Morning Update: Ford savages Cadillac ad; Malaysia Airlines hires overseas crisis comms experts
This is our Morning Update, rounding up international media and marketing news from while you were sleeping.
Mashable: Ford Savages Smarmy Cadillac Ad
“If you watched the Winter Olympics on broadcast this year, you probably saw the ad for Cadillac’s ELR about a million times.
Now the crazy-driven, hardworking believers at Ford have cast a gimlet eye at that infamous Caddy ad with a satire featuring Pashon Murray, the founder of Detroit Dirt, a sustainability consultancy and advocacy group. While Caddy’s smug Neal McDonough appeared to equate an electric car with right-wing politics (and elicited the predictable amount of support and derision for doing so), Murray ties the car into sustainability, which seems like a better fit.”
The Guardian: Rebekah Brooks was ‘paranoid’ about being arrested in runup to NoW closure
“Rebekah Brooks was so paranoid about being arrested in the months running up to the closure of the News of the World, she woke one night and “whacked” her husband because she thought the police were about to raid their home, the Old Bailey has heard.”
Mumbrella Asia: Malaysia Airlines hires overseas crisis comms experts to help with MH370 response
“Malaysia Airlines has brought in crisis management experts from overseas to help it with its communications around the missing MH370 jet story.
The airline has been working with PR agency Ketchum Icon, which has brought in experts from its Singapore, London and New York offices to help manage the crisis response in Kuala Lumpur, the Holmes Reporting is reporting.”
AdWeek: McDonald’s Has a Pretty Good Comeback to Taco Bell’s Hijacking of Ronald
“Taco Bell’s foray into breakfast food has ushered in a new war—the war of morning fast food. It started this week as the ‘Bell introduced a new menu targeted at people who have a hankering for waffle tacos. To promote this confluence of possibly absurd ingredients, Taco Bell unveiled several new commercials featuring real people named Ronald McDonaldenjoying their new treats.
This apparently ruffled the colored afro of the House of Clown itself, which responded on Facebook with probably the most gracious reply it could muster. “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” it said, next to a photo of Ronnie petting a Chihuahua.”
Creativity-Online: African Mobile Company Introduces African Emoticons for Android
“Oju Africa, a division of mobile company MiFone, has gone ahead and done what Apple promised it would look into: created a whole set of “African” emoji.”
The Guardian: Google: 80% of news organisations are targeted by state hackers
“More than four-fifths of the world’s top media organisations, including the Guardian, have been the target of likely state sponsored hacking attacks, according to research from two Google security engineers.
Presented at the ongoing Black Hat Asia 2014 conference in Singapore, Shane Huntley and Morgan Marquis-Boire’s research shows that journalists are “massively over-represented” among the targets of state-sponsored hackers.”
The Huffington Post: Piers Morgan Tweets Out Farewells Before Final CNN Show
“On Friday evening in New York, Piers Morgan will host the final ever edition of Piers Morgan Live, CNN’s replacement to the long-running news offering Larry King Live. The broadcaster announced the show’s demise at the end of February, which they said was due to a declining viewership.
Though the Briton recently admitted that his nightly show was being cancelled as his ratings had “taken a bath”, it would be hard to argue that the former Mirror editor hadn’t made a deep albeit brief impact on America political culture, particularly with his crusading fight for greater gun control.”
