One of the world's largest advertising and marketing services companies is expected to end its year-long search for a chairman today when it names Roberto Quarta to the WPP post. Mr Quarta, a respected industrialist who has dual American and Italian citizenship, will replace Philip Lader, a former U.S. ambassador to the UK, who has held the role since 2001. Mr Quarta is the chairman of IMI, the London-listed engineering group, and has told the company that he will step down to take on the job.

Younger people are switching off TV and radio in their droves in favour of online pursuits such as Facebook, leading to a growing "generation gap" in TV and radio. An Ofcom report published yesterday said that 16- to 24-year-olds spent an average of 148 minutes a day watching TV in 2013, down from 169 minutes in 2010 and compared to an average of 232 minutes for all viewers.

Nearly a quarter (23 percent) of UK shoppers have researched Christmas gifts on Facebook, according to a recent study by Searchmetrics. This shows the social network creeping up on Google, which was cited by 50 percent of the survey's 1000 respondents as their preferred destination for searching products. Meanwhile, Amazon took the top spot, with 61 percent of shoppers.

Convenience retailer Spar is rolling out a mobile "shop and win" campaign to drive a "reappraisal" of the brand among younger shoppers. The retailer is partnering with brands including Coca-Cola, Mars, Heineken, Molson Coors and Muller for the campaign, which kicks off on 5 January. It is offering "thousands" of daily prizes including GBP500 cash rewards and money-off vouchers, available via mobile.

BT has entered into an exclusivity agreement with Deutsche Telekom and Orange to acquire their UK mobile business EE for GBP12.5bn. The agreement will last several weeks as the firm seeks time to acquire EE, a move that will grant the company an entry into the UK mobile industry. With the purchase, BT would own one of the UK's most advanced 4G networks.

John Lewis' Monty the Penguin is the most compelling Christmas ad by a high street retailer, according to a new study, which used facial recognition technology to measure people's reactions as they watched ads. The study, by Realeyes, analysed 1,500 people via their own webcam to determine their emotional reactions to Christmas ads from 25 leading high-street brands. Monty the Penguin scored 84 percent on the emotionally compelling scale -- a combined measure of how the ad scores on attraction, retention, engagement and impact.

'The X Factor' bowed out last night with its lowest audience since 2005, after attracting a five-minute peak of 10.5 million viewers, as Ben Haenow beat the favourite Fleur East. The ITV show attracted an average of 9.1 million viewers, a 34.5 percent of audience share between 8 p.m. and 10.05 p.m. in 2013 the final show was watched by 11.9m at its peak and averaged 9.6m. However, the BBC's "Strictly Come Dancing" performed better once again, pulling in 9.8 million viewers on average, and a 42.4 percent of audience share.

Mobile users' obsession with Facebook and "Candy Crush Saga" continued in 2014, according to the most downloaded apps of the year from the Google PlayStore. The Android team has revealed that Facebook was the most popular social app among its users, "Candy Crush" the number one game and "The New York Times" the news source of the year. Netflix, Pandora and Flipagram were among the other top entertainment apps, according to the blog post from Google Play's global director of marketing.

Gogglebox's Steph and Dom have been tapped for Standard Life's latest campaign to educate people on pension reforms. The #ReadyWhenUAre activity -- which comes ahead of the April pension reforms -- is centred on a short online film titled 'The Next Round with Steph and Dom.' Viewers see Steph and Dom speak to real people in a London Pub about their plans for the future and what the pension changes mean for them

The Aerials EarApp, which is free to download, allows creatives to record and time their radio scripts, add sound effects and share their ads via email from their smartphones. The app aims to support the Radio Advertising Bureau's monthly Aerial Awards, an initiative launched as part of the RAB's creativity programme to recognise and reward the best of British radio advertising. The winner will receive free entry into the D&AD professional awards.