The IPA's latest Bellwether report paints a "mixed" picture of the UK's advertising industry, with overall budgets up despite a downturn in optimism surrounding the financial prospects both at a company and industry-wide level. The study revealed that 25% enjoyed a boost to their marketing budgets in Q2 2015, with just 13% registering a fall, resulting in a net balance increase of 12.2%, up from an 11.8% jump during the previous report, and amounting to a three-quarter high.

BT faces a battle to retain control of the national telecoms network, after the communications watchdog said that forcing a spin off "could deliver competition or wider benefits for end users". Ofcom published a discussion paper on its Strategic Review of Digital Communications, the first stage in a wide-ranging, once-a-decade overhaul of the communications market. It said it would seek views on separating BT from Openreach, its network division, as part of efforts to ensure competition delivers benefits to consumers and businesses.

Tech start-ups and big companies eager to create a sustainable future should work together to revolutionise public services and access to branded products, says Joe Comiskey, UK e-commerce capability, innovation and strategy team leader, Unilever. In spite of the enormous scale of today's e-commerce industry and its continued rapid growth, it is still in its infancy in the context of the long history of shopping. As such there is still an enormous opportunity to change the structure of e-commerce systems.

First Utility, the largest challenger to the "big six" energy suppliers, is on the hunt for a creative agency as pressure grows for greater competition in the industry. The company currently works with Upstart, which is repitching. The agency launched a TV ad, "poker", in January that featured a voiceover from Mark Strong. First Utility is planning to select an agency by mid-September. The process is being handled by AAR.

Brands with websites not optimised for mobile have suffered a 10% dip in traffic, as well as a 16% increase in their traffic costs, or CPCs, since search giant Google began prioritising web properties specifically designed for smaller screens in its search rankings, according to Adobe. Google declared itself a 'mobile first' company back in 2010, but it wasn't until April this year that it began to actively prioritise those websites specifically designed to be viewed on wireless devices.

Burberry's early moves on Snapchat and Periscope appear to be off to a good start after campaigns in its latest quarter topped 100m impressions for the first time. Many marketers are yet to gain sure footing on either social app but it looks like Burberry could soon claim otherwise. On the conference call for its first quarter results yesterday, the fashion house's chief financial officer Carol Fairweather said mixing up its content mix with short-form and streaming features had spurred "record customer engagement".

Mondex aimed to replace coins with a chip-based card and keyring reader for checking bank balances but it did not catch on. Yet fast-forward 20 years and contactless payments are increasingly replacing cash, with 'mobile wallet' services such as Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay all launching this year to a ready-made audience of millions of smartphone users. Apple will be first to market this month. Barclaycard, meanwhile, has just launched three wearable contactless payment devices through its bPay brand.

The boss of the BBC's commercial arm has resisted calls to sell its stake in UKTV, the broadcaster behind the Dave channel, despite the opportunity for a GBP500m windfall to help cover funding gaps. Tim Davie, the chief executive of BBC Worldwide, said licence fee payers would be best served by a continued 50% stake in UKTV, which also runs Gold and Watch, as part of a 10-strong portfolio of digital channels. Scripps, a US media company owns the other 50pc, has made repeated approaches to buy out BBC Worldwide.

Thomas Cook has brought its marketing and product innovation under one united brief, appointing Albion to its multi-million pound pan-European account. The travel company selected Albion following a competitive pitch earlier this year and informed the agency of the win last week. Albion is tasked with repositioning the Thomas Cook Group brand across Europe with briefs spanning both advertising and marketing tasks along with product innovation projects in the organisation's key markets.

Firm direction from the IAB means almost two-thirds (63%) of media planners are now confident that native ad formats are a safe media channel to invest in, but contrasts in the business models of creative and media agencies make execution difficult, according to a report. The findings were revealed today by FaR Partners, commissioned by Adyoulike, which revealed the vast majority of "agencies are now confident that the native market is well regulated", compared to just 33% 12 months ago.