Trend jacking sounds slightly illegal….It is not.
At least not if you do it quickly, before someone says, “We should run this by legal.”
My wife is a lawyer, so I hear that sentence more than most people — usually right at the exact moment I have a great idea. Nothing kills creative momentum quite like realizing the person you married has good judgment, taste in men, and a law degree.
Trend jacking is when a brand grabs onto a cultural moment and finds a way to place itself inside the conversation.
McDonald’s just gave us a great example with Backrooms. McDonald’s didn’t need to explain Backrooms. It just needed to find a yellow wall, make the lighting terrible, and go Grimacing down the hallway.
Radio Should Be Leading This Charge
Radio and media should be better at this than almost anyone.
We have talent. We have immediacy. We have music. We have local context. We have phones in everyone’s hands. Yet often, we treat marketing like it still needs lots of text and a station logo centered over a stock photo of people laughing at a salad.
Trend jacking works because it lowers the cost of attention. As a result, the audience already understands the setup. You do not need to explain the World Cup or Scary Movie, or why a Taylor Swift song in Toy Story is going to get dissected line by line.
Here are four free jackable ideas:
1. The Talent Jack
Put your morning show inside the trend. If Backrooms is hot, send your talent into the most depressing hallway in the building and shoot a ten-second bit: “We found where all the logoed mouse pads went.”
Also, mouse pads?
That’s your marketing strategy?
People use their fingers to navigate everything now. Maybe phone book covers will make a comeback, too. Finally, somewhere to put your hot-rockin’, flame-throwin’ hit line.
2. The Playlist Jack
Music stations should be doing this every week. World Cup? Build a playlist with songs that sound good in a stadium. Scary Movie wins the weekend? Give me songs from the soundtrack. He-Man is back? Play the strongest men in country music. You are not changing your format — you are packaging your format around what people are already talking about.
3. The News Jack
If everyone is talking about AI, inflation, local crime, or a citywide event, frame your coverage through the pop-cultural language people are using. “The Backrooms of City Hall” is a segment. “What’s Really Behind Door 404 in the Budget?” is a promo. Jack the language. Keep your journalism.
4. The Sales Jack
Trend jacking is not only a content trick — it is also a revenue trick. Local clients want attention, too. Create fast-turn sponsorships around cultural moments. Clients don’t always need a six-month campaign and a cost-per-point. They need to be attached to what people are already sharing today.
That said, I do have one word of caution: do not jack what you do not understand.
The internet can smell a fake faster than your competitor calling Nielsen to say you have a meter. If the moment is tragic, sensitive, or political in a way your team cannot handle, keep your hands off Jack.
However, done well, trend jacking is the new in-the-moment, low-cost marketing. It rewards speed. It rewards taste. It rewards talent who can entertain.
The Old Model vs. The New Model
The old model was: build a campaign, buy attention, hope people notice.
The new model is: notice where attention already is, then move in before the moment moves on.
So this week, think of Jack not as a tired, syndicated format telling you it plays what it wants because apparently it matters more than the listener. Instead, think of Jack as a verb.
Jack the moment. Jack the conversation. Jack the thing your audience is already talking about before someone else does.
Or sit it out and say Phil Becker doesn’t know jack about radio.
Which, to be fair, would also be a form of trend jacking.
Barrett Media produces daily content on the music, news, and sports media industries. Sign up for our newsletters to stay updated and get the latest information right in your inbox.
Phil Becker is a weekly music columnist for Barrett Media who has built his career at the intersection of creativity, strategy, and operations leading brands, marketing, and content teams across more than 200 radio stations worldwide.
Known for being ahead of the curve, he was the first to integrate social influencers into broadcast brands, launch station apps years before his peers, and pioneer AI air personalities before anyone else in the world.
With leadership roles at Clear Channel, Citadel, Cox Media Group, Alpha Media, and international ventures—as well as owning and operating stations—Phil blends entrepreneurial vision with operational discipline in the messaging and marketing space. He also hosts the Phil-Osophy podcast.
