Five things you need to know about news-jacking and real-time creativity

1. Catch the trending wave

In the book ‘real-time marketing and PR’, David Meerman Scott's real-time power law maintains that ideas are most likely to catch fire inside 48 hours of the story breaking. With this in mind you need to strike while the iron is hot. You have to gear your organisation so that it can ride in a story’s slipstream. Timing is key if you want your idea to have the most impact.

2. Plan your spontaneity

It’s imperative to get on the front foot. Having a read on cultural events and a calendar for the year will help you identify potential opportunities. Being prepared gives you an advantage. It’s not just luck — the best practitioners are masters of preparation, they meticulously plan the year ahead. They keep their ear to the ground as they use real-time monitoring of trending topics to pick the hot issues.

3. Be genuine and relevant

Riding the trending wave has seen brands jumping on topical stories with varying degrees of success. Contagious magazine recently picked up on this topical trend they termed 'newsjacking'. Brands have identified an opportunity and when done correctly with sensitivity and relevance it works seamlessly. On the other hand, shameless commercial exploitation of a potential humanitarian disaster is a definite fail.  Brands should look to add to the conversation and give something of value whether that's entertaining, beautiful or really useful.

4. Adopt an editorial mindset

Adopting an editorial mindset means building real-time capability so you can react instantly. Agencies need to evolve to become more like newsroom teams. This means you need to think like a journalist. In this new world traditional skills and processes are called into question. The types of skills modern day creatives need are evolving. It’s no longer enough to only have one skill. The days of just an art director or just a copywriter are over. The new breed are multi-skilled as they “think-and-do”.

5. Keep it fresh

Look for the original angle, it's very likely that there will be loads of derivative ideas all in the same ilk. Find innovative angles on the story. Utilise the latest technology to show things in a new light and harness the power of technology to deliver your idea in real-time. The developments in camera technology and rapid work flow now allow us to create brilliant execution in shorter time frames. The current IKEA 365 campaign from the Netherlands is a great case study. They are shooting a new commercial every day for 365 days to show how IKEA is “Everyday different”.

Grant is current working on a book titled Urgent Genius with iris’ Social Media Creative Director Jon Burkhart.