Welcome to e.wire, WPP's public monthly round-up of news and initiatives from across our worldwide network. WPP people can also access the full version on the Group intranet. If you can't see this news bulletin properly, you can also view it here

News highlights

WPP Quarterly Trading Update

REPORTABLE REVENUES UP ALMOST 36%
CONSTANT CURRENCY REVENUES UP OVER 11%
LIKE-FOR-LIKE REVENUES DOWN ALMOST 6%
FIRST QUARTER OPERATING MARGIN AHEAD OF BUDGET BUT BELOW LAST YEAR

Kim Dedeker to join Kantar in new role as Chair, Americas

Kim Dedeker will be joining Kantar in a new role as Chair, Americas. She recently retired from P&G after spending 29 years in a variety of senior roles, most recently as VP, Consumer and Market Knowledge External Capability, where she was instrumental in leading a variety of industry body initiatives around data quality and industry transformation. Prior to that, she served as VP, Global Consumer and Market Knowledge for seven years.

BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands now worth $2 trillion

Google is the world's first $100 billion brand, number one for the third year running

The fourth annual BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands ranking published by Millward Brown Optimor reveals that brands sustain their value, despite the tough economic environment.

The BrandZ Top 100 ranking identifies the dollar value of brands. It does this by combining financial data with research on consumers and business-to-business users from BrandZ, the world's largest brand equity study.

The value of the top 100 brands has held its value at $1.95 tn (a marginal increase of 1.7 percent). Google is number one with a value of $100 bn, Microsoft is number two at $76.2 bn and Coca-Cola enters the top three for the first time at $67.6 bn.

China will recover from downturn by 2010 suggests recent survey from Millward Brown and Hill & Knowlton

China's economy will shake off the effects of the world economic downturn and return to a booming and vibrant state by 2010, according to a survey by WPP companies Millward Brown-ACSR and Hill & Knowlton. Fifty-nine CMOs and senior marketing directors were interviewed to gauge how they were responding to the crisis in China. Contact: Cameron.Wilson@hillandknowlton.com.cn

New business

TNS wins Eurobarometer

Hill & Knowlton wins World Expo 2010 Shanghai

Awards, Winners, Movers & Shakers

JWT INSIDE wins 27 Creative Excellence Awards

O&M India shines at the ABBYs, Goafest

Mindshare wins at inaugural Indian Media ABBYs

New business enquiries

Are you looking for an advertising or marketing services partner? WPP can help point you in the right direction - find out how.

"I'm Sorry - You've Lost Me"

By Jeremy Bullmore

Five Words No Brand Should Ever Have To Hear

2008 may be remembered as the year when numbers finally lost their capacity to shock. At the beginning of the year, two billion dollars was a lot of money. By the end of it, two trillion dollars was rather less: or so it seemed.

Read Jeremy's latest essay in the 2008 WPP Annual Report.

AnxietyIndex: The Recession and Its Impact on the Youth Market

By JWT

For the latest AnxietyIndex study, JWT focused on the recession's impact on the youth market, specifically teens and twentysomethings - the age cohort that is often referred to as the Millennial generation or Gen Y.

Areas the research explored include: the anxiety levels and anxiety drivers of young adults and teens as compared with the general population; what amenities youth would be most reluctant to forego if money becomes tight; and the perceived effect of the recession on twentysomethings' lives.

Twitter

Did you know you that WPP is now on Twitter?

Get tweeted the latest news, insights, research and much more from WPP marketing professionals across the world.

Start following!