Michaela Jefferson speaks with one of the UK’s top media planners about his ambitious new plans – and the frustrations helping to drive them.

Facebook is planning to invest with agencies to enable them to deliver competitive advantage in the digital marketplace, according to the social media platform’s director of agencies, UK and Ireland.

Sutherland talks to Michaela Jefferson about getting the business back on track, painful pitches and bringing the positivity back to adland.

In its first acquisition since receiving investment from the French group Fimalac last month, London-based digital ad agency Jellyfish has bought creative agency Social Life.

The inflating cost of TV advertising means agencies and their clients need to start looking at how they can build fame through new media, Starcom’s executive head of strategy said this week.

WPP’s investment wing, GroupM, has forecast a deceleration in global advertising growth, with this year expected to record growth of 4.8% vs 2018’s 5.7%, followed by 3.9% in 2020.

Zenith also notes that the price of media has grown faster than adspend over the last 10 years as commercial audiences shrink.

Nine months after the consolidation of their global operations, Publicis Media has announced that Blue 449 will be integrated into the Spark Foundry brand in the UK from early next year.

PHD Worldwide has created two new C-suite positions, with Avril Canavan promoted to chief marketing and communications officer and Patrick Ryan promoted to chief commercial officer.

Unilever has hired company veteran Conny Braams as its chief digital and marketing officer, a role newly created as the brand looks to become “future-fit” and “fully digitised”.