It's been another great year here at Marketing Dive covering digital marketing and reporting on news ranging from the groundbreaking to the just plain weird. As we look towards a brand new year, it can be helpful to look back on the year that was to review lessons learned and trends to keep an eye on in the coming year.
These are the stories that you shared on social media and kept coming back to throughout the year. From a G-rated search for a creative director of a porn site to 10 books to make sure you have on your bookshelf, the Marketing Dive team was busy making sure you stayed on top of the most relevant information.
Here are our 10 most popular stories for 2014:
GamerGate hits Gawker where it hurts: Its ad tech vendors
From Nov. 24: "[A viral post on Reddit] left a tutorial on the ad tech firms Gawker employs, and instructed fellow Redditors to convince those firms to stop working with the publisher."
"It isn't clear if the approach has yielded the results the gamers are looking for...Though even if a brand publicly denounces the stance Gawker has taken on the situation, because of programmatic ad buying, the company could still in turn accidently pay the publisher per eyeball or click. No matter what Google or the ad tech firms decide to do, one thing is for certain: The gamers who are a part of GamerGate do not take to being teased lightly."
Hershey's new logo raises a stink online
Hershey’s hires a design firm to design a brand new steaming pile of poo. http://t.co/lkTC35txKd pic.twitter.com/uqgOMsrfnb
— Jared Spool (@jmspool) August 28, 2014
From Sept. 3: "When undergoing a big project like a new logo, it's easy for marketing teams to have blinders on to outside forces — which includes emojis. The Internet can be a great check and balance system for marketers, as we have seen with other controversial logo changes like Airbnb."
These 7 TED Talks are must-sees for marketers
From May 8: “Ideas worth spreading,” (the tagline for TED Talks) offer useful information in entertaining and easily digestible bites...TED Talks target a variety of disciplines, and marketing is no exception."
10 great books for B2B marketers
From Feb. 13: "These 10 books offer great material for B2B marketers looking to sharpen their skills. Browse through these selections and use the extra time indoors to learn something new."
The science of color: How do these 8 hues boost branding?
From June 12: "Recently, social media management platform HootSuite changed from a bright, multicolored scheme to a sleeker look. Its logo and mascot, “Owly,” went from being a cartoonish bird to a simpler black-and-white owl...The cleaner logo portrays an image of simplicity — something HootSuite likely wants reflected in its brand. The black-and-white logo is also easier to reproduce."
"The discussion of HootSuite’s makeover spawned a larger discussion on the power of color in marketing, as explained how the following eight colors influence human response in marketing and branding."
The 6 most clever marketing stunts of 2014 (so far)
From May 30: "If there’s one thing the marketing world loves to do, it’s pull off a stunt. Some are successful, while others just come off looking kind of silly – but all offer their own lessons."
Pornhub launches ad contest to find creative director
From March 6: "Pornhub is treading in some dangerous but exciting waters...The move into mainstream media doesn't seem so crazy for a porn site when one thinks about how much sex is already in mainstream ads."
3 major logo redesigns that backfired
From July 24: "Introducing a new logo helps keep a brand fresh, relevant, and gives the company an excuse to go after publicity. Most of the time, logo redesigns are a positive thing that show a brand is forward-thinking, but sometimes that effort can run amiss."
3 brands that came back from the dead
From Sept. 22: "When brands go under—either because of financial woes or fading relevancy—it’s generally assumed to be the free market at work, and our society will be relatively better off without. But brands, just like animals thought to be extinct, can occasionally resurface.
Just recently Coca-Cola brought back its soda brand, Surge – and ‘90’s kids rejoiced...The neon colored soda had a short surge of popularity but faded from shelves in the early 2000s. That is, until this year. The soda has been brought back, but this time exclusively for sale on Amazon."
5 brand tattoos that won't age well
From June 30: "In the early 2000s, there was more than one dot-com bubble that burst. A trend around that time saw people selling advertising real estate in the strangest of places – their bodies...For the walking advertisements, the initial prize may seem worth the cost of carrying a brand's logo for life, will the tattoo recipients feel the same in a few years? These five in particular might not."
