Using social media data to explain the widespread success ... - Infegy [PDF]

Social Media Insights for the Pumpkin Spice Latte

August 2015 Using social media data to explain the widespread success behind one of Starbucks’ bestselling seasonal flavor options.

Infegy Request a demo at: http://infegy.com

What’s inside this report The Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte created enormous demand for the Pumpkin Spice flavor profile of beverages. Using social commentary collected over the course of the past five years we propose to explain why the Starbuck’s brand of Pumpkin Spice Latte still towers above its closest competition. For many, the decision between branded versions of the Pumpkin Spice Latte is a combination choice between flavor, brand loyalty, and convenience. What trends might explain the difference in public perception? This report provides a quick look at the narrative behind seasonal beverages, highlighting specific examples of insights available beneath social media data.

2

Photo credit: LisaaSuender Flickr Request demo /at: http:

Contents Introduction

2

Comparing Affinity by Gender

10

Contents

3

Understanding Category Themes

11

Comparing Purchase Behavior

12

Uncovering Consumer Demographics

14

Conclusion

15

About Infegy

16

References

18

Background Mapping the Competitive Landscape

4 6

Understanding Consumer Perceptions 7 Identifying Geographical Preferences

3

8

Request a demo at: http://infegy.com

Background The Starbuck’s Pumpkin Spice latte has experienced incredible success since its introduction over a decade ago. In August 2014, Starbucks created a separate Twitter account just for the beverage to improve social engagement and establish their version as the one true Pumpkin Spice Latte. In 2013, Forbes highlighted the success of the Pumpkin Spice Latte1, pointing to a Starbucks news release which proclaimed the company has sold more than 200 million lattes.

You can even follow Pumpkin Spice Latte on Twitter!

4


Background At an estimated $4 per latte with more than 200 million sold2, Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte has generated a colossal $800 million in revenue since its creation. The seasonally limited availability creates anticipation for the drink in the months preceding its annual release, a model that competitors have been eager to copy. Demonstrated below in the topic cloud for online conversations related to pumpkin-flavored seasonal beverages, the flavor on its own is universally loved. Yet, even in non-brand related conversations, Starbucks is the only brand present to a large degree.

5


Mapping The Competitive Landscape Conversations about pumpkin-flavored beverages begin increasing in number starting in the July/August months, immediately before their availability in September. When it comes to the competitive landscape according to social media data, Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, and McDonald’s are the only brands with a notable amount of presence. Post Universe Spikes from January 2010 through July 2015

6

Insight to Opportunity While social traffic seems to spike for each brand in the corresponding Fall seasons, Starbucks’ competitors could mimic the Pumpkin Spice Latte’s social advantages to take better advantage of this area and spread buzz about their competing beverages.


Understanding Consumer Perceptions Despite accusations in 2014 that the products contain unhealthy ingredients, consumer sentiment for Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte remains overwhelmingly positive

Insight to Opportunity While each of the pumpkin-flavored seasonal beverages is discussed frequently on social media, sentiment for

Sentiment Perception from January 2010 through July 2015

each brand varies wildly. Only Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte maintains an consistently positive sentiment value over time. Analyzing the conversations about Starbucks’ beverage can help competitors deploy similar marketing techniques.

7


Identifying Geographical Preferences In analyzing social commentary by US region, several advantages are evident. Throughout the Midwest and Western coast, Starbucks and McCafé receive a significantly higher number of conversations. By contrast, Dunkin’ Donuts has a much larger concentration of social conversation in the Northeast United States.

Insight to Opportunity In order to remain a leader of the pumpkin-spice beverages, Starbucks should be wary of growing concentrations that might rival its regional strongholds. Analyzing data specific to geographies also provides the potential to uncover differing taste preferences and brand weaknesses specific to individual markets or regions.

8


Identifying Geographical Preferences Dunkin’ Donuts is a national chain, yet the majority of conversations about the brand occur in the Northeast. By comparing Infegy Atlas results to Google Maps location data, it becomes clear that this is a result of Dunkin’ Donuts lacking greater retail presence along the Western US coast. Google Maps

Infegy Atlas

Insight to Opportunity Just as analyzing data specific to geographies can uncover differing taste preferences and brand weaknesses, it can also aid in pinpointing where to open new franchises.

9


Comparing Affinity by Gender Looking at the demographic data related to gender, we can see the mostengaged coffee consumers among social media conversation are women.

Insight to Opportunity Starbucks currently maintains the advantage in audience gender diversity across the three major pumpkin-flavored seasonal brands. One potential way to increase its market share might be to attract a more malecentric audience to even out gender

Branded Audience Engagement Across Gender Lines

10

distribution.


Understanding Category Themes Combined theme analysis is useful in understanding the deeper themes of the digital conversation. In looking at the combined themes for our three brands, over half of conversations reflected some degree of Expectation. The next three emotions expressed reflect Taste, Acquisition, and Quality, present in 44%, 41%, and 25% of digital conversations, respectively. Combined Theme Analysis of Pumpkin Beverages

Insight to Opportunity While Expectation, Taste, and Acquisition are generally the most mentioned themes by share of voice, Acquisition and Cost are the most negatively discussed, at 36% and 37%, respectively. This means that 36% of consumers have stated that they will never buy a seasonal beverage and 37% have a negative perspective towards their cost.

11


Comparing Purchase Behavior When analyzed on their own, each brand receives 30-40% negativity concerning the cost of pumpkin-flavored seasonal beverages. Interestingly, Starbucks maintains the least amount of negativity concerning Acquisition (or purchasing) at 27%. Dunkin’ Donuts and McCafé represent higher rates of negativity at 43% and 40%, respectively.

Insight to Opportunity Each of the seasonal beverage brands demonstrates somewhere above 30% negativity regarding Cost of these beverages. Interestingly, consumers discussing Starbucks’ brand in particular mention not buying, or never buying, Pumpkin Spice Lattes to a far lesser degree than for other brands. This may explain the somewhat higher consistent post volume and higher overall sentiment.

12


Comparing Purchase Intent Similar to the Acquisition theme, Purchase Intent is accompanied with varying degrees of positivity and negativity. In this category, Starbucks also tends to exceed levels of positive purchase intent for its competitors. Significantly, nearly a quarter of digital conversation sources relate to Dunkin’ Donuts and McCafé with commentary indicating they will never purchase from these brands.

Insight to Opportunity McCafé customers tend to discuss their intent to purchase, or not purchase, to a far greater degree than Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts customers. Starbucks could use this information to mirror social strategies deployed by McCafé in order to capture additional

76%

18%

Purchase Intent (PI)

13

69% 37% 31%

24%

82%

PI Negativity

25%

brand momentum, converting a greater degree of their volume to beverage sales.

18%

PI Positivity


Uncovering Consumer Demographics According to a correlation between social location data and U.S. Census Data, the average Pumpkin Spice Latte consumer has nearly $7000 in additional household income compared to the general population. U.S. Demographics Comparison

Insight to Opportunity Revisiting geographic data, the results for Dunkin’ Donuts may be influenced by the concentration of franchises in the Northeast, which typically has a higher degree of wealth. What is clear from analyzing this U.S. demographic data correlation is that McDonald’s is failing to attract consumers

Combined Household Income Comparison

of pumpkin spice lattes who have higher incomes to their particular McCafé offering.

14


Conclusion When analyzed with proper subject application, online conversations can explain the differences in public perception. The decision between branded versions of Pumpkin Spice Latte depend on a variety of factors, including geographic preferences, demographic brand loyalty, and perceived quality or flavor. The examples in this report demonstrated how online conversation data can be used to: 1. Map the Competitive Landscape 2. Understand Consumer Perceptions 3. Identify and Strategize for Geographical Preferences 4. Compare Brand Affinity by Gender 5. Understand Category Themes 6. Compare Purchase Behavior and Intent 7. Uncover Consumer Demographics 15


About Infegy

Contact Us

Since 2007, Infegy's cloud-based technologies have been transforming huge volumes of commentary into valuable consumer insights.

[email protected]

Infegy’s flagship product, Infegy Atlas, helps brands, agencies, and researchers understand consumers better and faster through advanced automated analysis

facebook.com/infegy twitter.com/infegy linkedin.com/company/infegy

of online dialogue. With a focus on translating the voice of the consumer into actionable intelligence, Infegy Atlas has been utilized to determine what moms think about sugar content in breakfast cereals, what drives sales for nail polish, and if the Playstation 4 will outsell the Xbox One.

16


Getting Results / Choosing the Best Technology Beyond volume and sentiment, Infegy Atlas helps researchers get to the heart of what consumers think, discuss, and how they feel about topics and brands through almost instant analysis of millions of social conversations. Results you can trust. 93% sentiment accuracy and 97% recall. Backed by the largest validation test ever published in the industry.

Context. Deeply understand complex nuances, including emotions like trust and themes such as purchase intent, automatically.

Flexibility. Unlimited search queries and data access going back all the way through 2007, allowing you to perform more research and pivot more quickly.

Event Detection. Sophisticated statistical analysis of more than 125 metrics that highlights the key drivers within conversations and identifies the most important events.

Audience segmentation. Default and customizable audience segments that enable users to create social media focus groups to perform more targeted research and deeper discovery.

17

Speed. Through the API or the UI, return advanced contextual analysis within seconds of hitting submit.


References 1. Griswold, Alison. (10/31/2014). Retrieved August 13, 2015. “Are Starbucks Customers Over the Pumpkin Spice Latte?” Slate. Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/10/31/ starbucks_q4_2014_earnings_are_customers_over_the_pumpkin_spice_latte.html 2. Maynard, Micheline. (9/22/2013). “How Starbucks Turned Pumpkin Spice Into A Marketing Bonanza.” Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/michelinemaynard/2013/09/22/how-starbucks-turned-pumpkin-spice-into-a-marketing-bonanza/ Cover Image credit: Nicola. Starbucks - IMG_1196. https://www.flickr.com/photos/15216811@N06/6727994101/in/ album-72157622381527175/ This report was created using Infegy Atlas. Infegy Atlas is a social media analytics and research platform that utilizes proprietary automated natural language processing technology and Infegy’s in-house repository of online dialogue dating back to 2007. Infegy Atlas operates on a simple but powerful query language similar to what you would use for a Google search but with more operators, filters and options. These queries are available upon request. 18
