Name: Jonathan
Web Site: http://www.twitter.com/jgsinton
Bio: Jonathan is an experienced researcher, commentator and speaker on consumer digital behaviour. He has worked in the UK and the US, but now calls Australia home. You can follow him on twitter (@jgsinton) and his other blog on Marketingmag.com.au.
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- In an era where social media makes crises and hoaxes stronger and faster, it is great as an early detection system.
- It can be used as a listening diagnostic to provide greater depth and context around key metrics. For example, if there is a decline in trust, social media can be analysed to identify why. It can provide qualitative insights into what’s happening in the market.
- It can be used to monitor leading consumers – early adopters or opinion leaders – to ascertain which direction the market will head next.
- Opinions and other findings from traditional brand tracking can be matched to social media sentiment scores to understand the relationship content creators have with a brand. Using our Digital Lifestyle segmentation, this link can be made, to help brands understand how they can influence their online influencers.
- Social media is predictive of some measures. Sentiment is the main measure it can be used to understand, and while positive sentiment does not always correlated to behaviour, negative sentiment usually does. It can also be used to tease out themes about a brand and analyse how it is performing against these themes. Quality, design, efficacy and service are common themes evaluated by social media monitoring.
- Time spent consuming different media on the day prior to the survey (with the sample evenly spread over seven days on the belief that consumers can more accurately recall behaviour within a 24-hour period than a seven-day period)
- The level of attention attributed to each media consumption activity (self stated)
- An understanding of other tasks conducted concurrently with each activity (i.e. what activities were multi-tasked with)
Adding social to the brand tracking mix
July 18th, 2011Some of you may have heard the song United Breaks Guitars. Penned by Canadian musician David Carroll after his guitar was broken during a trip on United Airlines, it became a YouTube sensation and a PR disaster for United. Eventually, the airline was forced to compensate Carroll, but not before nine months of social media ridicule took its toll on the brand.
This and other examples, such as Old Spice, display how today’s fragmented model of influence can have a real impact on brands – positive or negative. Social media has made word of mouth about brands stronger and faster, throwing an extra element into the mix for tracking brand performance. Traditional brand tracking programs measuring awareness, consideration and other aspects of brand equity in the offline world no longer tell the full story – they fail to capture what is being said about a brand online.
Contemporary model of influence: brands now engaged in a dialogue with consumers
A myriad of monitoring services have emerged that measure social media performance, ranging from free tools to full service analysis and reporting. The higher-end tools are designed to provide insight into how a brand is tracking online, by combining automation with human analysis of the data to provide greater interpretation.
The cost and time benefits associated with social media monitoring have led brand managers to ask if they can replace traditional techniques with the approach. There are a number of reasons why the answer is no. Social media monitoring is a great complement to brand tracking programs, but it is not, and will never be, a replacement.
Limitations of social media monitoring
The strengths of social media monitoring are well documented, but there are a number of limitations that need to be considered before incorporating it into a brand tracking program.
1. Only a sub-set of the population are active online
Social media monitoring tools measure the online population only, which in Australia is dominated by a vocal minority. Our annual Digital Life study estimates that only 22% of our online population creates content on a weekly basis, which makes us quite voyeuristic compared to the global proportion of content creators of 37%.
There is also the fact that consumers are more likely to express their opinions when those opinions are strongly held. In some categories, such as tourism for example, the ranters and ravers can have a big impact on overall sentiment in social networks. What is being said, and who is saying it, as a general rule are not reflective of the general population.
Relationship with user-generated content
2. Social media metrics are not predictive of market performance
During last year’s federal election, we tracked share of voice and sentiment associated with the parties, leaders and key issues across social media and online news media. Our analysis revealed that Labor and Julia Gillard held a significant lead over the Liberals and Tony Abbot in terms of positive sentiment in the week leading up to the election. Yet when the votes were tallied, the lead Gillard and Labor had enjoyed in social media did not translate into votes.
Social media sentiment from the week before the election compared to the final Federal Election result
Once again this points to the representativeness of the sample – those who were expressing their opinions online were only a sub-set of the population. But it also points to the fact that social media can be used to predict some things but not others. In this case, sentiment was not a predictor of voting behaviour.
In other research we’ve conducted, we’ve noted that the quantity of online chatter does not appear to impact on sales figures. However, the saying that it takes years to build a brand and a moment to destroy it rings true, with negative sentiment more strongly correlated with (negative) purchase behaviour.
The snowball effect of social media also has an interesting impact in that while purchase intent (survey measure) does not predict sales, when people discuss their intention to purchase online it is a strong indicator of sales. This implies that the effect of ‘buzz’ or a belief that ‘everyone else is doing it’ affects behaviour.
3. Automated measures and human interpretation aren’t perfect
At the moment, social media metrics are not very sophisticated and, while they are usually filtered by human analysis, they generally rely on automation. The power of the linguistic engines that conduct the analysis remains somewhat limited.
Across the jobs we’ve conducted, typically only 35% of cases are definitively classified by sentiment, while the rest are classified as uncertain or neutral comments.
Even when the human eye passes across the data, the analysis process is far from infallible. Nuances in communication, such as sarcasm, are common in social media and easily lost in translation. Measures such as sentiment – or even identifying a conversation as relevant or not - are therefore not as reliable as validated survey measures.
Social media monitoring analysis process
4. Different horses for different courses – talking points and buzz volume varies by category
In some categories people are more active than others. For example, chatter around toilet rolls is virtually non-existent, while buzz around tablet computers is through the roof. For categories that don’t rate a mention in the social space, social media monitoring is not going to work unless they have an Old Spice moment.
Similarly, the discussion in some categories is dominated by issues, not brands. The confectionary segment is one such area, issues of health and obesity dominating the discussion, rather than mentions of the brands themselves.
Incorporating social media monitoring into brand tracking programs
The function of brand tracking is to answer two fundamental questions:
1. How am I doing? (Evaluation)
2. What should I do about it? (Prediction and explanation)
Given that social media monitoring is observational in nature and the metrics gathered are typically one-dimensional, it is currently most useful as an explanation tool and is limited in its ability to evaluate and predict.
However, it can be a valuable supplement to the brand tracking mix, by providing additional diagnostics to the program. It can add depth in the following ways:
As brands increasingly become part of social networks, the need to add a social element to the tracking mix will grow. While not every brand will replicate an Old Spice moment, most will be the subject of conversations online in some form. So while it would be foolhardy to entirely supplant a brand tracking program with social media monitoring, it is incumbent upon contemporary brand managers to keep at least one finger – and maybe more – on the social pulse of their brand.
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Are you a basic mobile brand or a game changer?
May 25th, 2011
The long awaited ‘year of the mobile’ crept up on us in 2010, catching many in the marketing community unawares. You could be forgiven for thinking it was going to be just like any of the other ‘years of the mobile’: unfulfilling. But with smartphone ownership skyrocketing to in excess of 50% of Australians and usage barriers crumbling, mobile is now a genuine space for brands to play in.
Australians are beginning to embrace ‘on the go’. We are heavy mobile social networkers, with usage of Facebook and the like consistent from the moment we rise to switching off at night. Commerce is growing too, both in terms of mobile transactions and use of smartphones to check prices and reviews in-store. We have an insatiable appetite for content and entertainment, whether it be through mobile web or apps. The only time we really put the phone down is for dinner – all other occasions show sustained use of email, messaging, music, gaming and mobile web.
Brands face the challenge of entering the mobile space in a meaningful and non-intrusive way. How can they connect with their consumers via mobile and what is the risk of falling behind by not acting? As with everything digital, there is a significant advantage in being first to market. The path to entering the mobile space depends on what you are trying to achieve…
As a personal companion that rarely leaves the consumer’s side, a mobile device provides unique opportunities to:
1. Build brand saliency (banner ads, sponsorship, search, etc.),
2. Build engagement and loyalty (by assisting people or entertaining them),
3. Influence the path to purchase (search, location-based offers, SMS, email, QR codes, etc.), and
4. Change the way people behave (via a game changing app).
So how do you implement a mobile strategy to achieve one of the above goals? Mobile web, basic app or game changing app??
Mobile web
The mobile web is suited to creating brand saliency and influencing the path to purchase. Ads, sponsorships and search marketing can be used to place brands in front of consumers visiting search, social networking, news and weather sites. For influencing the path to purchase the mobile web is key as apps usually can’t achieve this. When a consumer wants to find out information about a business or product, their first stop is typically a mobile browser like Google, not the app store. Google’s shopping results, which are integrated into PC search results, is due to be integrated into mobile search results soon also.
To create a holistic mobile experience, it is crucial to consider how to integrate mobile web with the consumer’s offline experience and other media.
Apps – basic or game changer?
Apps on the other hand can be used to build brand engagement and loyalty or in particular instances it can change the way the market behaves. They’re about providing entertainment, utility or social interaction. Adding value to a consumer’s life through any of these means creates engagement and loyalty for a brand, while at the same time helping to generate awareness.
But creating a popular, sticky app is not easy. There are now over 200,000 apps out there, posing a challenge in cutting through the clutter. Download statistics may look great, but frequency of use is even more important to look at. Facebook is one of the only apps that achieves frequent use amongst the majority of those who download it.
To work out an entry strategy, brands need to ask themselves how they can add value to a consumer’s life. The best place to start is the obvious – utility. For example, if you’re a bank, you’d start with a banking app – it’s the best way to deliver value to your customers. Another key way to add value is through entertainment, such as what VW has done with its Scirocco R 24 Hour Challenge app. Or the two can be combined, as Nike has done with Nike Training Club, which ticks both the entertainment and utility box. The ultimate in app development is providing something that is so useful or entertaining it changes how people behave. A great example of a game changing app is CBA’s Property Guide.
Mobile web vs. apps is not a battle
When it comes to choosing a path to mobile for your brand, it is not a case of one or the other. Mobile web and apps are used by consumers in different ways. They should be implemented as complimentary tools, and in fact over time, with richer web-based experiences (e.g. html 5, Flash, Silverlight) constantly evolving, the line between a mobile website and an app will become more and more blurred.
For the time being though, start with what it is you are trying to achieve. If your goal is the generate engagement or greater loyalty by changing the way people behave, perhaps an app is the answer. If you’re trying to raise awareness of your brand or influence the purchase cycle, maybe the mobile web is the best way approach.
The game has changed now that we’ve finally had our year of the mobile. Mobile devices are now a significant influence on consumer behaviour; the brands that identify how and where to dominate this point of influence are the ones who stand to gain. Don’t get caught unawares again, or the competition may just beat you to the punch and infiltrate the mobile space before you do.
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How well are you doing digital?
September 29th, 2010
For many Australians, our real lives are now inseparable from our online lives. We do our banking, shopping, playing, dating, planning, and even diagnosing via the internet. And the digital planet is evolving so rapidly it has almost taken on a life of its own; it’s a challenge for individuals, let alone organisations, to keep up with the pace.
Recognising the opportunities for cost effective, targeted communication, most organisations are becoming digital savvy. They’re launching smarter websites, experimenting with advertising, blogging, tweeting and Facebooking in an effort to tick their online strategy boxes. The problem is most don’t know enough about their online audience. Do you?
On ‘digital day’, 10.10.10, TNS released Digital Life, the most comprehensive study of online behaviour ever undertaken. It stands apart from other digital studies due to its:
- Deeper insight into digital behaviour: achieved by integration of opinions from survey data with actual behaviour recorded by software installed on participants’ machines.
- Ability to go beyond behaviour: patented diagnostic techniques applied to the findings allow us to understand underlying motivations of online behaviour, digital brand architecture, consumer segments and digital occasions.
- True global coverage: conducted in 46 countries, the study covers 90% of the world’s internet users.
If you’re wondering if your digital strategy is hitting the mark, it can help you address the challenges that come with digital marketing. Parts of the study are available free, via our interactive online reporting tool.
Challenges faced in optimising digital efforts
People are not just clicks or page views, they have attitudes, needs and emotions that drive their online behaviour. In order to build deeper connections with consumers, marketers need to understand what motivates people online. These motivations vary across different consumers and according to the digital occasion (i.e. the activity being conducted such as social networking or shopping, etc.) the consumer is engaging in. To add to the complexity, the drivers are often emotive and cannot be understood simply by asking consumers why they behave in a certain way. In order to peel back the layers and understand the underlying drivers across consumers, categories and occasions, an occasion-based needs segmentation is required. Such a segmentation will reveal how to best communicate and target consumers according to occasion-based needs. The Digital Life report includes our patented occasion-based segmentation, which can be customised by overlaying websites and brands to give insight into where they sit in the consumer psyche and how to best engage with target groups.
Organisations venturing into digital advertising often struggle to identify and prioritise media spend. Where do target consumers go for information, to shop, to socialise, to read the news, and so on? How and when should brands communicate with consumers when they are engaging in different digital activities? What role do specific brands play in different digital occasions and how can they complement the moment? Which websites align with the different consumer segments and digital occasions – which ones should be key vehicles for my brand? Digital Life provides a comprehensive profile of consumer segments to allow marketers to understand when to engage, with what tone and through which channels, by category.
Conversion to purchase online is proving tricky for many brands. Where consumers research products and where they go to buy differs by category. Understanding when to engage, with what tone and through which channel needs to be based on this information with the category, digital occasion and consumer segment in mind.
Too often organisations fall into the trap of using digital channels in a scattergun approach for one way communication. By doing so they are completely missing the point. The digital world offers unique opportunities to build deeper connections with target audiences, but not without getting to know them first. Our Digital Life report will deliver a framework for understanding and connecting with digital consumers – a framework for understanding how people use digital, the role it plays in their lives and the needs and motivations that drive their behaviour. On 10.10.10 we can offer an unparalleled understanding of what consumers are doing now, why they are doing it, and what they will do more of in the future. We hope you take up the invitation to talk to us about how it can help your organisation.
For more information on Digital Life, drop me a line at jonathan.sinton@tnsglobal.com
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Desperately seeking attention – media engagement dashboard
August 6th, 2010
The trend towards multi-tasking and the current approach to measuring media consumption, which captures time spent on media without taking into account the attention given to each, prompted us to investigate media engagement more deeply. Does it make sense to measure our media consumption based on the total time spent using the media or with it running in the background, or based on the amount of time spent engaged with the media? In a previous post, I discussed the flaws with the current measurement approach and the importance of understanding media engagement.
To understand the impact multi-tasking is having on our media engagement, we asked the general public three simple questions to capture:
The results generated some fascinating insights, which I have dicussed on my Marketing mag blog. The media engagement dashboard below allows us to view media attention and multi-tasking trends by age and gender (just click on the filter drop down on the top right).
*Using the internet and emailing, includes use of these media at home, work, school or college.
To view a larger version of the Dashboard click: Media engagement dashboard_FINAL
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Engagement or not?
May 25th, 2010
How much time did you spend online in the last week? Major research houses purport to have the answer to this question, based on the recall of panel members who fill in media consumption diaries. But with our media consumption habits changing radically, the growing trend of multitasking and an increasing prevalence of mobile connectivity, how accurate can they be?
If you were asked to recall how much time you spent ‘online’ in the past week could you answer? Could you remember all the occasions you accessed the internet over the week, at work, from home, on mobile? If you’re like me, you’d be hard pressed the estimate the amount of time you spent ‘on’ the internet in the past day, let alone the past week. And, accuracy aside, is a measure of time spent online even relevant anymore, in today’s age of multitasking and mobile media?
To read the rest of the blog from marketingmag.com.au, click here.
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Australia – land of the blogging voyeurs
February 21st, 2010
Let’s face it, we all love to watch. But when it comes to joining in, are we willing to take the leap?
I am, of course, talking about blogging. There has been a spate of published research recently which highlights that Australia, as a nation of bloggers, is a bit of a laggard. Our own research suggests a similar story. So what are the facts?
40% of online Australians claim to have started a blog. This might seem high but many consumers consider their MySpace page, or their Twitter site to be their ‘blog’. Furthermore, a large proportion of blogs lie dormant – a spontaneous attempt to express oneself that quickly runs out of steam. In reality, the percentage of online Australians writing ‘traditional’ blogs regularly is in single figures. Compared to Asia, the number writing their own blogs is extremely low – in many Asians markets blogging is a mainstream activity, with a majority writing regularly.
Full version of article published on Marketingmag.com.au.
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The device agnostic consumer
February 21st, 2010
A recent article in The Sydney Morning Herald reported that a dramatic increase in illegal downloads of TV shows, movies, etc. was the result of the recession – people risking prosecution to save a bit of money. But hang on a second – Foxtel is enjoying significant increases in subscriptions and is profitable for the first time, while the cinema is undergoing a renaissance. I don’t doubt that illegal downloads are increasing, but I do doubt that saving money is driving the increase.
So what is driving the increase in illegal downloads? I believe it comes down to two key factors. First, there is ever-increasing competition in broadband provision, which is driving down the cost of fast broadband to the consumer. The vast majority of internet users are on broadband now and each year the average package they are subscribed to gets faster, with a higher limit.
Full version of article published on Marketingmag.com.au
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Multi-tasking: Don’t bother passing me the remote
February 21st, 2010
Over the past six months my blogs have focused on the digital consumer, but in this month’s post I’ll focus on one of the bigger, and potentially controversial, consumer trends at play. It’s a trend we’re all familiar with – multi-tasking – and specifically watching TV while surfing the web. It’s nothing new – many of you probably do it (maybe even whilst you are reading this), but it’s prevalence is growing and it has big implications on the marketing community. So what are the facts:
• Australia is the most likely market in Asia where the PC is based in the lounge
• 32% of online Australians watch TV and surf the web simultaneously on a regular basis
• Evenings are the most likely time, with no particular skew to particular days, although weekends are marginally lower than weekdays
• The behaviour is slightly higher among the under 30s, but prevalent throughout society, and
• Typical activities are emailing (82%), general browsing (69%), social networking (60%) and online shopping (39%).
Full article published on Marketingmag.com.au.
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A battle in the aisles
February 21st, 2010
Many have said that the tightening of belts brought on by the recession will pass once the good times return, but this would depend on the lessons consumers have learnt being unlearnt. It also ignores past experience, when we’ve seen emerging trends in the consumer landscape accelerate and establish themselves during a crisis more often than come and go. In the supermarket, shoppers have learnt that cheaper can be just as good, with private label products reaching a record share (over 20%) of the market in Australia. While there may be some relaxation of the purse strings when things improve, the trend towards private label is a new purchasing mentality that is here to stay.
Research we conducted in July found that, having been given permission to reassess what constitutes value, shoppers are more likely to select the less expensive option – be it branded or private label – unless convinced that a dearer product is tangibly or emotionally better. Even historically resistant categories are under threat. For instance, Huggies nappies were once bullet proof against private label due to the high level of involvement and trust linked to the category, but Aldi has shaken the market up with its cheaper offer gaining advocacy amongst the most viral of groups – mothers. Across all categories, we’re seeing consumers trading down from branded offers, with the popularity of private label products growing amongst adult households, young singles and young couples. And they’re doing so for a variety of reasons – some out of preference for private label and others despite an aversion to it.
Full article published at Marketingmag.com.au.
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Don’t shoot the messenger
February 21st, 2010
One benefit of ticking over a new year (beyond the chance to make a heap of resolutions which invariably are abandoned before February!) is a chance to reflect on the previous year – what happened, what we learned, what points of view different people had on particular hot topics and so on. With the continuing momentum around digital marketing, 2009 was in many ways a year for genuinely ‘new’ news.
However, in many ways 2009 was also a bit of a groundhog day, in particular when it came to criticism of market research and the accused ‘overuse’ of it. Every few years the same old points of view get wheeled out… ‘it kills good ideas’, ‘it takes too long’, ‘its too expensive’, ‘consumers can’t evaluate creative’, ‘we should rely on our gut more’ and so on.
Full article published on Marketingmag.com.au.
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