Commetric Blog

Historical Share Prices Hint at Apple’s Future without Steve Jobs

Posted on October 7th, 2011 by Lora Petrova in EquityOptimiser, EquityPrioritiser

The news of Steve Jobs’s bereavement clearly shook the world on Wednesday. The man who has been an inspiration for so many and who made a career out of changing the way people use technology passed away at the age of 56.

His pioneering spirit and business acumen have influenced to some extent the path of many tech companies, including that of Commetric.

Steve Jobs never designed a computer in his life, but it was his visionary and unmistakable business sense which drove Apple to stardom and his name became synonymous with that of his company. As his persona helped make Apple into one of the biggest companies on the planet, investors saw a massive pay off. The past ten years have been reasonably called the Steve Jobs decade, because Apple’s share price has risen 4,557% from its starting price of about $10 per share. Over the last five years alone, the company’s shares have risen 406.4% and follow a continuous upward trend as the graph below shows.

This is why Jobs’s untimely death has left many people wondering how Apple’s share price will fare in the short and long term. Here at Commetric, we are no exception. Unlike most people, however, we have tools that can help answer this question, using the unique approach of combining historical media coverage with our Equity Optimiser/Equity Prioritiser methodology. This allowed us to look at how various news reports on Apple impacted its share price and what were the topics that contributed to the biggest volatility.

The Equity Optimiser methodology incorporates a series of tools that quantify the +/- impact of corporate news on a company’s share price as a guide to business strategy.

Our analysis focuses on how media reports affects Apple’s share price, ranking news topics by the absolute share price change associated with them, based on the coverage and share price movements of Apple Inc. relative to the S&P500. We used a 12-month period ending on 30 September 2011 and sourced articles from major business publications and newswires.

Next, we divided the days with coverage of
each topic into days with high levels of coverage and days with low level of coverage, based on the average normal news flow for the company over the analysed period.

Our proprietary technology has computed the absolute market-adjusted share price movement associated with the days with high and low coverage of each topic. This is then compared to the usual absolute adjusted share price movement of the company’s stock to indicate topics to which investors tend to be more sensitive.

Below are key topics that affected Apple’s share price movements:

As expected, the persona of Steve Jobs was mentioned the most (709 articles under the topic CEO mentioned), compared to the other topics we measure against. This topic brought 33 basis points volatility on average across the one-year period. Somewhat surprisingly, topics related to product launches or upgrades were not associated with any higher than usual volatility (e.g. Company plans/launches product did not bring any share price change in days with high media coverage compared to days with very low coverage).

What caught our attention were two distinct out-of-the-average values:

41 basis points change in Apple’s share price when the article mentioned Steve Jobs’s health (161 articles under CEO health issues);
71 basis points change in share price when there was a statement or quote of Steve Jobs in the article (104 articles under CEO statement).

To put things in perspective – a movement of 10 basis points of Apple’s shares is a gain or loss of $350 million in shareholder value. In other words, on days when Jobs’s health was discussed, the impact was almost $1.5 billion and on days when he made a statement in the media, the number rose to the vicinity of $2.5 billion.

As a whole, this showed that the most violent market reactions were linked to the CEO-related topics, such as health issues and statements. Compared to the results of other big tech companies like IBM, Hewlett-Packard, this demonstrated undoubtedly that Apple’s share price volatility was directly tied to the persona of Steve Jobs to such a degree that the launch of a new iPhone had visibly less impact on the decisions investors make than a single quote by him.

Our initial question at hand was how Steve Jobs’s death would affect Apple Inc.’s share price in the future and how media coverage would impact investor activity on the company. Some 30 hours after the company announced the passing of Steve Jobs, Apple Inc. dropped by 1% and continues to be in a downtrend. The company is due to report earnings on 17 October 2011, but the questions remain: will Apple overcome the big challenge of losing its iconic leader? Will the company manage to determine its new identity, effectively carrying on its former leader’s vision or will it reinvent itself and evolve beyond the CEO-is-the-company concept?

So far, here at Commetric we do not see any signs that caretaker CEO Tim Cook can reach the man-company iconic status that is in its own right capable of bringing such high share price volatility. Of course, it is still too soon to speculate on the issue. The results from our price impact matrix tool for the past 24 hours show the following picture:

CEO health issues and CEO leaves the company continue to be the two key topics that drive Apple Inc.’s share price movement. The share price movement when those issues are mentioned in media coverage so far is -1.76%, which is equal to $6,162 million in a day.

Of course, this is all in a day’s data, so no final conclusions can be made on whether Tim Cook will manage to single-handedly manipulate Apple’s share price the way his late predecessor did. However, the historical data we have on Apple suggests that the next few months will certainly be quite an interesting and challenging period for everyone involved in the company, and for those watching on the sidelines.

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London Riots: The (Social) Medium IS the Message

Posted on August 11th, 2011 by Lora Petrova in InfluenceAnalyser

Europe’s trending topic these days is the massive social unrest that started in London but has been spreading like wildfire across all of the UK. On day four of the UK riots, here at Commetric we decided to take a close look at the events and how they affect businesses and brands in London’s boroughs.

We ran a search in the top ranked online UK publications for the past three days to source and analyse 2,600 articles. We categorised the sourced entities through our Influencer Network Analysis (INA) platform and analysed them using our patented methodology for INA. All entities were categorised by their role in the riots:

Affected by riots – events that might get cancelled due to the unrest, planned activities and the London Olympics 2012;
Communication channels/enablers – companies, brands, media, products used to spread information about meeting locations and planning strikes;
Government agencies – such as the Home Office;
Industry associations – also includes football associations, the Olympic committee; insurance associations, etc.
Riot victims – stores and businesses that had been looted or broken into;
Locations – all actual geographical locations across London, where looting has occurred.

Next, we generated a map co-citation maps in order to discover which of the above categories were mentioned together in articles.

Unsurprisingly the results showed that communication channels/enablers were most often mentioned together as tools for coordinating the riots. Rioters were reported to have used at least two communication channels together, such as Blackberry Messenger and Twitter, to talk to each other and spread information on the go. Although Blackberry was one of the most visible brands in the article sample, and despite all the headlines it made with its promise to cooperate with police, Twitter was the most widely reported communication channel. Riot victims most often mentioned included Tesco, Sony, JD Sports and the Westfield Shopping Centre. All four have been looted and/or set ablaze, with the attack on Tesco being most mentioned alongside Twitter.

A number of sports associations were also affected by the riots as football games were suspended and people debated the future of the London 2012 Olympics. Among the affected associations, the Football Association was the most central of all, connected mostly to the Premier League and Twitter. The British Olympic Association and the International Olympic Committee were mostly mentioned together with the Home Office.

The Home Office itself was less connected, compared to the links between the communication channels. Interestingly, the Home Office was co-cited the most alongside Twitter and Blackberry, but not alongside riot victims or events and associations affected by the riots.

We also wanted to see which locations around London were mentioned most in articles together with the above categories.

Tottenham, Brixton, Croydon and Clapham were almost always mentioned together and were all linked to Twitter as it was reported that Twitter was used as a means to call on people to be inspired by the scenes in Tottenham and rise up in their own neighbourhoods. Twitter was also used to remind people of the 1981 Brixton riots and call for similar approach.

Surprisingly, Brixton and Croydon were less often mentioned alongside the looted Tesco stores, which are located exactly there.

Tottenham was also often mentioned alongside the IPCC, due to its investigation into the police shooting of Mark Duggan there.

An interesting fact is that the International Olympic Committee did not appear in more than 10 articles together with rioting Olympic host boroughs such as Waltham Forest and Newham.

Amazon was mostly mentioned together with Tottenham in the articles, because reports linked the record sales of baseball bats and police batons on Amazon’s British website to the riots in the area of Tottenham.

Lastly, we wanted to see the connection between the communication channels/enablers and the riot victims.

Overall, the sample of 2,600 online news pieces demonstrated that the more traditional media outlets were very interested in the role that social media has played in organising and instigating the riots. This led to one interesting phenomenon – the enablers, such as Blackberry and Research in Motion and the Blackberry Messenger (BBM), were the most visible entities even compared to riot victims and ruined businesses. Taking a closer look at the articles we noticed something even more interesting – Research in Motion managed to successfully ride the media interest and boost its brand. While initially the BBM was strongly criticised and even blamed for the quick spread of the riots, the company later managed to clean up its name by announcing it would cooperate with the police. As a result, not only was Research In Motion one of the most central entities in the debate, but the features of its messenger were discussed at length, thus raising the brand awareness significantly.

What the riots in London demonstrated was that the ways in which social media is intertwined with everyday life is ever -increasing. We see more and more cases in which social media becomes the message and the focal point of traditional media news stories.

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The Murdochs and Rebekah Brooks Hearings: Who Said What

Posted on July 21st, 2011 by Lora Petrova in InfluenceAnalyser, MediaAnalyser

On Tuesday Murdoch father and son and former CEO of News International Rebekah Brooks appeared in front of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee to give evidence on the phone hacking scandal that’s rocked the News Corp culture. The scandal also lead to the untimely closure of News of the World. Here at Commetric we took a closer look at the hearing from the perspective of the exact words all three of them used to answer the questions of the CMSSC and the CMSSC questions themselves.

We used the official transcripts, provided by the CMSSC to conduct our short study on the frequency of the words used in the two hearings. We counted the mentions of each word for the statements of Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch, Rebekah Brooks, and the committee questions for the separate hearings. We then removed from the picture all commonly used words such as articles, conjunctions, prepositions and interjections. Next, we merged the number of mentions of the same verb used in different tenses. We also merged pronouns. Last, we took the 30 most mentioned words for each of the five groups of statements in order to produce a visual explanation:

At one point during the hearing, the two Murdochs were asked what coaching they had received before showing up in front of the commission. “We were told to tell the truth, to be as open and as transparent as possible,” Murdoch Jr answered. Since at Commetric we deal with monitoring PR achievements of various companies, we recognised the hidden PR coaching behind that statement, while watching the hearings live on BBC. But despite the apologetic feeling that most listeners like us got, we found out that a mere half percent of the Murdoch-Brooks statements included the words apology/apologise/sorry.

Another thing that caught our attention was that Rupert Murdoch apparently did not know almost anything that was going on in News International, but an analysis of his talk showed that he used the phrases I don’t know/I am not aware/Not to my knowledge only in 2% during the hearing. On the other hand James Murdoch used the same phrases five times more often than his father and three times more often than Rebekah Brooks. What we also found was that the most used word in the Murdochs and Brooks statements was I/me/myself. While Murdoch father and son used a lot the we/us phrasing, Rebekah Brooks used the phrase five times less often. The conclusion is that while the Murdochs talked about “us” [we, the company], Brooks talked about I/me [did this, talked about that], which showed a greater level of her taking personal responsibility on the matter than her bosses.

Words like information/facts/data/transparency/evidence were visibly missing from the talk of all three of them. Another word that was sensitively underused was responsibility. Words and phrases such as corporate/company/business were abundant in James Murdoch’s statement, together with law/legal/in compliance with. Another interesting fact is that Rebekah Brooks mentioned News of the World more often that both Murdochs together, although questions of the committee about the newspaper mentioned it equally often in both hearings. She also spoke of the Milly Dowler case twice as often as her bosses.

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When Corporate Ethics are at Stake, Twitter Becomes a Key Consumer Weapon

Posted on July 8th, 2011 by Maya Nikolova in InfluenceAnalyser

Shortly before the announcement of News of the World’s sudden death as a result of a phone hacking scandal, here at Commetric we decided to see what the public, in the face of the Twitter community, had to say to brands and companies advertising in the world’s largest English-language newspaper.

We asked ourselves:

Did tweets target the brands that have been advertising with the newspaper?
Were Twitter users calling for action against brands which have not pulled advertising out of NotW?
If so, which were the most targeted brands/industries?
Who were the key opinion leaders within the Twitter community?

At 16:00 EET we sourced the most recent tweets mentioning the word “advertising” and the hashtags #newsoftheworld and #notw. We then applied our patented influencer network analysis methodology to get some answers.

Tweeters target Tesco

We sourced a total of 545 tweets posted in less than an hour– a clear sign that Twitter users had something to say about brands advertising in the maligned newspaper.

The brand that was most heavily targeted by Twitter users was definitely retail chain Tesco.

The tweets mentioning Tesco represented a staggering 65% of the bulk. Boosted by other retail chains named by tweeters, the retail industry became the main target of the push for companies to stop advertising in News of the World (78% of the tweets).

Share of tweets by industry

Telecom operators were the second most targeted industry, followed by the automotive industry and travel/leisure service providers.

Tesco, who attracted the biggest wave of civic responses, is the sole focus of Map 1. The map reveals all Twitter users who mentioned the retail chain. Tesco was one of the advertisers who formally announced they were not suspending their contract with NotW. The Twitter community reacted with outrage to this decision, which user @davidyorke called “shameful”. Many tweeters openly called for boycotting Tesco and switching to competitors like Sainsburry’s or Asda, who had already pulled advertising from the newspaper.

Although some of these tweets may be empty threats, it seems that users feel that retailers are the easiest to punish by just switching to the competition. This could be one of the reasons why this industry was the main target in tweeters’ calls to NotW advertisers.

Tesco’s own "twitterverse" of blame

Twitter users address brands directly

While Tesco did attract the most discontent, other brands weren’t spared either. The next map reveals all other companies mentioned more than twice in the analyzed tweets. Interestingly, most of the tweeters tended to discuss just one company of their choice. Those who did mention more than one brand mostly addressed companies from different industries. This suggests that twitter users acted on a personal level, addressing the companies that they had particular interest in.

The other companies targeted by tweeters

Twitter user @cliffordbarry was the most active in his calls to companies for pulling out advertising from NotW. His account seems to have been created especially for the purpose of naming and shaming those companies and in a total of 12 tweets in the sample, he linked to the largest number of brands and mentioned companies from all represented industries on the map save for the Energy Industry.

One of his tweets – “@GoneFairTrade, will you be reconsidering Cadbury’s advertising spend with #notw given that we know they hacked Milly Dowler’s phone?” – directed at Cadbury Dairy Milk’s official Twitter account, demonstrates two of the key patterns of the Twitter users’ strategy in the calls to advertisers to turn away from NotW: Twitter users attempted to speak directly to the brands by addressing the official corporate Twitter accounts, and they also tended to highlight the ethical aspect of the scandal.

The two maps above reveal another crucial finding: this Twitter conversation really did equate Twitter users to the public and consumers. In many other Twitter studies we have seen a prevalence of automated Twitter accounts of news websites. Yet the participants in this conversation were primarily individuals, addressing an issue that they seem to care about.

Tweeters target direct competitors, praise Mitsubishi

Looking at the discussion from a different angle, we tried to see the patterns in praise and criticism. The map below focuses only on those tweeters who have mentioned at least two companies. In this case, colours do not indicate the industry, but the general attitude that the Twitter community had adopted towards each brand.

Criticism vs. praise

Notably, many users focused either only on praising the companies that had suspended advertising in NotW, or on urging undecided companies to do so and criticising those who had already decided to stick with the newspaper.

Tweeters who mentioned both Tesco and Sainsbury’s represented an interesting bridge between the two groups: most of them threatened to abandon Tesco and switch to a chain that has decided to stop advertising in NotW.

Such types of messages were made even more powerful by the fact that they often juxtaposed direct competitors from the same industry. In a similar example, Mitsubishi, one of the first brands to announce the suspension of its ads, was among the most praised companies in the Twitter conversation. Many users chose to address other brands and urge them to follow Mitsubishi’s example. For instance, prior to Ford’s announcement that they have also discontinued ads in NotW, user @spoons27 addressed them: “Hi @forduk – Mitsubishi donated their saved #notw advertising spend to a children’s charity. Perhaps you’d like to do the same?”

Retweet champions: Labour MP and Guardian editor

Although the overall discussion included a total of 460 unique Twitter users, some names emerged as the key opinion leaders as they attracted a large number of retweets.

Retweet champions

Maybe expectedly, the retweets of disapproving tweets prevailed strongly, as the outrage at brands not taking what was perceived as the ethical action overpowered the satisfaction with brands that had done so.

The most influential tweeter in the discussion was, unsurprisingly, a prominent public figure as well – Labour MP Chris Bryant (@ChrisBryantMP; +7,400 followers). His tweet “Just decided I’m not doing my weekly shop in tesco this evening following their decision to continue advertising with #NOTW” received 172 retweets within our sample only.

The second most retweeted statement was, again, made by a prominent user and concerned Tesco: “So Tesco apparently NOT pulling advertising from #NotW. Wonder how people will feel about that.” Its author, Jonathan Haynes (@JonathanHaynes; +6,400 followers), the web night editor for The Guardian, attracted 9 retweets in less than an hour.

As pretty much any other Twitter conversation we have studied, this one also featured a number of cutting comments – once again proving that irony and satire are among the key characteristics of Twitters’ idiom. A couple of our favourites included:

@cliffsull: Anyone want to get CHEAP advertising in a major Sunday Paper? (we appear to have a few openings) #NOTW

@OllyDeed: I’m officially announcing that I’m withdrawing my advertising in the lonely hearts section of the #NOTW #takethatmurdoch

Why brands need to listen and react fast

Despite the suspension of the newspaper and the announcement that this Sunday’s last issue of News of the World is not going to feature any advertisement, the outrage in the public who called on brands to do what their own consumers believe is ethical, would perhaps leave a bitter taste.

Why bitter? Because some major brands did not listen to their customers. Because they did not respond to their calls. Because, in a digital age when a message travels the world in seconds, they were simply too late.

As our small-scale Twitter study showed, in the age of social media no brand and no industry can hide away from the public. The consumers can address brands directly. The consumers demand that companies have ethical standards. And consumers threaten to abandon any brand if it fails to meet those standards.

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The Cannes Lions Media Conversations: Day 5

Posted on June 24th, 2011 by Maya Nikolova in InfluenceAnalyser

Commetric started listening to the media debate on the 2011 Cannes Lions festival. For the duration of the festival (20-24 June 2011) we are monitoring all media channels – from mainstream to social – to help visualize the connexions between topics, central individuals/Twitter Users and organizations mentioned in relation to the creativity festival.

Cannes Lions is all about creativity and creative connexions. You can follow the Cannes Lions media dynamics by day on our Cannes Connexions site: http://bit.ly/l4IQ28. This site allows you to visualise these connexions and see who is leading the Cannesversation across social and traditional media.

Key Highlights 24 June 2011 – Day 5:

Twitter User Presence Skyrockets

Yesterday’s top three Twitter users continued to bask in the limelight and even managed to generate an increased social media presence on Day 5 of Cannes Lions – dannydevriendt (Danny Devriendt), princess_misia (Marta Majewska) and JasonXenopoulos (Jason Xenopoulos).
Notably, Danny Devriendt’s tweets increased by a staggering 73%.
Twitter users focused intensively on seminars and presentations held at the festival, with some highlights coming from BMW’s launch of its first electric car.

The Ovation Goes Tooooo…Sir Ken Robinson

Amidst the many presentations on Day 5, the spotlight came down on one of the fiercest defenders of creative talent Ogilvy & Mather’s Ken Robinson. His talk on leading a culture of innovation sparked positive Twitter comments among attendees: “I’ve heard more wisdom in the past hour than in the past year” (David Trewern).
Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CP+B)’s Rob Reilly was another favourite, who discussed his creative mantra “Delusional positivity.” He also gave tips on how best to give a pitch presentation citing rules such as “Don’t bring anyone to the meeting, who you haven’t had too much beer with” or “Bring enough execution ideas.”
Twitter users continued to tweet about Google’s new advertising strategy and Eric Schmidt’s talk about the future of NFC terminals.

Wave the Flag of Success: Gold, Silver and Bronze

On Day 5, the Cannes Lions coverage in the blogosphere, online and print media focused on competition winners and yesterday’s announcements by Leo Burnett and Google.
Among the prominent winners were Ogilvy & Mather, Ketchum, IKEA and BBDO. Media also noted some of Asia’s top winners such as South Korea’s Cheil Worldwide and India’s JWT. Many companies were also merely mentioned as having been shortlisted, without actually securing any wins at the festival.
Articles on participants at Cannes Lions were published by a few advertising-orientated publications. They often mentioned several festival participants at a time, accounting for the almost even focus on companies.
Microsoft presented a new advertising option through Kinect, “the hottest selling gadget,” that will be used by the company to serve social and interactive ads on the Xbox platform.

To view the interactive maps of Day 5, follow this link.

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The Cannes Lions Media Conversations: Day 4

Posted on June 23rd, 2011 by Maya Nikolova in InfluenceAnalyser

Key Highlights 23 June 2011 – Day 4:

Twitter Talk Fires Up

Three Twitter users with an already established voice continued tweeting unswervingly for the fourth consecutive day of Cannes Lions – dannydevriendt (Danny Devriendt), princess_misia (Marta Majewska) and JasonXenopoulos (Jason Xenopoulos).
Both Danny Devriendt and Marta Majewska are representatives of PR firm Porter Novelli, and tweeted on similar topics/events.
Twitter users showed significantly more interest in the panels and panel participants, rather than the names of organizations winning the Lions. This suggests that the top Twitter users are more interested in the thought leadership aspect of the Cannes Lions festival than in the competition wins themselves.

Google’s Eric Schmidt is the Man of the Hour

Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, honoured as the 2011 Media Person of the Year, was the most central figure on Day 4. His Try to Say Yes philosophy and Google’s new invention, the self driving car, were among Twitter users’ favourite topics.
Author and innovator Edward de Bono, another prolific panel participant, also received a lot of Twitter visibility with statements such as “Our biggest problem is NOT climate change. It is poor thinking.”
Twitter users also gravitated to topics such as Facebook’s strategy to make advertising social, as well as Leo Burnett’s notion of populism being “the new effectiveness.”

The Scramble for the Online Advertising Industry Begins

On day 4, the Cannes Lions coverage in the blogosphere, online and print media encompassed high-profile announcements rather than news about competition winners.
Among the eye grabbing announcements was Facebook’s new ad unit, created by Leo Burnett, that would alter the way brands and people interact.
In an attempt to rival Facebook, Google announced they will buy more companies to boost their presence in the growing online display ad sector. Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman at Google, gained prominence by discussing not only Google’s strategy but also several industry predictions such as the near future of commercial mobile wallet systems.
Coverage of competition winners while minor still captured attention – particularly Cheil Worldwide’s entry ‘Homeplus Subway Virtual Store’ for Tesco and Digital Kitchen’s campaign for the new Cosmopolitan Hotel launch in Las Vegas.

To view the interactive maps of Day 4, follow this link.

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The Cannes Lions Media Conversations: Day 3

Posted on June 22nd, 2011 by Maya Nikolova in InfluenceAnalyser

Cannes Lions is all about creativity and creative connexions. You can follow the Cannes Lions media dynamics by day on our Cannes Connexions site: http://bit.ly/l4IQ28. This site allows you to visualise these connexions and see who is leading the Cannesversation across social and traditional media.

Key Highlights from Day 3 (22 June 2011) included:

Twitter Cannesversation Boiling

Two Twitter users appeared in the top 10 most prolific tweeters for the third consecutive day – dannydevriendt (Danny Devriendt) and advertisingweek (Advertising Week).
Twitter user princess_misia (Marta Majewska) was among the top tweeters commenting on Cannes Lions on Day 1 and returned to the most active users on Day 3.

The Yahoo Panel with Robert Redford in the Spotlight

Hollywood actor and director Robert Redford, who is also the founder of the Sundance Institute, was the most mentioned individual by the top Twitter users in the Cannes Lions conversation. Accordingly, Yahoo was the most mentioned organization, as it hosted the panel discussion with Redford.
Yesterday’s most prominently tweeted name – Malcolm Gladwell, remained in the spotlight, yet naturally he was more marginal than on the day he appeared at the event.
Most of the top Twitter users mentioned individuals and organizations which remained out of the scope of interest of the other top tweeters, revealing the different sub-conversations in the bigger Cannes Lions conversation.

Winners and Participants Drive Coverage in Print, Online Media and Blogosphere

Expectedly, the Cannes Lions coverage in print publications, online media and the blogosphere was driven by the announced competition winners and participants of the different panels. Some of the most widely commented winners were members of the BBDO family such as BBDO India and Clemenger BBDO Melbourne. Droga 5 was less prominent in the overall discussion, yet it received a lot of positive reactions by journalists and bloggers for the Jay-Z Decoded campaign, which won the Outdoor Grand Prix.
In line with Day 2, press releases again occupied a significant share of the coverage in online media.
Similarly to the Cannes Lions conversation in Twitter, the print and online media also focused on the Yahoo panel. One of the most heavily reproduced press releases covered Yahoo’s upcoming sponsorship of the short film programme at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. This was announced by Yahoo’s executive VP Ross Levinsohn, who hosted the on-stage discussion with Robert Redford.
Although general audience print and online publications did participate in the Cannes Lions conversation, the topic remained mostly in the scope of the specialized advertising, marketing and PR media.

To view the interactive maps of Day 3, follow this link.

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The Cannes Lions Media Conversations: Day 2

Posted on June 21st, 2011 by Maya Nikolova in InfluenceAnalyser

Key Highlights from Day 2 (21 June 2011) included:

Twitter Conversation Intensifies

The Cannes Lions conversation in Twitter visibly intensified on the second day of the festival. The ten most active Tweeters produced three times more tweets than the most active from yesterday.
Three Twitter users maintained their level of activity and were again amongst the top 10 most prolific tweeters– dannydevriendt (Danny Devriendt), _MELOW (Just Mels) and advertisingweek (Advertising Week).
The number of individuals and organisations mentioned by the top Twitter users also increased since yesterday, suggesting a more intense and diverse discussion as the event warms up.

Gladwell and Huffington Take Over

Yesterday’s leading influencer – teenage pop star Nick Jonas – disappeared as a topic of interest for the top Cannes Lions tweeters.
The most central influencers in the Twitter discussion on Day 2 were instead speakers from various panels. The spotlight belonged to best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell, whose speech was often retweeted by top Twitter users.
Although Arianna Huffington’s own Twitter account did not make it among the top Cannes Lions tweets of the day, she earned a prominent position in the discussion, talking about online content together with AOL’s CEO Tim Armstrong. Tweeters seemed to enjoy Huffington’s metaphor “Authenticity is like pornography, you know it when you see it.”

Press Releases Shape Print and Online Media Coverage

The Cannes Lions conversation in print and online media was heavily influenced by press releases, re-published particularly in online outlets. The two most frequently reprinted press releases were each on new studies: the BBDO/Microsoft global advertising study and the AOL/IPG Media Lab research on digital branding, both presented at Cannes Lions.

Winners in the Spotlight

On the second day of the festival, news on competition winners grew. The eyes of the media turned to the winner of the Grand Prix for PR – Australian ad agency Clemenger BBDO for the “Break Up” campaign for National Australia Bank.

To view the interactive maps of Day 2, follow this link.

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Commetric Dives in Cannes Lions Media Conversations with Cannes Connexions

Posted on June 20th, 2011 by Maya Nikolova in Announcements, InfluenceAnalyser

Cannes Lions is all about creativity and creative connexions. You can follow the Cannes Lions media dynamics by day on our Cannes Connexions site: http://bit.ly/l4IQ28

This site allows you to visualise these connexions and see who is leading the Cannesversation across social and traditional media.

Key Highlights from Day 1 (20 June 2011) included:

Nick Jonas Takes Center Stage in Twitter

The majority of the most active Twitter users tweeting on the festival had their eyes on teenage superstar Nick Jonas of The Jonas Brothers. His Twitter fan base consisted mostly of users with aliases including the name Jonas. They tweeted about the young musician’s participation at the imc2 conference, posted links to pictures of him or commented on whether he drank on the AOL party he attended.

Lego crowdsourced pilot building profile

From all organizations, mentioned in the Twitter conversation on Cannes Lions, toy manufacturer Lego received most attention. Two of the most active Twitter users – dannydevriendt (Danny Devriendt) and princess_misia (Marta Majewska) –commented on Lego’s global pilot of a crowdsourced product and marketing effort, announced Sunday at Cannes Lions.

No Brand Dominated Print/Blogosphere Conversation

The Cannes Lions conversation in across blogs and industry print showed no dominating brand, perhaps because journalists and bloggers are still waiting for the winners to be announced.

All media channels touched upon the topic of competition and panel participants. This topic also received significant media attention due to Nick Jonas’s strong Twitter fan base. Interestingly, the conversation on competition winners remained solely in the domain of print media and blogs, as the most active Twitter users did not seem as interested in awards such as Media Person of the year or Advertiser of the Year.

Failing Wi-Fi causing problems on Day 1

While many Twitter users didn’t mention any agency or brand, many tweeted on the event they are or will be attending and some outspoken twitterers complained about the failing Wi-Fi signal of the first day of Cannes Lions.

To view the interactive maps of Day 1, follow this link.

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Traditional vs Social Media on The Future of Nuclear post Fukushima

Posted on June 8th, 2011 by Maya Nikolova in InfluenceAnalyser

Following the tragic events in Japan from March 2011 and the consequent damage of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, here at Commetric we decided to take a deeper look at the discussion around the future of nuclear energy.

We looked at the conversations in print media, in the blogosphere and in Twitter and asked:

Who were the main groups or categories of people influencing and driving the discussion?
Who were the most prominent people in the debate?
What was their stance towards nuclear energy?

To answer these questions, we used our patented INA methodology and we linked the individual influencers to the print reporters, blogs or Twitter users who mentioned them. We also analysed the favorability of the individual influencers, whereby we considered positive those who believed that nuclear energy should be used in future and defended nuclear power plants’ overall safety record. Statements by the individuals who raised concern over the safety of nuclear energy or who believed it was not a good economic investment, were considered negative.

Overall, Government Officials Drive the Nuclear Debate

We found that Government Officials were the most prominent stakeholder group to engage in the debate on future of nuclear energy in print media and in the blogosphere. They were also the second largest group in the Twitter discussion. Interest in groups like Government Officials or Govt Agency Representatives indicates that government officials’ statements are seen as more credible by journalists and bloggers alike than statements by independent experts in the field.

Interestingly, the presence of government officials from other countries was visibly stronger than the presence of Japanese government officials across all channels. While prominent political figures from across the world mulled the next steps in safety regulations, Japanese government officials focused on the present situation and the actions they were taking to put it under control.

Influencer to Print Reporter

Merkel vs. Obama

Two heads of government were present across all media channels. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was the most central and prominent influencer in the print media debate and was among the most prominent individuals in the blogosphere. And vice-versa, US President Barack Obama was among the most prominent influencers in the print media discussion, and was the most central and prominent one in the blogosphere debate.

Interestingly, it is exactly these two influencers who show best the difference between the print media discussion and the debate in the blogosphere in the overall sentiment towards the future use of nuclear energy. While in print media the German Chancellor and the US President represent the two polar positions – Very Negative and Very Positive respectively, in the blogosphere their stance seemed to be toned down and they were associated with the softer just Negative and just Positive sentiment.

Merkel was associated with negative sentiment towards nuclear energy because of her government’s decision to temporarily shut down seven nuclear reactors in Germany.

Obama on the other hand was associated with positive stance and support towards nuclear energy. He was quoted saying “Nuclear energy is an important part of our own energy future.” (The Kansas City Star, 20 Mar 2011)

Balance Is the Big Loser in the Print Media Debate

Perhaps unsurprisingly, print media focused mainly on high-ranking government officials, as the names with the highest credibility on international matters. The high density of such officials from Europe, the US and Russia revealed clearly that the Fukushima disaster prompted an immediate and global discussion over the future of nuclear energy.

Influencer to Print Reporter/ Favorability

However, what surprised us was that the print media coverage revealed the most polarized discussion on the future of nuclear energy, with many influencers associated with Very Positive or Very Negative stance. There was an apparent lack of journalistic balance in the print media sample, as many reporters chose to refer only to negative or only to positive commentators. The relatively dispersed maps show a universe where a lot of the journalists have their own circle of sources on the nuclear debate and overlook the rest.

Blogs Give Voice to Interest Groups

Influencer to Blog

Interest Group Representatives remained underrepresented in print media. However, in the blogosphere, with combined efforts Interest Group Representatives managed to earn a prominent position and several of them were active and well-connected. This indicated that bloggers give more credibility to Interest Group Representatives than the print reporters. This can be also explained by the more open-access nature of the blogosphere as a media space.

Notably, the high involvement of interest group representatives did not lead to a more polarized discussion. On the contrary, blog content on the future of nuclear was much more balanced than the print articles and the high connection density in the maps demonstrated that bloggers looked at many more sides of the story than the journalists did when discussing the matter.

Twitterers Trust the Experts

Twitter was the only media type where Government Officials did not dominate the discussion. Instead, the most prominent group was Experts/Academics. Interestingly, what individual users chose to share was very different from the main focus of print media and blogs. This suggests that on matters of the future on nuclear energy, the public would like to hear more from experts than from officials and political figures – a niche still unexplored by the mainstream print media.

Influencer to Twitter User

As a further testament to the public’s need for a more expert opinion on the matter, a single article from The Guardian was virally retweeted leading to the high density of the map. Instead of focusing on Obama or Merkel, twitterers chose to share exactly this article, as it was authored not by reporters, but by two experts from the Sussex Energy Group at the University of Sussex – Alister Scott and Jim Watson. The article also featured the opinions of Japanese seismology expert Katsuhiko Ishibashi and Yale University professor Charles Perrow.

The Missing Groups

On the individual level, representatives of the business community were not particularly active in the discussion. While in print media Corporate Representatives had relatively good positions, they were almost absent from the discussion in blogs and Twitter.

A whole group which was missing were the directly affected people themselves. Print reporters, bloggers and twitterers did not give much voice to the ordinary people being evacuated from the Fukushima area.

Hunger for Discussion on Nuclear

Interestingly, more influencers voicing positive views in comparison to those voicing negative views appeared solely in the blogs study, while the print and Twitter samples showed a prevalence of negative over positive sentiment.

This could somewhat be attributed to the more prominent presence of European stakeholders in print media – such as EU and German government officials, who voiced more caution in relation to the future of nuclear energy than US government officials.

The key arguments against nuclear energy revolved around the safety of power plants and the destructive potential of nuclear power in case of a disaster like the one in Japan.

Another argument, voiced primarily by corporate representatives, was that nuclear energy is currently not a good economic investment.

Arguments that nuclear energy has a bright future were mainly focused on the fact that nuclear energy is cleaner than fossil.

Key arguments against panic in other countries because of the events in Japan were the extraordinary circumstances of the Fukushima accident, triggered by an exceptionally strong earthquake and a huge tsunami. According to many influencers, both government officials and experts, such worst-case scenario would not be possible in most other countries.

Finally, a main point in the comments brought in the media conversation, was the need for further discussion. The Twitter community seemed to agree with this, as 69 users re-tweeted the Scott-Watson article from in The Guardian, which called for “honest debate”, which would “respectfully embraces the full range of views” (18 Mar 2011)

You can access the full report, including more maps and findings, and you can also contact us here at Commetric!

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