AS social media became more pervasive, marketing and public relations professionals became even more creative. The past several years have given rise to new techniques to rack up views and engagements. Creatives went on a rampage to capitalize on the latest news and trends.
As early as 2011, marketer David Meerman Scott coined the term newsjacking, which he defined as “the art and science of injecting your ideas into a breaking news story so you and your ideas get noticed.” In 2017, Oxford Dictionaries shortlisted the term as one of their “Words of the Year.”
A very enthusiastic pitch on his web site regarding newsjacking states: “When there is news in your marketplace, reporters and analysts are looking for experts to comment on the story. Newsjacking gets you media attention. With little effort! As the story develops in real-time, buyers become interested in products and services based on what’s happening now. Newsjacking generates sales leads and adds new customers. For free! Newsjacking is a great way to grow your business. Faster than ever!”
Newsjacking has become a movement of sorts, even giving rise to a mutated version called trendjacking, which means hijacking a trend to go viral and gain widespread media coverage and public attention. Scott, after writing the book Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage, continues to preach the gospel of newsjacking to organizations big and small all over the world. Many local marketers and PR practitioners use this technique, too.
Jumping on the Olympic bandwagon
AMID news of the surge in the number of Covid-19 Delta variant cases globally, the world also kept close tabs on what was happening in Tokyo for the one-year-delayed staging of the Olympics. For two weeks, both social media and mainstream media were abuzz with news of triumphs and defeats and everything else in between in 33 sports spanning 339 medal events.
The biggest news for the Philippines came on July 26, when weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz won the country’s first-ever Olympic gold medal. As expected, marketers from brands big and small were quick to capitalize on this huge piece of news. Literally within minutes of Diaz’s feat, congratulatory art cards started sprouting on social media. Even some government agencies joined in the fun.
Most brands expressed their congratulations through simple copy accompanied by strong visuals. Some did not even include their logos, but instead used brand elements like color, font, and icons to make them identifiable. Some were more brazen, with a call to action included in the copy: providing discounts or flat rates related to Diaz’s winning moment, e.g. the weight that won her the gold or the total weight that she lifted throughout the competition.
In the sea of all the brilliant and not-so-brilliant congratulatory cards, the one from local plastic product manufacturer Orocan went against the current and managed to rise above the noise. In its signature witty and humorous tone, the brand called out all of the other well-wishers in four lines of copy: “’Wag na tayong magplastikan. Last year, na-seen zone si Hidilyn sa ‘ting mga brands. Ngayon, cheer zone tayo sa kanya. Orocan yarrrn?”
Roughly translated, with some tweaks to provide context to the statement: “Let’s be real. Last year, we were oblivious to Hidilyn’s calls for support for her Olympic training. Now we’re cheering for her.” The reference to the brand at the end of the statement is a play on Filipino slang Orocan (yes, the brand has made it into the Filipino slang universe), which is a synonym for another slang term “plastic”—all pertaining to a person, or in this case a brand, that is essentially a fake, a poser, a pretender.
This witty—and brave—take came from homegrown independent ad agency Gigil, which describes itself as “Asia’s most effective independent agency.”
Hit and miss
ACCORDING to Gigil’s web site: “Gigil is a word that curiously can’t be translated into any other language. Some say it means ‘the overwhelming feeling of wanting to squeeze something.’ And that’s the sort of thing we want to create. Work that delights, angers, activates. Work that’s equal to the best of the world’s, because it’s Filipino.”
And the agency is spot-on in its description of itself and the work that it does. Many of its campaigns have elicited a full spectrum of reactions, emotions, and actions—delight, anger, incredulity being some of them—from the positive to the negative to the in-between.
After getting laughs, shares, and tons of positive media coverage for its Orocan Hidilyn card, the agency is now under fire for an ad it created for Belo Medical Group titled “Pandemic Effect.” The video, which has since been taken down, shows the transformation of a woman while watching a news program on TV: eyebags growing bigger and darker, eyebrows meeting in the middle to become a unibrow, facial hair turning into a moustache, hair in different parts of the body growing wildly, acne sprouting all over the face, and weight just piling on and on and on. The ad ended with this statement: “Tough times call for beautiful measures.”
The ad did get a lot of reactions, but mostly—overwhelmingly—of the negative kind. Many described the ad as tone-deaf and insensitive. Others felt that it belittled the toll that this pandemic has taken on a lot of people, particularly those who have lost loved ones and friends to the virus. Some said the ad reeked of body-shaming, preying on women’s insecurities to sell products and services.
Both Gigil and Belo Medical Group have issued statements of apology.
What lessons can we learn from this? While it’s true that we need to be extra creative and to think outside the box if we want to rise above all of the clutter and the noise, we should never sacrifice empathy for shock value and virality. Read the room. Get to know your target audience well so you can communicate to them in their language. Think long term while leveraging on the news or trends of the moment.
PR Matters is a roundtable column by members of the local chapter of the United Kingdom-based International Public Relations Association (Ipra), the world’s premier organization for PR professionals around the world. Abigail L. Ho-Torres is AVP and Head of Advocacy and Marketing of Maynilad Water Services, Inc. She spent more than a decade as a business journalist before making the leap to the corporate world.
We are devoting a special column each month to answer our readers’ questions about public relations. Please send your questions or comments to askipraphil@gmail.com.