Blog
NetBase Blog
I decided to supplement the work we’ve been doing with the Brand Passion Index to highlight ConsumerBase’s ability to mine social media sources for brand-specific consumer ideas and verbatim. My brand of choice for this particular ConsumerBase adventure? The very recognizable, and apparently all-purpose, household name, Alka Seltzer.
Using ConsumerBase to research brands and the chatter about them, I have access to an enormous amount of information, some of it very surprising and unexpected—who’d have guessed that Snickers pair well with Madeira wine (see my earlier blog post for more inspiring wine matches)?! While a few of the results are just fun and quirky, many others can prove to be a real “aha!” moment for researchers and brand managers—genuinely useful insights that can lead to new products, applications or markets.
To demonstrate the power of ConsumerBase to read and understand millions of sites, postings, tweets, etc. on the Web and unearth some real gems, we put it to work on Alka Seltzer.
Our search revealed a range of uses, functions and thoughts on Alka Seltzer within the social media universe:
- Use Alka-Seltzer instead of baking powder to make a cherry cobbler qualify as a healthy snack.
- Children with any type of flu symptoms should not take aspirin or any medicine containing aspirin such as Pepto-Bismol and Alka-Seltzer because it could lead to Reyes Syndrome.
- Alka-Seltzer is cheaper and safer than most proprietary cleaning products, and is sometimes already in the home.
- My husband won’t even take Alka-Seltzer because “braving” the symptoms becomes a testosterone-soaked badge of manliness, like “walking it off” or “taking it like a man.”
- I just found out I am pregnant and the heartburn is excruciating but I can’t take Alka-Seltzer or anything with aspirin. Help!
So what do you think? Alka Seltzer as both a cleaning product AND a healthy baking alternative? Let me know your thoughts – and what brands you’d like some insight on next time.
It’s almost the end of the summer, and as school buses gear up for their routes, moms, dads and kids are gearing up for school to start again. And for retailers across the country, that can mean only one thing: back-to-school shopping.
To find out where consumers are doing their shopping–and who they’re talking about–we used our ConsumerBase tool to surface opinions, emotions and behaviors being expressed in the social media universe. This month’s Brand Passion Index takes a look at some of the biggest retailers for back-to-school shopping: Target, Old Navy, Macy’s, K-Mart, WalMart, Sears and JC Penney.
The insights found by ConsumerBase revealed that despite the low prices associated with Wal-Mart, consumers have relatively negative feelings and low chatter with the brand. Though the positive sentiment for Target isn’t quite as passionate as Old Navy, the discount retail giant has captured far and away the most chatter.
In this graphic, the amount of sentiment and chatter about a brand is indicated by the size of the bubble, while the placement of the bubble shows the intensity of passion.
And while WalMart pulled in $405 billion in the last year, consumers don’t seem too impressed with the quality or service at WalMart.
“This walmart is getting cheap and greedy and I wish they never opened this so called Super Center.”
“Plus I just plain old don’t like WalMart, because it’s gross and dirty and slow and awful and makes me doubt humanity.”
“Personally I don’t like Walmart’s clothes because the quality is terrible.”
Target, on the other hand, had glowing reviews for its low prices and varied selection.
“We are not big fans of Walmart, we prefer Target.”
“I love Target because it’s one-stop shopping for everything and they are excellent with selection, coupons, and prices”
One of my favorite activities during the summer is watching movies with my husband and kids. Collectively, we’re not quite at the age of Edward and Bella yet so I don’t totally get the Twilight mania. This month’s Brand Passion Index shows that I’m not the only one who loves good ole animated popcorn movies.
As the summer box office heats up, we used our ConsumerBase tool to surface emotions and passion levels associated with some of the biggest summer movie franchises: Toy Story, Shrek, Harry Potter, Twilight, Karate Kid and Iron Man.
The results were surprising: ticket sales don’t equate to love – Twilight’s voluminous chatter (and dominance at the July 4th weekend box office) is eclipsed by the intensely positive feelings expressed for Toy Story and Shrek.
In this graphic, the amount of sentiment and chatter about a brand is indicated by the size of the bubble, while the placement of the bubble shows the intensity of passion.
Despite ranking #1 at the box office and pulling in more than $64 million in its first weekend, NetBase’s Brand Passion Index showed that Twilight has a polarizing effect on movie-goers. Check out the range of emotions expressed on both sides of the aisle:
And apparently other people love 15-year-old Toy Story franchise as much as I do, for the same nostalgic effect it has on me and my husband and the pure joy our kids feel when watching it:
“I love Toy Story because it brings out the child in me.”
“I love watching Toy Story with my Grand kids, mainly because I love the characters”
“Toy Story 3 is full of those wonderful moments that remind you of being a kid.”
Next up: we’re headed back to school!
The PGA Tour is in full swing. The US Open hits Pebble Beach this week. And golf lovers everywhere are trying to get in another round. So while they’re polishing their clubs (and you’re shopping for Father’s Day gifts), the NetBase Brand Passion Index looked at some of the biggest brands in golf: Callaway, Nike, TaylorMade, Titleist, and Wilson.
Each month, the Brand Passion Index measures consumer passion for brands expressed via social media. Using the ConsumerBase tool to understand what people are saying online, this month’s Index surfaces the emotions associated with leading golf brands.
So, when a birdie is on the line, which golf-gear brands do consumers love most? The Brand Passion Index reveals that consumers absolutely love their Callaway. While Nike Golf and Callaway are the subject of an equal amount of chatter, Nike gets all the “like” and Callaway gets all the “love”. Despite the negative publicity, Tiger Woods does not appear to impact the passion level for the Nike Golf brand. In fact, golfers express little hate toward any of the major brands (contrast that to last month’s Index findings about WalMart). Titleist gets the least amount of love, but is still very liked. All in all, results to keep in mind when shopping for Father’s Day (this Sunday, June 20).
In this graphic, the amount of sentiment and chatter about a brand is indicated by the size of the bubble, while the placement of the bubble shows the intensity of passion. While consumers feel positively about all the golf brands, Callaway inspires the most love and the most discussion.
The following excerpts from social media chatter capture the passion that consumers feel about Callaway:
“I’m loving my #Callaway X-22 Tour irons and FTiz Driver…heck…I love ‘em all! Thanks @Callaway!”
“I personally love the Callaway gloves.”
“78 today oh yeah!!!! i love my callaway x-22 irons!“
“My husband is a golfer and he loves the Callaway golf balls.”
Nike Golf had a high “like” score, a result of a full spectrum of consumer chatter:
“I love my new Nike Method Putter!”
To generate the Index, NetBase reads online conversations and extracts the meaning from those conversations, capturing the intensity of emotions that consumers express about a brand. The combination of passion level and amount of chatter determines the involvement level.
Each month, the index will analyze consumer passion for brands in various categories and will publish the results here on the NetBase blog. Drop us a line if there are brands you’d like to see covered! Next up: Box Office Hits.
This weekend, it’s all about burgers and beer, hotdogs, watermelon, and where you buy them. Just in time for Memorial Day, we’re introducing our Brand Passion Index. The Index uses our ConsumerBase tool to analyze consumer passion for brands in various categories. Each month, we’ll come up with something fun and publish the results on the NetBase blog.
Since Memorial Day is the official start to the barbequing and picnic season, the Index looked at the source of all that fun — grocery stores. According to the Index, the most loved store with the highest emotional involvement is Costco, closely followed by Whole Foods. Walmart is the most hated of all the brands analyzed. Consumers are dispassionate about Safeway and Kroger, they merely like them.
In this graphic, the amount of sentiment and chatter about a brand is indicated by the size of the bubble, while the placement of the bubble shows the intensity of passion.
Here are some sample verbatim surfaced in ConsumerBase:
To generate the Index, ConsumerBase reads online conversations and extracts the meaning from those conversations, capturing the intensity of emotions that consumers express about a brand. The combination of passion level and amount of chatter determines the involvement level. For more about ConsumerBase, click here.
Next up: June and Father’s Day fun.
Even though today’s weather forecast is for the low 60’s, it’s heating up over here at NetBase. Lead411 has just named us a winner of its “Hottest Silicon Valley Companies” award.
NetBase was selected as one of 69 Hottest Companies, along with Facebook, AdMob, and Playdom. Important factors that lead to this recognition: securing $9 million funding and expanding our business by 300% in 2009.
As you probably know, our ConsumerBase product is now in Limited Release. Seems the NetBase FanBase is growing (also see Jason Falls’ product review ).
This column shows ConsumerBase in action-I use our tool to discover insights about brands and report back what consumers are saying. As always, feel free to join the conversation or suggest brands you’d like to see next.
I must have had dinner on my mind at the time, when I found that numerous consumers have come up with some pretty novel wine pairings. Sure, we all know that white wine goes with fish and cabernet goes with steak.
But – did you know…
- Cool Ranch Doritos go well with a rosé
- Salt-n-vinegar potato chips match with pouilly fume
- Krispy Kreme donuts are a dream with sparkling wine
- And my personal favorite: Snickers bars & sweet Madeira wine. Yum
How about it? Maybe Krispy Kreme could break out of the breakfast market with a new dessert offering. We’re moving beyond listening. We understand what consumers think, feel and even drink – discovering insights based on social media chatter.
Drop me a line and let me know what you’d like me to look at next.
One of the many exciting things about being NetBase’s CMO is that I have a tool like ConsumerBase at my fingertips. This column will show ConsumerBase in action – I’ll occasionally point it at different brands and topics and report back the insights I discover. You’re welcome to join the conversation and suggest what you’d like to see here in the future.
Recently, I looked at that familiar germ-killing mouthwash – Listerine.
Using ConsumerBase, I found many “novel uses” for Listerine that showed up repeatedly in consumer chatter. Here are the top 3 – did you know that Listerine is used:
- As a cure for toenail fungus
- As a treatment for athlete’s foot
- To keep floors extra clean
Who knew?!? Maybe the makers of Listerine could also be in the athlete’s foot cream business!
ConsumerBase can also uncover what people like and dislike about a brand. My favorite insight about why people love Listerine?
- The smell of it reminds them of Grandpa
That one struck a chord for me personally, as my grandpa, “Handsome Hy”, was a “yellow user” himself and always smelled of it, plus old spice.
Please feel free to add a comment and let me know where you’d like to see ConsumerBase pointed next. For now, I’ll pick a couple of topics and deliver the insights I discover in this column.
Blog
RSS Feed
NetBase Blog RSS Feed
Follow Us Online!
Request Information >
-
CEO Interview
ARF Meets with NetBase CEO Jonathan Spier