Archive for October, 2009

Online is hurting Traditional Research in a new way

Traditional research has obviously taken a whack since the inception of the Internet. The billions of euros that goes to online research came from somewhere, but not a problem, the major agencies have shifted larger portions of their business online or bought companies that had done it first.

What is happening now is something different, what occurred before was Internet as the medium of transport i.e. online panels, internet based questionnaire, web based focus groups, now it is Internet as the source. This is where companies like Attentio make their bread and butter. The cost is through extracting the information and while this is significant, when we do it, we have it and then once categorised and “cleaned” we can really reuse and enable insights for clients repeatedly. We get those insights from truly conversational sources such as the blogs, forums, networks where the discussions are free flowing, unstructured and unedited.

While reading Research Live (a leading research website) I saw an article demonstrating the impact. The piece was entitled Pressure from online alternatives could stunt research recovery and Morgan Stanley’s Edward Hill Wood says “in recent years ‘traditional’ MR agencies have been undercut by start-ups using purely online data collection methodologies and new approaches such as social media analysis”

Those 7 words “new approaches such as social media analysis” talk to thousands of jobs that will change, millions of euros of lost sales to research companies, methodologies that won’t exist in 5 years, but also companies who will get information quicker while you and me get listened to more. A metaphor for the impact of this is record producers. Online distribution was first a new channel to ship CDs but when online downloads emerged the impact was catastrophic. Services like iTunes, Last FM and Spotify have and will do very well but they are new approaches and most record companies simply have not dealt well with the new world. I believe as with the music analogy the Research Industry will lose revenue although a large portion will go to listening and community based approaches, but will the larger players be flexible enough to do something about that? We’ll see.

First Direct (HSBC) continued

So, I am still wowed by the look and feel of the First Direct site – gorgeous. I especially like when you group the feelings together and they “shiver” next to each other like children after a swim in the sea. But, still I have a bee in my bonnet regarding their methodology.

My own quick research using our tools and that of other companies shows a much higher amount of neutral commentary than they represent. Via Tweetdeck you can check yourself and the positive buzz is about the new site, mainly from social media types, so not much in terms of people being wowed by the First Direct product.

I asked some “people I trust” for their view

Person 1, social media analyst, not associated with Attentio – “I agree with you on the sentiment score, but I have a more basic complaint: who’s doing this for them, and how? There’s really no information there, just a big number. To have any credibility, I’d expect it to have a link to something that explains where they’re getting their numbers. Otherwise, it’s just a number from the air”

Person 2, PR practitioner, social media projects, not associated with Attentio – “I agree with you. I have a feeling there were some doubting comments about it on Twitter when it first launched, or some sort of chatter. They certainly don’t explain or justify where they are getting those metrics from”

Anyway, no one is screaming about a great injustice, just questions on what data set does this come from and what methodology they are using.  First Direct actually come across as a “nice brand”, personable, there is a lot of good stuff on the site, but help a guy out here and add where the data comes from. Perhaps they plan to do this at Social Media ‘09 where they present a case study on this initiative…here’s hoping (link via @simongrice). In the mean time just sit back and relax and enjoy the bubbles :).

Negative iPhone buzz in Poland

I have been travelling around Europe in the last weeks. A small price to pay I suppose for being a European company. After my trip to Oslo I went to Poland. The reason for this trip was to present a story around social media monitoring at a conference organised by one of our partners Digital Media Consulting (DMC).

Poland is a still a fast growing economy even with the recession and has emerged strongly after years of stagnation under communist rule. It has also taken social media to its heart. There are a high percentage of young educated people who spend much of their time in internet. The most known phenomenon of the Polish social media is the social network called Nasza Klasa that has 14 Million users (35% of the Polish population) and was chosen medium of the year 2009.

Karol Szumowicz from DMC prepared a case study around the brand image of mobile phones in Polish social media. The most discussed phone – surprise, surprise – is the iPhone. In discussion forums however most of the buzz around iPhone is negative due to internet connection problems and issues with software update and bugs.

It has been great to be able to present in Polish (though it’s been difficult, too – not using this language on daily basis any more) and I hope there are more chances like that to come!

First Direct sentiment monitoring – more questions than answers

I can’t help myself. If a major brand comes to the realisation that social media is important and they decide to get involved, well, I feel happy, seriously. Still, they should be able to take some scrutiny around their activities in this new medium.

I noticed First Direct, a division of HSBC are testing social media. They have a set of widgets available at http://www.live.firstdirect.com one of the most beautiful parts is a gorgeous sentiment tool showing the amounts of negative, positive and neutral buzz. If you click on a button it will group the sentiments into the 3 categories, they say -

“Every hour the happiness index sweeps the web for comments about First Direct and shows each posting as a positive, negative or neutral bubble”

When I checked, 74% of posts were positive. I am sceptical. If this is harvesting information from social media sources how come there is so much positive sentiment?  Actually, let me phrase that again, how come there is so much sentiment at all? Based on our experience, sentiment is very much present in blogs and twitter but it is very unusual to have even 50% of posts being sentimental about a brand.

To illustrate in one Attentio study, we analysed a group of mobile phone companies and LG with 50% sentimental posts (pretty much split down the middle negative/positive) was nearly twice that of the other companies, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung. My own brief study of recent posts from Trendpedia and Twitter show nowhere near the amount of sentimental posts that would drive a three quarters positive sentiment score.

It is conceivable that they are tracking some discussion forums that give mainly emotional posts and those that post, like HSBC/First Direct, but then they should be transparent as to where this is. I am not the only cynic, there is a good post and great comments here from the Next Web blog.

I want to be wrong but this doesn’t look right.

Talking at the European Parliament

Thanks to my colleague Denisa, I got an invite to talk at the European Parliament last week to a group of young journalists. The program was developed by The European Youth Press, an umbrella organisation with the involvement of 48,000 young journalists, they had a slightly smaller group of 40 journalists availing of the 3 days of workshops and presentations.

I was at a New Media workshop and spoke about how social media provides opportunities for the more entrepreneurial journalist. One doesn’t have to look too far to see how Techcrunch, Mashable and others have built up strong audiences and successful businesses by finding a niche, producing great content and monetising their brand through events, speaking opportunities, awards etc.

As we know most offline press is in decline. There are a few examples of companies increasing circulation but these are few and often free press. We all see that online is emerging to take some of that market but is not replacing the losses. On one hand Murdoch sees a world where people will pay for the news content (he has shelved some free offerings), while others see that free is the only way and business models are driven by advertising and events that come from the online profile of the site. These are interesting times, truth has a cost and someone has to cover that cost.

There was one slide with a nice Attentio graph. It was there on the basis that new media often provides a platform for online conversations that are analysable and available for anyone to get involved. This also offers a keen eyed journalist a possibility to spot trends or prove a trend by showing how the buzz emerged and grew.

We finished off with a round table discussion on how the European Parliament will use social media in the future and the general feeling was they can be more engaged but the main difficulty will be speaking as “one voice” to the conversations. Perhaps the conclusion is MEPs can connect with social media, some information can be pushed by social media but as an institution it may have to refrain from actual conversations?

Celebrand, Celebrity Brand Index with thenod.com

We have launched the Celebrand Index which is in partnership with thenod.com.

“TheNod.com is where people, products & places get The Nod from celebs and experts! Follow your fave faces & shop their stuff!”. It’s got great information on the celebs and is actually a nice implementation of “folksonomy” where people tag the celebs based on what they wear, were they where and what they were in. Thanks for your work on this Darika.

There’s more to come of course (including a bunch of lovely graphics) but for now we are explaining what the index is and some interim high level findings. Those high level findings include:

• Female celebrities more discussed

• Celebrity topic associations shift rapidly

• Some topics have high buzz but low brand presence

• Emotive conversations can indicate a celebrity’s potential to drive brand loyalty

The release is below, I’ll link to it online later.

London, 15th October, 2009: Celebrity recommendations website TheNod.com and online market research specialists Attentio have partnered to track and analyse celebrity brand associations.

The Celebrand Index has completed a set-up phase establishing patterns around celebrity “buzz” in relation to commercial sectors including Fashion, Travel, Technology, Sport and Automotive.

The index will track how official recommendations like advertising campaigns and celebrity own-brand products impact on consumer awareness, alongside unofficial recommendations such as a celebrity being spotted at a venue or using a product.

The Nod’s CEO David Lethbridge said, “The Nod tracks and lists celebrity recommendations and, via our affiliate model, sees it convert successfully into sales. We wanted a research partner to provide further data on the value, opportunities, and trends from celebrity association.”

Attentio Co-Founder Simon McDermott said, “Previous studies of this type just looked at whether celebrity endorsements work – which has been proven. Brands want to see more insights like which celebrities are generating buzz, in what sectors, and if those are positive mentions.”

Quarterly Reports:

The Celebrand Index will be released as a quarterly report showing analysis of The Celebrity 100 collated by Forbes Annually and separating male from female celebs as well as focussing on specific sectors such as Fashion, Travel, Sport, Technology, Health and Beauty, and Literature. Insights will also include rising stars, successful celebrity endorsements, and where brand opportunities lie.

Widgets for social media buzz

The Attentio free tool Trendpedia is now offering widgets that can be used to get a simple take on buzz from four “buzzy” industries. The team has chosen movies, celebrities, mobile telephones and PC/Hardware as the four defined widgets. Across the four widgets the mega buzz winners from last week are (drum roll)…

Obama – 10,052 blog mentions

Microsoft – 5,322 blog mentions

Apple – 4,551 blog mentions

It is simple to download to a blog so maybe have a look at Trendpedia.