‘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.
See the full series – Guess Who’s Back
Results
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!
- NDTV did a full story on the post, and embedded the images directly from the Facebook Album (good for distribution)
- They posted on their Facebook page among 5.5 million fans
- They Tweeted to their 5 million followers
- All organic :)
Spending money is easy, getting there with an idea and kick-ass execution is Startup Swag!