Vox Twitter: Memorial Day Movies
Really feeling the love from the folks at CNN.com now… Today’s segment on what Twitter has to say about the current summer blockbusters…
Really feeling the love from the folks at CNN.com now… Today’s segment on what Twitter has to say about the current summer blockbusters…
Sometimes finding the answer means going beyond the question.
Yesterday marked our debut on CNN.com, and we were understandably jacked by the whole experience. The topic happened to be twitter reactions to the American Idol finale – a long way from our United Nations trouble-spot identification days – but an interesting topic nonetheless.
What emerged from the data was a slight edge for Adam Lambert over Kris Allen, meaning our “prediction” would have lined up with everyone else’s.
But something else emerged from the data… namely that 3% of the Twitter conversation was vehemently ANTI-Adam, while Kris had no such negatives. Adding Adam negatives to Kris’ positives put Kris over the top – something we saw given the nature of our technology, but no one else did.
The only way to understand what the online conversation really means is to move beyond first generation keyword analysis. That’s exactly what we do, and at the risk of boastfulness, our “big time” premiere proved to be a powerful demonstration of that fact.
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The Kindle series is among the first consumer uses of a revolutionary display technology called ‘E-ink’. E-ink displays are more akin to digital watch style LCDs than the TV variety, featuring low-powered, uncolored displays that are reputed to be easy to read for long stretches in contrast to computer monitors.
The Kindle 2 succeeded the late 2007 original and Amazon says they used the time to improve the layout, increase the responsiveness, and improve the resolution. Until recently, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. TechCrunch reported recently that the Amazon has sold their 300,000th unit of the Kindle 2 in only 50 days post-release, making the series by far the best-selling of its type. Until earlier this month, the public’s verdict on the Kindle’s no-frills display could be summed up with the phrase: “Easy on the eyes.”
Then Wired.com published an article on April 13 titled, “Kindle 2’s Fuzzy Fonts Have Users Seeing Red.” Quoting a “user from the Pennsylvania”, the article asserts that the text-display algorithms of the Kindle 2 “Do not take into account the human psychology of perception.” Although the article spares a paragraph to quote Amazon’s side of the story – users like the display – it continues on to offers home-remedies in advance of the “easy fixes that Amazon can make.”
The widely-linked article certainly had an impact on the online conversation. The proportion of online conversation on the display characterizing it as ‘hard to read’ more than doubled in the following days – from 13% on 4-12 to more than 30% at its peak.
Author Priya Ganapati’s insinuation that the font display is a widely-perceived problem is somewhat curious given that she herself described the Kindle 2 as “easy on the eyes” in an earlier Wired article. Whatever the reason, the post’s impact has waned two weeks on, appearing to spare Amazon’s product from any lasting damage to its reputation. Still, when you’re slinging 6,000 units a day at $360 each, the effects of even a temporary shift in online conversation can be expensive. The lost revenue from even a 1% drop in sales for a fortnight is enough justificatino for an active social media monitoring and engagement program. Amazon, while by no means the kind of PR horror story we’ve delighted in this year, would do well to remember the occasionally high cost of the digital word.
Online and offline, consumers are passionate about their brands. Tropicana recently swallowed a mouthful of pulp with their redesign of their flagship product Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice.
The redesign is drawing thoughtful critique and strong commentary online, but Tropicana insists that it’s not the volume of negative buzz that swayed them to revert to the old design. The online outcry is a “fraction of a percent of the people who buy the product,” according to Neil Campbell, president of Tropicana North America. Rather, Tropicana says it is rolling back the design because the negative reaction came in part from some of its “most loyal consumers.”
To me, this feels like an arbitrary and false distinction. Too many companies are still mentally dividing the universe into the angry hordes online who bring down brands and the loyal purchasers who exist primarily in an offline world.
Heads up to marketers: these worlds are officially colliding. As women 55+ make up the fast growing group on facebook, it’s time to re-think assumptions about how and where consumer opinions spread. It’s a new reality that every individual is armed with a printing press, and a new necessity to understand how online information sharing can ignite to influence a wide swath of consumers.
Photo credit: justinlai
100 Million viewers tuned in on Sunday evening to view a classic clash of the titans. They were treated to a record-setting interception by James Harrison, a heated 4th quarter rally by both teams, and a flood of new commercials with animals. Priced at $3M per 30-second spot, NBC sold a record $206M in advertising for the big game. In this economy that kind of spending reminds me of Doug Flutie’s Hail Mary pass – go for broke! Who says traditional channels are dead?
Some advertisers, such as Pedigree, have embraced the multi-channel experience of today’s consumers coordinating campaigns across traditional and digital domains. But even for those that haven’t explicitly gone digital yet, many consumers are taking them there anyway. Thousands of viewers were already blogging and tweeting about the new flock of commercials before the Steelers finished their Dom Perignon. At Crimson Hexagon, we wanted to know who successfully made the leap from mainstream to digital buzz. A look at both beverages and foods shows that results were mixed.
Running with the Clydesdales
Online Buzz for Beverage Brands
Anheuser-Busch once again led the pack in buying eight spots (four for Bud and four for BudLight). Given its long history of Super Bowl advertising, it’s no wonder that the buzz for Bud actually started ahead of the game, and has risen to nearly eight times the pre-game level.
In the standing battle between Coke and Pepsi (each invested in three spots), Pepsi appears to have made the bigger splash. Pepsi more than doubled online buzz, bringing it even (and heading higher) than Coke, which has seen minimal lift over its already strong buzz presence.
But the real winner within the drinks category so far has been Sobe Life Water. In the first two days, Sobe’s one commercial (featuring cameos by NFL players dancing with lizards in a 3D variant on Swan Lake) netted them buzz roughly five times their pre-game level. As if NFL players in tutus weren’t enough, Sobe’s choice to make this ad 3D generated extra anticipatory buzz the entire week leading into the Super Bowl.
Running for the Border
Online Buzz for Food & Snack Brands
Now perhaps it was because Taco Bell ignored the rule about including animals, but I find it pretty surprising that their Speed Date commercial hasn’t noticeably moved the needle. Maybe the offline buzz simply moved too fast to be caught online… Or maybe Draft FCB will be rethinking its approach to digital this week.
In other junk food news… chips appear to be highly bloggable. Cheetos has seen five times more buzz than before the Super Bowl. But Doritos’ two commercials led the pack with a 10 times jump in online chatter. How’d they do it? Well, they tapped into both the traditional Power of Creative Crunch and the wisdom of their chip-eating crowd. Who could have predicted such success would come from actively engaging your customers?
Booth Review
All this leads to some tough questions for agencies and brand managers who participated in this year’s Super Ad Bowl. Brows are furrowed as they digest the results of their commercials and turn their eyes towards managing the ongoing campaigns.
For the majority of brands that saw a big boost in buzz, kudos are warranted. But now that consumers are talking, the questions become:
For those left in the dust, the question is “Where’s the buzz”? Perhaps their target audience somehow hasn’t heard about this whole social media thing yet (I give Frosted Flakes a little more leeway on this than Taco Bell). Or perhaps there’s only so much buzz a brand can take – had Coke already reached an optimal amount of ongoing buzz?
For the few standing on the sidelines, the question is whether it was worth saving the $3M per spot. Did you miss a chance to Steel the show?
We’ve written before that summarizing opinion is complex, and that understanding the meaning behind product reviews can lend more insight than averaging the “star ratings.” I encountered a terrific example of needing this context tonight.
In a situation that any working parents reading may relate to, by mid-December each year I’ve abandoned the fantasy of gifts purchased months in advance and am racing to online shopping destinations with quick shipping. My first stop tonight was for a video game for my son, a game that I remembered was pretty popular and well received. When I checked out Spore on Amazon, I was surprised to see a 1.5 star rating with over 3,100 reviews. Did I have the wrong game? I IMed a friend for advice.
Turns out, the game itself is pretty cool. But the DRM (digital rights management) designed to prevent piracy is a ludicrous opt-in, leading gamers to review it negatively. Here’s a sample:
First of all, the game incorporates a draconian DRM system that requires you to activate over the internet, and limits you to a grand total of 3 activations. If you reach that limit, then you’ll have to call EA in order to add one extra activation. That’s not as simple as it sounds, since when you reach that point EA will assume that you, the paying customer, are a filthy pirating thief.
So, the bad reviews make sense: there’s a strong negative associated with the game but it’s not about the graphics or the gameplay, features that might matter to me (or the gamer). Getting to the why (without having to read an adequate sample of the thousands of reviews) was vital. Automating the process might have been even better,
Oh, and the punchline? Apparently EA managed to deter potential customers, annoy their existing base, and still end up with Spore as the most pirated game of 2008.
Companies are rapidly adopting web 2.0 technologies as they see consumer opinion affecting their brands and marketing campaigns. When 41% of bloggers post about brands they love or hate, companies sit up and take notice. Their efforts to engage in the dialogue—from J&J’s Motrin Mom babywearing campaign to Chris Brogan’s sponsored blog post for KMart—are heavily reported on as large brands and consumers struggle to define the appropriate terms of engagement.
Comparatively little attention is being paid to the government’s move to engage with citizens using similar technologies. The new administration is interacting with citizens online as a logical extension of the Obama campaign’s successes with new media outreach. Recent developments include Change.gov’s eliciting citizens’ stories of giving back to communitites, implementing Open ID for commenters, switching to a permissive Creative Commons license, and creating an iPhone app.
These activities are breaking new ground for the private and public sectors, and the drastically reduced cost of web 2.0 technologies has the effect of leveling the playing field. It will be interesting to see the successes and inevitable missteps as corporations and the government use new media to encourage and measure constituency engagement.
Joel Spolsky writes an excellent post on anecdote, pointing out how compelling vignettes are often strung together and used to support conclusions. As a marketer I’m a big believer in the power of the story, but the oft-quoted “the plural of anecdote is not data” (long, indeterminate attribution here) definitely applies to brand and opinion monitoring. The most obvious problem is that anecdotes are not systematically selected; they’re selected as supporting points while other, conflicting anecdotes are inadvertently or deliberately ignored.
For those selling opinion monitoring into the large organizations, it’s a balancing act between providing the core, statistically valid analysis of the data, while “storytelling” with enough of the vivid anecdote for the client to hear the customer’s voice and engage. While opinion percentages are revelatory, an incident like Motrin Moms (summary from AdAge) tends to speed the adoption cycle dramatically.
My colleague Melyssa and I are listening and learning at the Forrester Consumer Forum down in Dallas. So far we’ve checked out a Tweetup (photos available courtesy of Jeremiah Owyang) and caught up with many former colleagues in marketing on both the client and vendor sides.
The theme is “Keeping Ahead of Tomorrow’s Customer” and I’d argue that there’s an air of: how the heck do we even keep up. While tried and true marketing tactics remain important, understanding how to reach today’s consumer is a developing digital competency. Cameron Death of NBC Universal was compelling on this point — realize the value of branded communities, but be aware and partner to understand all the places consumers are gathering and influencing.
To follow this conference, you can view the keynotes streamed by Forrester. If you’re interested in a Twitterstream of all the <140 character updates from attendees (aka, the firehose), you can follow the #FCF08 hashtag on Twitter search.
Words come in and out of fashion — and election year headlines provide exceptionally rich fodder. Some words and phrases will work their way into everyday speech while others are slated for the dustbin of history.
When new words emerge suddenly to express an opinion we’re tracking with our technology, we’re able to keep up. How?
Our technology “reads” language with an approach based on how humans are likely to express themselves. For example, if you say that a politician is a jerk, stupid, an idiot, etc. and then come up with a new word to describe him (say, fluborizer) that means the same thing , you’ll surely use that word as well as lots of other words already known to the algorithm. Human expression of opinion is often inefficient and repetitive — that’s what makes it recognizable and authentic. Humans’ predictable language patterns enable our technology to keep up with language shifts as they occur.
Our technology — which amplifies human intelligence and can understand new words — can be contrasted to tools which merely count words chosen ex ante. If you set a fixed lexicon and choose the wrong words, you can end up missing the opinion you’re targeting.
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