While the Oscar Pistorius Trial has the world’s attention, companies and brands are not shy to cash in. Many are resorting to newsjacking tactics in a bid to drive traffic, followers or desperately grab a piece of the share-of-voice pie.
I personally found this this piece of work by Howzit MSN within Skype rather in poor taste, but I’m sure the click throughs are skyrocketing (Even I was tempted!).
Who knew Howzit MSN would be willing to sink to such lows? We can pool them with Charly’s Bakery with brands not ashamed to use the media circus surrounding the Oscar Pistorius Trial to their advantage. For those living under a rock, let me refresh your memory:
This ‘innocent’ tweet by Charly’s Bakery saw their Twitter following shoot up from 18.7K to 19.3K in a few hours. Their following has now topped out at 19.4K a week later. It’s worth mentioning that the tweet was posted during the late afternoon, when Twitter activity is usually higher than earlier in the day.
Whether the tweet was intentional or not it did result in more brand awareness in 5 hours than any big money campaign could hope for.
What do you think of the Oscar-mania?
