Who read the article about Beginning of Geomarketing Do you know that the first maps came from stories, even before the rise of written language.

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Maps have always been excellent resources for transmitting a strong message.

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Many ways to send a message

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When we look back and see the enormous impact that the pandemic cost on lives and hospitalizations, we remember that in its beginning, in the midst of so much information and disinformation, various approaches were tried to inform the general public of the danger that lay before us.

On the one hand, we saw a more classic approach, with graphics and counters.

This Johns Hopkins University Dashboard was highly cited. They even placed a map at its center, but overall it was impersonal.

On the other hand, we saw journalists and presenters making great efforts to make the population aware that lives were at risk and it was necessary to warn and demonstrate what was happening.

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But all the effort and dedication seemed insufficient, and doubts continued to expose the population to risky behavior. The graphics were impersonal, after all, they could represent anything else.

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People would have to be represented as people

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Well, that's why the images of graves being opened in advance had more impact than all the graphics combined, but they were just evidence.

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They lacked the ability to represent the macro event that was unfolding.

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Even more appealing attempts were made, with videos showing the situation in hospitals.

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Finally, even bodies being burned in the open air in India.

In fact, the numbers were unable to translate what was happening.

A prize-winning map

Aware that the appeal of the message would be greater, as far as it was possible to put the immediate reality into perspective, a map began to be designed starting from the person's address and adding up neighbors to reach the total number of deaths at that time.

“By making users feel personally affected, we could break with the sense of distance between the lives of those who have not yet been directly affected by the disease and the reality of the increasing number of deaths,” he says Alberto Cairo, one of the authors.

Whoever used the map would have a clear idea that what distance they would travel from their house without finding anyone, grouping the volume of deaths in a radius.

Its immense informational power earned the team the bronze medal in the Society for News Design's (SND) Best of Digital News Design, the Oscar for Information Design.

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The main prize went to That map from the New York Times, which brings back a reminder of episode involving Miss Martha Rocha. The Lupa Agency map is not only informative, it's brilliant and functional.

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Watch this sample video from Av. Paulista in São Paulo-SP.

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Create your own map with Epicentro

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Credits to the others involved: Natália Leal, Gilberto Scofield Jr, Rodrigo Menegat Schuinski, Tiago Maranhão Barreto Pereira and Marco Túlio Pires.

Stories about places are stories about people

At Mapfry, we strongly believe in this statement, to the point of building a platform that integrates narrative with the market analysis process.

When you present a study with a story it is understood by more people, because that's how we learn and transmit knowledge, telling stories.

Do you want to be successful?

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Put people at the center of your stories.

With that in mind, Mapfry created Vista®, an innovative feature that allows you to conduct your analysis of the space with a story.

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A familiar way of thinking, common to all of us.