MTV has launched an online prank campaign to promote the second series of its TV show Catfish which airs next Monday (2 September).

The media owner worked with creative agency Ralph to produce the campaign, which centres on a webcam forum, which fans can log-in to chat live with the show’s characters.

The twist of the campaign is that the video fans see when they log-in to the forum is prerecorded, mimicking a live experience.

The aim of the prank video is to emphasise the show’s core theme, which is that people never really know who they are speaking to when they’re chatting online.

The video was filmed in one take, with a series of incorporated live swaps including the lead actor, who swaps in and out of the camera frame, and objects are moved around to appear in different places.

Early tests have shown that 75 per cent of users don’t notice that the experience is not live.

The idea for the campaign was derived from a psychological phenomenon known as ‘change blindness’, where participants fail to see major changes they would normally notice but have missed because their attention is diverted at key moments.

Catfish series two, which follows the stories of couples who have fallen in love online but never met in person, airs at 9pm on MTV UK.

T.G.I. Friday’s has announced the appointment of Telegraph Hill to support its upcoming cocktail campaign.

Barry Pilling, co-founder of Telegraph Hill, commented: “Having delivered campaigns for some of the biggest brands in TV and Radio, we're thrilled that T.G.I. Friday's has recognised the value of our new content marketing methods. Social media marketing needs lots of great ideas to succeed and we're looking forward to rolling out our ambitious new approaches with the forward thinking team at Friday's."

Telegraph Hill will also be involved in handling the ongoing 2013 social activity for T.G.I. Friday’s.

Alison Dilley, head of marketing at T.G.I. Friday’s, said: “We were really impressed by Telegraph Hill’s fresh and intelligent approach to the brief and are looking forward to working with the team. We’re currently planning our autumn cocktail campaign and are delighted to have Telegraph Hill’s impressive skills-set as part of our agency mix to deliver a truly integrated approach.”

Monster, the online jobs site, has promoted Sinead Bunting to the role of marketing director, UK and Ireland.

Bunting has become responsible for building on the ‘Find Better’ brand promise and raising awareness of Monster’s range of HR technology solutions.

Since April 2012, she has held the role of media and alliances director where she helped develop its recent £2.5m ad campaign.

Prior to joining Monster, Bunting was director and digital lead at MediaCom,

“I have a real passion for technology, especially when it is used to bring employers and jobseekers together,” said Bunting. “That’s what drew me to Monster.”

Totalmoney.com has launched a major brand overhaul as it looks to position itself as the market’s number one credit card intermediary in the UK.

The comparison site has launched a multiplatform campaign, developed by London agency Creature, featuring characters Turtley and Monkey who are on a quest to find the perfect credit card.

Revenue generated from the TV campaign will be split three ways between the advertiser, creative agency and the broadcaster.

The campaign is aimed at bolstering Totalmoney’s position as the go-to site for credit card comparisons, after research it conducted revealed only two per cent of consumers currently switch credit cards every year via comparison sites. Switches occur far more frequently in the car insurance sector, where 38 per cent of consumers change their insurance each year.

The ad campaign marks the latest step in the brand’s strategy to “catalyse” growth in the credit card comparison market. It has beefed up its communications team, recruiting an in-house and external PR agency GolinHarris.

TotallyMoney.com CEO and co-founder Will Becker said: “We don’t want to be all things to all men, we want to focus on one area of personal finance and do it really well. In order to achieve this, getting our communications strategy right and raising brand awareness is crucial to our success. Clinching the number one spot in the credit comparison sector whilst stamping out consumer apathy is no mean feat but it feels perfectly achievable.”

The brand faces fierce competition from the likes of other comparison sites including Moneysupermarket, which recently finished building its own private trading desk to help it drive data monetisation.

Creature won the account following a three-way pitch.

After famously jumping ship to front ITV’s Daybreak three years ago, Adrian Chiles is set to return to the BBC to present the weekly Friday edition of Drive on BBC 5Live alongside Anna Foster.

In 2010 Chiles left the BBC’s The One Show with then co-presenter Christine Bleakley to host ITV’s re-launched breakfast show. The pair lasted little over a year before being replaced and have since found themselves presenting other ITV offerings, with Chiles presenting the broadcaster’s football coverage and Bleakley co-presenting Dancing on Ice with Phillip Schofield.

Of his return to the BBC and 5Live, where he was one of the first presenters when it launched in 1994, Chiles said: “It’s very exciting to be coming back to Radio 5live. It was a privilege to have been there right at the beginning when it launched, and I'm thrilled to have been asked back.

“It'll be great to tackle news, current affairs and business stuff, as well as sport. All the time I've been away from 5live I've remained an avid fan and it'll be good to be part of it again.”

The station also announced that Christian O’Connell, Jonathan Pearce and Matt Johnson would be sharing hosting duties on sports panel show Fighting Talk, alternating presenting duties on the Saturday morning discussion programme following the departure of Colin Murray, who moved to TalkSport earlier in the summer.

Rolf Harris has today been charged with nine counts of indecent assault and four of making indecent images of children, the police have revealed.

Harris, who was re-arrested on 5 August following suspicions as part of Operation Yewtree, will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on 23 September.

Alison Saunders, chief Crown prosecutor for London, said: "Having completed our review, we have concluded that there is sufficient evidence and it is in the public interest for Mr Harris to be charged with nine counts of indecent assault and four of making indecent images of a child.

"The alleged indecent assaults date from 1980 to 1986 and relate to two complainants aged 14 and 15 at the time of the alleged offending."

According to the BBC, the indecent images of children were alleged to have been made last year.

London-based advertising giant WPP today raised its full-year sales goal as clients in the UK and the US invested more heavily in advertising in the second quarter.

The move, reported by the Wall Street Journal, came barely a month after rivals Publicis and Omnicom said they plan to replace WPP as the world's largest ad agency with their merger.

WPP, owner of agencies including Young & Rubicam and Ogilvy & Mather, said it expects organic revenue growth of more than 3 per cent for 2013, compared with its previous target of "around 3 per cent," with growth set to accelerate in the second half of the year.

WPP had hinted earlier in the year that its revenue may surpass its target - which excludes acquisitions, disposals and currency movements - following stronger growth in the UK and some improvements in Europe.

WPP's upbeat tone comes after Omnicom of the US and France's Publicis, the world's number 2 and 3 ad companies, said they had agreed to merge in a $35bn deal to create the world's largest ad firm.

Martin Sorrell, WPP's chief executive, has "shrugged off talk" that he will buy another rival to regain the top position, the WSJ reports.

WPP said it will accelerate its current strategy of expanding in emerging markets and digital advertising and now aims to generate at least 40 per cent to 45 per cent of its revenue in emerging markets and through digital services by 2018.

It announced organic revenue growth of 2.7 per cent in the second quarter, an improvement on the 2.3 per cent posted for the first four months, driven by strong growth in the UK and emerging markets, as well as improvements in the US and Western Europe.

Net profit rose 1.1 per cent to £280.9m in the six months ended June 30, from £277.8m a year earlier. Sales rose 7.1 per cent to £5.33bn, from £4.97bn in the same period last year.

Profit before interest, taxes, and exceptional items - the key figure tracked by analysts - rose to £637m from £570m last year.

The McLaren Group, which includes the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Formula One team, has joined forces with YouTube in a new commercial partnership.

“At McLaren we have great stories to tell. Whether it’s the passion and intrigue of Formula One, or how we develop ground breaking new technologies, people are fascinated by what we do. Our exciting new partnership with YouTube will enable people to get closer than ever to our drivers, our brand and our business. Our fans can expect to see some really exciting new content in the years to come,” said John Allert, McLaren Group’s brand director.

The McLaren YouTube channel sees McLaren produce video content giving motor racing fans, petrol heads and those interested in the cutting edge of technology access to the heart of the company. In addition the channel also hosts the anarchic behind-the-scenes ‘Tooned’ animated series following McLaren’s racing exploits.

Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren Group CEO commented: “As a business, this partnership is extremely positive. McLaren and YouTube are both highly respected brands and combining our content with their expertise will help us both to achieve even more. Being able to gain revenue from our content will also enable us to invest more in future videos, which will be good for our brand, good for our partners and good for our fans.”

Senior director of sports for YouTube, Stephen Nuttall, added: “We're delighted that fans of this top Formula 1 team will be able to enjoy its stars, see more about F1 off the circuit, and much more through their YouTube channel.”

Submissions to The BIMA Award’s social media category are up 44 per cent while entries to the community building category are up 27 per cent year-on-year.

The increase shows the growing need for brands to engage with their customers through social channels. As such, more agencies have been entering their social media initiatives.

Leading the pack are OgilvyOne, which has 16 entries in the running with its campaign for Kern & Sohn, The Gnome Experiment, doing particularly well with five award nominations.

Other agencies with multiple entries on the list include AKQA, We Are Social, Jam, Zone, DigitasLBi, Profero and Lean Mean Fighting Machine, M&C Saatchi and Grand Visual.

Justin Cooke, chair of BIMA and CEO of Possible UK explained: “The growing popularity of the social categories this year demonstrates that more than ever, brands and agencies understand the need to develop engaging social strategies.

“It’s also impressive to see such a huge range of companies represented in the list of contenders, and a real reflection of the world-class digital talent we have here in the UK. I can’t wait to see who triumphs at the awards party on Thursday 12 September.”

The BIMA Awards celebrate the best work on the British digital scene. The awards are supported by The Drum and headline sponsors Six Degrees Group.

Homebase has appointed Jonathan Hudson, social and mobile lead at Shop Direct Group as its new digital marketing manager.

Hudson will take up his position at Homebase from Monday 2 September, The Drum has learned.

In the role he will be responsible for the development, delivery and executive of the digital marketing strategy for Homebase as well as increasing relevance and personalisation of its digital channels, including affiliate, social, search, eCRM and display advertising platforms.

Meanwhile, Shop Direct is understood not to be seeking a replacement, opting to phase out the role following Hudson's departure.

Hudson initially joined Shop Direct in 2004 where he managed its contact centre sales team before moving into digital marketing with the company's e-commerce platforms.

Krave has revealed that its ‘tweet when u eat’ campaign has generated a total of 76,498 Twitter and Facebook posts; with eight per cent of those involved saying that they eat the cereal.

The research, carried out by Crimson Hexagon using its ForSight system, found 54 per cent of users have engaged with the Krave campaign to date.

Kelloggs intended its campaign to be driven by YouTube branded videos, but consumers engaged in a completely different way, with six per cent using social to admit that they ‘crave’ the cereal.

However, of those discussing the product on social, four per cent commented on how good it tastes, compared to 5 per cent of sentiment has being negative with users commenting that they are not a fan and that it doesn’t taste as good as it looks.

Farfetch, the online fashion marketplace, has announced Stephanie Horton as chief marketing officer.

Horton has joined from Shopbop where she was head of global communications. Prior to that she was executive director of creative services at Vogue, and director of marketing at the New York Times.

She has been tasked with leading the marketing and PR efforts of Farfetch, reporting directly to founder and CEO Jose Neves.

“We are very proud of our team, culture, and values, and I am tremendously excited about the recent additions to our stellar team,” said Neves.

He added: “We opened a New York office this month, brought in Gabrielle de Papp, formerly vice president of corporate public relations from Neiman Marcus, and now we are thrilled to announce that Stephanie Horton is joining the company. Stephanie’s expertise merges business with creativity. She is renowned for her ability to make big ideas a reality.”

Horton will be based at the company's London headquarters.

ITV has refuted accusations by Celtic manager Neil Lennon that it was 'disrespectful' towards the Glasgow club during its coverage of their Champions League qualifier with Shakhter Karagandy.

After seeing Celtic overturn the defecit against the Kazakh side last night, Lennon claimed ITV4's commentary of the 2-0 first leg defeat had been biased against his team.

"I listened to the commentary on ITV4 last week and I was taken aback," Lennon said during his post-match press conference. "It was so anti-us it was incredible.

"That's the second time ITV have been disrespectful. Somebody in the company tweeted 'Bye, bye Celtic' when the group draw was made last year."

ITV issued an apology to the club following the tweet, but it has defended its coverage of the first leg clash which was commentated on by Jon Champion and Clarke Carlisle.

After reviewing its coverage, the broadcaster told The Drum in a statement: "We strongly reject any suggestion our commentary of Celtic's first leg tie against Shakhter Karagandy was in any way 'anti' Celtic or disrespectful to the club.

"The coverage fairly reflected a disappointing performance and result by Celtic against a team they were expected to beat, but throughout the game the commentary maintained a clearly expressed respect for Celtic's stature as club with a well-established and long-standing pedigree in European football."

Former Celtic manager Gordon Strachan and ex-Hoops striker Chris Sutton provided the punditry during the first-leg tie.

After securing their place in the Champions League last night, Celtic were anticipating the draw for this year's group stages at the time of writing.

The Ministry of Sound (MoS) will feature in an episode of Celebrity Big Brother (CBB) on Channel 5 this Sunday, 1 September, as part of a dance-off task for contestants.

Set to promote the Ministry of Sound’s Ibiza Annual album release, the placement will include Ministry of Sound DJ branded products including slip mats, headphones, speakers, CDs and wristbands.

The product placement deal was negotiated by Channel 5 and independent media agency the7stars on behalf of Ministry of Sound.

Rhiannon Murphy, head of TV at the7stars, said: “Celebrity Big Brother allows us to reach our target audience in an integrated way that is natural to the show’s format. Historically product placement has not been the obvious broadcast solution for music releases, however this year product placement has really delivered for MoS and we hope to experience the same success with this deal. ”

Agostino Di Falco, partnerships director at Channel 5, said: "For us it's always about pushing the boundaries of what we can do. Together we've created a fantastic reward for the celebrities to enjoy courtesy of Ministry of Sound adding a new level of exposure to their upcoming album release to a loyal and engaged Big Brother audience."

Music from the album will play when the winning housemates are granted entry to the Ibiza party and will also appear in a 30 second ad for the album to be aired during the show’s centre break.

The high school dance is a rite of passage of sorts – a stumbling, bumbling, braces-filled night of awkwardness often accompanied by the dreaded chaperone. For today’s teenagers, Facebook has become the social media equivalent of the chaperone. You might show up to the dance, but the fun is in the cloakroom afterwards, away from the chaperone’s eyes.

There are many conflicting reports about teenagers’ relationships with Facebook. These can effectively be sorted into three categories:

1. Teenagers are leaving Facebook in droves;
2. Teenagers are not leaving Facebook in droves;
3. Teenagers are using the site more than ever.

In reality, what is happening with teenagers is a bit different than any of the aforementioned claims. Teenagers may have Facebook accounts, but more and more they are logging on and interacting on places away from their parents or chaperone’s oversight. The really meaningful communications and interactions between teenagers are taking place on alternative social media sites like Instagram, Snapchat, Vine and Tumblr.

The writing has been on the wall for a while now, and in May 2013 a study from the Pew Research Center revealed teens are expressing “waning enthusiasm” for Facebook. According to the study, teens are tired of all the “drama”, the stress of managing their online reputation on the network, and are “annoyed when their Facebook friends share inane details”.

Considering the mass adoption of services like Instagram and Snapchat, it is worth exploring what is happening further. Note that teenagers are not leaving Facebook, but rather research shows that they feel burdened by it. The Pew report states: “While Facebook is still deeply integrated in teens’ everyday lives, it is sometimes seen as a utility and an obligation rather than an exciting new platform that teens can claim as their own.”

Does this explain why Facebook Home and Poke failed miserably within a couple of weeks of their launch? It should be reasonably expected to think that Facebook has the power and the technical know-how to create applications to keep teenagers connected to the network. So what’s really going wrong with teenagers and Facebook?

Most of the recent discussion in this area started after 13-year-old Ruby Karp’s blog post on Mashable where she claims none of her friends are on Facebook. Her post, headlined “I’m 13 and None of My Friends Use Facebook”, has garnered some 37,000 Facebook shares since its publication on 11 August. It has, predictably, launched a fresh armada of blog posts heralding the imminent fall of the great social network. Karp claims that no one uses Facebook because, amongst other reasons, teenagers post photos that can get each other in trouble with their parents.

Karp’s complaints can be categorised into broad categories – parents, bullying, and advertising. However, reading through the lines, it is fair to say that what she is actually bemoaning is the lack of privacy; the contradiction of having too many grown-ups there and no outlet to report abuse (albeit this contradicts the claim that there were too many adults on the site) and the rather less age-specific complaint of targeted marketing. Whether or not teenagers are fleeing Facebook is a rather moot point if they are simply using alternative social media. But can the use of Snapchat, Tumblr and Instagram tell us something about what teenagers really want from their social networking sites?

Karp is basically arguing that Facebook comes with too high a transaction cost to use. Not in financial terms, but in real terms. It’s costly. Use Facebook and you potentially have to deal with bullying, ads, lack of privacy and parents. Snapchat, on the other hand, doesn’t carry any transaction costs. It acts as a short-term replacement to face-to-face time with your friends. Snapchat is an expression of small thoughts, little documentation of moments in time that disappear after 10 seconds. One is meant to close Snapchat with a smile on their face. No bullying, no embarrassment, no parents. It a social network for digital one-to-one communications.

On the other hand, Tumblr is largely anonymous social network without any requirements for interaction. One can search for stories, themes and ideas without any requirement to create and maintain a personal site in order to use it. Using Tumblr doesn’t have any real transaction costs. It could theoretically be the most heavily used site by a teenager, yet there would never be any sort of trace of them actually using it. Tumblr lets people who do use it “come up with ways to let people control and generate content and project identity”. Users control their transaction costs.

Instagram, owned by Facebook, is a bit easier to explain. A report about teenage online behaviour found that 45 per cent of online 12-year-olds use social network sites and that the number doubles to 82 per cent for 13-year old internet users. The study found that the most popular activity for teens on social networks is posting photos and videos. Instagram acts a pseudo-Facebook. Teenagers have made up the largest demographic of Instagram since its inception. Its ‘comments’ feature effectively allows for the photo feature of Facebook to happen outside the oversight of parents and grandparents. They can be a little freer about what they post and how they comment. Instagram has moderate transaction costs.

By analysing these social networks this way, one can see that teenagers do online what they do offline. They want privacy and to interact without oversight of their chaperones. App designers should be mindful of this when designing the next round of apps for the teenage market. It isn’t all about privacy, nor is it all about parents sharing a social network with them. For teenagers, it’s about the perceived transaction costs of being a teenager online.

After all, the kids just want to be left alone.

This was originally published in the latest edition of The Drum magazine, which can be purchased from The Drum store.

Lucy Adams, the BBC’s head of HR, has announced that she will leave her job without receiving any severance package, following claims of “corporate fraud and cronyism” over expensive pay-offs awarded to former executives.

The news comes just days after the NUJ told BBC director general Tony Hall about allegations of targeting union activists during planned pension scheme changes in 2010.

However, both Adams and the BBC say that her plans to leave predate the meeting Hall had with Michelle Stanistreet, the NUJ’s general secretary.

Adams said: "I have been discussing my decision to leave the BBC with Tony Hall for some time now. By next spring I will have been at the BBC for five years which feels like a good time to try something new.

“It has been a great privilege to lead the BBC’s People division. The BBC is a unique institution and I am extremely proud of the work the team has achieved in spite of the challenges along the way. I look forward to continuing that work with Tony and the executive board in the coming months.”

A BBC spokesman added: “Lucy Adams’s decision to leave the BBC predates the meeting between the director-general and the NUJ."

Adams will depart at the end of the financial year in March 2014.

Blippar has created an augmented reality passport, with the aim of keeping kids entertained and reducing stress for parents when travelling abroad.

When the user ‘blipps’ the front of their British passport, travellers will see a 3D plane take off from the passport, which they can then tap to navigate to a series of holiday-inspired games, packing checklist and common phrases with phonetic pronunciations in Spanish, French, Italian and Croatian.

Jess Butcher, CMO of Blippar, said: “With 14 million UK holidaymakers expected to go abroad this summer, we wanted to create something fun, informative and engaging that any person travelling abroad could use.

“Kids often get bored at the airport and we wanted parents to be able to concentrate on enjoying their holidays and having fun with their kids instead of being stressed out. By Blipping the front cover of their passport travellers can access a truly interactive travel experience.”

The app works on both iOS and Android.

DC Thomson has announced the appointment of Annelies van den Belt as chief executive of the online publishing business BSOP.

Part of DC Thomson’s digital division, Brightsolid, the company owns geneaology websites including findmypast.co.uk and genesreunited.co.uk, as well as having bought Friends Reunited last year.

Van den Belt said: "The opportunity at Brightsolid to build a truly global digital family history business is an exciting one.

"Brightsolid has the potential through its current assets and footprint in the English speaking markets to become a leading global player.”

Previously, van den belt has held senior roles at Sup, the Russian online publisher that bought blog network LiveJournal, as well as ITV and Telegraph Media Group.

General Assembly has extended its apprenticeship scheme in the UK to help better meet demand for digital skills and training within business and start-up communities.

The technology, design and business education provider, will focus the scheme on helping people into jobs, having added a range of updated classes and courses designed to boost employability.

The scheme, which launched in the US earlier this year, matches students taking the long-form courses with paid work placements.

Initially the programme will be available to UK students who have completed its 12-week full-time Web Development Immersive (WDI) course, which trains them to become a junior-level web developer.

It has also incorporated a stronger entrepreneurial theme into the curriculum, with classes including ‘Landing a job at a start-up’, and more in-depth courses on coding, digital marketing and data science.

General Assembly’s regional director Matt Cynamon said the curriculum has been designed to provide the kind of skills employers are looking for, while helping students apply what they have learned in actual employment.

“From our most recent long-form courses, we are seeing a very high success rate of students securing jobs at the end of study. Outcomes from our last 12 week WDI course have been fantastic – 100 per cent of the students have secured employment with companies such as Adaptive Lab, Mixlr and Pearson Future Technologies,” he said.

One such student, 20-year old Pedro Maltez, has recently secured employment with creative tech company Adaptive Lab following his graduation from the WDI course, said: “I’ve always been interested in coding but I didn’t know how to go about getting an entry-level job in this area.

"The course was ideal, as it provided me with all the necessary skills, plus gave me the confidence I needed to change careers. Before starting the course I was helping out in the family cleaning business, now I’m excited to be beginning a completely new and challenging career, and one with great prospects.”

According to a recent Gfk report 77 per cent of UK tech city business leaders said their companies would grow faster if more skilled employees were available, while 94 per cent admitted they use temporary methods to plug resourcing gaps.

The move follows the expansion of another Google-backed graduate scheme aimed at boosting digital skills. The scheme, called Squared, began as a collaboration between the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) and around 35 media and creative agencies, and was designed to cultivate digital skills for a new generation of graduates and executives in the UK ad industry.

It has since rolled out the online version of the programme, having partnered with the Home Learning College.

Google’s ’20 per cent rule’ which allows engineers to spend a fifth of their time working on side projects that could benefit the company, has been made tighter.

Despite having led to projects such as Google News, Adsense and Google Talk, it seems that managers have now clamped down on staff taking ’20 per cent time’ so as to avoid their teams falling down Google’s internal productivity rankings.

Some engineers have told the Atlantic Wire that the 20 per cent rule is not dead, but has simply shifted into "120 per cent time."

Originally, engineers were encouraged to take this 20 per cent, but then recently this changed to Google requiring engineers to get approval from management to take 20 per cent time in order to work on independent projects.