Newsjacking: The Urgent Genius of Real-time Advertising

A fusion of inspiration and hard-edged strategies for creating fast-moving, relevant advertising

As the media landscape becomes fragmented, the traditional advertising creative department is changing, and agencies are finding new ways to articulate clear, relevant, innovative, and memorable advertising. They are newsjacking―using topicality, social media, and viral techniques to create fresh and effective advertising.
From the creators of the advertising website Urgent Genius, this book presents the best of today’s branding work that uses newsjacking. Over one hundred case studies from advertising agencies around the world are presented, with descriptions of which techniques were chosen and why, how the techniques have been deployed, and how the work has been effective. Creative work for global brands including Nestlé, Puma, Samsung, FIAT, Johnnie Walker, Adidas, and Heineken is featured. These examples show how viral and guerrilla communications have gone beyond amateurs uploading YouTube videos and are now embraced by agencies working for clients with multi-million-dollar budgets.
400 color illustrations

Grant Hunter is a regional creative director for Iris Worldwide and the co-creator of urgentgenius.com. He has created campaigns for Adidas, Sony Ericsson, and Diageo.

Jon Burkhart is a former social media creative director for Iris Worldwide the co-creator of the leading website urgentgenius.com. He is based in London.