Carat predicts that digital spend will account for 25 percent of global advertising in 2016, courtesy of a surge in mobile. Digital has been given a further fillip, with all global markets ring-fencing digital media spending, even in the teeth of economic headwinds, and the biggest increase to be found in Asia-Pacific following the election of India's BJP party fuelling double-digit growth of 11 percent this year. In China, growth is set to remain steady at 7.9 percent.

Taxi hailing app Hailo has launched a protest against driverless cars, projecting portraits of its drivers onto famous landmarks in London. The "Face to faceless" campaign sees cabbie portraits projected onto buildings in China Town, Marble Arch, Covent Garden, and the Southbank. The idea is to highlight the intrinsic connection between cabs and London's architecture, according to Hailo's CMO, Gary Bramall.

While brand owner Diageo is hoping to tap into the popularity of craft beers with the launch of "Guinness Golden Ale," could the move be stretching the brand too far? The launch last week is likely to be one of many innovations the brand will introduce as it looks to "broadly explore" the beer category. It is part of a move to create a "Guinness beer for every consumer in every outlet," and comes after the brand launched two craft-style beers in the UK and Ireland last September, Dublin Porter and Guinness West Indies Porter.

The UK will this year become the first country in the world where half of all advertising spend goes to digital media. Just over GBP16.2bn will be spent on all forms of advertising in the UK this year, including TV, newspapers, billboards, radio, online and on mobile and tablets, according to eMarketer. Digital advertising is expected to grow by 12% this year to GBP8.1bn, making the UK the first country in which GBP1 in every GBP2 will go on digital media. Ad spend on mobile devices will rise 45% this year to GBP3.3bn.

Virgin Radio is to return to the UK airwaves, along with two spinoff TalkSport stations and a host of new nationwide broadcasters, as part of a new wave of digital radio stations. The rock and pop music brand owned by Richard Branson is one of 14 stations that will launch on Sound Digital, the second national commercial digital platform licensed by media regulator Ofcom on Friday. The new stations are expected to launch in March next year and will see around a doubling of today's national digital stations.

O2 customers are being offered early access to ten Channel 4 series as part of the relaunch of the broadcaster's video-on-demand platform as All 4. The offer, open to customers who sign up to O2's Priority loyalty scheme, is part of a multiplatform sponsorship deal that means O2 branding will appear across All 4 and in pre-roll ads throughout 2015. Channel 4 says All 4, which replaces the 4oD brand and goes live on Monday, is designed to move beyond long-form content into short video, interactive games and social media feeds.

Amazon is investigating the beginning of trials of its drone delivery service in the UK because regulations in the U.S. are too onerous, according to a government minister. The online retailing giant approached Britain about beginning test flights of its "Prime Air" service, which plans to use small unmanned aircraft to get purchases into customers' hands in 30 minutes or less. Robert Goodwill, transport minister, said he had met with the U.S.-based e-commerce company about being given permission to run tests on the drone service in the UK.

Trinity Mirror is understood to be in negotiations to buy David Montgomery's regional newspaper group "Local World," according to industry sources. "The Daily Mirror" owner paid GBP14.2m in November 2012 to acquire a 20 percent stake in Local World when the group was created in 2012 through the merger of Daily Mail & General Trust's (DMGT's) regional newspapers and the regional titles of Iliffe News & Media, which owns the "Cambridge News."

Free messaging service Whatsapp has crossed a significant milestone after people sent more messages using its system than traditional text messaging for the first time in history during the first half of last year -- a trend which has since accelerated. Data compiled by "The Economist" showed that 30bn Whatsapp messages were being sent every day by the end of last year -- far more than the 20bn text messages sent each day. The crossover signals the long-term decline of text messaging as the go to service for quick communication.

Land Rover is poised to move its entire global creative and digital advertising business into Spark 44, the global joint venture agency in which Jaguar Land Rover has a 50 percent stake. Although set up as Jaguar's global communications and marketing partner, Spark44 has also been moving in on Land Rover's creative assignments in recent months, acquiring Land Rover's incumbent Australian ad agency Morris & Partners at the end of last year. The main loser in the U.S. and UK is Young & Rubicam.