Looking Back: 30 Years of the World Wide Web

Today marks the thirtieth anniversary of the birth of the World Wide Web. 30 years ago, Tim Berners-Lee submitted his proposal titled “Information Management” to CERN, a European physics lab.

The proposal asks the reader how scientists would manage increasingly large projects in the future. The proposal outlines the answer to that question. Which is what, in just a couple of years, would become what we know as the World Wide Web: a connected system for sharing information that would lead us into a communication revolution.

Thirty years ago, computer network systems had already been running and growing for years. Emails, message boards, shared files, and emoticons were not a strange concept to many, but the internet as it is today didn’t begin to take shape until the World Wide Web was introduced.

Open source code made it possible for anyone to create websites or browsers, and these web pages, browsers, and hyperlinks made the information available easy to find and easy to navigate.

The internet has reshaped itself in the last 30 years, but there are some really great memories of the World Wide Web of the past that we still are amused at, influenced by and have learned from.

This is just a short list of some of the influential sites and tech that has put us where we are today.

LiveJournal

One of the first variances of a social network was LiveJournal, a blog site where users could debate in comments as well as post original content, from writing pieces like fiction and poetry to visual art. LiveJournal still exists but is now owned by a Russian media company, with most of its original users scattering to Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and other social platforms.

Flickr

Photo sharing site Flickr was one of the web’s first forays into photo sharing since platforms like Friendster and MySpace were not photo-focused. The simple online gallery was a great platform for both pros and amateurs without the noise of other platforms that was the typical fare for sites in the early 2000s.

Amazon

Originally an online bookstore, Amazon was not always the giant retail/tech/entertainment conglomerate that it is today. Though it did take down some major bookstore chains early on, it was hard to predict that Amazon would become the phenomenon it is today.

CSS

Cascading Style Sheets or CSS made it easy to learn how to create usable and attractive webpages, separating HTML from how a page looks. CSS also allows you to inspect a site’s code, and with that function, you’re able to change just about anything with a small edit to the code.

Yahoo

Yahoo is one of the longest surviving search engines, and even with a dwindling influence, to this day remains a top visited website. Search engines really built the web, and Yahoo was a major player, bringing users news, sports, market reports, and email all in the same space.

eBay

eBay lingers in the strange space between a free-for-all like Craigslist and the more organized Amazon storefront. eBay is the go-to place for buying just about anything you could want (most of the time used) online, and the mass of items in the site’s catalog is still as obscure, useful to just about anyone, but also just as downright weird as it was at its inception.

Internet Archive

Internet Archive is exactly what it sounds like, an archive of the internet itself. Take a trip back in time to see just what the web looked like in years past. In Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine you can check out the 349 billion web pages that the archive has stored, and reminisce about internet days-gone-by.

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Facebook’s New Podcast

It seems Facebook has its hands in a little bit of everything lately. From Facebook Portal, the Amazon Alexa enabled communication device to their new channel Facebook Watch, which houses videos from channels users follow as well as original content, there seems to be quite a move for Facebook to stay prominent in every channel, now including, podcasting.

A brand new podcast series focusing on entrepreneurship is the second podcast series to be released by the social media giant, and the first to be released in the US. The content is no surprise given the volume of businesses that use the platform (more than 90 million currently).

Called ‘Three And A Half Degrees: The Power of Connection,’ this show plays off of how technology has made it more convenient to connect (No longer six degrees of separation, but more like three and a half with the advances we have made).

Podcast host and VP of Business and Marketing Partnerships David Fischer says the podcast falls in line with the platform’s mission of helping businesses learn from one another.

Episode one includes an interview with Blake Mycoskie, the creator of TOMS shoes, and founders of fellow charitable business Two Blind Brothers, Bryan and Bradford Manning, and focuses on brands that prioritize a social mission over their growth or profit.

Season one will be seven episodes with fourteen guests, including Gary Vaynerchuck, Chris Kempczinski, Beth Comstock and more.

You can find episode one of ‘Three And A Half Degrees: The Power of Connection’ on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, and Stitcher.

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In the News: Instagram

Last night, The New York Times reported that the co-founders of Instagram, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have both resigned, and are planning to leave Instagram’s parent company, Facebook, within a few weeks. Systrom and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed the report in separate statements, both calling out “the next chapter” and hinting at future projects on the horizon.

Instagram was created in 2010 with a focus on image composition and photography, which is why filters and lenses have become so popular. The app was acquired by Facebook in 2012 and has since continued to see exponential growth, with the platform now boasting over a billion users.

The expansion of the user base may, however, be a large part of Krieger and Systrom’s decision to depart the platform. There were reports of tension between the founders of Facebook and Instagram over what the outlook and future of the app would be, one of the more in-depth reports came around the launch of “Instagram Stories” from Bloomberg, which you can read here.

Between Stories and other tensions surrounding the vision for Instagram in a Facebook world and the backlash Facebook continues to suffer from after it was found that user information was misused, it will be interesting to see what changes may come to Instagram after the departure of its founding fathers.

eCommerce and advertising may become a bigger focus for the photo-sharing app, as well as a push for live sharing in order to go head-to-head with competitor SnapChat. Regardless, marketers and users will be sure to keep their eyes on Instagram to see changes roll out.

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Engagement Insights For Facebook Business Pages

In January, Facebook announced a change to its news feed algorithm that would prioritize personal content from family and friends over content from Pages, which caused panic for many businesses that rely on Page engagement for growing their brand and generating new leads. Buffer and BuzzSumo collaborated to analyze 43 million posts from the pages of the top 20,000 brands on Facebook, and this is what they found.

Page Engagement has dropped

It was broadly assumed that with the algorithmic changes there would be a decrease in brand engagement, but the amount of decline was up in the air. Now, after the changes, Buffer’s study discovered that engagement on brand pages has dropped over 50%, with post engagement falling nearly two-thirds from where it had been previously.

Page types hit with a drop in engagement

The study ranked ten-page categories to determine which type of page was hit with the largest engagement drop. Artist Pages were found to be affected the most with a 70.6% drop in engagement, and retail Pages were affected the least with less than a 50% drop.

Pictures not video content

There has been a huge push for video content, and Facebook is leading the charge on that with a focus on live video and original content streaming (both live and pre-recorded) through Facebook (Watch, IGTV); but this study found that the content that received the highest engagement was not video, but images. Despite that, interaction for all content types is down, with an over 63% drop in average per post engagement.

Post volume to combat decreased engagement

In the last year, the analyzed Pages have posted more content with posts per quarter up to 8.1 million from 6.5 million, which is a 24% increase. Quantity vs quality is still a hot debate, but there is a sweet spot for getting noticed.

How many times to post in a day

In that same vein, there are findings related to how frequently pages post and the following per post engagement as well as overall page engagement. The study found that Pages posting less than one time a day have the highest per-post engagement, but also have the lowest overall engagement. The optimal number of posts for longterm overall Page engagement was found to be right around 5 posts per day. This is not an end all be all strategy, but might be a good thing to try if you are looking to boost long-term metrics.

Learn more about what the analysis uncovered and read the full study here.

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SEO vs Social Media Marketing

When you’re trying to increase your web traffic you may be wondering which is better for growing your traffic organically, social media marketing (SMM) or Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Is one better than the other? Both methods are continually changing and evolving, so the answer can’t really be gleaned simply.

Long story short, SEO and SMM are able to be successful on their own, but when used together have the potential to have the most influence on traffic. Essentially, by sharing content to your social media channels you should be driving traffic to your site.

Throughout the last few years, there has been an exponential growth of social media pages (Facebook and Twitter primarily) in the top 100 on Google.  An article by PrimeView states, “…SMM blogs should be receiving the majority of their visitors from social media channels, as it is their area of expertise …SMM-focused blogs perform better in organic search than SEO-focused blogs. The high levels of engagement SMM blogs receive from social media allow them to get more backlinks and referral traffic, which, in turn, helps them rank higher organically.”

This goes against Google’s stance that rank and social media presence are not correlated, showing that links with more social engagement can lead to a higher ranking. This does not mean, however, that more social activity is a way to “hack” your SEO, in fact, pushing too much low-value content on your followers can annoy them, leading to followers ignoring your posts or even unfollowing you.

So, as important as it is to post consistently, again we find that quality over quantity is key to adding value to the content you’re publishing, and key to getting post engagements and therefore improved SEO. With that, make a note that SEO should not be the focus of your social strategy and that content is still king for getting you ranked, as quality is the number one factor for Google rank.

When trying to grow your site traffic and developing content for SMM, it is crucial to put the work into placing keywords and links correctly so that your content will garner more backlinks and get more referral traffic from your social media followers. SEO appeals to an algorithm, but SMM appeals to people, so to really harness the power of both you must understand how these two key components to your marketing strategy are almost complete opposites, but yet interdependent. Content that is high ranking will bring in more search traffic, and by the nature of how the world of social media works, this search traffic will drive shares, comments and follows on your social channels.

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Everything You Need to Know About iOS 12

iPhone users are getting excited for the impending release of the iOS 12 update. iOS 12 is not a huge departure from iOS 11, but it does include many new features that can change how you use your iPhone. Most people will have access to it in September, but you can download the pre-release software now to see some of these changes.

Notifications

iPhone notifications have been a point of contention for some time because they would show up individually rather than grouped by the source. With iOS 12, notifications will now be grouped together by app and by topic, making it easier to dismiss notifications from the dock.

Memoji

The iPhone X introduced animojis, but this goes a step beyond. Now you can create a personalized and animated emoji of yourself. (Think Samsung’s AR emoji) This feature is only available to iPhone X users.

Facetime

Facetime will now support calls with up to 32 participants. This is a lot of people to keep track of, but one feature that may help is that the tile of whoever is talking will be the biggest on your screen.

Speed boosts for older phones

iOS 12 will improve the speed of older models of iPhone (like the iPhone 6+) for keyboard opening, camera opening and app launching.

Siri

Siri, though still not the most highly intelligent personal assistant available on the market, is getting smarter, and now allows for customizations to create series’ of actions when you say a specific command. Read more here to see how it works.

CarPlay customization

If your car supports CarPlay, you can now choose between Google Maps and Waze for navigation, rather than just having to use Apple Maps.

Apple Books

Previously known as iBooks, the Apple reading platform has gotten a facelift and has been renamed  Apple Books.

Animoji additions

Still exclusive to the iPhone X, iOS will introduce more options for Animojis including the T-Rex, koala, tiger, and ghost.

Do Not Disturb at Bedtime

This feature turns off notifications at night so that you can answer a call or check the time without notifications popping up and interrupting your nighttime relaxation and sleep.

Screen Time

A new set of tools called Screen Time tracks your usage and allows you to set time limits for different apps, schedule breaks from screens, and see how much time you’re spending on your phone or iPad.

iMessage changes

In iMessage, you will now be able to add stickers and filters along with other added actions to make messaging more interactive.

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Apps to Improve Your Instagram Experience

Instagram has over 500 million daily users, and you can make your profile stand out among the rest with the help of a few apps that can do everything from growing your audience to editing your photos with more than just the 24 standard filters. See how you can change up your Instagram game with a few add-on apps.

Snapseed

This app takes some of the key enhancement tools from Photoshop and allows you to selectively edit the parts of your photos that may need adjustments for color temperature, saturation, and exposure as well as the ability to edit out smaller flaws and unwanted features.

Free for iOS and Android

Followers for Instagram

Understand your Instagram audience with this app designed to show you accounts that have unfollowed you, those that don’t follow you back, and accounts that are recommended based on your following behaviors.

Free for iOS and Android

Crowdfire

Find inactive followers and boost your analytics by only having followers that interact with your page. With account automation tools like finding followers and direct messaging, you can start generating better metrics.

Free for iOS

Priime

Professional photographers have collaborated with Priime to offer more than 100 photo filters, making the editing process even more fine-tuned.  Priime even has a Smart Suggestions feature that can offer recommendations of which filters will look best for your image.

Available on iOS for $2.99

VSCO

VSCO has been around for a while, so many people are already familiar with its capabilities. Apart from offering more filters, VSCO boasts its own editing tools for color correction, cropping and more. Finished images can be shared to Instagram, or even shared in-app on VSCO’s own internal social network.

Free for iOS and Android

Social Rocket

Earn points in a “likes/followers” marketplace on Social Rocket. Though not a sufficient long-term way to keep post engagement up, the points you garner to exchange for likes and followers can help to build an initial following.

Free for iOS

Pixlr

Create your own filters with overlays and effects from Pixlr. Like other editing apps, Pixlr also contains photo-editing tools that can adjust brightness, red-eye, sharpness and an array of other options.

Free for iOS and Android

InstaTag

InstaTag gathers lists of the top trending hashtags, sorted categorically so you can use the most relevant and popular tags for your posts. You can even search across categories for a personalized list of trending tags.

Free for Android

Squarelovin

For gathering analytics including engagement, follower count, popular hashtags, post time efficiency tracking and growth, Squarelovin is a great free app for those looking to test strategies, with reports delivered in various periods; daily, weekly and monthly.

Free for iOS and Android

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Event Profile: SXSW 2018

South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas has become a cultural mecca for music and film buffs, as well as a place for hosting interactive events that cover a range of topics from everything new in technology, to entertainment and advertising. There is always a huge amount of news coming from this week-long event, so here is a breakdown of what we’ve seen so far.

SXSW Trust Barometer

Every year, festival attendees are polled for the Trust Barometer, which measures the general feelings those attending have towards technology, business, and media. The results of this year’s poll brought up interesting discussions, as there is a very low amount of trust in emerging technology, one of SXSW’s biggest draws.

Most of the distrust comes from a shift towards a need for more human elements in technological interactions, and a distrust in blockchain technology, virtual reality, and autonomous vehicles. Discussions about smaller, more personal social media platforms were held, as well as conversations about the widespread use of bots and voice assistants and how the reactions to these technologies have become more and more personal, with users sometimes treating bots as though they were chatting with another human being. There is without a doubt a need to shift to more personal communication methods and develop an understanding of how emotional attachments can tie into interacting with these responsive communication technologies.

Experiential Exhibitions: ‘Westworld’ and ‘Ready Player One’

HBO hit-show Westworld and Steven Spielberg’s ‘Ready Player One’ both partnered with creative agency Giant Spoon to bring the worlds of the screen to life for festival attendees. These immersive exhibits allow you to step into the ‘Westworld’ town of Sweetwater and the Oasis of  ‘Ready Player One’ interacting with environments, actors in character, and becoming a character yourself. Read a review of the ‘Westworld’ exhibit on Forbes and Business Insider and see a walkthrough of Sweetwater here and the ‘Ready Player One’ exhibit here.

Speeches

SXSW is focused on cultivating the creative and entrepreneurial spirit throughout the world, and each day speakers from convergence, music, technology, and film focused paths present their take on various topics. The hope is to generate meaningful conversations about the state of the world in each of SXSW’s featured verticals. Notable speakers this year include Elon Musk, Melinda Gates, Darren Aronofsky, Sadiq Khan, and Esther Perel.

SXSW ends this Saturday, so there is bound to be more excitement in the last few days of the festival. For more SXSW news and live streams of keynotes and other events, visit sxsw.com.

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Vero: The “New Instagram”?

Social media platforms come and go as we have seen with Yik Yak, Bebo, Vine, and Ello. But there is a platform making waves right now that many are calling the “new Instagram”.  Vero was launched in 2015, and the app is quickly gaining popularity, recently seeing a flood of users starting to download and use the app, as many influencers have posted about their move to the platform.

Vero has positioned itself as the “True Social” social media platform, aimed towards those looking for “a safe, genuine reflection of their real-life relationships in an online setting”.  This is what you need to know about the “Instagram Killer”.

No paid or boosted ads

Vero has no paid advertisements, which clears up users’ feeds for posts from their connections and community. “You see what has been shared with you when it’s been shared with you. You won’t have to pay to ‘boost your post’, or ‘reach your audience’,” says Vero. That doesn’t mean that there are no ads, though. Companies can link to external sites, unlike the Instagram model, and there is an integrated “Buy now” button that can be purchased. Part of Vero’s revenue will come from a portion of every sale made on the platform.

First million users- free access for life

Currently, Vero is being offered for free to the first million members, but once that threshold has been reached, anyone that joins will have to pay an annual fee. This is pretty much common knowledge, but is perhaps the fear of missing out on this opportunity driving the platform’s spike in popularity? When the free accounts are spoken for and those late to the game must pay, there will no doubt be more news to be heard about this platform.

Connection types

Vero’s commitment to an authentic social experience is based on the argument that other social media platforms leave users with a false sense of connection with followers and friends that causes more intrinsic loneliness. The app has implemented controls that allow you to segment your connections so that users can share posts and interact with one another in a way the platform calls more natural. In the app, you can segment your connections into the following groups: “close friends”, “friends”, “acquaintances”, and “followers”. Each post you make can be shared to all or to a portion of these groups.

Chronological feed

In a world of algorithmic feeds, Vero breaks the mold by showing all posts chronologically. There is nothing that will cause one post to be promoted over another. Vero says, “We don’t curate it, manipulate it, insert advertising in it, or hold back posts. You see what has been shared with you when it’s been shared with you.”

Read more opinions about Vero here and here, and the Vero manifesto, then let me know what you think of this new platform.

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Conferences For Entrepreneurs, Marketers & More in 2018

One of the best ways to learn and get involved in a community built around your work is to attend a conference, summit or keynote.  Whether your work is marketing, content creation, entrepreneurship or technology focused, there will be an event that fits your list of needs. Check some of these events out to get started exploring the world of conferences.

No Longer Virtual– Denver, February 22-23

This conference focused on improving your personal communication, sales, and leadership skills is one of the most exclusive events this year, as there is a registration limit of 50 people. NLV is being called a “can’t miss” by Forbes. Because attendance is limited, those who participate are able to work more one on one with other attendees, make more meaningful connections, and attendees contribute to sessions rather than keynote speakers being the main focus.

Forbes Under 30 Summit– Boston, October TBD

The 30 Under 30 Summit is Forbes showcase event of their “Under 30” listmakers. With over 6,000 in attendance and participants that work in fields that range from tech to content marketing, this event is heralded as “the greatest gathering of world changers and entrepreneurs ever.” Complete with musical performances and a food festival, this summit is more than just inspiring speakers. Listmakers are always welcome, but if you haven’t found your name on one just yet, you can request a premium pass to attend this event.

GrowthHackers– San Diego, February 6

For those looking to grow their businesses, a great way to “Kickstart your growth” is to attend the GrowthHackers Conference, hosted by Sean Ellis and Dani Hart of GrowthHackers. With speakers from LinkedIn to ClassPass and everything in between, GrowthHackers can help push your business to the next level. Past speakers have included Larry Kim of Wordstream, Eleana Verna of Survey Monkey, and Chris More of Mozilla, to name a few.

Social Media Marketing World– San Diego, February 28- March 2

Social Media Examiner is presenting a three-day conference this year that will help you to master social media for your business this year. With over 120 training sessions from some of the world’s leaders in social media and content creation, you can learn everything you need to succeed with social media while connecting with influencers, customers, and other marketers. Join speakers Mari Smith, Gary Vaynerchuk, Jay Baer and more in sessions tailored to the needs of both marketers and content creators.

This is only a handful of the great events that you can take advantage of this year, and there are more that are yet to be announced. Keep your eyes open for more conferences that suit the needs of your business.

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Content Marketing Tools to Boost Your Strategy

Content marketing is becoming more important to everyone’s marketing strategies than ever before, but it can be hard to keep up with for many, with both time and creative needs to manage, especially for those without dedicated content teams. Use these tools to create, curate, manage and schedule all of your content for maximum effectiveness.

Feedly

Streamline your searching and content curation by using this tool to find articles and posts that match your interests. Choose sites to follow, verticals to focus on and mark the things you’ve already read. Feedly also has the option to integrate with your workflow with IFTTT automation. See how IFTTT recipes work here.

Canva

Create everything from business cards to logos and resumes that are built to impress, even if you aren’t a professional designer. With Canva you can use one of the many provided templates, or you can create your own design from scratch.

Airtable

Create a content database that will link similar content, share with your team, filter and sort your content in multiple arrangements and at the same time make a more visually streamlined content calendar and pipeline for ease of access. Airtable also allows you to create IFTTT recipes and integrate this database with many of the apps you might already be using including MailChimp, Evernote, Facebook, LinkedIn and more.

Contently

Master your content strategy with the Contently platform. If you’re looking for a one-stop shop, then this is your best bet. From content generation and scaling to insights and strategy, Contently allows you to create a strategy that will have visible and transparent results, with built-in analytics and a holistic approach to digital content. See how it works here.

Buffer

Manage your social media quickly from one simple hub. Buffer allows you to create and schedule your social media content while measuring key metrics and performance analytics. By allowing all of your social content to flow from one dashboard, you have complete control of your posts and how they look and sound without having to move from platform to platform.

Visual.ly

If content development is not your thing and you need a team that can handle that for you, visually can help you achieve great content without needing an in-house team. Simply discuss what you need for your project with a Visually representative for a quote, talk about the goals you hope to achieve with the content and get matched with a team of creatives that will develop everything you need. Learn more about the Visually process here.

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Marketing Trends To Expect in 2018

As 2017 comes to a close it’s time to look to the future to predict what will be the biggest trends in marketing. With only a month left in the year, now is the time to reevaluate your current strategies and start working on new ones to match the technologically focused consumer. Here’s what you should be looking for this coming year.

Death of organic reach on Facebook

In the past, it was easy to see results when marketing on Facebook just by having a page out for people to find. Those days are in the past, as many marketers are reporting decreased organic traffic, leading to slowed growth and decreased conversions from social media to the website. This is due to changing algorithms that make it more difficult for non-sponsored posts to reach into the newsfeeds of consumers, but also because of the steadily increasing presence of businesses on social media.

What to do:
Start investing in a paid Facebook strategy. Over 50 million businesses use Facebook, and most are feeling the effects of the shift from organic to paid reach. Buffer’s Facebook advertising guide is a great resource for those new to the process.

Landing pages

The landing page is often overlooked, but it is one of the fastest and least expensive ways to increase conversions. A website is always a necessity, but a landing page is a focused way to ensure that your customer is seeing exactly what they want or need to see without distractions and multiple calls to action that distract from the main goal.

What to do:
Build focused landing pages for each campaign. Follow these steps for great form optimization. Build more pages for more conversions. This Hubspot article will tell you why this is so important for growth.

Integrated influencer marketing

Influencer marketing has become increasingly important to marketers, and because Instagram is becoming (for many) one of the top social media platforms, the use and understanding of influencer marketing in all verticals is becoming a valuable tool.

What to do:
Prepare for a boost of companies using influencers, especially on social media. Many companies will begin building long-term partnerships with influencers, allowing them to become brand ambassadors. However, be aware of the FTC’s strict rules and regulations about endorsement posts. The key measurements to track this year for influencer marketing are KPI and ROI.  Learn the basics of influencer marketing here, and learn how to find the right influencers here.

Personalized content

Personalized content has been having a moment lately, and the moment will continue into the new year. Hubspot reports that personalized content does 42% better than non-personalized content. It is important to understand your audience and to use the new shift towards emotional content to engage with your customers and to increase that “shareability” of your content. Storytelling with creative content will be a big theme this year.

What to do:
Begin with gathering information about your audience, even if it is as basic as their name and email address. Make the content you use to acquire this something relevant that will grab attention and encourage conversions. With the information you gather, you can begin to target your users, and provide them with content that matches their needs and lifestyle. Read more about personalized marketing here.

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The Best and Worst Ads of 2017

The Best

Fearless Girl, Agency: McCann New York

The winner of five Grand Clio awards was created by Kristen Visbal and commissioned by State Street Global Advisors. The award-winning and now iconic installation was placed in front of Wall Street’s Charging Bull to promote and celebrate International Women’s Day. The statue’s strength paved the way for McCann New York to win agency of the year, and for State Street to win advertiser of the year.

MailChimp “Did You Mean MailChimp?”, Agency: Droga5

MailChimp is already an established brand, but their first major campaign introduces them to a new audience in a way that subverts almost every expectation. By creating goofy and fun mispronunciations of their name MailChimp is able to prove that they are true to themselves and use creative ways to help their customer base.

Samsung “Ostrich”, Agency: Leo Burnett

Samsung’s tagline “do what can’t be done” refers to their virtual reality headsets and what you are able to experience when you put it on. This ad premiered during the product launch of the S8 and S8+ and used #DoWhatYouCan’t to further promote the new Samsung product lineup.

Audi “Daughter”, Agency: Venables Bell & Partners

Rated as one of the top commercials aired during the Super Bowl, ‘Daughter’ pushes for equal pay and employment opportunities for women, pushing for progress with #DriveProgress. Though not directly related to any specific Audi model, spokespeople for the company say that progress is at the core of the brand.

The Worst

Jennifer Aniston Smart Water campaign, Agency: AR New York

Bland print ads and unfunny attempts to go viral have plagued the bottled water company’s campaign with a very popular spokesperson. However, a bright spot in an otherwise unexciting campaign takes an aim at celebrity gossip: a video that shows Jennifer Aniston’s “leaked security tapes” revealing all of her secrets, from being pregnant to wearing a wig.

GoDaddy “The Internet Wants You”, Agency: Bullish

GoDaddy was once the king of scandalous ads, especially during the Super Bowl, but this year’s ad went in a different direction, poking fun at internet trends, from sneezing pandas and water bottle flipping, to “David After Dentist” and Rick Astley. The commercial itself was clever, but fell flat, with almost too much going on to effectively promote GoDaddy’s services.

T-Mobile #Unlimited Moves, Agency: Publicis Seattle

The Super Bowl commercial featuring Justin Bieber was in one word, underwhelming. Coming off of last year’s spot with Drake dancing to ‘Hotline Bling’, Bieber plays a “celebration expert” narrating touchdown celebrations throughout the years. Bieber is refreshingly down to earth, but his presence alone is not enough to give life to an otherwise unfunny commercial.

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