Yesterday, the world mourned the death of yet another music icon. Seriously, 2016. Chill out!

Even sadder than the news itself were the brands who thought Prince’s death was a prime opportunity to creep into the singer’s spotlight by offering their own brand of tribute via social media. (See what I did there?) Like most of the other “real-time marketing” efforts we’ve chronicled in our Stupid Brand Tricks posts, these Prince tributes were shameless attempts to bogart attention from pop culture created with the misguided intention of “staying relevant.”

Truth is, relevancy is a very simple state of being: you either are relevant or you aren’t; there is no try to be. Trying to be relevant is like trying to be cool; the more you try, the less you are.