During the Superbowl this past weekend, something occurred that caused a real disruption. A disruption to the way the game is played.
Of course, this had nothing to do with Football ... and everything to do with advertising.
Before we get into that, I would like to bring up a concept I came across a long time ago called, 'newsjacking.' I first read about it through the brilliance of Joe Chernov and began to understand how easily it could work into an organization's SEO strategy. If your organization has an active blog, newsjacking is an especially useful tactic. Here's how it's defined:
It’s [newsjacking] the act of redirecting the momentum from breaking news into your company’s favor by injecting a fresh perspective … in real time.
Now, let's return to the Superbowl this past weekend. By now, you have probably heard of and seen these (Warning: They are brilliant):
A Tide Moment Hack.
An Oero Moment Hack.
These are examples of what I am calling: Moment Hacks.
A Moment Hack occurs when a brand uses a trending topic as its basis to ship a piece of creative work which reinforces a brand's message.
In order to do this well, brands need to be agile. They need to be willing to take a risk. Let go of the red tape because in this game, speed is absolutely everything. Tide, Oero and even some others seized a very opportune moment and produced something remarkable.
Newsjacking and Moment Hacking are very similar concepts. In my view, Moment Hacking deals with the production specifically of a creative piece of work, it needs to be visual so that it can be easily shared. Moment Hacking can also occur in a much shorter time-frame and even has a shorter life-span because moments/trending topics sometimes don't last long.
In the coming year I am sure we are going to witness many more moments. Let's see how they get hacked.
