Topical Advertising

## Introduction

Topical advertising (or *news jacking*) is a marketing technique used by advertising agencies to react to a news event. The peculiarity of this type of advertisements is that they target an event (cultural, political, sporting and many others) which can be used to promote not only the brand’s identity but also its product (or service).

## Definition

Topical advertising seems to be the more fitting response to the gradual emergence of social media and to the way information is now being consumed, rather than traditional advertising; in fact, the latter has become outdated as it requires a significant budget and hence time to produce the ad. The result is a basic commercial: a simple image with essential graphics. On the other hand, topical advertising concerns mainly virtual and outdoor advertising in order to keep up with modern times.

## Keys to success and effectiveness

Topical advertising has very specific features: first of all, reactivity is the main key for a successful advertisement, as a brand needs to be the first one to relate a particular news event. That way it avoids to be considered as a *copycat*, that is, jumping on the bandwagon of the “quicker to the mark” brand. Moreover, if they wait for too long, the news will be considered as an old one and people will not be interested in it anymore.  An important example of an efficient advertisement that reacted very quickly to a particular situation was that created for Oreo; during the Super Bowl XLVII, for almost 30 minutes, there was a blackout but Oreo’s social media team was ready to tweet an ad that says: “Power out? No problem”. The message got nearly 15.000 retweets and more than 20.000 likes on Facebook.

Humour is another important feature as a company will want to keep the commercial ‘simple and silly’ in order to be remembered. Moreover, the popularity of the ad will largely depend on the viral communication and the consequent *earned media* (positive comments and sharing online) that it will generate. In addition, topical advertising differs from the traditional one in how the product is presented: if in the latter it is showed by highlighting its main attributes and advantages, in topical advertising the product is displayed in a more “implicit” way; what really stands out is the reference to a particular news event rather than the brand itself. Nevertheless its main goal is to build a strong and well – defined brand image.

## Risks

Yet few precautions have to be taken into account; since this type of advertisements is mainly focused on humour, it is essential to avoid really bad jokes about a sensitive and controversial issue. A significant example regards KFC in 2012, who needed to apologise after a Facebook post urging Thais to hurry home and monitor earthquake news with a bucket of KFC chicken. For this reason, even though it is crucial to launch the advert as fast as possible, it is important to evaluate whether the topic chosen might offend or scorn people. Lastly, consumers need to have some information about the news event used in the ad in order to understand it and appreciate it.

## Examples of Topical Advertising

### Political events

**Royal Jordanian**

Topical advertising can tackle different kinds of events and issues and a common strategy is to refer to political events. Royal Jordanian Airlines used the American presidential election in November 2016 to advertise its flights to the USA.

The day before election, the company published this post on their Facebook page, obtaining 450 million organic reach. Despite the playful tone of the advertisement, the fear that the election of Donald Trump would limit freedom to travel to the USA was palpable, especially in an Arab state, such as Jordan.

Royal Jordanian addressed several other news events, focusing especially on actions of the Trump administration involving Arab countries. In March 2017, a new post was released tackling the ban by the Trump administration on electronics on flights to the United States from eight different Muslim countries, including Jordan.

Royal Jordanian eventually featured also the French presidential elections on their page, where they joked at the possibility of Marine Le Pen being elected.

### Current events

**Royal Wedding**

Topical advertising can also deal with particular public events. In 2011 the global attention focused on the Royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton. On the day of the celebration, 29th of April, T-Mobile aired a commercial in which look – a – likes of the Royal Family are seen dancing down the aisle. The protagonists are surrounded by people selected from the hundreds of respondents who have seen the post on the phone company’s Facebook page. The style of the ad is the same used for other T-Mobile commercials (for example, the flash mob that took place in Heathrow airport), since the brand’s peculiarity is to create an advert that is at the same time entertaining and emotional. According to Spencer McHugh, director of the brand, the concept that lies behind the commercial is to create T-Mobile’s unique version of the Royal Wedding fever combined with the trend of choreographed wedding dances, an actual online phenomenon. He then adds that “the advert is a congratulatory message to the couple, as well as a way of capturing the nation’s celebratory mood”. However the video went viral on internet, accumulating almost 4.6 million views within four days on YouTube and the Facebook’s page of T-Mobile UK attracted 445 “likes” thanks to this clip.

### Sporting events

**Barilla and #CalcioBarilla**

Sport is a news that brings together a wide audience; advertising agencies may use sports competitions in order to engage with the public and to convey a unique and precise brand image.

For instance, for the 2014 soccer world cup, Barilla launched an advertising campaign, with the hashtag #calciobarilla, representing metaphors of football  and the product (pasta).

Soccer and pasta are both popular images in Italy, therefore they create a sense of national identity. Barilla’s commercial strategy is, as many others pasta enterprises (Rana, Panzani, Fiorini, etc…), to promote Italian expertise and at the same time to distinct from the competitors. In order to communicate this, the creative idea that they came up with is to compare a sport event to the product’s values. Finally the execution is just merging “calcio” and pasta together; in the example “They cooked us in 90 minutes”, there’s a hint to the football matches duration but it also shows pasta in the act of being drained.

The desired action in the case of Barilla might be: to transpose consumers’ sport commitment to the product, and by doing so, to stimulate a comic reaction with puns, between the soccer’s world and pasta. The result is that unconsciously Barilla is much more associated with the positive values of sport in the consumers’ minds. Eventually this approach has proved to be successful since more than 13,000 interacted with the branded content created for Barilla, more than 6 million reached clients and almost 8 million impressions.

In order to create a successful ad it is necessary to use the right event and consequently the right copy. This is what happened, for instance, with Snickers and Luis Suarez: when the Uruguayan player bit an Italian player during the World Cup the company came up with the catch phrase «More satisfying than Italian». The large number of retweets shows that sport is an efficient kind of topical advertising since it can reach consumers, even across a broad socio – economic spectrum.

### Social happenings

**Kit Kat**

Like sport events, social happenings bring people closer together. A good example of this is the unforgettable jump Felix Baumgartner did from space. Due to poor weather the skydiver had to postpone his trip to space. Kit Kat seized the opportunity and applied their ‘have a break, have a Kit Kat’ slogan to the happening. It resulted in this creative ad. To top off this top-notch piece of advertising, Kit Kat made their own ascent and they sent a Kit Kat into space attached to a balloon the day before Felix Baumgartner undertook his historical jump from space.

## References

1. ↑ Wired, https://www.wired.com/2013/02/oreo-twitter-super-bowl/
2. ↑ The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/03/royal-jordanian-airlines-is-trolling-donald-trump/520755/
3. ↑ **Campaign,** https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/t-mobile-launches-royal-wedding-spoof-ad/1066034
4. ↑ **Campaign,** https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/t-mobile-launches-royal-wedding-spoof-ad/1066034
5. ↑ **Campaign,** https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/t-mobile-launches-royal-wedding-spoof-ad/1066034
6. ↑ **Digital Journal,** http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/305737
7. ↑ **Another Lead,** http://www.anotherlead.it/calciobarilla-perche-i-mondiali-calcio-unoccasione-perfetta-per-barilla/

## See Also

**Topical Advertising**

https://www.businessflock.co.uk/topical-advertising-leads-marketing-success/

http://www.newsmediaworks.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/NMANewstopicality1.pdf

https://themarketingpeople.com/what-is-topical-advertising-and-why-your-business-should-be-using-it/

https://www.mediascope.com.au/topical-tactical-advertising

**Oreo and the Super Bowl**

https://www.wired.com/2013/02/oreo-twitter-super-bowl/

**KFC Thailand**

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/thailand/9200106/KFC-apologises-for-Thailand-earthquake-and-tsunami-promotion.html

**Rojal Joardanian**

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/03/royal-jordanian-airlines-is-trolling-donald-trump/520755/

**T – Mobile Royal Wedding**

https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/t-mobile-launches-royal-wedding-spoof-ad/1066034

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/305737

**Barilla**

http://www.anotherlead.it/calciobarilla-perche-i-mondiali-calcio-unoccasione-perfetta-per-barilla/