Among the many uses of Crimson Hexagon’s technology, analyzing how consumers feel about a particular brand is one of the most interesting to us. Part of the appeal is how hard such sentiment is to measure through conventional means; part of it is how social media provides a window on what consumers really think in their day-to-day conversations.  It’s also that this application makes particular use of one feature of our technology – the ability to quantify abstract concepts instead of just keywords – that is entirely unique to our underlying science.

To spotlight this we’re starting an occasional blog series called “The Battle of the Brands”.  We’ll choose two (and sometimes maybe three) competing brands and analyze how they’re discussed in the online conversation, quantifying the range of opinions and perceptions that shape the online brand identity.

Our first head-to-head will be none other than Walmart versus Target.   With the recent news of Target’s planned increase in marketing spend , we started thinking: are the online perceptions of each brand consistent with the concerns expressed by Target?  And how will this increase in marketing spending impact those opinions?

We analyzed online opinions about Walmart and Target from July 15^th to September 3rd. Using our technology, we focused on customers’ opinion about the shopping experience, drawing from blogs, forums, Tweets, and public Facebook and MySpace content.  Here’s what we found:

Target (all opinions)

Walmart (all opinions)

• Overall, the online conversation about Walmart was chiefly critical, breaking down into 61% negative and 39% positive.  Target enjoyed 75% positive reactions with only 25% negative opinions.

• People talk about the social implications of shopping at Walmart (Bad for Local Business, Treats Employees Poorly categories), but when talking about Target focus on their actual shopping experience.

Walmart (shopping conversation only)

• The motivations for shopping at each retailer are vastly different:   People shop at Walmart because they’re looking for cheap staples.   At Target they feel that can get great stuff (Love this Product, Awesome Clothes categories) for a low price.  Customers get more excited about shopping at Target, but, a larger percentage finds Walmart to be a better bet for low prices.

Walmart is currently seen as the brand delivering the basics at low prices, but price comes at a cost in quality of products and services. Fortunately for Walmart, being seen as the low cost provider buoys the brand during tough economic times.  Target, on the other hand, is the brand that delivers a more enjoyable shopping experience, with more excitement expressed for products and deals.  However, this may not be the best attribute to reinforce when consumers are “tightening their belts” and “getting back to basics”.  The interesting aspect of this battle will come when the economy and consumer confidence starts to pick up.  Will the tables turn for Target and Walmart?  How can these two brand giants balance their core brand attributes to win over consumers in the good times and bad?  And as Target executes expensive marketing campaigns, how will they measure whether their investment is having the intended impact?

Tags: brand, brand monitoring, product by Megan Costello
Comments

Today, brands have unprecedented access to their audiences. No longer reliant solely on research intermediaries conducting periodic focus groups and surveys, marketers now hear directly from their brand’s consumers. Via social media amplification, brands can quickly see how consumers are reacting to a social network redesign, or to an abrupt termination of a spokesman.

Many organizations are using this access to reach out and connect with constituencies—sometimes with surprising results. Back in 2007, Greenpeace asked its fans to help name (and save) a humpback whale. Internet users rejected mellifluous names like Libertad and Mira in favor of the less dignified (and arguably hilarious) Mr. Splashypants.

Similarly, this week, NASA’s poll for the new wing of a national space station allowed a write-in option. Comedian Stephen Colbert urged his viewers to submit his name, and Colbert was the winner in a landslide.

All this raises an interesting question: how much should your brand assets become a democracy? Indisputably, brands can be shaped by their consumers and audiences as never before. But when core assets are handed over, does the community risk becoming a mob? Or does an engaged community trump all? Henry Ford was famously at the other end of the spectrum with this attributed remark on user input: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Photo credit: Richard.Fisher

Tags: brand, social web, uh oh by admin
Comments

A nation seeking an escape from bad economic news, a massively popular Olympian, and drug use were an obvious recipe for a tabloid sensation.  So when the photo of Michael Phelps hunched over a bong hit the news, the social media reaction was predictably huge.

YouTube mined the funnier side of the episode while a number of blogger tackled the allegations a bit more seriously.

At the start of the month, the incident threatened to cast a pall the greatest story in sports since Lance Armstrong’s 7th Tour de France win. Kellogg’s pulled Phelps’s endorsement deal, removing the Corn Flakes box from his overburdened trophy case. Kellogg’s may have damaged their brand with the move, and one social media indicator we measured reveals that damage to Phelps’s reputation may have been fleeting.

Using Twitter to gauge the digerati’s reaction to the affair, it appears the verdict on Phelps’ behavior is a collective shrug.  Supportive Tweets for Phelps outnumbered criticism 2:1 consistently since the news broke at the start of the month.  That figure rises to 4:1 if one includes criticism of marijuana laws and their enforcement by the Richland County sheriff spurred by the incident.  In particular, the contrasting treatment of A-Rod’s steroid allegations anchored  assertions that drug enforcement is inconsistent or illogical.

In recent days, volume has slowed to a trickle as the story has come to a conclusion  with no charges being filed against Phelps.  The swimmer remains suspended from competition and has withdrawn temporarily from the public eye. However, based on Twitter I’d say the swimmer will be able to easily forget this one, even without lighting up.

Tags: brand, social web, uh oh by edward
Comments

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

Tags: brand, customer voice, marketing, uh oh by admin
Comments

As part of Social Media Week, Crimson Hexagon sponsored a Social Media Breakfast on online branding. Here’s a quick recap:

• Brad McCormick talked about different ways Porter Novelli delivers brand and business insights from social media to B2C behemoths
• Shiv Singh of Razorfish gave us some meaningful ways to think about successful online branding (think: authenticity, transformation, freshness—for a better summary, check out Daniel Tunkelang’s post)
• Melanie Notkin wowed the crowd with the passion and energy she uses to build her one-aunt brand, Savvy Auntie

No social media event is complete without the attendees having the last word, so here’s this morning’s wordle of the Tweets with the hashtag #smbnyc4:

Tags: brand, events by admin
Comments

In the age of user generated content, design-on-line computers and customized tennis shoes it was a bit odd to hear the joint announcement from the Gap and Pantone earlier this week that 2009 was, in fact, the year of Mimosa – not the drink, but the color.

At first (champagne-induced) blush it seems so 1993, in a preppy kids growing out their hair and getting on the grunge bandwagon kind of way. Are retailers actually so out of touch that they would dare to impose such a style mandate on their customers? Will people really wear Mimosa (without spilling it on themselves) just because the Gap has said that it is the color of 2009? Where is the groundswell effect in all  this, or is fashion inherently top-down and curated?

We have less than four weeks to find out, as Mimosa tees will be available for purchase through the middle of February only at Gap’s rotating concept store on Fifth Avenue.

And for those who are curious, Pantone claims that Mimosa is  “optimistic, hopeful, reassuring, warm, cheerful, radiant [and] versatile.” Maybe everyone needs a little more Mimosa in 2009 after all.

Photo credit:  pasotraspaso

Tags: brand, marketing by Megan Costello
Comments

Hyundai’s been making a big splash recently.  This summer it become the world’s 5th largest automaker. Early this month, the company announced the innovative sales promotion of allowing buyers to return their cars if they lose their jobs. And this week, Consumer reports crowned Hyundai’s new entrant into the upscale sedan segment, the Genesis,  as their top rated luxury car.

The engineering achievement alone, taking out Toyota’s Lexus as CR’s choice for a lux-ride,  is worthy of some major bragging by Hyundai. Somehow, the company’s neglected to mention it on either their blog or Twitter feed.

The reason? They have neither.

Hyundai’s brand could certainly use the help from social media.  The Korean manufacturer, previously known for its low-cost sedans, is trying to break into the crowded upscale market at a difficult time.   Its competitors have established separate high-end marks with differentiated brands;  Toyota has Lexus, Honda/Acura,  VW/Audi,  Ford/Lincoln (sort of), etc.  Shunning convention, and the associated costs of establishing a new brand, Hyundai has launched the acclaimed Genesis under its own name. However, Hyundai’s core brand attribute of value for money may put it at disadvantage against BMW’s performance image or Audi’s aura of refinement.

To convince potential customers that the $36k Genesis is every bit as good as its $45K+ rivals, the company will need more than great reviews and an upcoming Superbowl commercial.  Hyundai needs to persuade the public to think of the brand in an entirely new light and manage complex messaging of its luxury vs lower-end products.

Rivals have already established themselves in the social media space.  GM has managed its FastLane blog since 2005, with peeks at product development and features from executives.  Toyota has been using its Twitter feed to direct users to its blog and combat rumors that it failed to donate to post-9/11 charities.  Ford was recently dubbed the ‘Anti-Motrin’ for its effectiveness in utilizing social media to diffuse backlash from legal action against a fan site.

To be sure, Hyundai’s not the last one in the pool.  Notably, Honda and Mercedes don’t maintain an official (English-language) social media presence.  Eventually they’ll get there, but in the meantime they have an established upmarket brand that Hyundai lacks or, in Honda’s case, a rabid community of enthusiasts.  Hyundai will need to build and maintain its grassroots network of  evangelists if its going to reap the full benefits of its new ‘halo car.’  A Genesis widget, published back in October, is a positive first step but only underscores the long road to real commitment to the medium.

Hyundai’s newest car has shown it now has the engineering skills and marketing muscle to rattle the established players; it’s time for it to develop the social-media savvy needed to supercharge its brand.

Photo credit: jiazi

Tags: brand, social web, uncategorized by edward
Comments

The two weeks since the election have been filled with theories about what, precisely, fueled the Obama victory. Technophiles and social media gurus have been quick to connect the dots between the huge gap in the youth vote (Obama led McCain among the under thirty crowd by a 2-to-1 margin) and the Obama campaign’s extensive use of “hip” technologies to announce his running mate, raise money, and defend himself.

It is a joke to assume that every one of Barack Obama’s 3,164,379 Facebook friends voted for him. The lesson behind the punchline is that “friending” is a lesser commitment than voting―but the latter is fostered by the former. The real takeaway for brand managers is not the Obama campaign’s use of the internet to make news or to raise money; it is its use of the internet as a way to turn semi-interested supporters into devoted, uber-committed brand evangelists―especially via fightthesmears.com―that we find most exciting.

To paraphrase Mack Collier, brand evangelists are committed to your brand to the extent that they are willing to go the extra mile in order to see the brand succeed. The Obama campaign recognized that whether the “extra mile” is spent driving a bit further to a beloved local book store or walking down a stretch of sidewalk knocking on doors for your candidate, the principle is the same.

What’s the next “brand” challenge for Obama? Obama has set the bar high by connecting directly with voters to drive evangelism/engagement. It’s an entirely new order of magnitude―and perhaps an important measure of success―to maintain this connection as he transitions from campaigning to governing.

Tags: brand, marketing, politics by Megan Costello
Comments

The estate of Martin Luther King, Jr. is pondering legal action regarding the sale of unlicensed King imagery in the commemorative items cropping up all over in the wake of Barack Obama’s victory. Whether this legal action strikes you as sensible image protection or overzealous profit-seeking, the real takeaway for me is the power of consumers to remix and, to a lesser extent, remake your brand.

Long gone are the days when companies could effectively police brand style guides with their logo non-interference zones, and showcase “walls of shame” depicting egregious logo misuse. Consumers have the power to reproduce and manipulate images — both in their appearance (see this Starbucks “Consumer Whore” logo parody) and in their intended use (the Diet Coke/Mentos experiment was probably not in either brand’s marketing plan, but the YouTube video has been viewed over 7M times).

Bottom line: strategic brand managers have always been all about the experience, but now it’s as much about including consumers as enticing them. No word yet on Dr. King’s family’s decision about how to manage the imagery, but the challenge becomes more difficult as infringements “pop up like mushrooms”.

Tags: brand monitoring, marketing by admin
Comments

This week’s Consumed feature in the Sunday Magazine highlights a startling discovery: if you believe enough in the value of a brand, your performance can actually improve with exposure to the brand. The article cites research showing that people subliminally exposed to the Apple logo perform better on a test of creativity than those shown the IBM logo, or no logo at all.

The findings feel to me like a commercial extension of the placebo effect, which is all about the power of belief. It also underscores the importance of reinforcing your brand attributes with the right marketing placement: the Speedo outfit worn by Michael Phelps has been rushed to mass production at a high price point, as wishful swimmers look to enhance their own personal bests. Now, if only I can convince my family that this Porsche would make me a better driver…

Tags: marketing, research by admin
Comments