The term combines the notions of 'branding' and 'hijacking', and has been used since at least 2007 when it appeared in Business Week referencing the term used in a publication by the firm MarkMonitor (MarkMonitor and its PR firm, the Zeno Group, coined the phrase; MarkMonitor registered "BrandJacking Index" as a trademark, but not the term "brandjacking" on its own).
[1] The tactic is often associated with use of individual and corporate identities on social media or Web 2.0 sites, as described in Quentin Langley's 2014 book Brandjack,[2] and may be used alongside more conventional (offline) campaign activities.
A brandjacker may attempt to use the reputation of its target for selfish reasons or seek to damage the reputation of its target for hostile,[3] malicious or for political or campaigning reasons.
These reasons may not be directly financial, but the effects on the original brand-holder may often include financial loss - for example, negative publicity may result in the termination of a celebrity's sponsorship deal, or, for a corporation, potentially lead to lost sales or a reduced share price.
For example, following Greenpeace's KitKat campaign, Nestlé had the video removed from YouTube, but Greenpeace quickly re-posted it to video-sharing site Vimeo.com and highlighted the attempted censorship using Twitter and other social media.