How to kill your brand in one step
This week: good and bad moves by some big brands that we can all learn from. Plus, why we need to stop designing for the “average user” once and for all.
Want to get the next Spark delivered directly to your inbox? Sign up today
(1) How to kill your brand in one step.
We’re highly disappointed in the marketing stunt that The North Face and its ad agency pulled last month, when they hacked Wikipedia in order to climb to the very top of Google search results. [Wikimedia Foundation]
(2) Case study: User research really can drive tremendous revenue.
We’re big on user research at ThinkShout, which is why it’s no surprise to us that when the California Symphony undertook audience research, it doubled its ticket-buying audience. [San Francisco Chronicle]
(3) How to do cause marketing right.
We’re all in the business of cause marketing, and we think there are some great, actionable learnings from Land O’Lakes here on their recent efforts. [Think with Google]
(4) There is no “average.”
As inclusive design becomes more of a “buzzword” across industries, it’s important that we understand what it really means. Part of that is to stop designing and developing for the “average user” that simply does not exist. [Fast Company]
(5) Teaching illiterate children how to teach themselves to read?
Sounds impossible, but the latest XPRIZE award is doing just that, and at incredible scale. [AP NEWS]
(6) $37 billion is soon to flood into charity efforts.
Mackenzie Bezos is among 19 of the newest signatories to The Giving Pledge—where the world’s richest people dedicate half their fortunes to charity. [CNN]
(7) Invest in measurement.
At ThinkShout we’ve been ramping up our measurement and reporting efforts on the products we build for our clients. We found it timely then, that Google wrote this piece about how investing in measurement strategies leads to increased gains. [Think with Google]