Five things worth sharing from the last week or so, brought to you by a different member of the Browser Media team every Friday.
This week’s My Five is by Libby.
1. New Year New Update
Google SearchLiaison tweeted confirmation of the rather snazzily titled “January 2020 Core Update” this week:
Later today, we are releasing a broad core algorithm update, as we do several times per year. It is called the January 2020 Core Update. Our guidance about such updates remains as we’ve covered before. Please see this blog post for more about that:https://t.co/e5ZQUA3RC6
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) January 13, 2020
A Core Update could mean something and it could mean nothing for your website. The last one in September didn’t really make waves. But it could result in sites seeing a lift or drop in their search positions. At least now that we’ve got these official confirmations, we don’t have to madly trawl GA, Search Console, and all the other tracking tools we’re using to find out why a site’s slipped in SERPs. So we got that goin’ for us which is nice.
2. Nuterendum: love it or hate it
(lol – hate it)
Nuterendum is Marmite’s latest marketing campaign. And, to clarify, it’s not the campaign I hate. It’s the portmanteau.
ANYway.
The campaign is actually very on-brand and echoes the love/hate theme synonymous with Marmite’s messaging by asking the nation to vote on crunchy versus smooth peanut butter (crunchy btw – fight me) in light of its new release: Marmite peanut butter.
Everyone went nuts (pun intended sorrynotsorry) for the crunchy version. Now there’s a smooth version. This Twitter poll was the hype:
We’ve launched a Nationwide Nuterendum! ?
Now that Marmite Smooth Peanut Butter has landed – it looks like Crunchy has some competition.
Time to cast your vote in the daddy of all debates. #LoveItOrHateIt #Marmite— Marmite (@marmite) January 13, 2020
3. Wired’s Q&A with Twitter
Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and CEO of Twitter, tackled the platform’s FAQs in a charming video via Wired this week:
Find out if the bird logo has a name, how to spot a bot, how to get verified, and when the EDIT button is coming (never – ha).
4. A long time collab
When James Bond isn’t chugging on a Martini, he drinks Heineken. Or least he has done since 1997. And now, with the release of No Time To Die, in which Daniel Craig is due to make his last appearance as 007, Heineken has gotten Bond off the sauce and on to their non-alcoholic beer, Heineken 0.0.
https://youtu.be/kXUJY78RMRQ
Some of the Heineken/Bond ads of the past have been a little on the cheesy side, but despite that, this is a good example of a working collaboration in marketing. There are some amusing bits in this story, and it’s cute the way they poke fun at Craig, but if you struggle to get your head around the idea that James Bond might choose a Heineken when he fancies a beer in the first place, you’re going to really struggle to believe he’d go for an alcohol-free one.
5. A very viral Valentine
Too lazy to take your Christmas tree down? Don’t sweat it. Just spray it pink, cover it in hearts, and wrap it in sentiment-lead bunting and voilà: you’ve gone from unkempt to on-trend in one simple hashtag.
#ValentineTree
(please don’t do this – please don’t make it a thing)
