We tracked eleven advertisers for this year’s Oscar program. The pre-Oscar buzz was tied with both GM and American Express each getting 19% share of the overall discussion about Oscar advertising. The GM buzz centered around the greening of the Oscars with celebs arriving to the event in hybrids. Diane Von Furstenberg’s dress generated the majority of the buzz for American Express, with this story.

Overall, Amex is definitely the winner pre Oscars since they only ran one spot and got the largest percentage of buzz.

Fashion wins the day again with the biggest advertising lift immediately following the Oscars coming from the Coca-Cola Heidi Klum dress campaign. Not only was this the top mentioned ad but her dress was also the most talked about of all the fashion designer entrants. Coke had a total 15% lift from the pre-Oscar buzz. We’ll follow this up with more in-depth analysis in a week to figure out the longer term analysis.

Overall, the Oscar advertising was much less talked about among bloggers than the Superbowl which is probably to be expected … and it’s all about the fashion. It’s not how you feel baby, it’s how you look.

Tags: Analyzing Consumer Generated Media, Brand Management, Mass Media/Culture // Add Comment »

On Friday afternoon, I sat down to speak with Ron Morris of American Entrepreneur Radio, to talk about social media measurement and the after-buzz of Super Bowl advertising. To listen to the podcast, click here.

Tags: Brand Management, Social Media Analytics, Social Media Metrics // Add Comment »

Collective Intellect is developing new and innovative techniques to use the blogosphere as a predictive tool for reaction-based events. We’ve had predictive success in single state primaries and caucuses, as well as Super Bowl advertising; but the massive amounts of conversation in different topic areas surrounding Super Tuesday seemed to have too many variables which flooded and diluted the data in our current methodology. Above all else, these predictions are serving as an ongoing experiment to perfect CI’s ability to predict reaction-based events using social media.

A review of the data revealed that more of the projections would have been correct if we’d only used state-based blogs; unfortunately the data sample of 40-50 state-based blogs was too small on which to depend completely. Examples from past projections suggest that averaging state blogs with an overall national reading would balance any skewed data from the smaller state samples.

The overwhelming number of national “events” was responsible for skewing the data it was supposed to help balance. Below is an example of the two data sets for Missouri:

Ideally, we would find and use every state-based political blog, and forget about the national ones, but that is currently too time-consuming. We will continue tracking and forecasting the next few primaries, and publishing any relevant data in advance– sticking our neck out there, as Forrester’s Peter Kim put it– to ensure that this method will continue to work for individual races, and we will expand our current methods to account for the bigger events in the future.

Social media has proven incredibly valuable “to keep the marketer in tune with consumer moods in real-time,” but social media predictability is proving not only possible, but an invaluable tool for marketing, politics, advertising, and the corporate world. We used a similar methodology for Super Bowl advertising that proved to be an accurate gauge for advertisers who want to make sure their campaigns get optimal opportunity and value.

The share-of-voice graph above represents the top ten companies’ pre-game buzz and compares it to the top ten buzz 12 hours after the game. These companies’ positioning changed little if any after the spots ran, rendering our prediction – that the top four pre-game buzz leaders would also be the post-game leaders – off by only one company.

These results alone and what Collective Intellect has seen in past projects only reinforce our confidence in using the blogosphere to predict results. With a little more experience and tweaking, a real-time reading of consumer (and constituent) moods can be used to make accurate and consistent predictions for when those moods turn into results.

– Mark Lucier and Kevin Yordy

mark@collectiveintellect.com

kevin@collectiveintellect.com

Tags: Analyzing Consumer Generated Media, Brand Management, Mass Media/Culture // 2 Comments »

It may be a bit premature to declare the winning advertiser from Super Blog Bowl XLII . Conclusive results of the Super Bowl advertiser’s success on the blogosphere will be presented in the form of a Collective Intellect report at the end of February. Until then, we will continue to evaluate which advertisers had the best Super Bowl Sunday and determine if my pre-game predictions were accurate.

On February 1st I predicted that Pepsi, Anheuser-Busch, GoDaddy and Audi would have the most successful campaigns based on their pre-game blog buzz. By saying “successful” I meant that they would produce the most post-game buzz. It is my belief that blog conversation is equal or more influential than any other measurement of conversation or buzz out there.

The following chart compares last week’s share of voice to that from the beginning of the game until Monday 2/4 around noon:

After examining my top four advertiser prediction to the post-game share of voice, it is pretty clear that pre-game buzz directly correlates with post-game buzz. The one exception being Coca-Cola whose Parade Balloons ad propelled them to the top of skyscrapers and Collective Intellect’s post-game blog share of voice chart, knocking GoDaddy down a peg or two with their lame website-geared ad.

Another interesting change seen in a different share-of-voice chart (below) is that Pepsi and Hyundai actually lost buzz after their spots aired. Anheuser-Busch on the other hand built on the pre-game buzz to jump towards the top.

I believe there are many reasons why Anheuser-Busch increased share of voice. First, they previewed five of the seven ads before the game, giving blogs an opportunity to be first to link and build excitement around the ads. Next, their “secret commercial” tactic was used to create interaction between viewers and BudBowl.com (obviously not part of the post-game success - below). And they’re Budweiser, the King of Beers and the King of Super Bowl Advertising for crying out loud; all of the above reasons feed into and are a product of their dominance in this arena.

Most importantly, Anheuser-Busch bought seven ads. Any advertiser who buys that many spots should expect to finish first in blog activity. To their credit, they did. And having seven spots provides better odds that one of those ads will be blogged and commented on. It also gave them the opportunity to go viral on You Tube with the Will Ferrell ad - capturing the triple crown of online advertising; blog activity, viral spread, website - performing funny Jackie Moon outakes.

So at this point in Blog Bowl XLII I would have to say there are two champions from the game within the game. Coca-Cola, who emerged in the top-five after barely making the pre-buzz list. And Anheuser-Busch, who had the most post-game buzz, used multiple online platforms and maintained buzz afterwards.

Download Collective Intellect’s post-game mini-report here (or go to AdRANTs blog) and stay tuned for the official Collective Intellect Super Bowl Advertising report at the end of the month for more in-depth coverage.

Tags: Analyzing Consumer Generated Media, Brand Management, Mass Media/Culture // 3 Comments »

I was recently directed to an article - Hot in 2007, UGC Takes Bleacher Seat at this Year’s Super Bowl, posted on January 16 at Tripinfo.com - that said this year’s Super Bowl advertisers didn’t include as much user-generated content and are less interactive than a year ago. I’m not familiar with Tripinfo.com and not sure why they are re-posting this Matthew G. Nelson piece, but I digress.

What I do find interesting is that the article had quotes from a marketing official at Cymfony and the EVP of Nielsen Online. Both companies have done research and tracking around Super Bowl advertising in the past, so I by no means doubt their knowledge in the area. However, I am challenging their stance that companies are shying away from creating pre-game buzz via consumer interaction.

“I’m seeing a decline [in interactive elements] compared to last year,” said Jim Nail, chief strategy and marketing office for Cymfony, a brand monitoring company. “We’ve been tracking all this stuff for a month and a half, and the volume of traditional online discussion and media coverage is a lot lower than last year.”

Interesting. Maybe this article was published before Budweiser announced that a top-secret Super Bowl ad would be disclosed to viewers who voted on their other game-day commercials at BudBowl.com . Or Go Daddy previewed their spot that directs ad junkies and “racing fans” to GoDaddy.com during the game for exclusive Danica Patrick footage. And, if you really want to see the new Audi commercial before it airs, make sure you go to their website and register. All three of these “interactive elements” produced buzz for their respective company.

Pete Blackshaw from Neilsen Online didn’t make as bold a statement, but rather gave his interpretation why UGC isn’t as prevelent this year:

“There were definitely some watershed elements of last year, especially around the contest and promotion to create your own ad,” he said. “At the same time… for a lot of advertisers that idea has been tried and doesn’t have the potential to have the same return as something that’s more original.”

Collective Intellect, like Cymfony, has been tracking Super Bowl advertising online for the past two to three months. And similar to Nielson Online, CI monitors online sources, placing more emphasis on blogs and message boards in online monitoring of companies, brands and themes.

Tracking Super Bowl advertising discussions has shown a lot of blog content over the past month, much more than traditional online news. Because CI didn’t track the Big Game last year, it is impossible to make a comparison. But based on my social media knowledge, anytime a subject produces more blog activity than news, there is a lot of conversation around an area.

One week before the Super Bowl, Share of Voice across advertisers was what most people expected with Pepsi, Bud, Go Daddy and Audi leading the field.

It’s important to note here that Budweiser – bloggers are promising Bud will run anywhere from 7 to 10 spots – still has less activity than Pepsi. And Go Daddy - only showing one commercial – owns a rather larger share of voice, giving it a higher rate of return than Bud.

Even more amazing is Doritos - the most interactive campaign of all advertisers – shows surprisingly low blog activity when compared to the other advertising king-pins above. This would support Blackshaw’s opinion that UGC is old news and consumers aren’t impressed.

And after examining this graph, I would agree with Blackshaw that UGC is not effective in 2008. I believe that social media - blogs, message boards and social networks - have taken its place. Most people don’t have the time, desire or skill to record a song and send it into Doritos, but they do have five or ten minutes to blog about a Pepsi commercial.

The evidence is in the numbers. Companies no longer need to include consumers in their commercials, they need to place their commercials on the consumer platform — in social media. If we examine the spikes in the above graph, it provides insight on how this game works.

Every activity explosion occurs when a company releases new information directly to bloggers, or when the information is picked up by bloggers. For example:

• Pepsi and Amazon reveals their MP3 campaign on 1/14.
• Five of Budweiser’s commercials are revealed including the top-secret ad mentioned above on 1/22.
• Go Daddy discloses info on their rejected ad, causing curiosity through controversy on 1/24.

Companies create buzz with these tactics and are still able to unleash their agencies to create professional creative that will most likely have greater viral spread than any American Idol wanna-be band playing during the Doritos 2.7 whatever million dollar spot.

My point is, UGC isn’t dead. Instead, it has morphed into social media, and is less about interactive content. Every blog post, message board entry and You Tube comment is a form of user-generated content, because other consumers read it, write it and make their own comments. Using these methods, the only thing you need to create or add to a campaign is a computer with Internet connection — no music skills required.

In the Political spectrum, the blogosphere is successfully being used to predict which candidates will win each state’s primary. Applying this strategy to Super Bowl advertising campaigns would predict Pepsi, Bud, Audi and Go Daddy to have the most successful campaigns in ’08. It will also be interesting to see which advertising agencies can propel their clients into this group of elites without the pre-buzz head start. This Sunday will provide all of the answers.

Tags: Analyzing Consumer Generated Media, Brand Management, Mass Media/Culture // Add Comment »

Around the office, we talk alot about the future of the next generation agency. As a technology solution that is helping companies and agencies measure and engage with social media, we have a lot of skin in the game, so to speak, on the future of agencies and agency holding companies.

These two links from MediaPost, I think, do a good job of laying out the issues that face agencies today:

1. A New Era For Agencies, posted by Dave Morgan of AOL.
2. Is This the Year Of The Agency?, posted by
   Cory Treffiletti of Catalyst SF

Tags: Brand Management, Social Media Organization // Add Comment »

Last night at the Colorado chapter of the Business Marketing Association, I listened to Matt Preschern, a VP of Communications for IBM, talk about the digital convergence of marketing. He started off his presentation with a focus I appreciated — how much smaller, more niche audiences are (the lead in to talking about targeting markets in a narrower way for better return on marketing).

He asked a question: In the 1950’s, when I Love Lucy was the #1 show in the US, what percentage of the US market could an advertiser hit by advertising during the program?

I won’t give you the answer yet, instead, his next question: The #1 show today is American Idol. What percentage of the US market can an advertiser reach by buying ads during the show?

The answer is even more surprising than most marketers in the room thought:

I Love Lucy US audience reach: 45% of the US population
American Idol US audience reach: 4% of the US population

Certainly, this splintering effect on TV has been apparent for some time, starting with the rise of cable TV. But, now that (another stat from Matt) teens spend 40% less time watching TV than their parents, and 600% more time online than their parents, those reach stats for TV will continue to sink. Sure, you can make waves with your single Super Bowl ad, but you’ll extend its power with online tie-ins, contests and viral marketing add-ons.

Let’s face it, the power of mass media is more limited than ever. With lower viewership overall on TV, companies poised to add targeted social media marketing to their mix are not only going to do a better job reaching consumers, they’ll have a better ability to track their return on investment. So, the key question for marketers looking into social media campaigns is not reach or impressions. It should be about penetration within the communities of influence in social media.

Why does the micro approach work better? A few reasons I posit here:

• the mass market isn’t so massive anymore
• micro means better, more niche targeted messages
• its more trackable

Tags: Analyzing Consumer Generated Media, Brand Management, Mass Media/Culture // 1 Comment »

While there doesn’t appear to be any groundbreaking products that have caught fire at CES there do seem to be a few stories worth noting. The biggest story is undoubtedly the death of HD-DVD. HD-DVD sentiment has been drastically declining while Blu-Ray has been climbing since Warner Brothers announced support for the Blu-Ray format. Not sure how this will shake out in the long term but the bloggers are certainly jumping on the Blu-Ray bandwagon. I’ve listed some examples with the first going so far as to say people with HD-DVD boxes are returning them.

Are Black Friday HD DVD Adopters Returning Players? [Updated: Toshiba Responds]

Universal HD DVD exclusivity contract has expired, sits non-renewed

The second story centered around Nintendo and the Wii interface. Nintendo received the Tech and Engineering Emmy award for the Wii and even big Bill Gates added to the froth after his keynote where he talked about the Wii, “All of those are just starting to show you that natural interaction pattern really breaks you out of the keyboard and mouse,” Gates said in an interview with Reuters. “The next big surprise for people will be how this natural interface becomes pervasive.”

Nintendo blog buzz (bluzter) jumped nearly 300% at the open of the show.

The last story garnering our attention was the relatively large buzz for the upstart digital electronics hacking platform from bug labs. Okay, not strictly a robot, you can create all sorts of amazing gadgets using the platform and accessories, but I liked the word robot in the title. Even though the company is not yet shipping product they have received a number of media accolades. Check out the vid below.

Tags: Analyzing Consumer Generated Media, Brand Management, Mass Media/Culture // Add Comment »

The individual today has more influence than perhaps any other time in history on the success or failure of a company and it’s products. Blogs are playing a critical role in our ability to communicate our thoughts and preferences to those interested. Twitter is making instant information ubiquitous 160 characters at a time. Mass marketing is quickly losing relevance to the sea of information. According to recent stats released at Blog World Expo

• over 12 million American adults currently maintain a blog
• over 57 million Americans read blogs
• blog readers average 23 hours online each week

With such massive potential reach and connectivity of the blogosphere, the internet has finally become the global village. In the same way that word quickly spreads around a small village about how great or terrible a vendor is, word of mouth spreads rapidly on the internet in these connected communities. I’ve seen this so many times now it’s like an act of violence in a Quentin Tarantino movie : Dell burning laptop, Edwards haircut, Guitar Hero Rocks, and on and on and on. Yes, it is the community of the long tail. Communities naturally form around topics that people are passionate about. These passions bleed across each other however, and connect disparate communities together. On average, the bloggers we track participate in 25 different communities. These bridges expand the network providing serendipitous interconnectivity and are crucial to the viral spread of messages.

Tags: Analyzing Consumer Generated Media, Brand Management // 1 Comment »

A Variety post from last night is sparking conversation in the blogosphere about which Hollywood studios are advertising in Super Bowl XLII, and what movies they are promoting.

The first post commenting on the news came from SuperHeroHype.com and obviously covers the two superhero movies that have been announced in Iron Man and Hancock. Iron Man needs no introduction, but Hancock - Will Smith as a bum with super powers - will surely be the must-see blockbuster bust of the New Year.

For a more in-depth look at Variety’s story, Chris from MovieMarketingMadness broke down the different studios and tacked his thoughts on the end for good measure.

My favorite passage from the blog: “Both of these make sense, but “Zohan” needs to be in the fourth quarter, when people are good and drunk. That will help make the trailer funnier. No, I’m serious.”

Tags: Analyzing Consumer Generated Media, Brand Management, Mass Media/Culture // Add Comment »