Will Kit Kat rue Girls Aloud tie?

Media coverage of pop group Girls Aloud looking surly, fed up and cold, during the shoot for the latest Kit Kat Senses ad has highlighted the pitfalls associated with high-profile celebrity tie-ups.

Pictures of band member Sarah Harding making an obscene hand gesture at photographers are unlikely to be consistent with the image Nestle is trying to convey for the launch of its female-friendly 165-calorie chocolate bar.

The brand owner is lavishing a £9m adspend on Senses, which is designed to rival Ferrero’s Kinder Bueno. The size of the budget makes it the company’s biggest launch this year, and after confectionery flops such as Double Cream, the successful introduction of Senses is key.

Some coverage of the shoot has showed the band looking fantastic in party attire, but it is the substantial amount of negative press that is likely to endure in consumers’ minds.

Jason Gallucci, managing director of PR agency Slice, which has worked with celebrities including Girls Aloud, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Charlotte Church, believes it is important to make sure stars are fully on board. ’You can do a deal with an agent but it doesn’t always mean that the talent has bought into it,’ he said, citing the example of Britney Spears, who was spotted drinking Coke after being signed up as the face of Pepsi.

However, Peter Shaw, managing director of Brand Catalyst, claimed that as long as Girls Aloud stay together, the tie-up is likely to work for Nestle. ’Where you have a problem with using celebrities is on issues to do with breaking the law, or serious morality concerns,’ he said.

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BBC wins back F1 broadcast rights from 2009

The BBC has won back the rights to broadcast Formula 1 motor racing from next year after signing a five-year deal for an undisclosed sum, replacing ITV, which has hosted the sport for the last 12 years.

The corporation said the deal would extend across all platforms, including TV and radio, mobile and full broadband coverage through the BBC Sport website.

The deal will mark the first time the broadcaster has screened full race coverage on TV since 1996, although BBC Radio 5 Live does provide full commentary for all F1 races.

ITV’s current broadcast rights will expire at the end of this F1 season. In a statement, ITV said it had been a "straightforward commercial decision for ITV" to exit F1 at the end of the year, and that it was "pleased" the sport would continue to be broadcast free-to-air.

Securing the rights for F1 is a major coup for BBC Sport, which lost out to BSkyB earlier this week to broadcast the majority of Champions League coverage from 2009 in a three-year deal worth £240m. However, it may still land the rights to broadcast its first choice of Wednesday night matches in an auction today.

This year’s F1 season got underway with the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne last weekend, which was won by McClaren driver Lewis Hamilton. ITV’s coverage of the race’s qualifying session drew 1.7m viewers for its Saturday afternoon slot.

Dominic Coles, BBC Sport director of sport rights, said: "F1 is a crown jewel of sports broadcasting, so to bring the rights back to their traditional home from 2009 is tremendously exciting.

"Fans will be able to enjoy uninterrupted, state of the art and innovative coverage from BBC Sport across all of our TV, radio and new media plaforms for the first time since 1996."

Bernie Ecclestone, president and chief executive officer of Formula One Management, said: "It is an exciting time for in Formula 1 and the BBC has some innovative new ideas to consolidate and expand our UK fan base."

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Levi’s voted world’s favourite jeans brand

Levi’s came out as the clear global favourite in a recent survey about jeans, with more than one in five respondents nominating the brand as their preferred choice.

Market research company Synovate surveyed around 7,700 people in the US, Canada, Brazil, France, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, Serbia, Russia and South Africa.

Respondents were asked which jeans brand they would most like to own, price aside and with no restriction on answers, a third of people chose a global or designer brand.

Levi’s was the clear favourite with 45% of respondents in France voting for the brand. Around a third of all respondents in Malaysia, the US, Serbia and South Africa also chose Levi’s.

Lush launches Guantanamo Bay protest campaign

Cosmetics retailer Lush has launched a UK-wide campaign calling for the closure of US detention camp Guantanamo Bay. Lush staff will wear orange underpants with the slogan ’Fair Trial my Arse’ and shops will stock a product promoting pressure group Reprieve.

Staff will wear the pants in Lush stores all of this week in the hope of highlighting the illegal detention and torture of men held in the prison.

Mark Constantine, Lush co-founder, decided to launch the campaign after learning about two current detainees -’Al Jazeera News’ cameraman Sami Al Haj and British resident Binyam Mohamed, who have been held without trial for five years.

Constantine learned of the two men when he met Clive Stafford Smith, human rights lawyer and director of legal aid charity Reprieve, who is representing Al Haj and Mohamed in Guantanamo.

Stafford Smith said the US government had absurdly accused him of sneaking in contraband underpants to his clients; this gave Reprieve the idea to print the slogan “Fair Trial my Arse” on a pair of briefs.

He said: “The most effective counter-terrorism strategy any government can employ is the universal enforcement of human rights and Reprieve is delighted that the staff at Lush have taken up the fight for justice for the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.”

Lush has also created a new fizzing bath ball called ’Guantanamo Garden’, which has been invented to tell the story of the Guantanamo prisoners who have been taking seeds from their meals and planting them in the outdoor holding cell to create their own garden of watermelon, peppers and a lemon tree.

The ball is coloured orange to represent the jump suits worn by the prisoners and when it is dropped into the bath, a hidden photo of Al Haj and Mohamed floats to the top bearing copy urging customers to take action by logging onto Reprieve’s website.

Constantine said: “Because Lush is a cosmetics company we normally campaign over the rights of mice and rabbits being harmed in pointless and cruel safety experiments.

“But when humans are being treated worse than rats in a cage we knew it was time to launch an initiative to close Guantanamo.”

Lush will also be donating 100% of the proceeds of its Charity Pot hand and body cream sold this week to Reprieve.

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Domino’s Pizza to roll out recycling campaign

Domino’s Pizza has kicked off a green-themed campaign devised by BLM Quantum to encourage customers to recycle used pizza boxes.

The campaign, called “Think outside the box”, encourages Domino’s customers to think of new ways to recycle their used pizza box and upload their short video ideas on

In return for posting their video, Domino’s customers are given a code that they must post on the Domino’s Pizza MySpace blog. The two clips rated most creative and funniest will win the posters a 24″ iMac and 10 tickets to the Comedy Store.

Domino’s Pizza has chosen a selection of launch films to encourage other posters, and will support the campaign on MySpace, Sky.com, on Domino’s Pizza boxes and through the Blyk ad-funded mobile targeting network.

The campaign follows BLM Quantum’s social media work for Domino’s Pizza last autumn through massively multiplayer game ’Second Life’, which invited users to order virtual pizzas in return for money-off vouchers.

Dan Clays, managing director of BLM Quantum, said: “Tackling such an important issue as recycling in an upfront, engaging and fun way gets the message home to a switched-on, green-conscious target audience.”

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Twentieth Century Fox unveils online celebrity dress auction

Twentieth Century Fox UK has launched an online celebrity dress auction in support of breast cancer, called ’27 Dresses’ after the romantic comedy of the same name due for release later this month.

The auction is being launched in aid of the Lavender Trust, a charity which funds Breast Cancer Care’s support and information service

More than 30 dresses have been donated by stars including: Katherine Heigl, who stars in the film opposite Ed Burns; Kylie and Dannii Minogue; Geri Halliwell, Mariah Carey; Amy Winehouse; and Paris Hilton.

Geri Halliwell said: “We all know that us girls can never have too many dresses so I’m delighted to support the ’27 Dresses’ Celebrity Dress Auction in aid of The Lavender Trust by donating one of my own personal Gucci favourites.

“It has fond and poignant memories for me — I wore it when I hosted Breast Cancer Care’s annual Fashion Show in 2006.”

Hollywood actresses including Thandie Newton, Maggie Gyllenhaal and supermodels Naomi Campbell and Heidi Klum have also donated dresses.

Bidding will be open at the ’27 Dresses’ eBay site from 7pm on Tuesday March 4 and the dresses will be auctioned off at three-day intervals throughout the month.

Kylie Minogue has offered a white John Galliano dress worn to the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, Amy Winehouse has offered the dress she wore when she performed for this years’ Grammy Awards and Destiny’s Child star Kelly Rowland has offered the dress she wore to last month’s Brit Awards.

Charlie Clapham, senior promotions manager at 20th Century Fox UK, said: “For ’27 Dresses’ we immediately saw the opportunity to do something special with designer fashion.

“The ultimate fashion must-have is a top designer dress worn on the red carpet. This charity auction enables anyone in the UK to logon to eBay for the chance to bid on one of these coveted items as well as raising money for a very worthy cause.”

The film stars Heigl as New Yorker Jane, who has a huge collection of 27 hideous bridesmaid dresses. She spends her time organising other people’s weddings and neglecting her love life, which has become a sad second, until she meets her sister’s boss Ed Burns.

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Winehouse back on top of album chart

A deluxe, two-disc version of Amy Winehouse’s Grammy-winning breakthrough album “Back to Black” rose two places to No. 1 on the album charts

Winehouse’s sales figures, in the UK and beyond, continue to flourish as tabloid coverage of her private life proliferates. The deluxe “Back to Black” is in its 17th week on the chart, but its new sales spurt appeared to be at the expense of the original chart-topper, which slid 18 places to No. 30 in its 70th week.

The troubled singer kept Goldfrapp from a chart-topping debut with the “Seventh Tree” album, which came in at No. 2, mirroring the performance of 2005’s “Supernature.”

Mika’s “Life in Cartoon Motion” rose two to No. 3. Another special-edition album, a tour edition of Michael Buble’s “Call Me Irresponsible”, jumped 10 to No. 4. Jazz-soul singer Adele’s former chart-topper “19″ rebounded two places to No. 5.

Last week’s new entry at No. 1, the Feeling’s “Join With Us”, crashed to No. 11

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Senior Online MarComms Officer

Breakthrough is the UK’s leading charity committed to fighting breast cancer. We are here to provide the vital research, campaigning and education that will create a future free from the fear of breast cancer. We are currently looking to recruit a Senior Online MarComms Officer in the Strategic Marketing and Brand Development Team.

In this exciting role you will be responsible for co-ordinating, maintaining and driving the development of new and existing online fundraising and charitable communication and marketing initiatives, ensuring the Breakthrough teams achieve their objectives and reflect the integrity of the charity and its brand.

You will be involved in developing Breakthrough’s website, as well as creating and developing micro sites for the fundraising, campaigning and scientific research teams. You will also create and develop newsletters.

You must have the ability to advise and persuade managers of the best methods of communicating content of all online communications together with knowledge of web 2.0, viral marketing and advertising, as well as content management systems. Excellent communication skills and the ability to multitask are a must.

In return, you can expect to work in a vibrant, forward-thinking environment, where achievement is celebrated and people are at the centre of our work.

In addition to all UK bank holidays we offer 25 days annual leave plus all working days between Christmas and New Year, a generous pension scheme and an Employee Discount Scheme.

Salary: 26 – 30k

Contact: To apply and for further information, please visit www.breakthrough.org.uk/careers or call 020 7280 4257.

Senior Account Manager

This is a brilliant opportunity if you are a thriving Senior Account Manager with some entrepreneurial spirit and the confidence in your own ability to make your mark in a highly intelligent and creative agency. Working on a range of clients from well known brands to NPD – this would particularly suit you if you are looking for a place to grow into an Account Director + . To succeed here you will be self driven, have business acumen, a strong understanding of sales promotion, advertising and brands gained within an agency environment.

You will also need a very positive attitude, down to earth manor and good sense of humour! The ability to multi task and keep an organised approach to servicing your clients is also mandatory..

The agency is supercharged with creative ideas, it needs you to be the liaison between these ideas and your clients.. you will therefore need to be well versed in being a bit of a chameleon and able to wear many hats at once and have fantastic communication skills.

The environment is confident without arrogance. You are exposed to senior level thinking, from day to day dealings with senior clients to the guys at the helm of the agency. You are tasked with advising these senior clients and helping them plan their ongoing advertising and marketing plans. You should aspire to being part of the front man team of the agency – using your quality account management skills in keeping projects in time and on budget.

You will have a total appreciation for the creative process and have experience of working alongside and briefing planners and creative heads.

Salary: 28 – 35k

Contact: Katie Freeland or Laura Hunt Cooke on 020 8347 6699 or email hello@thefirehorse.co.uk.

Marketing Campaign Manager

What an exciting opportunity for a creative & commercially-minded marketeer to join the brand marketing team of this leading media company! If you are an inspirational & customer-focused Campaign Manager with an innovative mind looking for a fresh challenge, then read on….

As Brand Champion, using consumer insight & research, you will lead the development & implementation of integrated, multi-channel marketing campaigns encompassing sponsorship, third party activities, packaging, events & promotions. Executing creative campaigns to the highest standards will support branding building, drive customer interaction & support multiple channels.

Educated to degree level in a marketing/business related subject, and ideally CIM/PPA qualified, you must have previous brand and/or campaign experience, along with strong project management, communication & negotiation skills.

If you are driven by the desire to shine, are excited by this opportunity & believe you have what we are looking for, send your CV to fishtank right away!

Salary: 20 – 26k

Contact: Julia Rees- Julia@fishtank.cc

Product Marketing Executive

A unique opportunity has become available at a leading global business services consultancy for an enthusiastic and professional Product Marketing Executive. You will apply, evaluate and reassess selected campaigns and projects in order to sucessfully launch new products into all relevant markets. You will deliverer these projects through top quality direct marketing, conduce effective relationships with agencies and the internal sales team. With a background in full mix communications and an understanding of product management ideally within a business services environment this is exciting opportunity for a creative, driven marketer. Applicants should be available immediately.

Salary: 30k pro rata

Contact: Miss Siri Gjorven - info@ortusinterim.com

Event Marketing Manager

This is an exciting opportunity for someone with solid event marketing experience (agency or in-house) to join this international organisation. You’ll develop and implement the event marketing strategy, monitor competitor activity and also communicate best practice and industry trends to key stakeholders. You’ll need solid B2B marketing experience (including campaign and budget management), preferably gained within the IT sector – European experience would also be a bonus. This is a great role for someone looking to develop their strategic marketing experience, whilst still being involved in hands-on campaign management.

Salary: 30 – 42k

Contact: Katie Brookes -katieb@blueskiescareers.co.uk

Mar 6^th – 23^rd – Magner’s Glasgow International Comedy Festival

Mar 8^th – Six Nations Rugby- England versus Scotland, Murrayfield

Mar 8^th – 9^th – Somerset Spring Festival of Food & Drink

Mar 11^th – 14^th – Cheltenham National Hunt Festival

Mar 12^th – RHS London Flower Show, Westminster

Mar 13^th – 16^th – Affordable Art Fair, London

Mar 15^th – 16^th – Spring Transport Festival, Manchester

Mar 17^th - St. Patrick’s Day

Mar 21^st - Good Friday

Mar 23^rd - Easter Sunday

Mar 24^th – 26^th – Derbyshire Open Arts Event

Mar 27^th – 30^th – Glasgow National Art Fair

Mar 30^th – British Summer Time begins