The decision ends Starcom Mediavest Group's 18-year relationship with DMGT, which is pursuing aggressive plans to expand its publishing business. In addition to handling the group's planning and buying requirements, Maxus will provide consultancy support for DMGT titles within its DMG Media division, namely the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and MailOnline. Central to this activity will be the company's online platform, known as MailOnline in the UK and the world's biggest English-language news Web site.

The world's first artificially intelligent poster campaign, which evolves to write its own copy and selects its own images and fonts based on the reactions of passersby, has gone live in London. The ad, created by M&C Saatchi in partnership with Postercope and Clear Channel UK, has a camera that registers peoples' engagement based on whether they look happy, sad or neutral. It then uses an algorithm that "kills off" ads which don't results in engagement and reproduces those that do.

Unilever said it is on the way to personal care becoming 50% of its business as the FMCG company shifts focus away from food though a strategy based on premiumisation and innovation. Unilever made four acquisitions in its prestige personal care division over the first half of the year -- Murad, Dermalogica, Kate Somerville and REN -- and now plans to ramp up efforts to grow it to a EUR1bn business. Personal care now makes up 37% of Unilever's total business and is heading toward 50%, said CEO Paul Polman.

Trinity Mirror's national newspaper Web sites recorded a year-on-year traffic increase of 59% in June and overtook the Telegraph. Last month, Mirror.co.uk, DailyRecord.co.uk and IrishMirror.ie (grouped by ABC together as one) recorded an average of 4.3m unique users a day. The "Mirror" now sits behind Mail Online (13.6m average unique daily users, up 25% year-on-year) and "The Guardian" (7.8m, up 36%). The "Telegraph," meanwhile, recorded an average daily unique user number of 4.1m, up 5%.

Web standards bodies are further lobbying ad tech vendors to more closely align how they report on ad viewability, as successive reports published this week suggest that the rise of programmatic media trading is negatively impacting the amount of ads actually seen by intended audiences. JICWEBs is processing applications from companies offering ad viewability solutions, after media buyers complained that differences in their methodologies make it difficult to trade media efficiently.

Britain remains a hotbed of illegal file-sharing, with one in five Internet users downloading movies and music without paying, according to a report from the government's Intellectual Property Office. The figures show that demand for legal services such as Spotify and Netflix has risen by more than 10 per cent in the past two years and that the use of online entertainment is up 6 percent. However, an estimated 7.8 million Britons over the age of 12 downloaded at least one piece of illegal content between March and May this year.

Mark Zuckerberg has moved a step closer to becoming the richest person on the planet. The Facebook founder has moved up to ninth place in Bloomberg's billionaire list, overtaking Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad. Mr Zuckerberg, 31, has a fortune of $43.1bn, a rise of $8.6bn in the year so far. Facebook's shares hit a record high of $98.39 on Tuesday as analysts prepare for what they believe will be bumper results next week.

Sky Sports has secured rights to show "near-live" highlights of the Premier League online for three years starting in 2016. The deal also means News UK titles the "Sun" and "Times" will be able to continue offering highlights as part of their digital packages through an arrangement with Sky. News UK has held the rights for online highlights since 2013, through a separate deal thought to be worth GBP20m. Sky last held rights for highlights delivered via mobile for three seasons starting in 2007.

A poll of over 19,000 British consumers revealed that respondents wouldn't care if 94% of brands disappeared altogether, according to Havas Media's Meaningful Brands UK Report 2015. This figure has risen from a rate of 93% in 2013, with the increasing apathy appearing to be driven by a lack of sustainable initiatives on offer from high-profile brands. An overwhelming 85% of respondents believe brands must play a bigger role in improving the quality of life and well being of their customers and the wider community.

The number of mergers and acquisitions in the global marketing communications space increased by 13 percent last quarter, led by 12 deals involving WPP. According to new data from Results International, there were 246 transactions between April and June compared with 218 in the first quarter and 199 in the same period in 2014. WPP's activity included the acquisition of Medialets, the US-based mobile specialist, and the full-service agency RSK Group in Germany.