Lots of us spend our lives chasing an unfulfilled ambition. It might involve climbing a mountain, visiting the South Pole or brewing more kitchen-meth than anyone outside of Breaking Bad. Whatever your dreams are, statistics say they’ll likely remain just that. There’s a reason 90% of English majors never get round to writing their great novel, the same reason most grime DJs never break the ‘outside my mums spare room’ scene: the majority of us are simply too lazy or too talent less to do anything but stay in, reading internet list-articles and eating bag after bag of Cheetos. It makes sense. What worth is a prize if anyone can do what you did? And most of us, despite the odd regret, understand and are, if not cool, then at least OK with that.

Then there are those people and organizations who want to win so bad they’ll do something even if they’re terrible at it. They’ll do it so terribly, in fact, that entire award ceremonies have to be set up to recognize their failure. These are ceremonies you don’t want to be associated with in any way; ceremonies like the:

Darwin Awards

Dedicated to honoring those who remove themselves from the gene pool with acts of extreme stupidity, the Darwin Awards are rarely – for obvious reasons – accepted in person. Started in 1985, but only becoming formalized in 1993, the prize gained some traction in recent years with a series of books mocking the recently-departed. If that all sounds a bit grim, check out the ‘honorable mention’ section. Here those who survived acts of extreme stupidity receive a nod. Our favorite: The guy who tried to make himself explode by swallowing nitro-glycerin and running at a wall.

Carbuncle Cup

Do the buildings you design all resemble ‘a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend’? Do architecture lecturers hold your work up as an example of what not to do? Then the Carbuncle Cup is for you. Started in 2000 by Prospect magazine to honor the biggest building fails of the preceding year, the prize has already claimed BBC’s MediaCity, the Cutty Sark Renovation and the Liverpool Ferry Terminal. Sadly, Anish Kapoor’s Olympic monstrosity only made runner up this year, but we like to think this was an oversight.

Ig Nobel Prize

A gentle piss-take of trivial research, the prize rewards scientists who risk life and reputation examining the strange, bizarre and pointless. The brainchild of Marc Abrahams, this simple spoof has since metamorphosed into a vast celebration of all the dafter sides of science. Famous recipients include papers on how to perform colonoscopies to minimize risk of the patient exploding; proof that rats cannot tell the difference between backwards Dutch and backwards Japanese; and proof that humans can sexually arouse ostriches. Lest it all seem too ridiculous, we should warn you that previous recipients have gone on to win actual Nobel Prizes. In science.

Razzies

Ah, the Razzies, bane of mediocre filmmakers and Adam Sandler. Founded in 1981 at someone’s Oscar’s party, they’ve since gone on to become a tradition. Easily the most-famous celebration of failure on this list, highlights include Uwe Bolle’s Lifetime Dishonour Award, Con Air’s Reckless Disregard for Human Life and Property Award, and Adam Sandler’s execrable Jack & Jill ‘winning’ every single category.

Many thanks to the team at Chessington Holidays for this work, you can check out their website here.

In late September, Google rolled out its latest update, not related to neither Panda, nor penguin, but to exact domain matches (EMD) that rank highly in Google query results, even when the website content does not justify their position in the search results. Essentially, Google is trying to optimize its search algorithm in order to bring forth relevant results only – informative webpages that can genuinely influence the end-user’s or potential buyer’s final decision on a given product or service. Google’s decision was also recently substantiated by a survey carried out by about.com on the way in which trust influences consumer-brand relationships, as well as the decision making process in purchases.

The survey, published in late July this year, was undertaken in collaboration with Latitude, on a sample of over 1,500 American citizens. It was carried out in three distinct stages, both according to quantitative and qualitative criteria. The “Trust Factor” study is about.com’s attempt to gauge best practice-perceptions within the consumer-brand relationship dynamic, and the second installment in a three-part collection of polls. Its results clearly speak about the importance of the trust factor in the consumer decision making process, as no fewer than 84 per cent of people polled said they would not even interact with a brand they don’t trust. When asked what trust was, the respondents and the subsequent team of demographic analysts that interpreted their results established that the ‘main ingredients’ of trust are expertise, fairness, relevance, choice, relatability, and awareness.

According to about.com’s research director, “with the high volume of information at consumers’ fingertips, not only is trust a valuable filter, it is a prerequisite for consumers to even enter the purchase funnel.” As such, it is pivotal for companies who view their online presence as a major component of their relationship with the consumer to invest in working with a respectable SEO marketing agency that can deliver tailored, informative and relevant content for their market niche. On the one hand, it looks like Google is promising to weed out spam-like websites over the coming years. On the other, consumers are also saying that if they don’t trust you, they’ll simply take their business elsewhere.

Other relevant findings of the study indicate that trust is built differently across platforms, web-based communities and in terms of type of content. 71 per cent of those polled said they will only access a trustworthy brand’s page when browsing off a mobile device. The most important factors for mobile web users are format, accuracy and expertise. What is more, consumers are starting to grow weary of ‘likes’ on social media platforms, and would much rather trust a review than an informational item with lots of likes. The best way to improve trust is to provide a wide range of content types, but video ranked highest, with 56% of people interviewed said video definitely helps illustrate positive, trust-inducing information about brands.

1. Pin an item of clothing from the online store

2. If your pin got the most repins in 48 hours, you would win that item

3. We asked everyone who entered to put in their pinterest username so we could track their links in analytics

Out of about 7k fans/subscribers, we got about 150 users on pinterest to enter. This generated about $2600 in online sales. The promo cost us nothing. I’d say that’s a pretty good ROI.

The creative assets we used:

1. A landing page on the site specific to the contest, with a nice big image explaining the contest and rules

2. An email creative (html and plaintext versions) that mimicked the landing page very heavily.

Total time invested: 10 man hours

Takeaways: We found that there were certain Pinners whose pins generated alot of traffic. On average, the ladies who gave us the most traction from a pin had about 165 followers on average. And they were ALL women. About 1/2 of them were photographers by profession/hobby.

Winston Churchill said, “We make a living by what we get. But we make a life by what we give.” Thanks for being the kind of person who already knows that.  May you have an extra measure of joy and confidence today as you use your expertise to help others!

While there’s a point of too much information, most website owners err in the other direction and don’t share enough about themselves as people.  Give people a sense of who you are, what you stand for and why, and throw in at least a few personal idiosyncrasies to add some flavor.

For examples of doing it right, check out these pages from bloggers Mark Sisson and David Frey.  Notice how they give you a sense of themselves as people.  Writing this tip reminds me we need to re-do our own “about us” page – look for it soon.

Here’s a quote from Goethe I’ve always liked: “Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”  Hope you like it too.