The firm said it did not believe its own systems had been compromised, but rather that the players' login details had been stolen from elsewhere. The company said that no money had been taken from or added to the compromised accounts. But it added that there had been other suspicious activity on fewer than 50 of them. Camelot said it became aware of the problem on Sunday.

Accenture's buyout of Karmarama -- one of the largest independent creative agencies in the UK -- yesterday sent ripples through the industry as the management consultancy declared that "the next wave of marketing is here" and that, crucially, it's the one leading it.

Sky is seeking to expand its provision of services with the rollout of Sky Mobile, offering existing customers free calls and texts as well as compile playlists of their favourite programmes to watch on their smartphone. Non-Sky subscribers will have to pay GBP10 per month to make calls and texts from their phones, or opt for a pay-as-you-go plan.

The start-up is still relatively under the radar, but raised its biggest funding round to date of GBP2.4m in late September. It has conducted trials with Camelot and Dunnhumby, and was a finalist at Unilever's Next Big Thing competition. The proposition? Gleaning insights about customers by scanning their smartphone photo galleries.

The new Group M division, called [m]Platform, aims to "unify" data from hundreds of sources including demographics, technology usage, behavioural insights, purchase history, location data and more. However, this will vary by market "according to local regulations," and must be "privacy compliant."

"The Sun" almost doubled its total readership from 13 million to 24 million in the year to September, the latest National Readership Survey Padd data shows -- after the News UK tabloid dropped its online paywall last November.

FMCG brands in the UK are increasingly shunning price promotions in favour of a focus on brand building through advertising, IRI data has suggested. The study, which looks into the use of promotions by FMCG manufacturers and retailers across Europe, highlights a drop in the proportion of volume sales of FMCG products that were sold on promotion in the UK in the latest year.

Almost two dozen of the world's biggest football clubs including Arsenal, Chelsea, Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Juventus have joined forces to launch a new social media network that aims to replicate the success of Facebook for football fans. Dugout.com has signed partnerships with more than 150 players including Gareth Bale, Alexis Sanchez, Edinson Cavani, Joe Hart and Neymar.

Openreach should become a distinct company within the BT group, the regulator said. BT had not voluntarily addressed competition concerns that Ofcom laid out in July, it said. Ofcom said it was preparing a formal notification to the European Commission to begin the process. The regulator has resisted calls to split Openreach off entirely, which telecoms rivals have sought.

FMCG giant Mondelez has made two senior appointments in a move that sees responsibility for e-commerce separated from media. It comes after former chief media and e-commerce officer Bonin Bough left the company in August, becoming a TV host. Both of the new figures come from outside the business.