Public relations specialists very often look for the most effective way to reach the audience’s awareness. One of the methods is to refer to events and trends familiar to them. In the age of the internet, this is much easier because, thanks to the viral spread of content, a given slogan or phenomenon can reach a huge number of people. Therefore, experts responsible for communication in companies increasingly use internet trends and current phenomena, even in traditional media, to attract the attention of recipients.Incorporating internet trends into a PR message can be profitable, but it also carries significant risk. On the one hand, a catchy message can spread on a very wide scale, and on the other (if poorly constructed) become a laughingstock. The advantage of using trends (most often internet memes) is that they inherently attract attention, entertain, and already have their fans who will promote their interesting use. However, the most common mistake made by creators is often too long a time between the period of popularity of the slogan or event and the release of the message.
An example of very successful use of internet trends is the company Tesco, which in one of its commercials parodied the popular online sermon by Father Natanek, using the most famous phrase from that sermon – “…know that something is happening.” Since the ad was posted on YouTube, it has been viewed there by over 2 million people. Also a good choice was Virgin Mobile’s use of the meme known as Success Kid in its billboard campaign. The key to success in both cases was skillful use of real-time marketing.
At the opposite end is, for example, the T-mobile campaign, which reverberated widely with negative feedback in the industry. All because of a not entirely successful attempt to use the slogan popularized by Piotr Blandford, “You are a winner!” Unfortunately for the brand, T-mobile published its ad nearly 5 months after this phrase became popular and heavily exploited. And 5 months, in internet terms, is the time during which dozens of hashtags, memes, and slogans get promoted and forgotten.
Internet trends often provide advertising and PR message creators with ideas for style and form, but it must be remembered that the convention itself is not everything. It still needs to be properly arranged and, above all – not be late!
Text author: Krzysztof
Photo source:Â http://www.filevine.com/blog/to-meme-or-not-to-meme/
