TRENDJACKING

Trendjacking may sound novel, yet another buzzword in the marketing world of many buzzwords. Despair no further, trendjacking is simply the art of utilizing a trend to suit the marketing desires or needs of your brand. Simple, yet not so simple as it is a thin line to tread. What may have started off as a great idea in your brainstorming session might actually be major trash. The audience and common sense is the ultimate decider of whether your trendjack was a hit or miss.

A good example of a trend that was properly hijacked was by Oreos at the 2013 Super Bowl blackout. This is obviously not Nigeria so a blackout was not expected. No offense to Nigerians intended.

What a trendjack isn’t however, is capitalizing on an pandemic or tragedy to make a gain. What’s the difference since they are both an episode of unfortunate events? Lives are dependent on this or have been lost, that’s the difference. For example, hand-sanitizers price being doubled because retailers felt the need to make money from Covid 19 is a very callous thing to do. Of course their shops should be closed down and a public apology issued. Are you trying to wipe out Nigerians? Will you like to see them die because they cannot afford your ridiculously expensive products that is supposed to help combat the virus?

Nigerian retailers are not the first to tow this line. Pepsi jumping on black lives matter also made an error. I will let you be the decider of what went wrong in this ad. If you don’t know much about the Black Lives Matter campaign, you should read it up first.

Now that we get a sense of what a trendjack is, let’s dive into how to utilize this effectively for your brand. The most important thing is to study the context and understand what the trend is about first and identify how your brand fits in (if it fits in). If you take the trend out of context you will incite wrath. Also, there is no rule that says you can’t wittily pull great content from tragedies but please don’t mess it up.