Southern Comfort is looking for a creative agency to handle below-the-line and experiential activity in the UK. The brand has begun contacting agencies, but has yet to create a pitch list in a process that Creativebrief is helping to run. There is no incumbent for the role, which will including direct marketing and experiential as well as some digital press and outdoor campaigns.

Google has reportedly closed a deal to acquire Twitch for $1 billion to join YouTube as it builds out its video and live streaming business. The deal highlights the use of the Web for live streaming events, especially for sports and concerts. The deal moves Google one step closer to building a broadcast network of sites and cloud-based services supported by broadband speeds that only Google Fiber offers. Twitch, created by Justin.tv founders, supports live video games and video game streaming.

Nearly one in three consumers (30 percent) think Nike was an official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup. Similarly, one in four believe MasterCard was a FIFA partner and one in five believe Samsung had an official role. Of those brands that did sponsor the event, the most highly recalled names were Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Visa and Adidas, with respective recognition rates of 50, 39, 41 and 36 percent in the UK, according to research from GlobalWebIndex.

As the start of the Premier League season beckons, BT has taken BSkyB to court again in a feud over moving Sky Sports from its older BT Vision boxes to its YouView internet-based service. BT is accusing Sky of abusing its market dominance by refusing to reach an agreeable commercial deal. BT has been held back from pushing customers towards YouView because they would lose Sky Sports. The telco is hoping a judge can force Sky's hand within the next month

BSkyB has agreed with Rupert Murdoch to buy Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia for a total of up to GBP7bn, in a deal will create a pan-European pay-TV and broadband empire. The British company will acquire from 21st Century Fox 57pc of Sky Deutschland for GBP2.9bn and make an equivalent offer of EUR6.75 per share for the remaining publicly traded shares. It has agreed to pay GBP2.45bn, or just under 10 times earnings, for Sky Italia, which Fox owns outright.

More than two in three (68 percent) of 18- to-24-year-olds are unconcerned about how much data they share with brands, according to a new study by Webtrends. Less than a quarter (23 percent) believe data sharing will be viewed negatively in the future. There is slightly more caution around data sharing for consumers age 55 and over, with half objecting to sharing data with brands completely and 49 percent believing it will still be an issue in the future

Facebook's second-quarter revenue may have shown a huge increase of 61 percent, but it still has a way to go before marketers are satisfied, according to Forrester analyst Anthony Mullen. He said that Facebook as a social marketing platform "hasn't really panned out," with brands telling Forrester that the organic reach of posts remains disappointing. "Marketers aren't satisfied and we're beginning to see them develop their own social properties on their own websites."

Expanding its native ad strategy, LinkedIn is now giving brands the ability to personalise and test content in the newsfeed without having to originate posts on their LinkedIn Company Page. Dubbed "Direct Sponsored Content," the service represents an expansion of the company's Sponsored Updates product. The idea is to help companies produce more relevant content by sending personalised messages to specific audiences.

Shares in Facebook surged to a record $74 in after-hours trading on Wednesday as it revealed that profits had more than doubled in the second quarter. The firm said that net income increased to $788m (GBP462m) for the 12 weeks ended June 30 -- up 138pc from the $331m reported in the same quarter last year. The results were driven by an increase in sales of mobile advertisements, which accounted for 62pc of the company's $2.68bn advertising revenues -- up from 59pc in the last quarter.

Mail Online increased its advertising revenue by 49% in the quarter to 30 June, The Web site made GBP15m in revenues in the quarter, up GBP5m on the same period last year. Its growth was enough to offset a GBP3m decline in print ad revenues, a 5% fall to GBP46m for the quarter. Mail Online missed its GBP45m revenue target in the last financial year -- hitting GBP41m -- and requires an average of 46% growth on that figure across 2014 to hit GBP60m.