is second to none. We are really excited to have him on board.”

During his time with Aegis Media Pont was promoted to head of Vizeum Global Management in 2011 and chief strategy officer, Vizeum, in 2013. Prior to Aegis Media, Pont held the role of global strategy director and head of creative development at Naked Communications and has also held senior positions at Havas Media, Zenith Optimedia and Saatchi & Saatchi. He is also the author of advertising blog, The Better Mousetrap, and has written two books about the media and advertising industry and one contemporary rom-com novel.

Pont added: “SMG has some hugely talented people who crucially share the same vision. They want to be brilliant, and to shape what the media industry can achieve in our digital age. The prospect of joining and contributing to such an open-ended and shared vision is thrilling. Watch this space.”

Specsavers has reportedly become the latest in a line of brands to pull advertising from social networking service ask.fm after the suicide of 14-year-old Hannah Smith was linked to bullying on the website.

ITV News business editor Laura Kuenssberg tweeted she’d been told by the brand they had instructed their ads be taken down from the site.

@Specsavers has told me they have instructed Ask.fm to remove their advertising from their sites - just verifying its genuine feed

— Laura Kuenssberg (@ITVLauraK) August 8, 2013

Appears to be a verified account, so that is another advertiser, Specsavers, pulling money from the site

— Laura Kuenssberg (@ITVLauraK) August 8, 2013

The news follows similar announcements from Save the Children, Vodafone , Laura Ashley and DialAFlight.

Ask.fm apologised earlier this week following Hannah Smith’s death and said they would cooperate with Leicestershire police over the matter.

More than 12,000 people have signed an e-petition calling on the government to safeguard children from such websites while Prime Minister David Cameron has urged internet users to boycott “vile” websites which allow cyberbullying.

The social network allows users to post anonymous messages and, according to the Telegraph, Smith’s death is the fourth teenage suicide to be linked to threatening and abusive posts on the site.

The controversy follows campaigns against trolling behaviour on Twitter after Twitter has pledged to simplify its facilities for reporting abuse.

News UK has struck a six-figure deal with Absolute Radio to promote its exclusive digital rights to show Barclays Premier League goals and highlight videos.

The ten-month deal, brokered by media agency M/Six, will comprise on-air, online, and mobile ad packages across the radio network’s Rock N Roll Football show, dedicated to Barclays Premier League coverage.

Absolute Radio has exclusive rights to broadcast 32 Barclays Premier League matches in the 3pm slot on Saturdays, while News UK’s The Sun and The Times newspapers will show video highlights of other Saturday matches, so there is no rights clash.

News UK will stream eight, 30-second video clips from each match it has the rights, and will make them available on-demand via its subscription-based smartphone and tablet apps. Meanwhile 60-second highlight clips will run every Monday morning across The Sun and The Times sites.

Meanwhile the deal will also see News UK use the radio network’s InStream ad product, designed to create a more individually relevant content and advertising experience for registered listeners.

The deal also includes branded ‘goal flashes’ and trails featuring Absolute Radio talent including Rock’N’Roll Football’s Ian Wright, Russ Williams and lead commentator Jim Proudfoot.

Advertisers opting for InStream can run demographic and location-based ad targeting, while listeners will receive 50 per cent fewer and more personally relevant ads.

The campaign will launch next Wednesday (14 August).

The news follows a seven-figure tie-up agreed between Absolute Radio and BSkyB to extend Sky Sports’ sponsorship of Barclays Premier League.

Electronics, entertainment and sports articles all see a higher click through rate (CTR) on mobile compared to other platforms, research from Outbrain has found.

Outbrain’s research showed mobile CTR is a third (34 per cent) higher compared to other platforms; while electronics articles saw a CTR 91 per cent higher on mobiles than desktop.

Simon Edelstyn, managing director of Outbrain Europe, said: “What we’ve seen is how intrinsic to daily life mobiles and tablets have become. Consumers want to read articles and watch videos on the devices that suit their lifestyle or situation, and brands and publishers need to adapt to accommodate this.

“We know that mobile has dramatically changed how users receive and interact with content – 62 per cent of the population now has a smartphone and 65 per cent of them use their device to get online every day. Publishers and brands want to be able to take advantage of this and drive engagement and monetisation across all types of content.

“Outbrain has adapted to provide users with the same trusted and interesting links across mobile site. Mobile content is still a growing area and we will continue to develop Outbrain to help deliver the best mobile user experience.”

The research found that when it comes to entertainment articles, mobile CTR is 54 per cent higher than desktop; while for sports it is 36 per cent higher than desktop rates.

Tesco Customer Service, Virgin Media and Vodafone are the top UK brands for customer service on Twitter, the latest Socially Devoted research from Socialbakers has found.

In order to be considered Socially Devoted, brands must respond to at least 65 per cent of the questions that are asked.

It was found that Network Rail took an average of six minutes to reply to a complaint, while O2 took an average of 498 minutes.

Jan Rezab, Socialbakers CEO, said: “A big congratulations to all the brands who achieved such great results. The number of questions that the UK received shows that there is an ever-increasing demand for social customer care. Socially Devoted brands are way ahead of the game, recognizing the importance of putting their customers at the heart of any strategy.”

UK brands in general, performed well against the global average of a 35 per cent response rate despite being second in the world in terms of question quantity, having received 156, 960 questions this quarter.

This is in comparison to US brands, which received 210, 612 questions, but only managed to respond to 27 per cent.

The Telegraph and Sky Sports have joined forces to launch a new, weekly supplement, Telegraph Total Football.

From Monday 12 August, Telegraph Total Football will preview the upcoming Barclays Premier League football season including Henry Winter’s view of the title race, Alan Smith’s predictions, an in-depth guide to every club and a fixtures wall chart. The supplement will then appear as a separate section of The Daily Telegraph each Monday for the duration of the football season.

Telegraph Total Football will also be available on iPad, and will be supported by a month-long digital outdoor marketing campaign at London mainline stations.

Ted Moss, brand director, Sky Sports and Sky Movies, commented: “We’re delighted to be partnering with The Telegraph for the launch of Telegraph Total Football…Our partnership with The Telegraph will be a fantastic opportunity to promote Sky Sports to a passionate and informed football audience across paper, online, mobile and iPad. Bring on more games than ever before.”

The Daily Telegraph sports editor Adam Sills, added: “Our unrivalled team of writers will provide brilliant coverage of the Barclays Premier League, Sky Bet Football League, European football and much more, and set the scene for the week ahead.”

Ofcom has announced plans to simplify the process of switching phone and broadband providers in the UK.

The system would mean the switching process could be dealt with entirely by the provider the customer wants to switch to, taking away any need for the customer to contact their present supplier.

The regulator said the current system requiring customers to cancel existing contracts gave too much control to the existing supplier.

An Ofcom spokesman was quoted by the BBC as saying: “It has an incentive to delay or disrupt the transfer.

“This can also result in unwanted pressure on customers not to change provider. The move towards one clear and simple system led by the gaining provider will result in a switching process that works in consumers’ best interests.

“We will now be working on further measures to improve consumers’ experience of switching.”

The new system should be in place by early 2015.

Google Play All Access, the new streaming service from Google, has today launched in the UK for web browsers and Android use.

Play All Access will be up against services such as Xbox Music and Spotify, and notes this itself by having an early sign-up rate of £7.99, with the price set to increase to £9.99 a month from the middle of September.

Users will be able to organise songs by genre, including charts, new releases, staff picks and smart recommendations based on their tastes. Music can also be stored on the device to listen to offline.

Users will also be able to create a new station based on any artist, album or song.

Paypal has taken another ‘step towards a wallet-less high street’ by trialling a payment system that recognises customers by only their first name and profile picture on Paypal.

The trial of 12 retailers in Richmond-upon-Thames sees customers paying for items using just the Paypal app and their profile picture. The app, which is available on iOS, Windows OS and Android, pinpoints local stores using the Paypal system. Customers then check in to the required retailer their name and photo then appears on the shop’s payment system and the retailer can charge them for any purchases by clicking on their image. Once paid an alert is sent to the customer’s phone as well as Paypal’s traditional email receipt.

Currently thousands of retailers in the US, Australia and APAC regions use the ‘check in to pay’ system and though no high street retailers have announced a decision to use the system Paypal estimates more than 2,000 locations will be able to use the app by the end of the year.

Users’ payments can also be linked to bank accounts, credit or debit cards meaning that funds do not need to be added to a Paypal account.

Head of retail services at PayPal Rob Harper added: “This is another step on the journey towards a wallet-less high street ... (with people paying) using their phone or tablet. We predict that by 2016 this will become a reality.”

Micke Paqvalén, CEO and founder of Kiosked said the trail is showcases another way in which “the retail journey is going to become wildly different over the next few years”.

Paqvalén, commented: “Images hold the key to making shopping faster and easier and in our ‘one-click culture’, this will be invaluable to shoppers. Coupled with mobile ‘check-in’ technology, retailers will be able to meet the needs of hyper connected customers with visual content that is highly relevant but non-intrusive.”

The NUJ has called on the management at the Independent to sit back around the table for talks after confirming tomorrow’s industrial action will be reduced from a two-hour mandatory chapel meeting to one hour.

The NUJ said in a statement that the consultation process over redundancies at the title had not been genuine and said journalists’ concerns had not been addressed.

Barry Fitzpatrick, NUJ deputy general secretary, said: "Members want to see genuine engagement with the legitimate issues they are raising, over job cuts, quality and workloads.

“Far from jeopardising the future of the titles, resolving these questions is key to their on-going survival and ability to adapt to change.

“Management should recognise and value the loyalty of their workforce to the titles and rather than issuing threats about the future, work with them to achieve changes by agreement."

Staff at the Independent voted to strike earlier this month after plans were announced to make 27 jobs redundant.

A recent strand of advertising featuring vox pops emphasising the supermarket's triumphs in Which? magazine's annual awards worried us a little... but we needn't have feared. The well-loved ads contrasting the price of a branded product with Aldi's less expensive offering are continuing and the latest is one of the best yet.

Agency: McCann Erickson (Manchester)
Creative Director: Dave Price / Neil Lancaster
TV Producer: Abby Moore
Production Co: Coy! Communications
Director: Mark Denton
Executive Producer: Sara Cummins
Post Production: Big Buoy
Editing House: Speade

With brands such as The Sun, Save The Children, Mind and Specsavers all pulling their advertising from social media website ask.fm following the suicide of Hannah Smith, ISBA has suggested this shows how little control advertisers hold.

ISBA’s director of media and advertising, Bob Wootton, said: “Purely from an advertiser-safety point of view, these tragic events demonstrate how little control advertisers sometimes have over where their ads can appear.

“Advertisers are clearly very concerned about the unintended placement of the brands they invest millions in protecting and promoting, and it is quite understandable that companies are now withdrawing their advertising from ask.fm.”

He suggested that platforms should follow the footsteps of Facebook, which recently announced its aim ‘to restrict ads from appearing next to pages and groups that contain any violent, graphic or sexual content’.

Speaking to The Drum, Tony Neate, CEO of getsafeonline.org, said: “The internet is an extension of our social lives, and unfortunately bullying takes place online as well as in the physical world. In fact, people can be far bolder when sat behind the safety of their screen and say things they wouldn’t dream of saying in real life – especially when they are able to post anonymously.

“Previously, when school broke up for the summer young people could get away from bullies, but with the internet there is often no escape for victims. It is therefore an important issue to address.

“At Get Safe Online we ask people to learn the differences between the different social networks and think carefully about which ones they want to use. We would recommend only joining a social network which has strong security settings to protect your information, and which gives the user the ability to connect only with people they know and trust in real life. Of course this does not eradicate bullying but it doesn’t leave us quite so open to threatening or harmful messages from people we don’t even know.

“If you do find yourself to be a victim of bullying online, from someone you do or don’t know, it’s important to follow the same rules as if it was happening at school or in the workplace and tell someone what is happening. This could be a friend, family member, an organisation like Beatbullying, or even the police if it is an issue of real concern.”

Almost two thirds of Twitter users do not feel protected by the platform, while 70 per cent say that they would not know how to make a complaint to Twitter should they receive an anonymous abusive message and most wanted a change in the law to protect them.

The microblogging platform, which has been in the news of late following a campaign of abusive messages being sent to Labour MP Stella Creasy, historian Mary Beard and feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez, has moved to change its methods of handling such abuse.

YouGov ‘sampled 1042 adults who have used Twitter in the last month in Great Britain. Of that number, 542 were male and 500 were female.

Asked whether they felt protected by Twitter to take action against those who sent abusive messages, three per cent responded to say that they felt protected 'a lot', while 22 per cent said that they felt protected 'a little'. However, 41 per cent said that they felt they that were not protected 'much' and 23 per cent said that they felt that they were not protected 'at all'. 11 per cent responded by saying that they 'didn’t know'.

Asked whether they would know how to complain to Twitter having received abuse, 25 per cent said that they would know, while 70 per cent said they wouldn’t, and five per cent responded ‘Don’t know’.

Over half (51 per cent) said that they felt it was the responsibility of the web hosting company to remove offensive messages or comments from the internet, while exactly a quarter said that free speech should be protected and messages not removed from online.

Almost two thirds (61 per cent) would support a change to the law to make website companies remove abusive comments once they had received a complaint, with 22 per cent opposing such a suggestion and 70 per cent felt that IP addresses should be provided of those leaving abusive messages in order to trace them.

However, the survey also found that 74 per cent of respondents had not received anonymous abuse through the platform, while eight per cent said that they had and 20 per cent said that they knew someone who had experienced this.

Of those who had received anonymous abuse, over half (52 per cent) stated that they did not make any attempt to remove the comments.

Twitter declined to comment on the research results.

Last week, Twitter applied new rules following the reports around abusive messages and said that it was developing a button to enable users to report abuse, with UK general manager Tony Wang issuing an apology to those affected.

Today’s jobs round-up brings roles for content and publishing managers, client development specialists, digital communications officers, mid-weight designers and new customer acquisition specialists.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is looking for a content and publishing manager based in Yorkshire and The Humber with excellent production and editing skills. The successful candidate will work with a team of content, publishing and digital experts and should have experience of working in a busy communications environment. Responsibilities will include ensuring content is clear, concise and appropriate. Salary for this position is £24,684-£31,572 and the closing date for applications is 30 August.

A head of client development is required at Taylor O’Brien in the north-west of England to create relationships, warm leads and sales. Applicants should have a minimum of five years’ experience in a top level brand strategy and marketing agency, have a proven track record of generating new business leads and be able to operate and influence at board level. Responsibilities include planning and preparing proposals and effectively handling relationships to the business in order to develop new opportunities. Applications should be submitted by 30 August and the post comes with a salary of up to £35,000.

Linn is seeking an individual to work on new customer acquisition in central Scotland. The music systems-designer is looking for an energetic, creative thinker with excellent verbal and written communication skills alongside a proven track record in marketing and promoting products and ideas. Candidates should be educated to degree level or equivalent and display a strong working knowledge of current marketing methods and business development. The closing date for applications is 31 August.

A digital communications officer position is available at Cairngorms National Park in Scotland for a salary of £27,648-£33,281. The role will involve managing CNPA websites and intranet, advising and implementing search engine optimisation strategies, working with staff and partners to deliver digital solutions across a wide range of projects and project managing web-based campaigns. Applicants should have knowledge and experience with website design, PHP, HTML, Javascript and CMS. Applications should be submitted by 13 August.

Gabriele Skelton is seeking a mid-weight or senior 2D packaging designer for a client based in London. For a salary of £25,000-£43,000, applicants should have between four and eight years’ experience within a brand design agency environment working specifically in the branded packaging arena across health and beauty and premium food and drinks. Responsibilities will include managing and mentoring more junior designers and supporting the personal development of designers. The closing date for applications is 30 August.

To view the latest jobs in advertising, design, digital media and marketing in your area, visit The Drum’s jobs section