Leo Burnett and The North Face’s Controversial SEO Strategy

SEO case

by Darren Huang

In May 2019, the well-known advertiser Leo Burnett and the outdoor brand The North Face implemented a plan to use SEO to increase the brand’s exposure.

Background

They noticed that when searching for tourist attractions, regardless of the search results for web pages or images, Wikipedia pages were always ranked first because of the high authority of the website.

Strategy

So, they took advantage of this and took a series of photos of tourist attractions.

By editing Wikipedia, they replaced the pictures of tourist attractions with photos taken by themselves

"hacked" into Wikipedia

Just like this, as long as someone searches for attractions, on the Wikipedia page or in the image results, they will see the product image photos of The North Face

Top of Images 

This project is called "Top of Images", and Leo Burnett even shot a promotional video to show off his creativity

This project is called "Top of Images", and Leo Burnett even shot a promotional video to show off his creativity

This kind of "creativity" has attracted a lot of criticism on the Internet. Even Wikipedia publicly condemned Leo Burnett and The North Face on Twitter, believing that this behavior seriously violates Wikipedia's community standards.

Negative response

Finally, The North Face and Leo Burnett announced the immediate withdrawal of the project and issued an apology statement.

Ending

SEO summary

This case has sparked a lot of discussion in foreign SEO circles. Putting aside the part that violates the purpose of Wikipedia, it is worth learning from the creative aspect. Sharing this case hopes that everyone can realize that SEO is not limited to writing titles and content, and there are various possibilities for using creativity! Click the logo below to browse more SEO content!