The Museum of Forgotten Copycats
Then you realize you’re trapped inside an echo chamber of transient banality, and not even remotely aware of it.
Trendjacking is like a person hovering near a group at a party, waiting for someone to mention “The Bear”, then he excitedly exclaims, “Season two was weaker though,” just to force himself into the conversation.
My own team does it. I don’t know anyone in my circle who doesn’t. And that’s the problem.
The problem is not trendjacking itself. It’s how marketing people approach it. For most of us, it’s a winning strategy because the audience loves the joke, and has already achieved virality, plus the emotional momentum already exists. We just jump on the bandwagon.
One meme appears, and suddenly every brand on earth has dropped the same meme the next day. Then you realize you’re trapped inside an echo chamber of transient banality, and not even remotely aware of it.
I am suspicious of anyone who tells me to copy a trend without proposing an angle.
Somehow, marketing today feels disposable and forgettable. Brands rarely hijack our brains intellectually. The sad part is that we call ourselves creatives, but we are at best fast. And fast isn't right.
Fast is how you end up indistinguishable from the thirty-three brands who posted the same thing before lunch. Trends have a notoriously short life, and the be-the-first-one mentality is how you spend that life saying nothing.
You only have one chance to make it count. Otherwise, your content will end up in the museum of forgotten copycats.