Here is an example from the launch of the very first iPhone in 2001. Spanning Sync v1.0 to Support iPhone. They were hoping for pickup by search engines over a decade ago.

One could argue that newsjacking (also referred to as coattail PR) dates back to 1929 (and earlier). Bernays’ stunt called “torches of liberty” involved getting women to march in the NYC Easter Parade smoking cigarettes. It was taboo for women to smoke in public, until that day. The stunt coattailed the news event that Bernays knew would be covered by that day’s media. It even spread through word-of-mouth from spectators sharing the gossipy meme. Yes, different era, with no internet, yet it achieved the same purpose. People always sought out gossip … just in different ways.

The difference today is really the enabling technology involved and how people find news, not the strategy. The tactics are merely carried out differently, too. Same process.

My point, of course, was not to debate newsjacking in its current form. I do agree with you that it is an evolving practice. The GolinHarris example of The Bridge is a great example. They are still riding coattails in their newsjacking efforts.

I really sought to differentiate between good and bad practice in newsjacking / coattail PR.

David, you do agree that there are right ways and wrong ways to select the stories you use (forgive me this term) as a hook, don’t you?

While you may have been doing things similar to Newsjacking for years, what changed recently is that Google now indexes in real-time. That allow a timely blog post to be seen by journalists as they search for more information on a topic. Real-time is the key here. Yet nearly all PR people are in campaign mode rather than real-time mode, so those like us who understand newsjacking have an advantage.

David