Ellen DeGeneres might have racked up the most retweets ever at the Oscars on Sunday, but she was not the only one getting attention. Several brands took the opportunity to promote themselves through the annual awards show. More and more brands are taking the opportunity to newsjack (when a company latches onto a trending news story for engagment). In some cases, brands can prepare content ahead of time but a handful of them are putting out content in real time. For instance, Oreo was noted for its excellent ability to react to an unexpected event last year at the Super Bowl. When the power went out, they were quick to respond with this ad:
Power out? No problem. twitter.com/Oreo/status/29…
— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013
Social media platforms give brands the opportunity to do this but, it can be difficult to think on the fly. Newsjacking does not always mean reacting on the spot. Olay Skin Care prepared an ad beforehand:
You may not have paparazzi, but you can always be your #BestBeautiful with Olay. #Oscars pic.twitter.com/rpIuiQstWK
— Olay Skin Care (@OlayUS) March 3, 2014
They succeeded in combining their brand message with one of the Oscar nominated films, resulting in over 200 retweets and 800 favorites.
Though this is an effective way to engage with customers and promote your brand, responding to events in real time can be more impressive. Generally, the tweets that were most popular did something like this:
.@TheEllenShow wins #BestEverything tonight. Pizza delivery, wardrobe, #ShuttingDownTwitter, anything this woman isn’t awesome at? #Oscars
— Victoria’s Secret (@VictoriasSecret) March 3, 2014
Responding promptly definitely paid off for these brands!
