Why are brands trendjacking SAJC school elections in Singapore?

Brands in Singapore recently jumped on the trendjack bandwagon after a TikTok video by a student from St. Andrews Junior College (SAJC) in Singapore went viral. On 27 February, SAJC student Priyanka posted a TikTok video of herself rapping and dancing to the beat of Spice Girls' Wannabe, listing reasons why her schoolmates would vote for her, including how she "puts the 'P' in 'empathy'". Within a day, the video accumulated a whopping 647,300 views and 60,000 likes. She later revealed in a separate video earlier this month that she was successfully elected for the student council. 

Her video eventually gained steam when brands jumped on the hype and created their own take of her video. Here are some of the brands MARKETING-INTERACTIVE spotted that casted their vote for Priyanka.

Carousell

Carousell noticed a running joke on TikTok about people hoping to enroll in SAJC just to vote for Priyanka and decided to promote SAJC uniforms that are available on the platform. Jemimah Seow, regional brand manager, Carousell told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE that this also pays homage to its beginnings, as the platform started out with university students buying and selling textbooks. 

We saw it has a good opportunity to connect with the Gen Z crowd and bring out the brand messages of Carousell, and it was in line with Carousell’s brand personality.

"We try not to take ourselves so seriously and have fun with our users and community," he added. According to Seow, the video received organic traction, with 120,000 views, over 7,000 likes and 288 shares, as well as a response from Priyanka herself. 

CozyPlace

Leow Hong Hao, Nigel, founder of CozyPlace Singapore, said that while the video was only relevant to students of SAJC, it was a really short and catchy beat with a good hook line – "putting the 'P' in 'empathy'". This allowed the video to be translated by brands for other purposes such as "putting the 'S' in 'servicing'" for instance, Leow added. CozyPlace offers private movie rooms in Singapore for friends to hang out and watch TV together.

In CozyPlace's case, it wants to put the "P" in creating enjoyable moments with peers. 

foodpanda Singapore

Foodpanda Singapore jumped on the opportunity to market its pandamart offering. Towards the end of the video, it showed the captions, "I asked for a snack, but she delivered a while breakfast". The post on TikTok was also captioned that Priyanka "puts the 'p' in foodpanda".

Laura Kantor, marketing and sustainability director, foodpanda Singapore, said that TikTok is all about jumping on the right trend at the right time, and not taking oneself too seriously. "Our TikTok lead is very in the know on whatever is making waves on the platform, and we saw an opportunity to use Priyanka’s very catchy jingle to feature our offerings from pandamart in a fun and relatable way," she added. According to Kantor,

foodpanda's trendjack video is currently its second-best performing TikTok video to date, with over 140,000 views, over 8,000 likes and over 250 shares.

Paya Lebar Quarter 

Inspired by Priyanka's video, Paya Lebar Quarter (PLQ) created its own rendition using the mall's initials. The video, which was posted on PLQ's Facebook and Instagram, showed three ladies performing a similar rap outside PLQ. This time, however, the video says to put the "P" in "Personality", "L" for "Lifestyle", and "Q" for "Quality". PROTOCOL was involved in the creation of the video.

https://www.facebook.com/PayaLebarQuarter/videos/1410981582689246

PLQ's spokesperson told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE that it decided to jump on board the trend as it is constantly looking to engage its audience by being present in cultural conversations and this was another way for the brand to do so. He added:

Specifically, this video allowed us an opportunity to present PLQ Mall in an energetic, tongue-in-cheek way to our younger audience that may pass through the mall en route to the surrounding schools.

PLQ previously trendjacked Kim Kardashian's MET Gala look and actor Simu Liu's stock images as well.

Pickupp Singapore

Courier service Pickupp Singapore took a different approach to the trend. It had launched an International Women's Day campaign for its eCommerce platform, which featured and sold items from businesses with female owners at the time. While other brands were creating their own renditions of Priyanka's rap, Pickupp celebrated Priyanka's success in becoming part of the student council by sharing that it wanted to reward her with an item from its International Women's Day campaign.

The purpose of our campaign was to give the spotlight to and celebrate the successes of inspirational women.

"We felt that this was in line with the trend where Priyanka, who was successfully elected with her TikTok rap video was an inspiration to many. As TikTok is a new channel we're exploring for the brand, it was important for us to leverage on trending songs and topics and this piece of video content," Shermaine Tan, marketing manager, Pickupp Singapore told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE.

A trendjack worth jumping on?

While there was some buzz online about Priyanka's video, what made this case of trendjacking unique was that the video was only relatable to the students at SAJC, since it was centred on the school's student council elections. Charlie Blower, co-founder and managing partner, Blak Labs, told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE that it was "a bit hit and miss" for brands to jump on Priyanka's TikTok video.

The only brand that benefitted from this isn't a brand at all but Priyanka from R11. She's done a great job of creating a piece of compelling content for her cause.

On the other hand, Mina Sunico-Chin, managing partner, Hashtag Interactive said that brands jumped on this trend because the general public was already relating to it, and not the other way around. She explained: "Real-time marketing is such a normal thing now and brands are always trying to ride on these opportunities in the hopes of trying to drive talkability. If the opportunity presents itself to do something clever and doesn't seem forced, then why not?"

That said, when it comes to trendjacking or real-time marketing, the key lies in aiming for results there are really different or that will make the brand stand out from the noise and hopefully relate back to the brand in an organic way.

According to Sunico-Chin, there is a really fine line between coming up with something cool or clever versus something that just contributes to the noise or, worse, turns out to be really cringeworthy. "We ourselves are always wary about just jumping onto meme bandwagons because if the efforts are half-baked, then they won't drive anything back to the brand or worse you could have the general public trolling your efforts," she added.

Have you seen other interesting posts? Share them with us at deepas@marketing-interactive.com.

Related articles:
Kim Kardashian's Met Gala look inspires brands to get creative on social
Brands hijack Shang-Chi actor's past stock images on social media
Yes, more brands jump on Netflix's Squid Game hype
Netflix's 'Squid Game' gets brands in a frenzy with their own marketing games
Big names in SG trendjack FB post claiming MBS to be in Tennessee