Social Tuesday - Why Social Sentiment and Ad Interest is a False Measure

 

This is the snapshot from the Brandbowl Website that was created by Radian6, Boston.com and Mullen Agency. It captured all the tweets using the #brandbowl hashtag to judge sentiment.

Basically shows number of tweets. And the difference between Positive and Negative sentiment. So VW at this point had 9505 Tweets and a plus 30 sentiment. But what does it mean? We liked the Ad? The Brand? The Product? No one knows. Unless VW sees an increase in searches or website hits, calls to dealers, and sales does this mean anything except: Thanks for the great commercial?

What about Negative Sentiment. Does it mean I dislike the Spot, the Brand, the Product? Does Lipton and Best Buy know that I will not spend a nickel with them for 1 full year because they used M&M and Bieber? Do they know that many people thought the Pepsi spots were classless and often showing bodily assault? Or the Groupon spots also being a bit uncouth and strange? (Yes Alex Bogusky it's ok for you to be smug today!)

Edward Boches , Mullen's Chief Innovation Officer has a few posts on the Brandbowl: LINK   LINK

BTW I loved the VW commercial. And ironically they had 12.5 Million views on YouTube before the game! But all I know of the Passat is I can start it from my key chain! That said I did enjoy participating in the Brandbowl.

This is the final top 4. As you can see Chrysler took the top spot. But sentiment wasn't as positive. Part of the rankings took in chatter. Now using a polarizing Celebrity like M&M will cause chatter.

But focusing on Chrysler. Old car lineup. They showed nothing new. They have horrible quality ratings. Does a great commercial mean a car will not fall apart? Does it make up for an old lineup. I know they have new cars coming out soon, but not sure Fiat is stellar for quality either. But what does the commercial change? 

Now the social media aspect is interesting. Brands can technically see if people like their commercials outside of focus groups almost instantly. Even if it doesn't connect with Sales immediately and then pray. Still most chatter is off line or out of sight and there still needs to be work connecting long term success.

Lastly Media Curves did their own traditional assessment with each spot having a sentiment line as the spot progresses. And guess what? They have Chrysler ranked 40th!

Except for a very few Ad Spots in the last 15 years very few moved Beer as much as chatter either. Personally I felt this spot was ok. But why the high sentiment? Puppies earn high sentiment!

Now the big disconnect is between successful Ads which make people like the Ad, and Sales. Which if there is no sales increase the Creative Agency will still say 'Mission Accomplished' if sentiment was high/positive. Technically in some cases they can do that. It's not an Agency's fault if a product is bad. Though that reduces the public's trust in Advertising as a whole. 

My view for  the Superbowl is major brands like Coke, Pepsi, Bud kind of pay us back for having to endure Advertising overload all year long. For new brands and products it is a great launch pad and worth the investment/risk. But overall it's kind of like a boat...you know that hole in the water that takes all your money. 

Would Bud or Coors or Pepsi sell less product in 2011 if they didn't buy commercial time at the Superbowl? Nope. Not at all.