The number of UK homes with a TV has fallen for the first time, as viewers turn to alternatives including tablets and smartphones to watch programmes. Ofcom said that after years of consecutive growth, the number of households with a television set fell from 26.33m at the end of 2012 to 26.02m at the end of last year. The media regulator said that nearly one million homes have a broadband connection, but no TV, indicating that other Internet-connected devices are being used to view content.

Netflix has tapped Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam to handle its pan-European creative business as the streaming service looks to rapidly increase its base of international subscribers. The review kicked off in July this year with Wieden+Kennedy informed of the win at the end of November. The appointment comes ahead of a major European push from the U.S.-based company. Europe accounts for about a third (six million subscribers) of Netflix's market, with the UK and Ireland representing the lion's share with around three million users.

The YouTube unit is racing to lock up its top stars as rival online video services and court them aggressively. Facebook and video startup Vessel, among others, have tried to lure YouTube creators. Google is offering some of its top video makers bonuses to sign multiyear deals in which they agree to post content exclusively on YouTube for a time before putting it on a rival service. The bonuses can be tied to how well videos perform, but YouTube is making a wide range of offers to counter rivals, according to people involved in the discussions.

Motorola is to adopt "experimental" retargeting methods to move beyond the clumsiness usually associated with the technique and "reawaken consumers" to the former mobile phone leader. The smartphone maker is sharpening the placement of its online ads in the hope of boosting relevancy in an industry where it has struggled to keep pace. Successful ad retargeting has helped kickstart a comeback, according to Motorola, as evidenced by shipments rising 11.7 million in the third quarter compared to 2.5 million a year ago.

Conde Nast is making another foray into online technology with the local launch of highbrow U.S. tech Web site Ars Technica. This is Conde Nast Britain's first launch since "Wired," but the publisher insists that the two Web sites are quite different. "Wired" is all about "the future of technology," while Ars Technica is "the most trusted source of insights into what is at stake today in the world of technology." It is a hit in the U.S. last month, receiving 75 million page views and 12 million unique visitors. The UK accounts for 12% of its traffic.

Pepsi Max targeted unsuspecting commuters at London Bridge on Thursday night with images of cyborgs, and dinosaurs suddenly appearing in front of them out of seemingly nowhere. The Time Tunnel stunt, from AMV BBDO and Freuds, featured augmented reality and stereo projection to make the images appear in front of any passerby. This was the latest element of the Pepsi Max 'Unbelievable' campaign, with the reactions of some of those who were caught up in the moment having since been placed on YouTube.

Pernod Ricard is tapping into its history with Andy Warhol through a digitally focused travel retail campaign in an attempt to drive volume of its special edition bottle. The digital screen -- which has been set up in-store globally in airports including London Heathrow, Copenhagen, Singapore, Thailand and Dubai -- detects the faces of passersby and displays their reflections as Warhol-style "selfies." The pop-art images can then be shared via email and social media. The campaign commemorates the iconic 1986 Warhol painting of the Absolut bottle.

Integration, consolidation, and rationalisation in marketing technology will make up an average of 35 percent of total Marketing Technology budgets by 2015, International Data Corporation (IDC) has predicted. With this increase in technology focus, the rise in spending shifts from IT to Line of Business (LoB) executives, the chief marketing officer (CMO) will hold 10 percent of the overall technology budget by the end of 2015, IDC added.

They loved Freeview when it was launched to rival pay-TV. They loved the tablet computer when it arrived as an alternative to the laptop. Now the British consumer can get the multichannel free-to-view television service direct and live to their iPad or Nexus courtesy of an AIM-listed software developer via an aerial. Developed at an engineering centre in Barcelona and manufactured in South Korea, the portable aerial goes on sale today for GBP69.99.

As European governments increasingly push back against the growing power of American Internet giants on antitrust, privacy and tax, the competition in question increasingly looks like a clash of economies rather than rival companies. The EU and the U.S. are on the brink of a new kind of trade war, where the flow of data are just as important as the flow of capital. The British government's "Google tax," announced last week in the Autumn Statement, is only the latest example of policies that target the powerhouses of Silicon Valley.