Marketing Brilliance or Knee-Jerk Reaction to Social Media?

Anyone who has followed Coca-Cola’s “Arctic Home” campaign knows that Coke recently inverted the coloring of its Classic Coca-Cola can. The “Arctic Home” project is a collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund designed to raise awareness (and donations) for the plight of the polar bear. As part of the campaign, Coke offered its classic beverage in a white can (to symbolize the Arctic), marking the first time in history the beverage was not available in its traditional red decor.

The change did not last long. In fact, just five weeks after the white can was put to market, Coke yet again made a change to its flagship brand. This time, Coke kept the “Arctic” design but reverted the base color of the can back to red.

Soon after the launch of the “Arctic” white can, some consumers confused it with Diet Coke. Others asserted that Coke from the white can tasted different, while some die-hard Coke drinkers were simply indignant at Coke for daring to change the iconic red background.  For these reasons, and others, Coke customers took to social media to react. Just five weeks after the white can was put to market, Coke made another change. This time, Coke kept the “Arctic” design but reverted the base color of the can back to red.

The following dashboard shows the analysis in chronological order of all 4 sets of comments:

Attensity analyzed social media feedback on Coke's special holiday cans.

On one hand, the data clearly indicates that Coke’s white can was well liked by most, indicating clever marketing by Coke to create Buzz around an extremely familiar product. On the other hand, there was just enough real negative sentiment towards the white can to justify a swift reaction to avoid the issue escalating any further, especially in light of the social media feedback on announcements from companies like Bank of America and Netflix.

From the moment the white can was announced, to the news stories to the repeal of white and introduction of the red holiday can, social media was involved at every turn. Here are some of the key things we learned using Attensity Analyze:

• The public generally welcomed the white can.
• Most people expressed negative sentiment towards the can going from white back to red.
• Regardless of color, people liked the “Arctic” design.
• The public reacted in larger numbers after the red “Arctic” can was announced.
• People were much more negative, overall, on social media not controlled by Coke.
• The purpose of the Arctic Campaign was lost within the debate over the can.

To see the full social media analysis of the Coke holiday can campaign, download the report here:

Capgemini VP of BPO Customer Operations to Deliver Strategies for Analyzing and Acting on Social Customer Feedback

Earlier this year, Attensity announced a strategic relationship with Capgemini Group, one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. This Thursday, December 15th, Capgemini and Attensity will host a complimentary webinar on Capgemini’s Social Media Management service, which uses Attensity’s social analytics solutions as its technology platform. Partnering with Attensity, Capgemeni offers an end-to-end managed service to deliver analysis, insight and customer engagement.

To register visit: http://www2.attensity.com/capgeminiwebinar

What: “Looking at Social Media Through the Prism of the Customer Lifecycle” is a complimentary webinar from Attensity with partner Capgemini, one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcing services. As part of Attensity’s monthly series of complimentary online events, this webinar will focus on how social media is creating a global network of real-time relationships with companies and fueling the need to hear, understand and respond to social customer feedback.

When: 11:00 am PST / 2:00 pm EST, Thursday, December 15, 2011

Who: Paul Cole, vice president of BPO Customer Operations at Capgemini, will examine how using an integrated set of technologies offers companies the ability to hear and understand what their customers are saying, and then analyze and respond in a fast, efficient and scalable manner.

Why: Attendees will learn how the latest developments in social media analytics and engagement throughout the customer lifecycle enable companies to:

• Acquire new customers by increasing awareness in social media at a fraction of the cost
• Develop customers through higher satisfaction, resulting in more engaged customers that average 33 points higher on Net Promoter Scores
• Retain customers through stronger interactions in social media that generate loyalty and convert detractors into advocates

If you’ve turned on the TV, tuned into the radio or surfed the web this holiday season it would be almost impossible to miss the massive marketing campaign that Roku has launched to drive sales of it’s new $49.99 Roku Purple Box.  It sounds super cool and caught my attention (even though we have an Apple TV.)  I wanted to see if I was the only one taken-in by this campaign. So I dug into the social stream using the Attensity firehose (a multi-channel real-time ingestion and analytics engine that processes millions of conversations a day) and checked out how the market is reacting to their messaging.

First conclusion, people are excited! Top consumer electronics influencers and shopping influencers are talking about this product, both reporting on it, so a lot of neutral content about the features and at the end of their assessment, showing positive sentiment about it.  Below is a snippet of some of the top social mentions on the Roku with influencers with high Klout scores and high impact and reach scores (Attensity influencer metrics.)

There is lots of buzz about the 350+ premium channels, streaming content from Netflix, Hulu Plus, HBO, wireless, game connectors (I am kind of excited and maybe even a bit scared about the Angry Birds on the big screen opportunity), access to flickr, etc.  Here’s the buzz chart – which is reflective of the many reviews, plus the positive sentiment as well.

So far, it seems like the social customer is convinced and the advertising blitz is taking hold. And at that price, it would make a great gift, even for people who don’t have subscriptions to Netflix or Hulu Plus, because there are several free channels through Roku, including free movie channels and access to Pandora.  You can find a list of what you have to choose from here.   It will be interesting to see if the buzz translates to business.

Hotel property managers know there is a direct link between the guest experience and the success of a hotel property, and most encourage their customers to provide feedback through surveys. However, today’s social customers are also sharing that feedback more widely through social networks, online review sites, communities and forums. This Wednesday, join James Purchase, Senior Director of Industry Solutions, to see Attensity’s new Hospitality Industry Solution and learn how savvy property managers are combining the insights mined from these conversations with their survey feedback to prioritize property upgrades and enhancements, and deliver products and services that enhance the customer experience.

When: Wednesday, November 30 at 11:00 am PST/ 2:00 pm EST

Click here to register.

Dr. Fern Halper is a partner with Hurwitz and Associates, a strategy consulting, market research and analyst firm that focuses on how technology solutions solve real world customer problems. She has over eighteen years of experience in data analysis, business analysis and strategy development, and has held key positions at AT&T Bell Laboratories and Lucent Technologies.

Halper is writing a blog series on Big Data Analytics, a topic that is generating a lot of interest in Attensity these days, especially following our recent announcement of Attensity’s real-time social analytics running on the Aster MapReduce Platform from Teradata.

In her first post in the series, Halper talks about Attensity’s approach to this rapidly evolving market:

“I am often asked whether it is the vendors or the end users who are driving the Big Data market. I usually reply that both are. There are early adopters of any technology that push the vendors to evolve their own products and services. The vendors then show other companies what can be done with this new and improved technology.

Big Data and Big Data Analytics are hot topics right now. Different vendors, of course, come at it from their own point of view. We take a look at how four vendors (Attensity, IBM, SAS, and SAP) are positioning around this space, some of their product offerings, and use cases for Big Data Analytics.”

Read the rest of Halper’s post here.