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USAFacts, the nonprofit that aims to make government data more available, and understandable, to everyday Americans, is looking for a new leader who can help usher it into the AI age. Poppy MacDonald, who has been the nonprofits president since 2018, will be stepping down on June 27. Steve Ballmer, the founder of USAFacts and former Microsoft CEO, will be stepping in in the interim, and hopes to fill role by the end of the year (or sooner). In her seven year tenure, MacDonald oversaw the growth of the nonprofits reach, including to 640,000 newsletter subscribers, 65-plus million view on its “Just the Facts” video serieswhich explained things like how the government categorizes immigrants to how taxes fund the governmentand more than 16 million monthly website visitors. The nonprofit also released a massive report and data skills course for lawmakers; published more than 900 nonpartisan articles with data insights on topics like immigration, crime, and the economy; and, yes, began integrating AI analysis to respond to hyper-specific reader questions. But going forward, USAFacts needs to focus on both speed and user experience, Ballmer says, in order to pull information from more than 90,000 government sources and help people apply all that data to their lives. How do you build AI style bot interactivity with our content? Ballmer says. There’s a ton of government data. We don’t have it all up there, if you will, in an accessible form. Can we use modern technology to move data into an accessible form at a faster rate? How will we work with the general purpose chatbotschat GPT, Microsoft, CoPilot, et cetera?” What USA Facts is looking for in a leader That means the next USAFacts president will have to have some technical skillsbut they also need to understand marketing and media in order to create new types of content and reach a bigger audience. (MacDonald herself came from a media background; she was previously the president of Politico). Do we have our content in enough forms, and the right forms, so that we can go from 16 million to 100 million visitors a year? Ballmer says. That may sound lofty, but there are more than 250 million Americans of voting ageand Ballmer says a broad swath of Americans are interested in the topics USAFacts provides data for. The USAFacts president should be able to empower them to apply federal data to their everyday questions. How might I use the information if, you know, I’m shopping for a house. Let me understand my neighborhood. Or, on the flip side, this is the state of affairs, how do I want to express myself to my elected representatives? he says. Thats a challenge at a time when many Americans lack a basic understanding of civics. A 2023 study found that one in six Americans couldnt name any of the three branches of government (two-thirds of Americans could name all three). Pew research from that same year found that fewer than half of Americans knew the length of a full term of office for a senator, or who chooses the president if theres an Electoral College tie. The rampage waged on federal offices by Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency has also highlighted how little Americans know about what federal workers actually do. All that focuses on the role of the federal government, but local governments actually play an even bigger role in most Americans’ everyday lives, Ballmer notesand thats where those 90,000 sources of data come into play. So the [next] leader then has to be able to be smart about being open about working with engineers and envisioning where AI takes us, Ballmer says. But they also have to have enough of that media flavor to understand how people want to consume information, along with an incredible marketing gene. USAFacts and the role of AI USAFacts has already experimented with AI. Ahead of the 2024 election, it unveiled a general AI-powered analysis engine that helped it take information from government sources like the Census Bureau or the Labor Department and use it to respond to ultra-niche reader questions. If someone Googled, How many immigrants are in [my state]? or What is the unemployment rate in [my county]?, they would have found a direct answer from USAFacts (which was often featured in Googles AI overview and as the first search result). But looking ahead, USAFacts wants to make this sort of AI response into more of a back and forth, allowing users to ask follow-up questions and have more of a back-and-forth conversation. Theres a few challenges there: current generative AI chatbots continue to hallucinate information, generating answers that just arent based in fact. Thats an issue for a company focused on disseminating facts. USAFacts also touts itself as a nonpartisan organization; it has worked with politicians across the aisle and has emphasized its objectivity. We have to present real government data as it is. We can’t be interpreting it. We can’t be showing the wrong data, Ballmer says. So how do we take the core [LLM] technology, derive the benefit, without taking some of those risks? For USAFacts, that may look like a custom built chatbot; they wouldnt, for example, use a service that searches the open internet for government data; it would need to search only a specific database. The nonprofits use of AI so far, by creating structured answer pages, has allowed for a human to be in the loop to ensure that trusted data is delivered to answer a user question, MacDonald notes. But what [Ballmer] really envisions for the future is that an American can come on to our site and search anything they want in an unstructured way, ask a question in natural human language, the question that is on their mind, and start interacting and getting that trusted data back, she says. You can’t really have a human in the loop in that process, right? And so it really relies on the technology. A Changing landscape The decision to bring in a new leader to guide USAFacts into this AI future was a mutual one, the nonprofit says. MacDonald and Ballmer have been discussing the leadership change for about six monthsand as Ballmer knows from his time running Microsoft, there are better and worse times for organizations to make a leadership transition. Were at a juncture point, he says. USAFacts is in a really strong position coming out of the election, MacDonald adds. There’s momentum in terms of our AI efforts and how we can use that to scale the data that we can collect and clean and contextualize, but also the content that we can produce out of it and how personal and relevant it can be. And it just felt like a great new time to bring in a new leader with new experiences and new knowledge to bear. MacDonald has helmed the nonprofit for seven years, the longest shes ever been at an organization. With er youngest child heading to college in the fall, MacDonald is going to take the summer to spend time with her family before thinking about whats next for her career. Ballmer says MacDonald has left big shoes to fill for the next USAFacts president. The changing American landscape adds to that challenge. The Trump Administration has decimated government data collection. Trump ordered the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association to stop tracking the cost of extreme weather and climate disasters, and has also hampered the ability of the National Weather Service to even collect climate and weather data, which undergird forecasts. He has also purged federal data sets and webpages on everything from crime to education to health, and even taken steps to dismantle entire agencies, like the Department of Education. These situations have gotten Americans a bit more engaged with the facts, and provide an opportunity for what the nonprofit can do going forward. As people are hearing, hey, the Department of Education might close, I think they took it for granted that theres just always going to be a Department of Education, MacDonald says. And now they’re curiouswhat does the Department of Education do? What does it fund? How would that impact my local school? And so we’re seeing an appetite from consumers who want this information, and that is a really exciting opportunity for how USAFacts can provide value, but also for our future growth trajectory. USAFacts does not collect data itself; it simply publishes it from government sources. That means it needs government sources to keep existing. And though its nonpartisan, it will fight for those facts: If we think that there’s some important set of data that’s going away, we’ll make the case for it, Ballmer says. He actually tweeted at current Education Secretary Linda McMahon back in April, urging for the continuation of the National Center for Education Statistics.The future of U.S. education is on the line he said, and without solid data, we cant measure whats working. But the nonprofits main purpose, he saysand a big challenge for its next leaderis keeping Americans interested in data at all. Unless we get more Americans to look at data, he says, it won’t matter how much we have.
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E-Commerce
Last year, when Ram Trucks parent company Stellantis announced it would discontinue the automakers popular Hemi V-8 engine for its Ram 1500 full-size pickup truck beginning this summer, its fans were upsetto say the least. When Ram made the decision to discontinue production of the iconic Hemi V-8, the internet erupted, and lifelong loyalists voiced their outrage across social media, says Lindsay Fifelski, head of Ram brand advertising. We knew we couldnt market our way around this moment; we had to meet it head-on. In the interim 12 months since the announcement, then-CEO Carlos Tavares stepped down from Stellantis. Then last week, the company announced the corporate version of Never mind!and the Hemi was back before it even left. [Photo: Stellantis] To double down on their message, Ram Trucks created a new commercial starring its CEO Tim Kuniskisand in it he admits the company made a mistake. Sales were down by more than 18% year over year in 2024, but Kuniskis told CNBC that he expects Hemi to represent 25% to 40% of the Ram 1500 pickup trucks sales this year. Created with the ad agency Argonaut, the new spot was shot entirely with practical effects. It features Kuniskis himself behind the wheel of the truck, doing doughnuts, drifting, and taking a few hot laps on a NASCAR track. One of Kuniskiss first lines in the ad is: We own it. We got it wrong. And were fixing it. Its a simple, textbook brand apology, creatively combined with the kind of pep talk aimed to get brand fans hyped for whats next. The Ram apology ad is part of a growingand refreshingtrend of brands increasingly having the cajones to own their mistakes and be upfront about it. Last year, I outlined the five types of brand apologies. Both Bumble and Apple were examples of what I categorized as “The Genuine Apology.” This week, Ram Trucks joined the club. [Photo: Stellantis] Make it right While a clear, unequivocal apology often feels like the most logical response to a mistake or to genuine brand fan anger, its not what brands are intuitively built to do. Deflect, distract, and avoid are too often on the menu. Argonaut founder and chief creative officer Hunter Hindman knew the right answer here; he just had to convince his client. We all knew the best solution would be to put Tim in the hot seat, front and center, Hindman says. No corporate gloss. No hiding behind brand spin. Just a man, a machine, and a promise to make it right. And to Tims credit, he didnt blink. Kuniskis says it wasnt a tough decision to admit the mistake. The brand knew almost instantly after last years announcement that it had a problem. A 2022 study from Forrester found that 41% of consumers would return to a brand that concedes to making a mistake and apologizes for it. Our customers told us loud and clear howand I’ll say this lightly ‘displeased’ they were with our decision to get rid of the Hemi V-8, he says. You only had to go on to social media to see how they were feeling. Betrayed. We know that truck buyers are very loyal to their brand, and once you lose them, you have to fight tooth and nail to get them back. It was almost immediately clear that we had to right the wrong.”
Category:
E-Commerce
How do you take a mall food court brand and future-proof it for a world with fewer malls? For Auntie Anne’s, the answer is modernizing the stores they already have with a new concept designed for the way people snack now. Auntie Anne’s said Monday it would remodel 150 stores this year with a new store concept and a modernized visual identity designed to sell more of its pretzels, drinks, and snacks to millennial and Gen Z consumers at a time of changing habits. With consumers interested in mobile ordering, grab-and-go food, and novel experiences, the updated Auntie Anne’s store concept has a dedicated mobile order pickup area and an open view into the kitchen with a “Now Rolling” sign to draw attention to employees rolling pretzels by hand. [Photo: Auntie Anne’s] “Consumer expectations have shifted, especially around digital convenience, off-premise access, and visual appeal,” Mike Freeman, president of brands at Auntie Anne’s holding company GoTo Foods, tells Fast Company in an email. The redesigned stores were made to meet those expectations. “It reflects how guests want to engage today with speed, transparency, and a space that feels fresh and energetic,” Freeman says. A new blue and yellow “twist” mural pattern gives the store a more modern and colorful look, and an updated Auntie Anne’s logo is simpler and does without the old halo element of the outgoing logo. [Photo: Auntie Anne’s] Founded in the height of the shopping mall era in 1988, today Auntie Anne’s has more than 2,000 locations in shopping malls, outlets, airports, universities, Walmarts, travel plazas, military bases, and food trucks. Its owner, GoTo Foods, operates or franchises more than 6,900 restaurants and cafés for brands including Cinnabon, Jamba, and Schlotzsky’s. Malls and airports are “core to Auntie Anne’s heritage and continue to play a key role in the brand’s footprint,” Freeman says, but expansion is also key. The brand plans for growth that includes street side and co-branded locations, and it’s open to partnerships and cross-branded collabs with Oreo and Hidden Valley Ranch. The rebrand is about selling a nostalgic snack in a more contemporary way. Revitalizing a food court favorite that’s outlived many of the shopping malls it once occupied is no small feat, and updating the store’s look and feel could go a long way in keeping it relevant.
Category:
E-Commerce
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