Newsjacking
Newsjacking is a situation where an organization takes advantage of a popularity of breaking news or a story and incorporates a business idea in order to increase the sales and marketing of a product (Larsen). Every day, there are new stories all over the world about all sorts of happenings be it inventions in different industries or news coverage about daily lifestyle events. This creates one of the best opportunities for businesses to ride along these stories in order to lobby for either news coverage or a chance to market their products. However, there is a lot to understand about the success of using newsjacking as a marketing model. This paper aims at providing insights on newsjacking marketing strategy and how it has been exploited by Apple Inc. in marketing the iPhone 6s and 6s plus.
In newsjacking, an organization or even an individual must act very quickly because this marketing strategy is more effective on the real time basis. Trending news spreads very quickly, and only the fast ones can be able to take full advantage of the situation. With the current easy access to different social media platforms, sharing of information has become very quick and reaching out to every corner of the market. One of the best examples of such a scenario being practiced in the business world is how Apple Inc. newsjacked in order to announce the launching of the new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s plus (Matar). IPhone 6s marketing team saw the opportunity to market their new phones. All started with the well-crafted message from one of the digital marketing agencies called 6s marketing on their advertising truck telling the Apple Company to change the name of iPhone 6s in iPhone 7. Its photo was captured and shared on social media that formed an ideal basis for the product marketing since this turned into breaking news about the launch of iPhone 6s. Using this marketing strategy, companies no longer follow the previous procedures prior to advertising a product or even going through all the guidelines for a product launch. Rather they use the public disclosure method whereby most of the news about the new products is done by the public by sharing the stories through social media. This creates a spotlight about the entire company and the product itself, enabling the news to reach out to a vast section of consumers that would not have reached them if the normal models of advertising were used.
Therefore, it is clear that this is a more effective marketing strategy in terms of the time taken to reach out to the consumers. This strategy is based on the ease with which news about a new product is spread all over the world. Following the article published by Forbes about the market dominance of iPhone, there is a clearer discussion and assessments of the current marketing strategies used in the launching of the newly manufactured iPhone 6s by Apple. Newsjacking is one of the current models of digital marketing that the Apple Company was able to take advantage of to market its new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s plus (Matar). Its launch first started as rumors that created an ideal opportunity to announce to launch of these new generation phones. One of the best tools is the social web pages like Twitter that provide real-time updates and interactions since newsjacking requires to be executed as soon as an opportunity shows up.
This new approach is currently one of the most powerful methods of getting media attention through a simple three-step process, whereby the marketing team finds the news to jack. Then, they find a way to put their ideas to fall in line with the news and then use that chance to advertise their products.
Why Newsjacking is an Important Marketing Strategy
Nowadays, lifestyle of instant communications that are supported by tremendous technological innovations and sharing of information has become very fast and easy. Therefore, businesses should take advantage of these platforms to market their products. This concept supports the importance of newsjacking as one of the best models of marketing. With most consumers having easy access to the internet all over the world, not only marketing but also service delivery has become easier and more efficient. Successful marketing is the focal point or the basic pillar for any business transaction. Newsjacking forms part of successful marketing strategies used in the launch of iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s plus by Apple Inc. The results of that intervention are seen through the massive sales volume made by the company at the launch of the product.
Related Marketing Concepts (Communication, Social Media and Content)
One of the most important concepts that Apple Inc. has used to support its new strategy is the product design. The uniqueness of its products creates their own market that is known all over the world. Therefore, any news related to these products attracts the attention of a countless number of viewers all over the world. From the example, the recent launch of iPhone 6s, unlike Android phone manufacturers whose focus is based on the volume of product sales, Apple Inc. is more focused on profitability and revenue gains. This aspect is supported by the sophisticated and more customer-oriented features that attract customers who are able to purchase them at a higher price. This has enabled Apple Inc. to take up half of the highly priced phones in terms of profit margin per unit of a product, thereby becoming the most preferred brand on the market. Through their unique features, these create customer prestige and sense of belonging to a certain class of people, which makes it a self-selling brand (Spence). One of the best and unique strategies used by Apple Inc. is that it has made it a tradition to make yearly upgrades of iPhones by improving its features, adding new ones as well as changing the general appearance of the phone. This, however, has created a customer need always to go for the latest model of the phone. Unlike with other mobile phone manufacturing companies such as Samsung, these upgrades take place annually. People always expect these phones and they have the information on the next phase of new generation phones like iPhone 6s. What makes this a success is that Apple has made sure that it creates an anticipation for purchasing these gadgets by ensuring that the la