She has been formally appointed as a director of News Group Newspapers and Times Newspapers, the operating companies of The Sun and The Times, respectively.
Morning Update: Taco joint goes viral with footage of burglary; Coke’s colourblind ad; Austrian Last Christmas DJ punished
AdAge: Vegas Taco Joint Gets Burglarized, Makes Amazing Viral Video Ad From Security-Cam Footage
Starting at 3:32 a.m. on Dec. 16, hapless burglars descended on Frijoles & Frescas Grilled Tacos, a Las Vegas fast-casual restaurant that first opened in 2014, and attempted to rob the place after breaking in. Fortunately, Frijoles has a pretty good security-cam set-up, which captured the wannabe thieves in action. The next day, Frijoles posted a delightful video titled “Burglars Just Want Tacos | Restaurant Trolls Burglars,” which cobbles together security-cam footage and riffs on the absurd premise, as the video’s YouTube description puts it, that “These nice gentlemen came looking for tacos… we think.”
According to YouTube stats, the video racked up about 30,000 views through Dec. 20, but it just blew up, having made Reddit’s homepage last night; as of this writing it’s at nearly 500,000 views, and Frijoles has a bonafide viral video ad — a sort of user-generated viral video ad, at that — on its hands.
AdWeek: This Coca-Cola Campaign Can Be Deciphered Only by Color-Blind People
Can you connect the dots?
Ad agency Essencius recently launched a teaser campaign in Denmark touting stevia- and cane-sugar-sweetened Coca-Cola Life, but only about 5 percent of the population could actually see the message.
That’s because the copy was “hidden” in an image that looked liked blobs of greenish-brown bubbles to most viewers. (Technically, they’re called reverse Ishihara images.) Color-blind people, however, saw the word “Life” nestled within the design.
Mumbrella Asia: GrabCar rolls out Star Wars-themed cabs
GrabTaxi has decorated a fleet of its premium GrabCar vehicles with Star Wars themed imagery and has launched a competition for passengers to win tickets to see the Hollywood blockbuster as part of a Christmas period co-marketing campaign with Disney Southeast Asia.
150 cabs featuring imperial stormtroopers and the BB-8 droid from Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be available for hire in Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City and Bangkok. The campaign is not running in Singapore where there’s an existing partnership between another brand and Disney/Lucas.
Campaign: Rebekah Brooks rejoins boards of key News Corp UK companies
Rebekah Brooks’ return to the top of British media is complete as she has rejoined the boards of all News Corporation’s key UK subsidiaries.
An Austrian radio station has punished one of its DJs after he barricaded himself in the studio and played Wham!’s Last Christmas 24 times in a row.
It was only when the DJ’s daughter called to beg him to stop because the song was making everyone “mad” that he finished his one-song marathon.
Digiday: 5 things we learned about YouTube in 2015
It was a busy year for YouTube. Google’s video giant has changed in many ways over the past 12 months, both due to internal shifts to its business as well as an evolving online video landscape that’s breeding new competition for eyeballs and ad dollars.
Here are five things we learned about YouTube in 2015, and what it means for the company and the online video industry:
