How Spotify's new logo became the most divisive thing on the internet?
đ° NoGood News Vol. 119 | More on "discomorphism," Redditâs 9:1 rule, and social as the new landing page
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Welcome to NoGood News, your bi-weekly pulse on all things growth. We break down successful brand campaigns, provide the best guides on all things growth marketing, and share emerging trends and insights to keep you ahead of the curve. Plus, exclusive interviews with some of the best in the game.
Hereâs a quick TL;DR of whatâs below:
Spotifyâs new logo sparks controversy
How to approach Reddit for AEO
Social is the new landing page
Ready? Letâs get into it.
đȘ© Spotifyâs New Logo Sparks Controversy
Breaking down Spotifyâs disco ball fiasco
How did Spotifyâs new disco ball logo become the most divisive thing on the internet this month?
For its 20th anniversary, Spotify swapped its iconic green circle for a green disco ball.
You might be thinking that an app icon change isnât a big deal, but the redesign has proved surprisingly controversial.
This apparently unforgivable change sparked backlash so loud that Spotify responded, saying, âWe know glitter isnât for everyone. Our temp glow up ends soon.â
But the criticism reveals something more interesting.
App icons have become deeply personal â and when a familiar symbol shifts even slightly, people notice in a way that feels almost territorial.
What started as backlash snowballed into a full cultural moment, with other brands like Notion dropping disco versions of their own logos, spurring what the internet is now calling âdiscomorphism.â
Thatâs weeks of earned attention from a single temporary icon change.
So was this a win despite the backlash?
đ How to Approach Reddit for AEO
A complete guide for adding Reddit to your AEO stack
Reddit is one of the most-cited sources across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode, with formal data licensing deals signed by Google and OpenAI and a pending lawsuit against Perplexity over unauthorized scraping.
For marketers, that means Reddit threads are shaping what AI answer engines say about your brand right now, whether you participate or not. The framework we like to use for Reddit AEO comes in three stages: crawl, walk, run.
Crawl: Spend weeks or months observing before posting anything. Learn your target subredditsâ rules, tone, and inside jokes (these are often critical). Notice how users describe their problems, their workarounds, and their competitors and yours. Upvote threads (hell, maybe even downvote a couple if youâre a hater). Follow active discussions. Pay attention to which posts get removed and why. This stage feels actionless, which is why most brands skip it⊠Itâs also why so many brands fail at Reddit.
Walk: Start commenting, but only when you can add genuinely useful information. No sales language. No forced product mentions. If you work for the company being discussed, say so (*person's name* at *company name* here, happy to answer your question about growth marketing). A disclosed identity earns way more goodwill than a burner account ever will, because Redditors respect transparency more than almost anything else.
Run: Once you have some credibility, you can participate more actively. Answer category questions. Jump into brand-relevant conversations. Support discussions that feel native to the community. Youâre not pitching; youâre contributing. Post your own threads, consider starting your own brandâs subreddit. The timeline on this is slower than marketers usually want. Expect 3 to 6 months before you see meaningful citation movement or AEO impact.
đ± Social is the New Landing Page
How to turn your socials into conversions
In the past, people have dismissed social media as an afterthought, but itâs often the first entry point for consumers to your brand. Data from We Are Social show that 44% of online adults use social media to research brands before a potential purchase. Your social media is one of the first entry points consumers have with your brand, and theyâre often making purchase decisions on the spot as a result.
Depending on your brand, here are some things that users might want to find out about you by snooping on your socials:
What do they actually offer? Can I trust this brand? Whatâs their vibe like? Do their values match mine? Can I see myself purchasing from or supporting this brand? Do I belong within this community?
When existing followers or first-time visitors to your brand are on your social media, they are running countless queries and making a series of snap judgments because engaging with a new brand often comes with risks: quality control, long-term investment, or the fear of external judgment. On the fundamental level, their brain tries to reduce uncertainty as fast as possible, and social media is often the best place to do so (not only on your brandâs profile but through UGC as well).
The reality is that all of this happens fast, so your socials have to showcase your brandâs strengths right off the bat: reducing uncertainty, building trust, and creating enough emotional pull to turn a quick glance into intrigue.
đ We Have Some Exciting NewsâŠ
We just won the first-ever Shorty Award for GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)!
GEO is a brand new category at this yearâs Shorty Awards, and it means so much that weâre the first team ever to take it home!
To the SteelSeries team, thank you for trusting us and for being bold enough to invest in a new channel while everyone else was still asking questions about it. Thank you to the NoGood team that built the playbook from the ground up, and to the Goodie AI team for building the tool that made this all possible.
AI search is becoming one of the biggest channels in marketing, and weâve been ahead of it from day one. Congrats to everyone involved â this oneâs for you!
If you want the blueprint behind wins like this, our CEO is running a live 2-day AEO masterclass on Maven June 10â11.
đïž Q&A with an expert
A bi-weekly interview series with the best in the game
Q: What is the 9:1 rule on Reddit and what does the â9â actually look like in practice for a brand account?
A: The Reddit 9:1 rule is an anti-spam guideline stating that for every 1 piece of self-promotional content you share, you should contribute 9 genuine, non-promotional interactions (comments, posts, or upvotes) to the community. For a brand account, the 9 looks like answering questions in your niche without linking back to your product, weighing in on industry debates with actual expertise, sharing useful outside resources, asking thoughtful questions, and upvoting content you find valuable. The goal is building a posting history that signals to both moderators and Redditors that youâre a participant in the community before youâre a brand.
Q: Do you have a hot take on using Reddit to grow brand visibility?
A: Ignore the upvotes. Our research at Goodie has found that AI models often source threads with relatively low upvote counts, meaning a post with modest community engagement can end up cited in ChatGPT or Perplexity answers while a thread with thousands of votes on the same subject gets passed over. Focus on whether your content fits the community and whether youâre being helpful, interesting, or funny. If the upvotes come in, thatâs a good signal youâre posting strong content. For AI visibility, the signals are more obscure.
âïž We wish we wrote this
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đ Keeping up on the socials
Because IYKYK is better than FOMO:
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