America’s “most misunderstood soft drink,” Dr. Pepper, had a social media image problem in 2011 after its “Not for Women” Dr. Pepper Ten campaign offended some consumers with its perceived misogynistic messaging. A year and a half later, the beverage brand tweaked the message a bit, coming out with a less anti-women and a more pro-men ad for the 10 calorie beverage called “No Man’s Land.”
How did Dr. Pepper manage to turn sentiment around and convince consumers it wasn’t a sexist soda manufacturer?
Social intelligence firm NetBase used Dr. Pepper as a case study to examine its new campaign management system (Insight Composer) which offers managers a realtime “social intelligence” report on the emotional climate of their campaigns. The data tracking is used to respond to negative and positive impressions in realtime, resulting in more of an ongoing conversation based on real responses.
All information is charted in a sentiment and passion analysis graph, where the ratio of positive vs. negative responses to a social media campaign can be compared with the varying levels of influence that your campaign’s critics and supporters have (think Klout score, follower count). Knowing what is being said – and not said – allows campaign managers to budget appropriately as they determine what to emphasize in further marketing efforts.
Action verbs and adjectives are also accounted for. In a word cloud analysis of how people felt about the brand, Dr. Pepper was considered “nasty” following their “men only” controversial campaign. Then, after the recent and more successful “No Man’s Land” campaign, the popular action verb of choice accompanying Dr. Pepper mentions was “drink.”
Meddling coworker eying my Dr Pepper & chocolate donutes-You’re gonna die if you keep eating that crap. Me-So I’ll be immortal if I don’t?
— TravisErwin (@TravisErwin) September 12, 2013
Of course, analyzing sentiment is tricky and not an exact science. In the above example, words such as “die” and “crap” might be placed into the negative category, while the overall tone of the tweet is more joking/positive. In general, however, sentiment analysis can help social media managers inform their team about what’s working in a given campaign.
Is your brand looking for the right tool to track and respond – in real time – to the more emotional reactions from both followers and critics surrounding a current campaign? How are you tracking consumer sentiment around your brand?
