Accounts show that the total headcount at Express Newspapers fell from an average of 536 to 460 last year, slashing the wage bill from GBP54m to GBP38.9m. The company moved to axe 200 posts from the newspaper portfolio in late 2014 and early 2015, and has since looked to bolster its digital publishing capability with mostly new -- and cheaper -- online journalists.

Last week, Mars revealed that the company's chief customer officer has been promoted to the newly created role of chief marketing and customer officer. The decision to bring its sales and marketing department closer together has been made in response to shifts in retail, ecommerce and consumer shopping behaviours, leading Mars to take a "fresh approach to stewarding."

The BBC is following Netflix in using online viewing data to help it decide which programmes to make. It is also experimenting with using social media such as Twitter and Facebook to help it make commissioning decisions. The experiments are part of the corporation's myBBC project announced by director general Tony Hall last year to "reinvent public service broadcasting through data."

The account moves from Iris, the incumbent -- which will continue to work on global ad campaigns for Mini -- as well as PR. The Brooklyn Brothers beat Iris to win the account. Lucky Generals and SapientNitro had also been involved at an earlier stage. The review was initially run by AAR and then Roth Observatory, with BMW's procurement team involved from the chemistry stage.

Bauer Media has bought the Midlands-based radio company Orion Media, the owner of the Free and Gem radio brands. The Free Radio and Gem stations provide local programming to listeners in Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Coventry, Derby, Leicester, Hereford and Worcester and Nottingham.

Blue Hive, the bespoke WPP agency for Ford's advertising, has taken on new clients and is now called Global Team Blue in a global rebrand. GTB operates on six continents across 49 offices and is WPP's largest agency team with more than 2,000 members of staff. Other GTB clients include Anheuser-Busch, South West Trains and Purina.

Parents' immersion in smartphones has left some neglected children starting primary school unable to hold conversations, new research warns. Almost a third of children starting school are not ready for the classroom, with many lacking social skills, having speech problems or not toilet trained, the survey of senior primary school staff has found.

Snapchat is broadening its UK advertiser base, with the Department of Transport recently spending GBP70,000 on ads and Burberry, Universal, Coca-Cola, Calvin Klein, Unilever and Domino's all putting media spend into the platform. The social media platform is also expanding the availability of its ad formats, testing vertical video ads with a limited number of UK brands.

A pledge by BT to spend GBP6 billion during the next three years to improve broadband speeds and mobile coverage to avert a breakup of the company has been criticised by analysts and rivals who say that far more needs to be done. However, industry sources said there was little new in BT's proposal to entice Ofcom to remove the threat of a breakup.

Having overtaken Adidas in the North American sportswear market, only Nike now stands ahead of Under Armour. And its VP of direct-to-consumer and omnichannel digital Sid Jatia is confident the brand, which now houses high-profile athletes including Andy Murray, can replicate its success this side of the Atlantic.