Originally published by Tara Hunt on LinkedIn: Dear Brands: Stop Newsjacking Tragedies
This past week, we lost another music legend...one that helped shape many of our youths. Kiss was one of the songs on my frequent request list during my university years. I had a very goofy dance I had made up for it (I think most people did). Prince - or the artist formerly known as Prince, who then was Prince again - represented so many things for me: how performative gender is, how to sustain artistic integrity in the face of commercialization, and that being 'cool' meant that you don't give a flying snake about what others think of you.
So when I heard the news, I stopped in my tracks. I went straight to Twitter, but then sat there, frozen, unable to truly express all of the feels I had in 140 characters. I settled for a giphy, but it didn't seem right. So, I decided to scroll through and see what others were expressing.
Mostly, they were expressing what I felt in a beautiful, succinct way. Tears welled up in my eyes as I read these heartfelt messages from people in my network, realizing that we were connected on more levels than I even realized. But a few scrolls down, I came across the first brand post and my feelings turned to disgust.
Now, for the record, I've unfollowed all brands except for my clients on Twitter to make my experience better, but this post was a retweet and commentary by a friend. The brand has since taken down the post, so I can't embed it, but it was SO disrespectful and opportunistic. My friend retweeted it with a short comment, "WTF". WTF was right.
With VERY VERY few exceptions, brands should NEVER use a tragedy to post...or newsjack...for their own optics. One caveat to this one was Chevrolet's tribute, which made sense because Prince had paid homage to the Little Red Corvette years earlier (even though it is a metaphor):
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So even with the VERY RARE exceptions (and no, residing in the same city as Prince doesn't count), brands should stay away from newsjacking tragedy. Media companies telling the news and people talking about their feelings are doing a fine job of paying homage.