I'm a huge fan of the Victorian time period. I love everything about it - the gowns, the jewelry, the traditions, chivalry and the pure romance of it all. When I read novels that are set in that time period, there's usually a heroine or a heroine's friend/sister who is involved in a scandal. We are told that their scandal will be forgotten once the next poor girl falls into a different trap and then that will become the talk of the town. The reality of it all was, those stories weren't forgotten quickly and new stories didn't replace it right away. News didn't travel fast and you could guarantee that the old ladies meeting for tea down the street were going to be talking about it like it was yesterday.
Luckily, in our day and age, we are lucky if a scandal lasts a month or two - something is bound to replace it if not sooner. I am literally in awe of how fast news is made in our world today. In the blink of an eye, a whole subject matter can be reported on, discussed , and debated about to death. And the next day - it's old news until the next topic.
Brands can no longer ignore the virility of news today and either they can jump on the bandwagon or get lost in the crowd. This phenomenon that all brands are slowly starting to get a hang of is called newsjacking. Coined by David Meerman Scott, it's when a brand reacts to a current event in real time in order to create buzz about themselves and deliver on one of their main KPIs (whether you've defined that to be awareness or sales, etc.)
An amazing example of this being used by a brand was Oreo during the 2013 Super Bowl. After Beyonce's killer performance, the stadium suffered a massive power outage that actually took up a significant amount of time. To fill the air time, CBS ran a bunch of commercials as bonus. The event alone was highly anticipated and had millions of eyes on-air but it also had millions of eyes on second screen experiences such as online, mobile or tablet devices. Oreo took full advantage of this and instantly posted a response to the growing anxiety of football fans everywhere:
How incredible is that? Not only did they have amazing commercials on-air but their presence online was on point and just as clever. Within minutes, the image received over 19K likes, over a 1K comments and over 6K shares.
Oreo does it YET AGAIN with the a more recent story line that I've been equally obsessing about it (ladies and gentlemen we are now coming full circle to my Victorian Era mention above) - the royal birth! Boy George was born on July 22nd to the real-life fairy tale couple, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Oreo's reaction:
Well played Oreo. Well played. Not as viral as the Super Bowl but still highly effective garnering almost a thousand retweets total. 743 of them on the same day!
I definitely think that brands can no longer afford to sit in the wings on the metaphorical world stage. They need to take action and interact with consumers. For brands like Oreo that are already doing this, they already have a leg up on the competition and it's almost becoming like tradition now - what will Oreo do next?
-D
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