Accenture Social Media PoV - 55m conversations in 55 days

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While it should come as no surprise that many major CPG brands and retailers are among the top 50 most active social media brands, this new point of view finds different brands are at varying levels of maturity in having a two-way dialogue with consumers. According to Accenture research, consumers want to engage more with CPG brands than with retailers. The success of consumer engagement is making sure fans feel part of the overall brand voice.

Transcript of Accenture Social Media PoV - 55m conversations in 55 days

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Many companies’ social media efforts are not designed to actually increase sales, or even to facilitate socializing. Fan pages and brand communities many times look more like broadcast vehicles than interactive social vehicles. The bottom line is that companies may need to revisit their social media strategy to refocus investments to generate engagement and move from pure social listening capability to derive actionable insights across departments.

Engagement takes many forms. Co-creation contests and games on social media engage consumers and give them a vehicle to voice their opinions. From voting on new product flavors to participating in video competitions in support of the brand, to offline scavenger hunts launched online, social media has a distinctive ability to generate engagement. Ideally companies could create one-to-one relationships with consumers or one-to-many interactions among consumers over a shared pursuit. Either way, social media can increase the flow of conversation and consumers’ engagement with the brand and with each other, making it a uniquely cost effective way to generate input and influence new products, offers and marketing approaches.

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In the CPG industry, the traditional approach of relying heavily on retailer data or surveys to understand consumers’ expectations is not the only or most effective option anymore. CPG companies should add social media insights to that point-of-sale (POS) data for a more complete view of target consumers. Social media enables CPG companies to not only learn more about consumers, but also engage directly with them and have an ongoing dialogue.

It should come as no surprise that our study found CPG brands like adidas, Coca-Cola, Ferrero, Kit Kat, Nike, Oreo, Pringles and Red Bull to be among the 50 most active social media brands in the world during the holidays. Retailers, such as Amazon, Walmart, Target and Macy’s, also made it on this top 50 list. But our study found that the different brands are at varying levels of maturity in terms of having a two-way dialogue with consumers. The specific social media tactics the brands implemented to engage with consumers remains the key factor driving their engagement scores.

The Research Findings

Finding #1Consumers engaged more actively with social media tactics focused on one CPG brand versus retailer posts focused on multiple CPG brands offered in their stores.

Finding #2Campaigns focused on social and charitable causes created more conversation around the holidays compared to posts offering a discount, requesting a survey response or making a general statement.

Finding #3Working the holiday theme into brand posts proved effective. Holiday- or Santa-themed posts, such as those implemented by Macy’s, received a higher response than posts on other topics during the holiday season.

Finding #4Campaigns including multimedia content – such as high-quality video, or clear product images like those posted by Dove hair oil advertisements – were more effective than simple text or photo posts.

Finding #5An effective way to engage consumers is to make them a part of the social media campaign, such as idea-or story-sharing and innovation sourcing. For example, birthday celebration ads from Oreo, Christmas tree sharing by Monster Energy fans, and a call to design the future Heineken bottle were effective campaigns.

Finding #6 Do not implement a discount campaign without being 100 percent ready to deliver on the promise. Address supply chain fulfillment issues up front and describe in detail the process for redeeming vouchers. For example, a few CPG companies offered discounts without confirming voucher fulfillment processes in all local participating stores. And some did not clearly articulate which stores were participating in the program. This resulted in a lot of noise throughout the social communities where consumers complained about stores refusing the vouchers, and therefore, doubted the credibility of the brand’s offer.

Finding #7If you run a social media campaign that could go viral, ensure you have a Social Media Management System in place to deal with the amount of conversations that could occur. For example, several consumers complained on brand pages, stating that their queries were going unanswered despite repeated attempts. These queries ranged from campaign questions to dissatisfaction with in-store services during the holidays.

Finding #8For CPG brands, ensure you have a digital strategy that includes ideas for capitalizing on “earned media” resulting from your retail partners’ social media campaigns. Traditionally CPG brands make significant investments in trade promotions to influence good product positioning in retail stores. But in a multi-channel world, that approach should evolve to also include tactics focused on how retail partners promote your products on their websites and social media pages.

Finding #9Incomplete campaigns or unplanned tactics are not effective. Engage with people when you have a clear strategy, message and goals. In our study, irrelevant messages from a few brands resulted in zero “likes” or shared posts, therefore, wasting that opportunity to turn a social media post reader into a customer or fan. Throughout the study, all brands we monitored saw an uplift in their social media fan base . A few brands saw some existing fans being replaced with new fans. This poses a question for brands to answer when they formulate their social media campaign strategy. Do you spend time on new customer acquisition, or focus on retaining a loyal base?

Finding #10Be simple, genuine and relevant with social media posts. A concise, simple post, such as “What’s your snow day song?” by Smirnoff had 2,064 replies and generated more engagement than a discount or coupon post, which is only applicable for some products and in some stores. Discounts and coupons could be more effective through more targeted channels like email or direct mail, where you can deliver them to target audience segments for particular products in particular regions. Use of the advanced personalized offers engine on social media fanbook/Twitter pages is another option to drive targeted campaigns to different audience segments. Social media posts potentially reach a very broad audience, so brands should use messages and tactics that are effective for one-to-many marketing.

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This Research Was Conducted By...

Shaping the Future of High Performance in Consumer Goods Our Consumer Goods industry professionals around the world work with companies in the food, beverages, agribusiness, home and personal care, consumer health, fashion and luxury, and tobacco segments. With decades of experience working with the world’s most successful companies, we help clients manage scale and complexity, transform global operating models to effectively serve emerging and mature markets, and drive growth through evolving market conditions. We provide services as well as individual consulting, technology and outsourcing projects in the areas of Sales and Marketing, Supply Chain, ERP Global Operations and Integrated Business Services. To read our proprietary industry research and insights, visit www.accenture.com/ConsumerGoods.

Accenture Interactive offers a comprehensive suite of contemporary marketing services, software and assets to CMOs and brand leaders to drive up marketing performance, drive down the cost per interaction and create relevant consumer experiences on a massive scale.

Thanks to over 1,500 professionals and global reach, Accenture Interactive delivers results at scale using the right blend of local, offshore and near shore capabilities. Our Centers of Excellence located in India (Gurgaon and Hyderabad); Athens, Greece; Shanghai and the Philippines offer over 500 dedicated professionals who provide:

• Enhancedoffshoredeliverycapabilities

•Dedicatedassetdevelopment

• Productinnovation

•Rapiddeploymentofglobaldigitalplatforms

Among the most representative results, Accenture Interactive helped clients capture over $70 billion in annual media and marketing spend, often optimizing over $1 billion for individual clients.

The Accenture Customer Innovation Network (ACIN) is an interconnected global system of centers, labs and specialists. The heart of the ACIN is three unique facilities located in Chicago, Milan and Sao Paulo, that is bolstered by partners and centers of excellence spanning the globe. The goal of the ACIN is to assist CPG and retail clients in discovering the most effective and innovative solutions to propel business to the forefront of the industry, through an interactive workshop experience

with access to research, demonstrations, global insights and industry expertise. Every year, the ACIN runs over 250 C-level workshops with CPG and retail clients.

The Social Media India Delivery Center Lab is an offshore lab providing advanced services in social products evaluation for social listening, text analytics and collaboration. The lab provides action-oriented insights based on the social image of the client’s brand versus it’s competition. Reports are segmented in multiple dimensions like demographics, sentiments, volume or languages in order to develop the appropriate engagement model. The majority of the top leaders and niche players in the social media products landscape are Accenture’s premium partners. To date, the lab has served more than 75 social media clients in the automotive, banking, telecom, insurance, energy, CPG and retail industries.

The Accenture Technology Labs is guided by Accenture’s Annual Technology Vision. The Labs’ professionals work across our five centers (Silicon Valley, Washington D.C., Sophia Antipolis, Bangalore and Beijing), withinoureightR&Dgroups,andwithleadingtechnology partners to form a network of dynamic innovation for Accenture and our clients. We are ambitiously working to extend our 20-year track record of envisioning the future, inventing, and then delivering the next wave of cutting-edge business solutions. We have more than $230 million direct sales and $300 million influenced sales. The Tech Labs hosted more than 390 client workshops across industries globally in 2012.

Project Lead: Mac Karlekar Multichannel Digital Lead, EALA ++44 (0) 7803 587 853 [email protected]

Project Sponsors: Koen Van Bockstaele Anatoly Roytman Alessandro Diana Matt DeNicola Bernie Segal Marco Triozzi Christine Connor

Project Contributors: Alexandre Naressi Pranayesh Singh Davide Contrini Christian Souche Jason Breed Minarini Caterina Medhi Hillool Alexeeva Ksenia Richard Murton

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About AccentureAccenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with approximately 261,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$27.9 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2012. Its home page is www.accenture.com.