Trendjacking HK's Olympic winning moments: How brands can ensure longevity

Brands often take the opportunity to market themselves by trendjacking the latest talk of the town. While in Hong Kong, brands have gone all out lately to ride on the Olympic craze with trendjacking posts.

Don’t miss: HK brands trendjack Vivian Kong winning HK's first Olympic gold

One notable example is Pizza Hut Hong Kong’s offer of free pineapple pizza toppings, which was viewed as a playful jab at the Italian Fencing Federation’s objection to Hong Kong fencing athlete Edgar Cheung's gold medal win over French fencer Filippo Macchi in the Olympic final.

Meanwhile, other local brands such as IKEA, Sushiro Hong Kong, KFC, Deliveroo HK, and HK Express, have also sought to associate themselves with Cheung and another fencer Vivian Kong’s success at the Olympic Games with trendjacking posts. 

This trend comes as the gold medal wins of Cheung and Kong have sparked immense excitement among Hongkongers on social media. Media intelligence CARMA observed over 50,000 mentions related to their victory, with an overwhelming 70% carrying positive sentiment and only 4.5% negative. 

Most mentions praised them for their hard work and dedication, noting their impressive comeback from a disadvantage to secure the win, said CARMA’s HK GM Charles Cheung.

Social monitoring firm Meltwater also saw a total of 74k mentions among netizens regarding Cheung and Kong’s gold medal wins, with 26.3% positive, 57.2% neutral, and 16.5% negative sentiments.

Industry reactions

In fact, the Olympics is one international national sports event that resonates with most Hongkongers. As a talk-of-the-town event, it genuinely is topical and arouses national pride, especially at the moments when Hong Kong Athletes win the gold medals, according to Peggy Hon, general manager, Landor Hong Kong.

She added:

Image-based trendjacking on such winning moments for Hong Kong will be driving the highest awareness and reputation for most brands.

Pizza Hut seems to be winning all the publicity as it caught attention from overseas, yet it also invites controversies, she added. 

At times, trendjacking can be a very interesting and reactive platform for brands to connect with their audiences, said Ben Thrasher, strategy director, Design Bridge and Partners Hong Kong.

"I think we should move away from ‘trend jacking’ and more towards ‘reactive branding’ which is essentially brand having a point of view on things going on in our world – it is a very strong way of these brands connecting with their audiences and in the case of the Olympics, helping people here in HK enjoy this event even more," he added.

He also said trendjacking can be a very good form of brand building when it is done in a credible way that somehow links back to the brand and its purpose, taking Cathay's Olympic promotion as an example, "Cathay isn’t giving the medallists prize money, it is offering them ‘Asia Miles’ which both rewards the medallists and boosts awareness of its product," he added.

Trendjacking is undeniably a viable tactic for brands to increase awareness and participate in cultural conversations, but not every trend is worth participating in, said Shufen Goh, principal and co-founder, R3.

"Impactful marketing aligns and reflects brand values. Without that, any marketing activity risks being seen as opportunistic and ingenuine," she added.

Achieving brand longevity

While the judgement is still out on whether trendjacking benefits every brand, industry players MARKETING-INTERACTIVE spoke to believed that it's not easy to make it right for brand longevity. 

Landor's Hon said it’s very hard to execute it right as it often requires fast reactions and very fine execution in a way that’s most relevant to a brand.

Taking IKEA Hong Kong as an example, Hon said it is often one of those who best executes with high consistency across the world, "they are fast to react to trends, but they always bring in a creative angle and fun tone to each trendjacking post which very much resonates with their brand DNA which is creativity and togetherness with fun."

This came after IKEA Hong Kong leveraged Cheung's gold medal win by creating a trendjacking post featuring a fluffy dog toy with its tongue sticking out, mirroring Cheung's celebratory facial expression after winning the match. 

On the other hand, Hon said it’s a watch-out for brands when trendjacking, to touch on serious issues such as racism, social unrest and politics as it often gets backlash to brand reputation.

The driver of longevity is only relevance, said Design Bridge and Partners' Thrasher. "If a brand can remain relevant to its audiences then its longevity is ensured," he added.

Regardless of whether it is through reactive social media communications, OOH campaigns, new product developments, brands need to really understand the story that they need to tell their audiences in order to have deep and valuable relationships, he said. 

"For now the talk of the town is having fun with the Olympics on social media, but when these tentpole community moments are gone brands have to have a clear and robust strategy to continue to connect with key audiences to keep them engaged and therefore sticky customers," he added.

True enough, brand longevity goes beyond trendy marketing campaigns. By staying true to a brand's essence and personality, while also embracing cultural shifts and evolving consumer expectations, marketers can cultivate deep and genuine consumer relationships, said R3's Goh. "This authenticity is essential for long-term brand growth."

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