The opening of the new Museum of Failure in Los Angeles got us thinking about why marketing and public relations are so important– at first we were going to write an analytical piece pulling from scholarly sources about why startups need to retain a marketing and PR firm.

However, that seemed a little dry for the week after New Year’s Eve. Therefore, as a gift to our readers, we’ve created a piece over the greatest marketing disasters of all time, because everybody loves a good trainwreck – (and that’s not just a metaphor).

Snapchat recently unleashed a new feature (creatively named Snap Map), that allow users to track their friend’s location in real-time. However, the real MVP in this release is actually the heat map that’s integrated into the map.

What’s a heat map? A tool that has long existed for UX designers for website optimization purposes, is now available for brands to take advantage of. In the world of user experience, a heat map is used to evaluate what your website visitors is clicking on the most, where, when, why, which essentially can help convert your visitor into a paying customer.

Similarly, Snapchat’s

Small sized and mid-sized businesses today must leverage branding as a process of building a corporate identity. Having an identity is only the beginning when it comes to brand development. You must also create a narrative for your brand, thereby having clear messages and delivering experiences which are aligned and consistent with your organizational goals.