Newsjacking Based on Bitter Urban Events: A study on Alibaba Tourism Brand

Introduction

Newsjacking is an advertising and public relations technique in which brands direct the wave of a news trend in their direction, and due to the wide scope of the desired news, the content of the brand is also visited by the majority of people in the society. This concept, which is a combination of the two words "news" and "kidnapping" and is translated as "newsjacking" in Iran, was introduced in 2011 by David Mirman Scott, a journalist, economist and marketing specialist, and the author of the book "Newsjacking: How to Inject Your Ideas into a Breaking News Story and Generate Tons of Media Coverage" was introduced, and then in 2017, Oxford Dictionaries added the word to its "Word of the Year" list. Scott credits the success of newsjacking in has proposed three steps: first, find news that matches your content and expertise or can be related to your business; what is called news hijacking; second, for newsjacking, you need to be fast, Be nimble to formulate a strategy in real time; third, act; you can do this in the form of a blog, your website, in the form of a tweet on Twitter, in the form of a post on the network. Publish on social media such as Instagram or Facebook. Of course, while newsjacking can be very useful, it can also be dangerous, especially you should be careful in choosing news that has a negative charge and as much as possible. It is possible to avoid it, because the brand may be accused of exploiting the plight of the people for its own benefit. Anyway, unfortunately, despite the fact that a decade has passed since the life of this low-cost and yet effective technique, and during these years, successful brands and organizations in different industries and countries have gained many achievements from it. but this technique in Iran is unknown to most of the businesses and market participants and they have been deprived of its benefits and it has not allocated any share of scientific and academic studies and research. Therefore, this research examines the effect of surfing tourism brands on sad and negative news in Iran.



Methodology

The current research is of the type of applied research and was carried out in a qualitative method, in which, using the approach of content analysis and documents, the feasibility and experimental function of newsjacking of Iranian tourism businesses based on unfortunate and unpleasant incidents, from the point of view of experts marketing and also activists or workers in tourism were investigated and evaluated. The statistical population of the research is all tourism marketing experts, tourism content producers, and also tourism business owners, after 14 months of investigation by researchers and initial discussion in various virtual and face-to-face platforms with 5237 tourism workers and activists, it was determined that only 17 people Out of this number, they know newsjacking well, and 13 of them agreed to cooperate with the researchers in this article as a statistical sample. Therefore, the sampling in this research is theoretical sampling. It is purposeful and the researcher tries to analyze and scrutinize the event and phenomenon in question by using the opinions and knowledge of the most knowledgeable people about the research subject. In the first part, in order to answer the four main questions. Do Iran's tourism brands have the strength and capacity of surfing news? Can they ride the wave of bad news? Can the wave of such news be beneficial for Iran's tourism brands? In order for tourism brands to be able to have successful newsjacking based on the news of tragedy, what considerations should be taken into account?" Interviews were conducted with these people, and after conducting the interviews and converting them into written text, they were analyzed. using the open, central and selective coding method. In the second part of the interview, questions were asked to get to know the interviewees, and in the final part, which was a document review, a sample of content provided by Alibaba (a brand Prominent and active in the field of travel and tourism) was prepared and published on the Instagram page of this brand based on the unpleasant news of the "Earthquake of November 21, 2016 in Kermanshah Province", it was provided to the interviewees and they were asked to share their opinion and experience. After observing it, they should suggest that the effect and experimental function of Alibaba Newsjacking can be examined from the audience's point of view. Regarding the scientific accuracy of the research, the researchers of this research also reviewed the time of coding, the approval of research colleagues and also from By referring to the interviewees to classify and confirm the results, the reliability and validity of the research data were examined and their scientific opinions were applied.



Results and discussion

The findings showed that Iranian tourism brands can steal news like other businesses, but it is more difficult for them. Especially when they want to ride on the wave of bad news, they face more sensitivities, but in general there is a possibility of newsjacking based on unfortunate events and the nature of this type of news does not prevent successful newsjacking.



Conclusion

With vigilance, one can also ride the wave of negative news and get enough benefit from it; But a) when tourism brands want to ride the wave of bad news, they should: 1) observe sensitive cases that hurt the feelings of the general public, 4) consider themselves only "bound to the news" don't do tourism in order to ride its wave, b) the interviewees after seeing the newsjacking subject of the research, admitted that this content: 1) helps to understand the importance of news in businesses, 2) social responsibility in the audience. It awakens 3) they express the necessity of involving brands in the news, 4) they are suitable for social networks, ..., 10) it is the right action on the part of brand to promote itself.