Marketing Lessons From Banksy’s Self Destructing “Girl With The Balloon”

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Marketing Lessons From Banksy’s Self Destructing “Girl With The Balloon”

Bryan Karas

October 11, 2018

Banksy’s famous street art, “Girl With the Balloon,” shred itself after selling for over a million bucks at a Sotheby art auction in London – everyone lost their mind.

What was supposed to be a jab at consumerism and the mainstream art game where elites are hoarding piece after piece, turned out to be an amazing marketing stunt. Art dealers say that Banksy’s shredded piece could actually be worth more and that his other works will most likely increase in value as well.

But it wasn’t just Banksy who capitalized on this stunt. Brands across social media started creating parodies of the half shredded painting hanging out of the frame – a sort of “newsjacking” or “hackvertising” if you will…

French fries, rental insurance and tire discounters?

Yes, everyone and their mama came out on social media to test their creative newsjacking skills – some succeed, most didn’t.

McDonald’s created an image of their logo inside a picture frame with yellow blocks, simulating their french fries, sticking out from the bottom. Lemonade, an insurance company, was able to weave their brand into the news by creating a video of the painting shredding with the copy “in case your art starts self-destructing.”

While Mickey D’s and Mr. Insurance posted some nice creative, but Tire Discounters simply created an image using block letters and columns – “GOOD THING BANKSY DOESN”T SELL TIRES.”

Tire Discounters did receive one like and one comment on Twitter. Unfortunately the comment was from a disgruntled customer saying “I guess your Beechmont Ohio location doesn’t answer the phone.” Ouch.

Extra, Extra

Brands capitalizing on current events isn’t anything new – PR teams have been newsjacking for decades. And although publishing content around current news can drive in massive amounts of web traffic and social engagement, brands need to be careful.

Pick news events carefully – Banksy’s art piece “self destructing” yes, of course, take advantage of that all day. But you might want to stay away from sensitive subjects like a natural disaster or the death of a celebrity.

Here are some quick tips to get newsjacking right:

You must be plugged in at all times – knowing what’s going on in the world at any given moment. Anticipation leading up to an event could work….Google Trends might help.
Be very discerning. Newsjacking sensitive subjects can cause more harm than good.
It has to be on brand. If you’re a tech company heavily rooted in analytics you probably want to stay away from celebrity gossip…unless Elon takes Tesla private again.
Quick wits. You must be fast and beat competitors to the punch. First movers who create great content always win.

15 Examples of Newsjacking to Help Your Brand Be Ready for the Next Banksy

From Oreos to Urban Outfitters, this blog post covers the good, the bad and the ugly in newsjacking. In our hypersensitive world, it’s easy for brands to fall into a trap when trying to capitalize on current events. But if you follow the tips above and learn from these examples you should be good.