I raved about gorgeous infographics earlier this month, but today Column Five Media inspired me to revisit the subject. I was surfing around GOOD this afternoon, sifting through all kinds of intriguing articles (including this story about a pretty remarkable high school program in California that incorporates training in animation within the traditional mold of secondary education), when I stumbled upon a transparency about How Kids Are Having Sex. The facts illustrated within the infographic were pretty astounding (and of course, the design was pretty appealing) so when I noticed that GOOD collaborated with Column Five to produce this piece, I immediately clicked on over to the Column Five site to investigate further.
As it turns out, Column Five specializes in social media strategy and information design. While I love all of the funky infographics found on sites like GOOD, I love that Column Five incorporates a lot of graphics that visually communicate important knowledge about the marketing and advertising industries. I’ve provided descriptions of a few of my recent favorites below:
The Social Buying Universe, which illustrates the recent upsurge in social or group buying sites like Groupon, was designed for Flowtown. Comparing a multitude of companies in a fun visual format, the graphic shows the age and number of unique visitors of each site.
Created for Getsatisfaction.com, Fastest Ways to Lose Customers identifies six main methods by which companies lose business—and explains how much companies suffer when customers are lost. The infographic goes into considerable detail as it shows the root causes of lost customer relationships and identifiessome specific tactics that are detrimental to sustaining a successful business.
Column Five produced How Do Colors Affect Purchases? for KISSmetrics, a company and blog dedicated to online marketing. The infographic utilizes color theory to analyze how different colors affect consumers. Focused on online shopping, it also briefly delves into other means of visual persuasion, including the ways in which “power words” and time constraints drive purchases.
Also created for Flowtown, Who Are the Millenials? dissects Generation Y, exploring a variety of demographics including race, marital status, and educational attainment. It also considers more unusual characteristics including generational priorities, attitudes about technology, and the impacts of social networking. Overall, the diagram gives a comprehensive peek into the Net Generation, emphasizing the importance of technology and media consumption.
The Science of Word of Mouth was designed as an informative tool for the Smash Summit Series in May 2010. Through a series of simple charts and graphs, it describes what word of mouth marketing is, how it’s used, and when it’s effective.
Overall, I love how Column Five moves beyond simple analysis of current events to produce valuable tools for modern advertising and marketing. Peering into social progressions, consumer profiles, and industry trends, Column Five releases infographics that can undoubtedly be used as vital instruments for the branding and marketing of a wide variety of products and services.
