Trend-Jacking and Newsjacking: The Brand Safety Risk When an Influencer Rides a Viral Trend

What is trend-jacking and newsjacking?

Trend-jacking is when a brand or an influencer quickly attaches sponsored content to a trend that's already going viral — a meme, an audio clip, a challenge, or a specific visual style — to borrow its reach and relevance. Newsjacking is the more specific variant, where what's being capitalised on is a current news event rather than a pure internet trend. Both rely on the same mechanic: attaching yourself to something already moving fast, instead of planning content from scratch — and both carry the same risk, described below.

This is distinct from ordinary influencer selection and from vetting the creator themselves: here the risk isn't who you're working with, but which content you — or the creator on your behalf — choose to publish while a trend is still in motion.

Why it's a distinct brand safety risk

Ordinary planned campaign content goes through a brief, an approval step, and typically days or weeks of preparation — see content approval workflows that don't kill the content. Trend content works in reverse: the value of jumping in drops off sharply after a few hours or days, so the decision to participate is often made quickly, with less context than usual. The problem is that a trend's full context — where it originally came from, whether it's already drawn criticism, whether it turns out to be tied to something serious — often only becomes clear after it has started spreading. A trend that looked harmless when the creator first saw it can turn out to originate from a tragedy, a political conflict, or already be under fire for commercial exploitation, before the sponsored post even goes live.

That makes trend-jacking a different type of risk from the two this Academy already covers in this category: the brand safety checklist is about the creator's own history, and platform risk is about your dependence on a single channel. The trend-jacking risk sits in the content decision itself — made under a kind of time pressure that ordinary planned content never faces.

Real examples: when trend-jacking went wrong

The examples below are publicly known, well-documented cases from press coverage — not a Make Influence customer, and not necessarily influencer-driven in every case, but the same mechanic as when an influencer creates equivalent content on a brand's behalf.

• DiGiorno, #WhyIStayed (2014). The hashtag #WhyIStayed emerged as a serious conversation about why domestic violence survivors stay in abusive relationships, sparked by a domestic violence case in US professional sports. Pizza brand DiGiorno posted "#WhyIStayed You had pizza" without understanding the hashtag's meaning. The tweet drew heavy criticism for exploiting a serious subject for promotion, was quickly deleted, and the brand issued a public apology (covered widely by, among others, Time and ABC7 Chicago).
• Pepsi, the Kendall Jenner ad (2017). An ad that showed a model resolving tension between protesters and police by handing an officer a Pepsi was criticised for using imagery drawn from real protest movements to sell soda. The ad was pulled within a day of release.
• The "copy-paste cringe" criticism of trend audio (2023). A viral Reddit post highlighted over 30 different brands' TikTok videos all using the exact same trending audio clip within a 48-hour window, calling it "copy-paste cringe". This case illustrates a milder but more common risk than the two above: even with no controversy in the trend itself, too many brands jumping on the same audio at once can create a negative impression of forced relevance on its own.

Comparison: trend content vs. planned campaign content

Decision framework: should you let a trend ride?

Checklist before a creator jumps on a trend

1. Know the trend's origin. Where did it come from, and why is it viral right now? Two minutes of research prevents most of the serious missteps.
2. Check whether the trend has already drawn criticism for being commercially exploited by other brands — a sign the market is already saturated, or that the trend is starting to turn.
3. Assess whether the relevance to your brand is genuine or forced. A forced connection is often just as visible to the audience as it is to you internally.
4. Designate who has the authority to approve quickly — trend content can't wait for the normal approval chain, but that doesn't mean nobody approves it.
5. Set a clear exit plan before you publish: who notices if the trend turns, and who has the authority to remove the content immediately?

The approval process needs to handle trend content differently

The full approval process described in content approval workflows that don't kill the content is built for planned campaign content with days or weeks available. It's too slow for trend content, where the value is often gone if approval takes more than a few hours. The fix isn't skipping approval — it's building a separate, faster track with fewer but clearly defined checkpoints: one designated decision-maker, a short checklist (like the one above) instead of a full brief review, and a clear threshold for when something should be escalated to the normal process instead.

This isn't the same as the morality clause

A morality clause protects you if the creator's own conduct damages your brand — but the trend-jacking risk sits somewhere else: in the content decision itself, which is often made by the brand or in close collaboration with the creator. A creator following a brief to jump on a trend hasn't done anything wrong in the morality clause's sense, even if the trend turns out to be problematic — the clause is written to cover the creator's own person and conduct, not the brand's own content choice.

If it's already gone wrong

If a trend-jacking misstep has already gone public and is generating negative attention, prevention is no longer the question. See What to Do When an Influencer Collaboration Turns Into a PR Crisis for the full first-24-hours playbook, including whether the content should stay up, be hidden, or be removed.

A hypothetical worked example: the cost of reacting too late

The example below is invented and for illustration only. It is not a real Make Influence customer.

A brand boosts a creator's post riding a new trend, with a budget of DKK 6,000 spread evenly over 4 days — DKK 1,500 per day. On day 2, after DKK 3,000 has already been spent, it turns out the trend's original audio clip originates from a tragic news story, and criticism starts building. If the brand notices and stops the boost the same day, the remaining DKK 3,000 of the budget is unspent and can be redirected. If the brand instead waits until day 3 to react, an extra DKK 1,500 gets spent amplifying the reach of exactly the content that's already drawing criticism — leaving only DKK 1,500 of the original budget still to be saved.

Common mistakes

• Treating trend content as if it needs no approval at all, because the normal process is too slow. The fix is a faster track, not an absence of control.
• Forcing a connection between the brand and a trend that has no genuine relevance — audiences often spot it just as fast as the brand should have.
• Not researching the trend's origin before jumping in — two minutes of research would have caught several of the most well-known missteps in the examples above.
• Waiting too long to react if a trend turns, while a paid boost keeps running.

Make Influence's operational perspective

It's Make Influence's experience — not an objective truth — that most trend-jacking missteps aren't driven by bad intent, but by not having time to ask one simple question: where does this trend actually come from? We recommend brands build a separate, fast approval track specifically for trend- and news-reactive content, distinct from the normal campaign process — with fewer, but clearly defined checkpoints, rather than either no approval at all or an approval process too slow to keep up with the trend. Make Influence doesn't offer trend-jacking campaigns as a service itself, but the principles of fast, deliberate approval apply regardless of how the collaboration is structured.

FAQ

Is trend-jacking the same as following a content calendar?

No. A content calendar plans content around known, predictable dates and events — see the Danish seasonal marketing calendar beyond Q4. Trend-jacking reacts to something unpredictable that's already going viral, often with no more than a few hours or days of notice.

How quickly should a brand react if a trend turns out to be problematic?

Immediately, once the criticism becomes clear. As the worked example above shows, every day of delay costs additional budget spent amplifying content that's already drawing criticism — on top of the reputational risk itself.

Does a morality clause protect against this?

Not directly. The morality clause covers the creator's own conduct, not the brand's decision to use a particular trend. See the section above for the difference.

Does all trend content need to go through the full approval process?

No, that's exactly the point — the full process is too slow for trend content. The fix is a separate, faster track with fewer but clearly defined checkpoints, not an absence of approval.

What if the creator jumps on a trend and tags your brand without a brief?

That sits outside your direct control, but should still be handled quickly if the trend turns out to be problematic — the same checklist and decision framework apply, just with the difference that you're reacting after publication instead of approving beforehand.

Are large, established memes less risky than brand-new trends?

Often yes, because a trend that's existed for several days without criticism has already shown it isn't tied to anything controversial. But it's not a guarantee — the "copy-paste cringe" example above shows that even an established, uncontroversial trend can create a negative impression if too many brands jump on it at once.