Tag: newsjacking

News-jacking Dussehra: An Idea to NDTV coverage in 2 days!

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‘News-jacking’ is the art of injecting ideas (with your brand DNA) into news stories, creating kick-ass content and riding media coverage plus social engagement. What started on a Friday evening, came full circle with coverage on NDTV’s homepage on the D-Day! :)

Idea & Execution

We had the hindu festival of Dussehra coming up in a few days.  The popular mythology around Dussehra is the victory of god Rama over the ‘ten-headed’ demon king Ravana. After countless ideas and brainstorm droppings, our hunt was to find brand DNA match to News-jack this.

So came the simple idea to turn the central character of the festival on its head! We re-imagined Ravana (the ten-headed demon king), as if he were alive today, and put him in everyday situations, creating cool graphics for a Facebook Album. There’s always an urgency of a news-room when we’re working on topical content: Move Fast and Execute! And when it’s ready, distribute like crazy. Distribution is half the game, after you’ve cracked the idea and content. From Facebook post, internal promotion to blogger outreach in the beginning.

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1-ravan

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See the full series – Guess Who’s Back

Results

Screen Shot 2015-10-22 at 11.28.16 pm

Got a ping from a friend on WhatsApp that NDTV had picked up our post and it had made it to their homepage. Phew! Happy Dussehra!

Spending money is easy, getting there with an idea and kick-ass execution is Startup Swag!

Cracking topical content – Reaching half a million Newsfeeds in a day

With the annual hindu festival of Rakshabandhan (Rakhi) this weekend, what better way to celebrate then to pull off a classic News-jack. Content Marketing can be so much fun.. from brainstorming, designing to finally hitting that post button. Two hours of madness to pull off topical content, with urgency of a news channel! ;) Here’s the Facebook link

What this guy did on Rakhi will blow your mind (lol)

Happy Rakshabandhan
Happy Rakshabandhan ;)

 

News-jacking is the practice of injecting your ideas into a breaking news story and generating of social media coverage and engagement.

Pointers to crack News-jacking

  1. Act Fast: Trending topics don’t last forever, start to finish in 2 hours.
  2. Brand DNA: What’s the point if the brand ain’t relevant in your post.
  3. Break the chaos: Think outside the box, like way outside sometimes ;)
  4. Distribute, Distribute, Distribute: Initial seeding super important!
  5. Make it share-worthy: We reject 90% ideas trying to answer this question: “Why would anyone share it?”
  6. Keep it short and simple: Human attention span is at the lowest ever, and you’re fighting through overwhelming content density
  7. Don’t make an Ad! Like paste this on your wall!

First 24 Hours – Half a million reach (organic)

day1

The Crazy Case of a Fool’s Day Campaign

Fool's Day Campaign 2015

It was a week before April, and we had to launch something fun, fake and fast! Last year, we had upped the game by launching a prank auto rickshaw service and this year we had to fake it again. April 1st is a day for pranks all over the trends, and every big and small brand is at the party with their best fake costumes.

The benchmarks from last year’s campaign were set, we had to ride the buzz for this annual ’newsjacking’ activity. The aha moment came about a fake App. The ixigo loo finder. Four days of crazy storyboarding, layouts and changes. Sometimes we stopped just to tell ourselves it was real branding for a fake app! With two days to produce a video, we found a brave volunteer in the team (you’ll know once you see the video). Making it a fun and crisp 30 seconder, from script, shooting and editing, it was crazy 48 hours!

The Game Day

Morning 11.30, we launch the video. Within hours, the feeds got chaotic with all big brands out with their clown hats. And then it started picking up, the video views started climbing and the mentions in blogs started pouring. The CEO even wrote the funniest press release ever! OurLoo Finder app and video were compared with other brand campaigns, including Ola, Google, Uber, Amazon and others.

The difference being, we pulled it off on a shoestring! ;)

Here’s what happened in first 24 hours

Fool's Day Campaign - Day 1

Coverage 1

Coverage 2