Welcome to February’s edition of Feed Your Brain!
Are you hangry for a helping of marketing and technology insights? Well, we’ve got a treat for you. We’ve categorized each link so you can easily find information that’s appetizing to you. And as always, if you find something you think we should be chomping on, send it our way at HERE.
Brand
A brand that took a huge leap this year? (And their brand star literally took a leap off of a cliff.) Planters. The brand made the BOLD decision to kill off the iconic legume that has served as the mascot of the company since 1916. So, did the risky move to kill off one of the most popular icons in advertising pay off? Planters says yes! Within minutes of his death, #RIPeanut began trending on Twitter. Mr. Peanut’s death made the New Yorker and Saturday Night Live included the tragic news in their Weekend Update. But save your salty tears. The brand introduced us all to Mr. Peanut’s successor, Baby Nut, at this year’s Super Bowl.
What does it mean to trust a brand? A recent survey took a look at which corporate brands Americans trust the most and how that changes across generations. Are you surprised that USPS was the Number 1 most trusted brand? Read this article to learn more about why that may be.
Design
If you’re familiar with the Gestalt principles (the whole is greater than the sum of its parts), you might be interested in how they apply it to UX design.
Happy Anniversary Adobe® Photoshop®! The program was launched 30 years ago this February. To celebrate, The Verge shares how the program transformed from just image manipulation software to a verb.
A topic that we expect to see a lot more of in 2020 and beyond: accessible marketing. You’ve already heard us talk about the WCAG 2.0 compliance updates for your website, but there is more to accessible marketing than your website. This article does a great job of laying out different ways we tend to exclude people with disabilities not only in marketing but in daily life. By re-framing your marketing efforts with a focus on accessibility, you could reach an additional 61 million people AND contribute to helping the world be a little better for everyone.
Generation Z
We’ve already learned that Gen Z is not a fan of the social influencer. So that means something will have to change. And some large companies have already found a way! They’re tapping their own team – not just the marketing department, but everyone – to post about their jobs on their personal social media accounts. That leads to an authentic representation of the brand that will pull consumers in, especially Gen Z!
HubSpot Happenings
Research shows that the majority of marketers that put a budget toward advertising are spending it with the three tech giants – Google, Facebook and Amazon. Some are concerned that these oligopolies will limit their advertising options in the future. So where else can we reach our audiences? HubSpot shares five alternatives to Facebook, Google and Amazon in this blog. Check it out and see if any make strategic sense for your business: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/online-ad-alternatives
You may have your favorite Super Bowl ads from this year, but which ones were most effective in their under 30 second spots? HubSpot breaks down some of the most successful short commercials and why they were impactful: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/short-super-bowl-ads
Technology
We expected 2020 to be the year of 5G and so far we’ve not been disappointed. The NFL and Verizon partnered this year to create the first 5G Super Bowl. When a large group of people are in one place on 4G, the wireless speed takes a hit. Verizon invested $80M to build out 5G in the stadium and around Miami so that hundreds of fans could connect without slowing down. How will 5G continue to change sports? We’re excited to find out.
SEO
Hollywood stars: just like us! After a not-so-great opening weekend of the new Warner Bros. movie Birds of Prey, executives had to rethink their marketing strategy. One of the big downfalls of their promotion came down to SEO. Moviegoers simply had a hard time finding the movie online or knowing what it was about because the title lacked clarity. After the opening weekend the name was changed to Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey. Click here to see more marketing lessons learned from this box office flop.
Social Media
Did you know January 21st was National Squirrel Appreciation Day? The folks at BarkBox did and they used the unusual holiday to get people talking about their product on social media in a hilarious way!
Website & Apps
Can’t ever remember what DNS is? Well, our friends at Fjorge Digital created this great blog with a handy metaphor to remember web hosting/server info.
Website compliance became a top priority in 2019 and it’s not stopping in 2020. Medium provides this quick list of the most important things to do to make your website ADA compliant.
We have talked in the past about making your website ADA compliant. One of the ways to do this is to have alt text that describes images on your website for those who are blind or low-vision . Find out how art museums are solving the problem of describing artwork on their websites.