NEW YORK, NY–(Marketwired – July 11, 2017) – While it may seem that new products and those within sectors like technology that are considered to be the “hottest” are the ones consumers are talking about most, this is more of a myth than fact. In a recent year-over-year analysis of 500 consumer brands, Engagement Labs identified the top ten brands that saw the most improvement with respect to the quality and quantity of consumer conversations.
According to the analysis, these ‘Movers and Shakers’ are not from just one category — in fact, they range from technology and entertainment to insurance companies, travel services and food brands. And, they include a mix of new products, such as the Apple Watch, along with well-established brands such as General Mills. This demonstrates a fundamental finding — no matter the category or age of a brand, with a strong product, notable customer, or talk-worthy marketing campaign, there is always an opportunity to gain momentum and improve how much and the way in which consumers talk about a brand.
The rankings are based on Engagement Labs’ proprietary TotalSocial® data, which continuously measures the most important drivers of brand performance with respect to social media and word of mouth conversations. Engagement Labs’ ‘Movers and Shakers’ were identified by brands that had the biggest point increase in their TotalSocial scores from the twelve months ending May 2016 to the twelve months ending May 2017, placing them in the top half of the TotalSocial ranking.
“The ‘Movers and Shakers’ list provides a roadmap for marketers as they build strategies to generate conversations and increase sales. For example, General Mills took a big risk in creating a socially responsible marketing campaign for its flagship Cheerios brand with its ‘Bring Back the Bees’ campaign. While the campaign did spur a little controversy, it ultimately got consumers talking,” said Ed Keller, CEO of Engagement Labs. “In the case of Apple, it is clear that the company really made the most of its product launch for the Apple Watch. And, when looking at Travelocity and Hotels.com, the increase in media spend is paying off as more consumers are talking. There is no one magic bullet to increase consumer conversations, and these ‘Movers and Shakers’ demonstrate that.”
Lessons Learned: You do not have to be a new, hot technology in order to get consumers talking.
USAA and Bayer are clear examples that you don’t have to be a ‘sexy’ brand to earn consumer engagement.
USAA, ranked third on the list of the top ‘Movers and Shakers,’ has a well-deserved reputation for its customer service. For years, the Company has focused on providing military members and their families with insurance, banking and investment services. Their marketing campaigns focus on patriotism and appeal to consumers emotionally, and TotalSocial finds that a rise in people talking offline about their advertising and marketing is a large part of their overall increase in its TotalSocial performance.
Another example is life science company Bayer, which ranked second on Engagement Labs’ ‘Movers and Shakers’ list. Bayer had a record-breaking year and substantially improved its offline (face-to-face conversations) TotalSocial score year-over-year, particularly in offline sentiment. In September 2016, it announced its intent to purchase Monsanto, which reinforced Bayer’s leadership position as a global, innovation-driven life science Company.
Lessons Learned: Make talkability a key pillar of your product launches.
According to Engagement Labs’ report, Apple Watch is the number one ‘Mover and Shaker.’ The brand moved up more than 100 spots on the TotalSocial 500 ranker this year. Within the last twelve months ending May 2017, Apple released a number of product innovations including the iPhone 7, Apple Watch Series 2, and Apple AirPods, among others. Apple has always had a knack for getting consumers talking and interacting with the brand. Apple did not let this opportunity pass them by, and instead leveraged the Apple Watch launch to activate consumer conversations, as it has done exceedingly well over the course of many years.
Lessons Learned: Taking risks will get consumers talking.
General Mills proved that even the most established brands can be a ‘Mover and Shaker.’ One of the many catalysts that enhanced its position was an innovative, and somewhat controversial, “Bring Back the Bees” campaign. Launched in 2016 and relaunched in March 2017, General Mills leveraged one of their iconic brand mascots, Buzz from Cheerios, to raise awareness of the declining bee population. According to Engagement Labs, General Mills moved up 64 spots on the TotalSocial 500 ranker and also improved its offline sentiment and offline brand sharing score — which is the amount of face-to-face conversations in which people are talking about a brand’s marketing or advertising — substantially year-over-year. The campaign humanized Cheerios, and connected to its consumers’ emotional interests.
To learn more about Engagement Labs and its TotalSocial insights, as well as how to increase your brand’s word of mouth in real life and online, reach out at: [email protected].
About Engagement Labs
Engagement Labs (TSX VENTURE: EL) is the world’s first TotalSocial® company, offering intelligent data, analytics and insights for marketers. We are leaders in tracking, measuring and benchmarking the impact of conversations happening around a brand and industry — both online and offline. Consumer conversations are a proven driver of critical business outcomes, including sales. The patent pending TotalSocial data solution provides brands with unique insights and powerful analytics to understand online and offline social impact and drive business results. TotalSocial demonstrates to marketers how their online and offline conversation compare and contrast and helps identify areas of competitive opportunity or significant emerging threats. TotalSocial is an “always-on” proprietary scoring system, based on the most important drivers of brand performance: Volume, Sentiment, Brand Sharing and Influence. TotalSocial was built on the pillars of Engagement Labs’ patented social media measurement tool and the world’s only offline word of mouth tracking system for brands and tracks 500 brands across 16 major industry categories within the U.S., and 350 brands across 18 industry categories in the UK.
To learn more visit www.engagementlabs.com / www.totalsocial.com.
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