CONTENT WATCH: Hand Your Brand Over to Cirque du Soleil, and more

The Strategist picks the day’s most interesting stories for the content aficionado who loves the backstory and reading between the lines. Here are a handful of headlines to kickstart your Monday:

Flickr/Derek Key

Brands Are Eager to Partner With Cirque du Soleil (AdWeek)
Could on-stage performances be the next generation of native advertising? Cirque du Soleil is partnering with a range of brands to create custom performances, promising artistic, emotional experiences that will inspire and engage consumers.

When Digital Marketing Gets Too Creepy  (HBR)
The problem with the use of personal data in marketing isn’t the data itself — it’s what happens when marketers put personalized details into contexts that are awkward, forced, or out-of-touch. Instead of making customers feel special, brands are simply creeping them out. When well-executed, personalized targeting can work as a marketing strategy, but few brands are hitting the mark.

Unpaid Internships and a Culture of Privilege Are Ruining Journalism (The Guardian)
The practice of asking recent grads to take on unpaid internships is a high barrier to entry for smart young adults who want to enter the media field — and according to this editorial, it likely means that journalists are coming from an increasingly narrow set of privileged backgrounds. With no end in sight to unpaid labor, this could have serious consequences for the industry. 

10 Stunning Facts about What People Are Really Doing on the Internet (Business Insider)
Thanks to user-generated content and social media, there’s 9 times more content available online than there was 5 years ago. As of two years ago, the sheer mass of that content totaled 2 zettabytes. Which begs the question — just how ginormous is a zettabyte?