Last but not least, here is our third installment of social media research data quality blunders. Whether you prefer Coke or Pepsi, this one is sure to tickle your fancy.
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After gathering thousands of verbatims from all across the internet, we created a word cloud that would help us determine what are the other types of beverages and brands of beverages that Coke drinkers mention a lot. Obviously, Diet Coke and Cherry Coke are bigs hits, as are Pepsi and Minute Maid. But if you’ve read the last two blogs, you know where we’re going with this.

What exactly would the word cloud look like if we only used words that didn’t actually mean Coca-Cola the delightful bubbly beverage? Prepare to look away if you’re easily shocked. Somehow, if we don’t put any effort into collecting quality, relevant data, we collect a lot of data referencing illegal drugs. Cocaine, marijuana, heroin, and meth rise to the top of the data. I can’t say for sure, but my guess is that Coca-Cola wouldn’t care to have this data affect their results. But that’s just my opinion.

Like this blog? Here are two others in a similar vein.
Apple pie, Apple orchard, Apple cider, or Apple iPad
British Petroleum, Brad Pitt, Blood Pressure, or Basis Points?

Why do brand names matter? For one, brand names are how consumers instantly recognize who and what you are. Brand names let consumers find you and talk about you with ease and clarity.

What makes a great brand name? Great brand names are instantly recognizable by everyone. Who doesn’t know what products are created by Chrysler, Coca-Cola, or Walmart? Just hearing these words conjures up images of each of the products. However, social media brings a new consideration for branding, namely, would you be able to find your own brand name if you were to search for it on the internet?

Let’s consider Chrysler. Is there any possible way that someone would use the word “Chrysler” to refer to anything other than an automotive company? A search for Chrysler on the internet brings up nothing but mentions of vehicles, a perfect scenario. Let’s now consider Coca-Cola. As with Chrysler, an internet search of Coca-Cola brings up nothing but mentions of the beverage. But wait… how does the average consumer talk about Coca-Cola? Not as Coca-Cola but simply as coke.  A search of the word “coke” brings up many non-beverage mentions. In fact, interspersed among many legitimate uses of the word, this search returns many, many results for a very addictive and illegal drug. This is certainly not a best case scenario for social media monitoring. The task of separating which mentions of  “I’m addicted to coke” refer to the beverage versus the drug is an intricate process. But, brand recognition for Coca-Cola is so incredible that it would be extremely detrimental for them to rebrand simply to accommodate social media. Who else might have some difficulty? How about “The Gap” or “Target,” both stores with great brand recognition but extremely low uniqueness in terms of their name.

Other brands have gone through the rebranding process, though clearly not with social media in mind. Electrasol, a wonderful and 100% unique brand name, recently rebranded its dishwashing detergent to “Finish.” A quick search on the internet reveals that this new name will make the task of picking out conversations of the detergent extremely difficult. The same must be said for Dominion, a grocery store which recently rebranded to “Metro.” Given the widespread use of the word metro to refer to subway trains and metropolitan areas, this chain will also have difficulties taking advantage of social media.

On the other hand, some brands have made great decisions. Changing “Indian Shaving Products Limited” to “Gillette” was a great move. Gillette is a word that would rarely be used to mean anything other than the shaving products company. They should have no fear that their search results will return vast quantities of irrelevant data. Who else might navigate the social media waters with ease? How about Nissan, Molson, IBM, and Radioshack. Instantly recognizable and unique names ripe for social media research.

Coca-Cola was recently named the best global brand by Interbrand with a value of over 68,734 million dollars. This ranking holds from last year and, in fact, represents 3% growth in the brand’s value.  How does this look in the social media world?

Though the beverage of the same name is only a portion of that overall success, we can look at overall feelings towards both Coca-Cola and Pepsi over the last 4 quarters. In terms of pure sentiment, Coke was more successful than Pepsi throughout the entire year.

One of the reasons for this could be consistently higher satisfaction with Coca-Cola television commercials. On a five point scale, satisfaction levels for Coke commercials over the last several months averaged 3.6 compared to a lower 3.2 for Pepsi. Given that thousands of verbatims contributed to these results, statistical significance is high and the conclusion can be drawn that Coca-Cola commercials are preferred. In addition, when considering discussions of business operations such as strategies, operations, and regulations, Coca-Cola again pulls ahead of Pepsi. Compared to an average score of 3.52 for Coke and an average score of 3.43 for Pepsi, this trend, which is consistent over the entire year, continues to put Coke ahead of Pepsi.

Can Coca-Cola maintain the momentum for a third year?