The 2014 Budget has been cautiously well received by London's advertising and marketing community. The overall level of growth exceeding previous estimates is generally looked upon as encouraging in a Budget speech from a Chancellor who very clearly has the looming 2015 election in mind.

MediaCom is still top of the London league with 2013 billings of GBP1.2bn -- but the big news for last year is that OMD has overtaken Carat, thanks to spend rising to GBP865m -- GBP40m above Carat's. Nielsen's figures not only reveal the shift in second spot, but also predict that if the proposed merger of Omnicom and Publicis Goupe were to take place, eight of the top ten London agencies would be within the newly enlarged company.

Yahoo is on a mission to mirror the streaming success of Netflix, revealed Senior VP (EMEA) Dawn Airey at last night's Guardian Changing Media Summit. Airey, who has extensive experience in broadcast, believes Yahoo needs to up its game to meet its users' "insatiable" demand for video entertainment. She revealed that her main observation about the company is that it has no "emblematic" big show to speak of, compared to Netflix's "House of Cards."

Google Chromecast launches today in the UK, coinciding with the announcement of Android Wear, a platform to operate wearables such as Google Glass, smartwatches and accessories. The Chromecast costs just GBP30, compared to GBP99 for an Apple TV, and allows owners to stream content from the Web via a PC, tablet or smartphone onto a television. BBC iPlayer and Netflix are expected to be the most widely used applications, but use could diversify as other applications are supported by the technology. To date, 3000 developers have signed up for a development kit to make their applications work via Chromecast. There …

This summer's World Cup will give the British advertising industry a GBP50m boost, a report from ZenithOptimedia estimates. It will prompt growth in the UK industry eight times higher than the rest of Western Europe, the report's authors predict. The biggest winner, according to estimates, will be television advertising.

Jaywing, formerly known as 20:20 Group, has bought search engine specialists Epiphany in a deal worth GBP12m now with a further GBP6m available, depending on performance. The search agency was formed in 2005 and has 140 staff working on accounts including Tesco, Axa Insurance and Virgin Holidays.

"Media Week" claims to have sources involved in the repitch for Vodafone's GBP600m global media and planning account that reveal the incumbent, OMD, has not made it to the final stage of the process. If correct, that would leave just Group M (WPP) and Dentsu Aegis Network in the running.

The cheeky Irish betting brand is known for its controversial and comical bets. However, taking bets on whether Paralympian Oscar Pistorius is found guilty or not and then advertising an offer to refund losing bets if he "walks" was considered to have brought the advertising industry into "disrepute." The ASA has banned the advert and revealed that with more than 5,500 complaints, it is the most complained about advert to date. The watchdog took the unusual step of rebuking the bookmarker for going beyond "poor taste."

British Airways is claiming to have become the first major brand to align its advertising and CRM programmes into one account. Its incumbent BBH has been reappointed and formed a partnership with Simon Hall and Warren Moore, owners of customer loyalty specialists 7 Seconds. Ogilvy's CRM agency, Ogilvy One, had been running the airline's CRM account but was informed recently that relationship was coming to an end -- although it is due to be kept on as a creative technical partner.

Jan Koum has blogged to set the record straight. Despite rumours to the contrary, he insists there will be no sharing of data between What'sApp and its new owner, Facebook. The messaging application will continue to work independently and will not be pooling data with its better-known owner to boost advertising revenue, he insists.