Analysis from Kontera's Big Data marketing platform.
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Why McDonaldâs Is Loving the Creepy New Mascot Everybodyâs Bashing
Kontera Analysis May 17-20, 2014. Originally published on Time.
The introduction of Happy as McDonaldâs new âHappy Meal brand ambassadorâ was widely mocked in a dizzying number of one-liners on Twitter. âItâs the meal that eats you,â one much-re-Tweeted message read. The character, basically a Happy Meal come to life, with bug eyes, wiry arms and legs, and human-like teeth and tongue, was deemed to be the stuff of nightmares. By extension, so was the whole Happy campaign, the consensus seemed to declare.
From the get-go, though, McDonaldâs didnât seem to mind the criticism. In fact, the company relished the attention, responding with Happy Tweets of its own. One featured a handful of Happys at âHappy Headquartersâ in front of a laptop, reading the social media comments. âTerrifying. Nightmarish. Cute?â the caption reads. âSomeone things weâre CUTE!â
McDonaldâs knows how this game is played, releasing a statement in response to the haters explaining, âSocial media is a great place to have a conversation and express an opinion, but not all comments reflect the broader view.â
Some marketing pros agree. To many consumers out there, McDonaldâs is not merely a brand, but âa piñata,â Steve Connelly, of the Boston ad agency Connelly Partners said via e-mail. There are plenty of people who will âkeep bashing the hell out of them every chance you get because they stand for evil and making the nation fat. Sometimes I think if McDonaldâs came up with a cure for cancer they would get bashed for it.â
As for the new character Happy, well, first of all, he (she? it?) isnât really new. The mascot was introduced in France in 2009, has been featured in tons of TV commercials abroad, where, presumably, children arenât awake all night out of fear of being eaten by a Happy Meal.
âItâs a box with a smiley face on itâŠgeez,â said Connelly. As for the legions taking shots at McDonaldâs and Happy? âPeople have too much time on their hands.â
Most importantly, as the BurgerBusiness blog first pointed out, McDonaldâs appears to be having the last laugh, because âHappyâ has been a huge hit in terms of drawing attention in the U.S. According to the research firm Kontera, the introduction of Happy hiked McDonaldâs overall online/social media impressions by 67% from May 17-18 to May 19-20, and an impressive 25% of the content over May19-20 was related to Happy. Another 11% had to do with Happy Meals.
McDonaldâs would probably prefer glowing praise to mockery, but itâll take the latter over apathy and being ignored in the chaotic, noisy news marketplace any day. âEvery time someone trolls the new mascot,â USA Today explained, referring to Konteraâs data, âtheyâre basically giving McDonaldâs free advertising.â
Kontera Analysis March 31- April 1, 2014. Originally published On MediaPost.
Google is quasi-famous for some of the wittiest April Foolsâ pranks we see on a yearly basis.
Gmail, and the âGmail Shelfieâ feature, was the most successful prank in terms of garnering attention. This prank was helped in large part because Google was able to send a notification to all of its Gmail users about âShelfieâ on April 1. However, Kontera reckons that the real reason the Gmail âShelfieâ prank was successful was because the feature actually worked.
â[Compared] to most other brand jokes which got people excited about something that doesnât actually exist, âShelfieâ is a fully functioning feature,â Kontera reasoned. âPranks with at least some level of functionality will almost inevitably lead to higher engagement.â
Google also did well with some of its other brands including Google+, Google Maps, Chrome, and YouTube. Of the top 10 brands that received the biggest consumption lift as a result of an April Foolsâ prank, half belonged to Google.
Is paying for Super Bowl air time a waste of money? Here are some charts that explain.
Kontera Analysis January 4 - February 2, 2014. Originally published on PandoDaily.
We can argue all day about the best Super Bowl ad. (Actually no we canât. Itâs this one.) But the researchers at Kontera looked closely at the data surrounding consumer sentiment to determine not only who, er, âmost excelledâ at Super Bowl marketing, but also what marketers can learn from it.
To begin, here were the top ten most âconsumedâ brands during Super Bowl XLVIII. (By consumption Kontera doesnât mean how many Doritos we ate, but how much consumer interest surrounded each brand online during the game).
Kontera goes deeper with its analysis than merely naming winners and losers. It compared the strategies of two types of advertisers: Those that rely on a âbig revealâ during the game, and those that rely on sustained marketing, posting their videos to social networks days before the game, and running these spots in tandem with other campaigns.
It may sound counterintuitive, but the brands that ran sustained campaigns received a greater bump in consumer interest on Super Bowl Sunday than brands that waited until game day to reveal their ad. It would appear that consumers are far more likely to respond to an ad if theyâve already seen it or heard their friends talking about it.
For example, hereâs a chart measuring consumer interest over the past four weeks for brands that relied on âbig revealâ marketing:
With the exception of Dunkin Donuts and Chrysler, none of the brands received significant bumps on game day, calling into question the logic of spending millions on precious Super Bowl air time.
Now take a look at brands that ran sustained campaigns that took advantage of the web and social media leading up to the event:
These brands enjoyed huge surges on game day. Despite the fact that Budweiser published its  âPuppy Loveâ ad and its âA Heroâs Welcomeâ ad days before the game, that only amplified their impact when people saw them yesterday. Anecdotally, when âPuppy Loveâ came on at the bar where I watched the game, I heard people say things like, âOh I love this ad!â and âWhat, you havenât seen this yet?â
Finally, Kontera highlighted Skittles which, although it didnât spend a dime on Super Bowl air time, was the number five most talked-about food and beverage brand during the game. Why? Because Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch likes Skittles so much that fans threw them on the field. Sure, paying for air time might have been a waste for Skittles. But not everyone has a brand ambassador who happens to be one of the most important figures at the event youâre advertising against.
So no, paying for Super Bowl air time isnât necessarily a waste of money. But the notion that the best way to get people talking about your brand is through a big anticipated Super Bowl reveal has become yet another business maxim made obsolete by the Internet.
NYT Magazine's Planet Hillary Cover Fails to Deliver Traffic Bonanza
Kontera Analysis December 30 â January 23 , 2014. Originally published on AdWeek.
Then there was The New York Times Magazine's oddball and somewhat disturbing Hillary Clinton cover, which gave rise to some very strong Twitter reaction. As Arem Duplessis, the magazine's design director, deadpanned in a blog post, the Planet Hillary cover "has apparently already provided inspiration for those with access to photo-editing software."
The problem is that the additional attention, if it materializes at all, rarely translates into an increase in newsstand sales. And in the case of the Times, the price it paid from the ridicule it endured didn't appear to have been offset in the way of online attention.
Kontera, a company that measures editorial coverage and consumption of news by topics on the Internet, crunched the numbers and found that while the Planet Hillary cover was the Timesâ biggest driver of the past few weeks, the news Dec. 30 that Duplessis was leaving the paper generatedâbelieve it or notâ86 percent more consumption.
It should be said that the whole stunt wasnât as orchestrated as it might have appeared; the cover got out Jan. 23 when David Joachim, a Washington bureau editor of the Times, tweeted it. (Joachim said he tweeted the cover after seeing it on PressReader, an app that lets readers access newspapers' replica editions, not knowing the actual article, by Amy Chozik, wouldn't be posted on the Times site until Jan. 24.) So maybe the Times shouldn't even get credit for the little traffic boost it did manage to get for the cover.
We asked the Times if the cover has had any impact on its online traffic; we'll update as warranted. (Update: a Times rep said Jan. 24 that it doesn't give out statistics on individual articles but that it was too early to have accurate comparison data.)
Gwyneth Paltrow may be the most polarizing celebrity to come down the stardom pike in a long, long time.
How exactly did this princess of beloved Hollywood royalty â she's the daughter of actress Blythe Danner and late producer Bruce Paltrow and her godfather is Steven Spielberg â cultivate such a love-hate relationship with the world?
"Inevitably, in a saga of Hollywood, people identify with either the sympathetic character or the villain," says Dylan Howard, editor in chief of celebrity news site RadarOnline. "When it comes to Gwyneth Paltrow, she's both the villain and sympathetic figure."
LOVE HER? HATE HER? OR LOVE TO HATE HER?
A 2010 Vogue article written by a journalist who visited Paltrow, 41, in her London home described the star as having an "impossibly perfect life."
And it seems she does.
Paltrow not only has it all (as mentioned above). She does it all. She acts. (She snagged her Oscar early in her career, in 1999 for Shakespeare in Love, and in 2011 won an Emmy for her Glee guest-star stint.) She sings. (Remember her Cee Lo Green duet at the 2011 Grammys?) She's a lifestyle guru. (On Thursday, she is unveiling a special holiday collaboration with designer Michael Kors, available only through Goop.) She's an author (of at least three cookbooks). She's a mom (Apple, 9, and Moses, 7). She's a wife (Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin). She's a style icon (with seven Vogue covers to her credit) with a fab figure (Tracy Anderson is her personal trainer).
Do you hate her yet?
But it isn't just having it all or doing it all that has fostered both the iconic worship and the intense scorn.
This has been building for years â or at least the past five, going back to when she launched Goop and began branching out from acting. And she began putting herself out there, Martha Stewart-style.
It's the very thing fans love about her. She'll share with you the best place in Paris to get a bikini wax. She'll say she'd "rather die" than let her kids eat "Cup-a-Soup." She'll acknowledge she "should have worn a bra" with her 2002 Oscar gown. And she'll even admit that the glittery A-list-filled Met Ball was "un-fun" because it was crowded and hot. She'll share that she had a miscarriage and battled some postpartum depression. And she'll drop f-bombs all along the way. (If she has a potty mouth, how snooty can she be?)
Love her yet?
Gwyneth Paltrow topped 'People' magazine's annual list of the "World's Most Beautiful" earlier this year.
But while Jennifer Lawrence, for example, is earning praise for her candor, Paltrow's remarks often don't seem to sit right.
"She's on this incredible high horse," says James Heidenry, editor in chief of Star, the publication that put her at No. 1 on the Most Hated Celeb list for 2013 (along with Chris Brown, Lindsay Lohan, Anne Hathaway and others). "She comes off like an insufferable elitist. And she seems so unaware."
Hollywood Reporter staff editor Michael O'Connell says, "It's that detachment, perceived detachment that comes with wealth and fame."
Earlier this year, Daily Beast writer Kevin Fallon wrote "Why Do We Still Hate Gwyneth Paltrow?" in which he noted, "There's a veritable encyclopedia of quotes those who are annoyed by her can cite to prove what they perceive as her unconscionable lack of self-awareness and apparently unstomachable pretentiousness."
Some evidence:
In 2006 she told The Guardian: "I love the English way, which is not as capitalistic as it is in America. People don't talk about work and money; they talk about interesting things at dinner parties."
In 2009, she told the March issue of Elle UK: "I am who I am. I can't pretend to be somebody who makes $25,000 a year."
In 2010, she told the Press Association: "Every woman can make time (to work out) â every woman â and you can do it with your baby in the room. There have been countless times where I've worked out with my kids crawling around all over the place. You just make it work."
In 2011, GQ put her on its Least Influential list, noting it was the year she "unleashed her awful cookbook on the world, a book that included such amazingly vapid sentences as 'We've got a wood-burning pizza oven in the garden â a luxury, I know, but it's one of the best investments I've ever made.'"
In 2011, Buzzfeed came up with a list of 7 Reasons Why People Hate Gwyneth Paltrow. Alternate title: 7 incredibly pretentious Gwyneth Paltrow quotes
And this month, she unveiled her Goop Christmas gift guide with toys including a $100 slingshot for a boy and $531 pajamas for mom. It has been called "silly" (New York's Daily News), "outrageous" (Yahoo.com) and "ridiculous" (Radar).
"She doesn't have that common touch," explains brand expert David Johnson, CEO of Strategic Vision in Atlanta. He adds, "She doesn't seem to know how to relate to people and that turns a lot of people off. They admire her, but at the same time, there's this sense that she's out of touch with average people."
Paltrow has admitted she's aware of her image problem. "I'm a real lighting rod," she acknowledged in an interview with USA TODAY in May. But she doesn't think it's her fault.
"People project a lot of stuff onto me. It's nothing to do with me. I don't read stuff about myself. I feel like it's none of my business. People perceive that I have too much. I understand that, but I also feel like I've suffered so much. It's not something I talk about. I don't have a perfect life. I don't have a perfect anything. I have incredible struggles, and I'm far from perfect. I struggle like every other woman, every other mother. I understand that things look a certain way."
Now, she says, she has gotten to the point where she basically doesn't care what people think.
In one of her most recent interviews, with U.K.'s Red magazine, she said, "The older I get I realize it doesn't matter what people who don't know you think. It doesn't matter. You're wasting your energy." Her advice is to "do what is right for you and don't give a (expletive) what anyone else thinks."
So there.
WHAT'S AT STAKE?
"For a celeb brand to be boring" is the kiss of death, says brand expert Allen Adamson, managing director of Landor Associates in New York. "You're better off being provocative and edgy."
Paltrow is doing exactly what she should to be successful, he says. "Brands need to have a point of view. Her point of view can be polarizing, but on balance, you're better having half the room loving you than having the whole room thinking you're just OK."
It's true of any big business, he says. "Look at Apple. There are people who hate Apple, and of course there are Apple fans who are nuts about it."
Paltrow is "far more ambitious than the average Hollywood celebrity." He adds, "The best brands create friction and passion in the marketplace. I think she's doing very well."
"It's interesting the amount of chatter Gwyneth Paltrow is generating," says Ammiel Kamon, executive vice president of Kontera's products and marketing division. The data analyst group measures "consumption" â or how often a brand is seen â of celebrities. In the lifestyle category, which relates to Paltrow's Goop, she has carved out 14% of the audience, second only to Martha Stewart.
So whatever anyone's saying, Kamon notes, "may be in a bad context for her, but it does have a net positive effect."
Paltrow's Q score, the likability measure for famous folks, is 16, which means 16% of adults who are familiar with her say she's one of their favorite personalities.
A 16 "is about average," explains Henry Schafer, executive vice president of The Q Score company. A very high Q score would be somewhere around "42, 43," he says. Two celebs who generally pull that kind of score: Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock.
As of September, the latest Q score report, awareness of Paltrow was at 74%, says Schafer, which means three out of four adults know who she is. The average awareness for a celeb is 31%, so "she's pretty well-known for sure."
And she has plenty of fans.
"We love her," says Zanna Roberts Rassi, Marie Claire senior fashion editor and E! fashion correspondent. "She's such an icon and so fashionable. The fact that she's a smart woman and an entrepreneur makes her more than just a beauty. She's definitely got brains."
Adds Rassi, "She is well-respected in the industry. I could call any publicist and ask to borrow (designer clothes) for Gwyneth and they would absolutely send. That isn't true of every celebrity. She's very polished. She's a classic."
So what should Paltrow do to move the needle more with the masses? Is anything really at stake for her? Any reason to try to be more Sandy Bullock-y?
Brand expert David Johnson says "one of the worst things she could do is try to pretend to be something she's not."(Photo: Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY)
"If I were advising her, one thing I'd suggest is to get into the forefront as a spokesperson for different causes," says brand expert Johnson. "I would advise her to get involved in something so people could see a softer side of her â animals, children or battered women. Things that people can relate to. We know a lot of young girls think she's great. They look to her beauty and her grace."
Paltrow did step out this past week for a Kids Company Dinner, a charity event she co-hosted with designer Matthew Williamson. But the only press she got was on sites that noticed how her bejeweled dress seem to blend into the ornaments on the Christmas tree she posed in front of.
And on Dec. 16, she launches a new AOL Web series called The Restart Project with her pal Tracy Anderson in which they spend time with and showcase inspiring stories of women who have overcome hardships.
BUT WHAT'S IT ALL WORTH?
So, basically, there's nothing at stake for her. No reason to suddenly put $5 items in her Goop gift guide. No reason to censor herself. Nothing to apologize for.
One thing that could do some damage, though, is the rumored "epic takedown" (that's what Us Weekly called it) Vanity Fair is prepping. It's been buzzing since a New York Times article reported that Paltrow sent an e-mail telling her pals to "please decline" any interview requests and not cooperate, even though it's unclear what the article says that could be so damaging.
To survive that, Johnson says, "if there's anything in it, the key for any celebrity is the reservoir of goodwill they've developed among fellow professionals and fans."
No matter what that article says, or this one for that matter, Johnson advises that "one of the worst things she could do is try to pretend to be something she's not."
"Honestly," says THR's O'Connell, "she seems to have a pretty great quality of life. She's obviously doing things that she loves. She has a criminally adorable family. I would love to be Gwyneth Paltrow. Seems pretty awesome!"
He adds, "With any of that snark, there's a certain amount of envy in that. If you're posting 20 pictures on Buzzfeed with snarky quotes, part of you really wants to be Gwyneth Paltrow."
How An Obscure YouTube Account For Truckers Became The Biggest Thing In Social Media This Week
Kontera Analysis November 6 - 19, 2013. Originally published on Business Insider.Â
But over the past year and change, Volvo Trucks has managed to do something rather impressive in a space where most of their competitors simply arenât found. In its series of âLive Testâ stunts from the Swedish agency Forsman & Bodenfors, Volvo has not only highlighted the performance advantages of its trucks for its niche audience, but permeated the mainstream with a steady stream of viral YouTube videos.
This week, Volvo Trucks nearly broke the internet with actor Jean-Claude Van Dammeâs epic split across two moving trucks. The video has been viewed more than 44 million times on YouTube, making it the second most viewed automobile campaign of all time, according to tracking firm Visible Measures. The ad also increased Volvoâs brand consumption by more than 300%, according to the measuring firm Kontera.
While it might look to the outsider like overnight magic, in truth, the megahit has been in the making since the summer of 2012.
Thatâs when Volvo unveiled its first live test, which was arguably even more incredible the Van Dammeâs triumph. In it, tightrope walker Faith Dickey was challenged to walk across a rope tied between two speeding trucks before trucks went their separate ways through a two-lane tunnel. The stunt was made to demonstrate the Volvo FHâs steering abilities. But thatâs not why the video has been viewed more than 8 million times on YouTube since being posted in August 2012.
After a year off, Volvo picked up the campaign again this fall, making waves by included president of its trucks standing on a truck suspended from a crane above the Swedish port of Gothenburg. The stunt showed off the strength of Volvoâs towing hooks, by which Volvo Trucks president Claes Nilsson was attached to the crane.
On the same day, Volvo posted a video showing off how high its trucks sit by driving over one of its technicians buried up to his neck in sand.
Later in September, Volvo had a hamster (!!!) drive a truck around a winding canyon by chasing a carrot across its precision steering wheel.
And the following month, a Volvo truck maneuvered around a winding Spanish road while being chased by bulls.
After five crazy stunts and a combined 18.6 million YouTube views, Volvo finally hit the internet jackpot last week with Van Dammeâs incredible split. At more than 40 million views, itâs likely youâve already seen it. But if you havenât by all means, take a look:
While the Van Damme live test has certainly increased Volvoâs brand awareness and made it look like a cool brand willing to take risks, it remains to be seen whether Volvo Trucks will see a spike in sales. Though only so many people are in the market for commercial trucks, producing a video and putting it on YouTube is an extremely inexpensive way of reaching a large audience, and commercial trucks can run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
If Volvo was able to sell just 10 more trucks from the Live Test series, the videos will likely justify the time and money Volvo spent making them. And at $291.7 billion in global sales last year, Volvo Trucks make up about two-thirds of Volvo Groupâs annual revenues (the Volvo brand of passenger cars is actually owned by the Chinese company Zhejiang Geely Holding Group).
Kontera Analysis September 30 - October 7, 2013. Originally published on USA Today. Also covered on Automotive News and on Bloomberg TV.Â
The ad blitz began over the weekend, most notably with a spot on NBC's Saturday Night Live. Ferrell reprises his role as ditzy local TV anchorman Ron Burgundy, who takes a skewed view of the Durango. In one spot, Burgundy plugs the roomy glove compartment in the Durango -- and nothing else. In another, he compares the crossover's horsepower to, well, an actual horse.
The good news for Chrysler Group is that Ferrell is not overshadowing the Durango, according to Kontera, a firm that measures Internet content and social media impressions says.
"Consumption," the amount of Web interest being stirred up on a topic, shot up 524.18% on Durango from Friday to Monday compared to the same period the week before. Durango got 37% more of a bump than Ferrell or Ron Burgundy on Kontera's Brand Consumption Index.
The ads also promote Ferrell's Ron Burgundy sequel, Anchorman 2, which also benefits from the promotion. The movie saw a 266.67% increase in consumption between October from Friday to Monday compared to the same period the week before.
Kontera Analysis January - July, 2013. Originally published on USA Today Â
Microsoft will pay $7.2 billion for Nokia. In 2011, Google paid $12.5 billion for Motorola Mobility.
Advantage Microsoft. At least that's what this chart from branding consultancy Kontera purports to show.
Kontera cross correlates content that consumers view online, analyzing roughly 2 billion content items daily, says Ammiel Kamon, Kontera's executive vice president of marketing and activation products.
This review news articles, social posts, videos and images. Kontera keeps track of how many times one particular brand or product is seen as compared to other products.
This provides "a key marketing predictor within the set of brands of which products consumers are most inclined to consider and ultimately buy," says Kamon. "In a nutshell, Nokia is a significantly stronger global brand. It has tremendous recognition value, and that brand strength is a spark that can translate into sales and market share, given strong products and distribution channels."
Google's engineers can argue all day long that Android is a much superior OS to Windows Phone. But that matters little in the branding world, says Kamon. "Having control of the physical device and a direct connection to the consumer can not be underestimated," he says. "Ownership of the device is key to creating a superb consumer experience and it is also key to control of the distribution channels."
Maybe Google should buy Samsung. "Consumers' awareness and consideration for Microsoft's smartphone offerings are much lower than Apple and Google, so this is a game changer for their go to market strategy," Kamon opines. "It will be very interesting to see how the Google-Samsung relationship fares in the next 12 to 18 months."
Kontera Analysis February 2013 - August 2013. Originally published on Forbes.Â
I have created a Google Doc with this link to fairly detailed historical data from comScore, Gartner, IDC, Kantar and Strategy Analytics.
Android smartphones have grown their share from 51% in the December 2011 quarter to 79% in June while Apple has fallen from 24% to 14%. These changes arenât surprising given that Android is shipping low-cost smartphones while Appleâs product line-up has gotten old with a rumored launch of new iPhones on September 10.
Another finding from Gartnerâs numbers comes from Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner, who said âsmartphones accounted for 51.8 percent of mobile phone sales in the second quarter of 2013, resulting in smartphone sales surpassing feature phone sales for the first time.â
Source: Gartner (August 2013)
Samsung outsold Apple by more than 2 to 1 with each one capturing 31.9% and 14.3% share, respectively in the June quarter. Apple is probably more profitable than Samsung but Apple needs to address the market share gap (and sounds like they may in September) otherwise Samsung will become an even more formidable competitor as app developers will spend increased time on Samsung platforms.
LG had the third highest market share at just over 5% while Lenovo appeared in the top 5 for the first time in the fourth highest position pushing out Huawei while ZTEstayed in the fifth spot.
Source: Gartner (August 2013)
Konteraâs analysis could indicate future trends
On a daily basis Kontera cross-correlates 450 million pages, 550 Terabytes of video, 3.5 Terabytes of content and 1.4 billion tweets analyzing brands being mentioned on social and digital publisher sites. What it is attempting to do is to provide an indication of what brands and products will gain traction. Its results are not based on searches but what users are seeing via various sites.
Kontera measured tablet, laptop and desktop views from March 2012 to December 2012 and as you can see in the graph saw a shift away from desktops and laptops to tablets in the traffic it monitors. Their results gave a good preview on the challenges the desktop and laptop PC market had in the second half of 2012 and 2013 and increased strength of the tablet market.
Kontera has been monitoring Appleâs iPhones, Samsungâs Galaxy S family and HTCâs One from February to July this year. As you can see from the chart below there has been a steep falloff on the number of times the iPhone mentions have been seen by consumers on the web and social vs. a steady rise for Samsung and HTC making a strong appearance.
A lot of this is due to new product announcements or lack thereof. Appleâs iPhone 5 was announced and launched in September 2012 while the Galaxy S4 was first released in late April and HTCâs One was launched in March. What is interesting is that HTC does not seem to be making inroads in taking any significant market share of actual device sales. In talking with Kontera a products âbuzzâ has to remain at a steady level for at least three to four months for it to translate to sales. It appears that the One may have a short-term life first in visibility and then the potential to be a player in the smartphone market.
It is critical for Apple to regain command of the smartphone market or it risks seeing its share remain at a low level. It does appear that if there is an announcement on Tuesday, September 10, coupled with Appleâs ability to generate a ton of free publicity (at least we havenât heard of an iPhone 5S or 5C being lost or stolen) I would expect that Konteraâs results will see a strong uptick in Appleâs visibility.
Shark Week Gives Volkswagen A Megalodon-Sized Brand Lift
Kontera Analysis July 24- August 7 2013. Originally published on Adotas.Â
On Sunday, the Discovery Channel kicked off its 26th annual Shark Week with âMegalodon: The Monster Shark Lives,â a faux-documentary that tricked many viewers into believing the prehistoric beast might still be alive. While the special was controversial, it was also extremely successful, bringing in 4.8 million viewers, the highest ratings in the history of the franchise. Through the first 4 days of Shark Week, interest continues to remain high, with content consumption around the Discovery Channel up 406.46%, comparing August 4-7 to July 31-August 3.
The hype around Shark Week also seems to be carrying over to Volkswagen, the official sponsor of the event, with Volkswagen getting a 280.96% consumption lift on August 4, the kickoff to Shark Week compared to August 3. In comparison the average of competing brands saw consumption go down -0.03%. The competing brands used were Chrysler, Ford, Honda, Chevrolet, and Nissan.
For the second consecutive year the centerpiece of Volkswagenâs Shark Week campaign was a custom shark cage made out of a converted Beetle Convertible. With a marine biologist steering the vehicle on the bottom of the ocean floor, viewers were treated to a 360-degree view of sharks in their natural habitat. Footage of this subaquatic road trip could be viewed either on ads airing on the Discovery Channel, a dedicated website, or on Instagram, with Volkswagen Beetle getting a consumption increase of 123.08% on August 4, when compared to August 3.
However, that doesnât even begin to fully convey the impact of this innovative campaign. Consumption around the Volkswagen Beetle actually began to increase on July 24, when they first issued a press release around their second shark cage, and in all, consumption around the Beetle was up 81.44% between July 24 â August 7 in comparison to July 9-22. (All of the above data was pulled from Konteraâs Content Discovery and Insight platform.)
The fact that the consumption increase around Volkswagen Beetle started nearly two weeks before the actual start of Shark Week, with article after media article previewing their latest shark cage, really speaks to the type of earned amplification you can get when an advertiser successfully captures the spirit of the event theyâre sponsoring. Using content marketing that seamlessly fits into the actual programming, Volkswagenâs shark cage was the most exciting part of Shark Week that didnât go extinct 1.5 million years ago!
Hyundai Consumption Up 574% From Viral Colbert Report Segment
Kontera Analysis August 6-7, 2013. Originally published on MediaPost.Â
The unexpected move by Daft Punk and subsequent response from Colbert (which went viral) resulted in general Hyundai content consumption rising 574% from August 6 to August 7. At the other end of the spectrum, competing auto brands had an average decrease in consumption of 43.2%. The data comes from Kontera, a content marketing platform.
The segment didn't just give the Hyundai brand name some boost, but it increased the amount of Hyundai auto content consumption as well. The Korean car companyÂ
saw a 31.8% lift in that department, while competing auto brands had a 41.3% decrease (average) in auto content consumption.
Even though Colbert's segment came at the expense of Daft Punk, the exposure didn't hurt them. They saw a 181.7% boost in consumption.
'Sharknado' Gives Massive Online Boost to Syfy, Tara Reid and Ian Ziering
Kontera Analysis July 10-11 2013. Originally published on TheWrap and on Yahoo! Movies.
According to content marketing and insights company Kontera, consumption of content items -- videos, social posts, etc -- revolving around Syfy grew 220.49 percent from July 10, the day before the "Sharknado" premiere, and July 11, when the movie aired.
"Sharknado" star Tara Reid also fared well; consumption of content involving the "American Pie" star jumped 177.55 percent in the same period.
While there wasn't sufficient data to track consumption of content for former "90210" star Ian Ziering on July 10, Kontera found that he drew 70.10 percent of the consumption that Tara Reid had on July 11.
During its airing, "Sharknado" generated 387,000 social mentions -- 97 percent of which were generated by Twitter, with the hashtags #sharknado and #syfy -- besting competing shows "Big Brother" and "The Big Bang Theory." "Sharknado" also came within 2,500 tweets of the "The Rains of Castamere" episode -- aka, the "Red Wedding" episode -- of HBO's "Game of Thrones," which was a hot topic of online discussion when it aired in June.
At its peak, "Sharknado" generated almost 5,000 tweets a minute during its airing.
Ratings-wise, the results for "Sharknado" -- which depicted a shark-infested hurricane wreaking havoc with Los Angeles -- weren't quite as spectacular. The movie drew 1.369 million total viewers, which was more than the 1.264 million that June's "Independence Day-Saster" drew but less than the 1.52 million for April's "Battledogs" and 1.488 million for "Chupacabra vs. the Alamo," which aired in March.
A re-airing of "Sharknado" is scheduled for July 18.
Kontera Analysis April - June 2013. Originally published on Forbes.Â
Even Don Draper would be impressed.
The top five best-performing brands on the show were Heinz, Chevy, Jaguar, Dow Chemical, and Avon.
Brands represented by more developed characters certainly tended to see higher consumption increases, but even negative portrayals on the show did not damage brands. Ultimately all brands saw some level of long-term brand lift from their association with âMad Men.â To cull the findings, Kontera daily cross-correlates the consumption of more than two billion content items, videos and social posts on web and mobile.
âIf Iâm a CMO, the best thing that could happen to me is to have my brand represented on this show,â said Ammiel Kamon, executive VP of marketing and brand activation at Kontera. âThe people advertising around the show are not seeing the same kind of lift as the brand built into the storyline, because the audience is much more engaged in the content of the show,â he said, adding that the research revealed an uptick in the last week, as people were catching up on the whole season.
âWhen we looked at the next-day consumption data after the season ended, all the brands featured during the season saw a consumption lift, especially on Entertainment content,â Kamon said. âIt appears that people were approaching âMad Menâ as though it was a novel, and when 2.7 million people watched the finale, rather than focusing on that single episode, they were collectively reflecting on the season as a whole.â
Koss, for example, hadnât been featured on the show since the season opener but saw a 97.10% increase on June 24, the day after the season ended. âIf Koss paid for a 30-second ad to run during âMad Menâ months ago, thereâs no way youâd remember that ad now. And yet, because Koss was part of an episode storyline during the season premiere, theyâre seeing a consumption increase three months later. You canât pay for exposure like that,â said Kamon.
In fact, on June 16, Kontera looked at the paid advertisers during the TV broadcast, and found that their online content consumption decreased at a larger rate than the brands that were mentioned in the actual episode.
As for those negative portrayals?
âDespite looking for it, there was no evidence that the bad behavior of the brand executives on âMad Menâ negatively affected brand reputation in real life; for instance, Chevy saw its biggest âMad Menâ- related consumption increase on March 19, which is the day the episode aired showing Chevy executives getting Ken into a car crash, and the entire office going nuts trying to meet Chevyâs unreasonable deadlines,â Kamon said.
Rather Kontera found that whether a brand saw a âMad Menâ-related consumption boost or not was dependent on how prominently they were featured on the episode, as well as if a well-developed character represented the brand. For instance, Dow Chemical was represented by Kenâs father-in-law on the show, and by relatively high profile actor Ray Wise. Dow Chemical saw a 68.29% consumption increase on April 21, the day the episode aired. âHeinz was given two clearly defined characters, the golden-boy Ketchup executive, and the jealous Heinz Beans executive, and generally saw big content consumption increases, including 38.74% on April 14 and 22.52% on April 28,â he said. âOn the other hand, Sunkist and Ocean Spray didnât have a human face representing their brand; they were mostly just talked about and they consistently lost content consumption on the days they were mentioned.â
Read additional brand insights around Mad Men Season 6:Â
MAD MEN: ALL BRANDS FEATURED SAW BRAND LIFT FOLLOWING END OF SEASON
Cheerios' Interracial Ad Spiked Its Online Branding by 77%
Kontera Analysis May 19 - June 5 2013. Originally published on Adweek, data also used on The Drum.Â
Per Kontera, the YouTube trolls who spewed ugliness and/or hatred under the comment section of Cheerios' "Just Checking" videoâwhich depicts a mixed-race familyâseemingly did the cereal a marketing service. From May 28 (when the spot launched) to June 5, cross-Web brand exposure was up 77 percent compared to the week before, according to Kontera's research.
The San Francisco-based content marketing firm also compared Cheerios to how often consumers were viewing the content of eight other breakfast cereals, among them Rice Krispies, Cap'n Crunch, Wheaties, Special K and Honey Bunches of Oats. Cheerios beat their average content views by 137 percent, Kontera says.Â
The tech company came to the findings by analyzing hundreds of millions of daily traditional Web, social Web and mobile content views.Â
Meanwhile, Cheerios, a General Mills brand, has chosen to disable comments on YouTube since users were getting out of control with messages about "racial genocide," "troglodytes" and other nonsense.Â
Kontera Analysis December 2012 - February 2013. Originally published on MediaPost.Â
While itâs hard to definitely say which strategy works better, new data from Kontera, which tracks some 400 million real-time content views and social conversations, shows that only a handful of marketers have figured out the right dance. Ammiel Kamon, Konteraâs EVP for marketing and mobile, tells Marketing Daily what seems to work best.
Q: So I know youâve analyzed more than 30 advertisers from the Super Bowl and the Oscars. And just to be clear, your analysis finds that TV ads that were pre-released had more impact, right?
A:Â Yes. But the ones that did even better didnât just pre-release the spot, and wait for it to take off. They created ways for people to engage and share it. Those are the brands that achieved the most amplification.
Q: Which company is your favorite example?
A:Â Grey Poupon, during the Oscars. It was surprising in many ways. First, it aired very late in the broadcast, after 11:30, which is when the audience typically begins to drop off. And we saw positive comments right away. But what happened next was this tidal wave of social amplification. The spot had a call to action, to go to the Web site and see these funny videos. The share of comments began to skyrocket, from just one spot. Apple and Samsung, for comparison, had spots that aired between 8 and 10 times and didn't generate nearly as much conversation.
Q: Thatâs an interesting example, since I doubt most of the people who watched actually remember the âPardon meâ ads from the early 1980s.
A:Â I know! But part of the appeal was just great execution -- the company even got a director of action films to make the video, so the James Bond feeling was very real. And of all the Oscar advertisers, it was the only one still moving the online conversation needle the next day.
Q: So what was the best Super Bowl strategy?Â
A:Â We looked at three groups, measuring each brandâs share of voice by aggregating the number of times brand mentions were seen online by consumers during all of December, and compared that to their January performance. We also looked at online share of voice right before the game, during, and post-game lift sustainment.
For the first group, the eight brands who only revealed their commercials during the game, there was an online consumption rise of 111%. The next group -- 17 brands that released their ads online early -- had a larger rise, of 134%. So there was no detrimental effect to pre-releasing. But of the 11 brands who released early and created more elaborate ways to involve the online community in the weeks leading to the game? Online brand consumption increased on average 210% for the month, more than three times what it was in December. And then it went up 93% the day following the Super Bowl.
Q: Which were the Super Bowl standouts, in hindsight?
A:Â Taco Bellâs âgrandpa gone wildâ was really masterful. It turned out to be very share-worthy. So were Doritos and Budweiser. Pepsi really maximized the community involvement, spoofing Coke and getting a 3172% increase in brand visibility during the January run-up. Pepsi still scored a nice bump of 76% the day after the event.
But the âbig revealâ spots, including Jeep and Dodge, didnât do that well.Â
Q: Obviously, this all hinges more on the quality of the spot itself than the release strategy, right?
A:Â Yes, and itâs clear that good storytelling stands out.
Q: But probably most of the marketers who bought these spots believed they were telling compelling stories, too. Is it a little like finding a four-leaf clover?
A:Â Yep. Itâs hard for any brand to compete with the core programming of the big events. And then thereâs a de facto bell curve. In an event like the Super Bowl, Iâm very skeptical that multiple brands can rise to the breakthrough level. The best brands can do is have a content czar -- someone who can make sure the content created is truly share-worthy -- and then collaborate with agencies to make sure there are compelling ways to share. Too many marketers think that itâs just about creating great content, and itâs not. Itâs about finding ways to amplify that content. Grey Pouponâs budget was very small compared to Samsung, yet it had a much bigger impact.
Kontera Analysis February 18 - 25 2013. Originally published on ClickZ, data also published on Business Insider.Â
First, Grey Poupon's agency of record, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, created a 90-second, long-form commercial. It launches from the original commercial's setup of one gentleman asking another for the mustard and evolves into a mad chase involving golf club fencing and a slick of caviar. A 30-second version ran during the Oscars. The agency also created six short, "behind the making of" spoofs, posted to YouTube.
The brand extended the life of the commercial with a web-based sweepstake, and it created buzz by leaking a trailer in the week before the Oscars.
"The long form lives online, and we kicked it off with the 30-second airing of the spot. We also had an exclusive sneak peek for Society of Good Taste members on the Saturday before the Oscars," says Nadine Rich, brand manager of Grey Poupon. The Society of Good Taste is the company's "exclusive" Facebook group: Fans need to apply and be approved in order to join.
Online, navigating to GreyPoupon.com takes you directly to "The Lost Footage," the 90-second version centered in a black screen. Once you've watched it, you're asked to watch again, this time keeping an eye out for clickable hot spots. Clicking on one, for example, the gentleman's Windsor tie, lets you register to win one in a sweepstakes. (The video has more than 1.25 million views to date.)
Kontera, a company that analyzes social media conversations and content views, as well as providing services to "amplify" content, looked at data for 15 brands that advertised during the Oscars. It found that Grey Poupon outperformed all other advertisers.
Kontera's data compares online brand consumption trends during the "Oscar period trending bump," that is, the period before and after the broadcast that can be expected to increase social conversations and content consumption. It also compared overall February brand consumption to that of January. It found that Grey Poupon was the only brand to see a sustained trending increase.
During this Oscar period trending bump, Grey Poupon saw an increase of 345.32 percent in consumer interest, as reflected in Kontera's data. "Trending" is a measure of the percentage increase or decrease in the amount of consumption of digital media and social conversations.
According to Ammiel Kamon, executive vice president, marketing and mobile, at Kontera, when Grey Poupon released the teaser spot on January 18, a slow simmer of interest began. On Sunday, when the commercial aired during the Oscars, more people started to get involved. "The teaser commercial had a very strong call to action," he notes. "The TV spot also directed people to go online, and the online ramp-up started in earnest at that point."
Kamon says that a similar analysis of Super Bowl advertisements showed that brands that involved their communities before their pricey spots aired and continued to offer involvement afterward gained the most attention.
According to Kamon, the tease works but it's got to be done right. "Leave something to be discovered. It doesn't matter if it's 25 percent or 50 percent; that's the hardest thing to figure out is how much to tease," he says.
Rich says, "We were very happy with the pre-spot buzz. We wanted to gain a lot of attention and ⊠re-establish ourselves and our place in culture with this spot."
Read Additional Brand Insights Around Grey Poupon's Oscar Campaign:Â
GREY POUPON HAD THE WINNING OSCAR AD CAMPAIGN BY A MILE
