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 latest versions are able to satisfy current customer needs. iPhone 6s now has a camera with 12megapixel sensor as compared to iPhone 6 that was launched last year, having an 8megapixel sensor on its camera. This upgrade enhances photo clarity, makes brighter, more accurate and easy for editing before sharing in social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter. This answers one of the current customer needs since social media has become an integral part of the current lifestyle. Thus, sharing of photos has become easy, and the Apple Company has come in to create a phone that has much better features than those of rival companies.
Klontz’s Perspective
Through the article, several basic concepts for a successful marketing are discussed based on communication supported by quality content plans of businesses to clients. Starting with a charming advert, a branded picture or a message on social media relating to a certain product provides a friendlier means of advertising (Klontz). If these undertakings are directed to the relevant audience, they contribute by far to the success of marketing. Effective communication in the daily conduct of business forms a big part of the supporting pillars of business success both within the organization and with customers and other business associates. The emphasis here is that the means through which the information is shared matter greatly in supporting digital marketing since there are now countless channels of the same.
Larsen’s (Vertical Rails) Perspective
Organizations work towards business growth in terms of productivity that is based on revenue generation, which stems from the sales being made by the company. Much more concepts in marketing are needed on top of newsjacking. One of them is the better understanding of the customers in terms of the stories they relate to through a comprehensive research. Here, customer relation becomes paramount in making successful dissemination of information regardless of the channel used. With the present technological innovations and instant communications, digital marketing has become a global perspective in product marketing in the business world (Larsen). For example, a big organization like Apple Inc. is one of the major platforms for marketing its products. The company has employed various market mix interventions to capture the eye of a customer either through the internet or other social media channels such as television advertisements, printed adverts, and product advert tours among others. In marketing iPhone 6s, the Apple Company has used digital marketing as well as main media to make sure that the customer comes to the point of purchase for the products (Larsen). External digital marketing agencies are also engaged in helping formulate business to consumer relation policies focused on ensuring efficient and most effective strategies for advertisement. In the case of iPhone 6s, the engagement of 6s marketing company was to ensure that all the important aspects of digital marketing were captured and to support in other forms of marketing.
Does News Jacking as a Marketing Strategy Make Good Business Sense?
In support of newsjacking as a marketing strategy, one should not that it has become one of the best and fastest models of product marketing since it only depends on the current tide of breaking news that people see every hour every day. This makes very good business sense because newsjacking does not only help in passing information about a good, but it also improves the reputation of the new brand of a product. Massive media attention is experienced, and this wave comes along with more clients translating to more sales and profit. All is achieved at a very low cost as compared other channels of information dissemination. Increase in sales and profit maximization through quality marketing is one of the major goals of every organization. This is the only way to support business growth and sustainability as well as ensuring that business is able to stay a step ahead of the competitors on the market. Newsjacking provides a marketing strategy that has a wide reach and very economical, utilizing it is cheap yet effective therefore making huge business sense.
The analysis presents newsjacking as a marketing tool that is centered on the ability to identify what is trending. It is a marketing strategy that has great potential if well exploited due to its great reach. It is also a cheap strategy that yields the same results as its expensive substitutes strategies such as TV ads. In any business, efficiency is key to success because it helps a company reduce the cost of operations. Newsjacking presents a marketing platform solution that is economical, efficient but above all, effective.