Whitespace: The promise and perils of measuring online chatter

Issue 53: September 2009

When Kraft wanted to better understand what Australians thought about its iconic spread Vegemite, the company didn't request the assistance of focus groups or branding gurus, it sought the help of artificial intelligence.

More specifically, it engaged the services of IBM and its brand sentiment software program CoBRA (Corporate and Brand Reputation Analysis) to sift through over 1.5 billion pieces of user generated online content – a process that identified nearly half a million mentions of Vegemite.

What CoBRA found took even Kraft by surprise: Australians don't just like Vegemite... we love Vegemite. In fact, the research project suggests Vegemite is the most loved brand on the Internet.

This kind of insight could only have occurred in the Web 2.0 age. Never before have consumers had so much opportunity to speak their minds via online reviews, ratings and rants. And never before have companies had access to such a large amount of feedback.

As a result of this development a new industry is quickly emerging. Brand sentiment software is currently big news in marketing circles as companies seek to make sense of web chatter at a time when reputations can be made and broken at warp speed.

Brand sentiment 2.0

Data mining programs – from IBM's CoBRA to free 'trending' services like Tweetfeel – are seen by many as the future of brand sentiment research due to their ability to make sense of the largely unstructured and sprawling Web 2.0 world.

But just how good is software at translating the emotion-bound world of brand sentiment? Critics would say computers are incapable of measuring feelings, that they might be able to spot brand names, but not describe the context in which they are discussed.

Well it turns out the ability to judge emotion and context is emerging as the 'killer app' of the more sophisticated manifestations of brand sentiment software.

Yahoo! researcher Bo Pang is one of a number of developers who has created software with the ability to measure polarity (whether a statement is positive or negative), intensity (the degree of emotion expressed) and subjectivity (the partiality of the source).

Few advocates of brand sentiment tracking claim these 'smart' programs are 100 per cent reliable. But as a Brandweek story argues, even if they offer a 60 to 80 per cent rate of accuracy after searching through billions of blog posts they're worth considering and in many cases acting on.

And that's exactly what Kraft did next with Vegemite.

Happy little Vegemites?

After discovering its consumers were exceptionally loyal, Kraft decided to look at ways to broaden its Vegemite offering by serving up a 'high touch' online forum and census to discuss how people like to eat the spread.

This process in turn led to the development of a new product – a cream cheese infused version of Vegemite – that the company then asked social media users to name. So far this process all sounds very Web 2.0 but at the moment a happy ending is not looking so likely.

Last weekend during the AFL Grand Final the product name iSnack 2.0 was unveiled to the country. The response from social media users was swift and decisive: they hate it. An outcome that shows what social media can give a brand, it can quickly take away.

Vegemite is now facing a barrage of national and international media coverage on how much people dislike the new name. Perhaps if Kraft had let Web 2.0 users choose from a shortlist of names it might not have become so ugly. But by asking for names and then acting as judge it does appear to be a case of "you can have a say but we still call the shots".

An amplifying effect

We live in an age in which online buzz can quickly become mainstream news. This development alone should be enough of an argument for every company to carefully monitor what's said about them online and to stay aware of issues that lie ahead.

The use of data mining software that measures brand sentiment might seem like a strange concept today, but don't be surprised if it's soon a common practice for every company – large and small – as the amplifying effect of online word of mouth continues to make its presence felt.

Tips for choosing a brand sentiment measuring company

• Layman's terms – Ask how the data is presented back to you to ensure you're given a user-friendly report (as opposed to mountains of data)
• Getting to know you – Make sure the supplier has a good understanding of your business so they can effectively translate the data
• Fair game – Find out if the service is fully automated; if so, ask how this technology measures customer sentiment characteristics like intensity and subjectivity
• Look for a track record – A lot of companies are popping up in this space; to be on the safe side request case studies and testimonials

Inspired by PR Week

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