Media-Jacking

Politicians, corporations, and lobbyists have much bigger public relations budgets and name-brand draw to attract press to their staged media events than you do. Creatively hijack the event and highlight your side of the story.

A media-jacking can be as simple as holding up signs snuck into a high profile event, like Canadian Senate Page Brigitte DePape did in 2011.

Here are Two Examples

Fight Aids, Not Arabs

In 1991 during the first Gulf War, activists from the organization ACT UP burst into a CBS TV studio during a live prime-time news broadcast and took over the set, chanting “Fight AIDS, not Arabs.”

I Need a Kleenex

In 2007, Kimberly-Clark – the world’s largest tissue company – was doing an expensive PR stunt in Times Square, New York, where they asked participants to cry and say, “I need a Kleenex.” Greenpeace activists lined up to be interviewed, and cried because Kleenex was clear-cutting old growth forests to make their tissues. This successfully shut down the shoot for the rest of the day, and a video of the action went viral.