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Blog Tracking by Industry

Name an industry that is not blogging these days?  I can't think of one. WebproNews.com contributing writer Tinu Abayomi Paul shares RSS and Blog marketing tips for Real Estate.  And here's a press release on how prescription blogs are helping to educate consumers on prescription consumption - granted it's a tactic by the company to promote it's ecommerce prescription Web site (and I am in no way promoting this site) but it's still interesting to see how the mere mention of consumer opinions coming from blogs are being used to raise awareness of a company. 

This raises a good point - companies need to be tracking online consumer-generated media as well as traditional media by industry (when possible).  Just analyzing your own company, competitiors and brands may not always be enough. By taking a closer look at a specific industry, companies can discover the next hot trend, issues that are bubbling up or who is being associated with their company or brand.  Take the food and beverage industry for example... 

Earlier this year, Cymfony conducted an analysis of the "low XX craze" in the food and beverage industry.  The analysis tracked the last 10 years of low calorie, low fat and low carb in traditional media coverage.  As one would expect, media coverage of diets shifted significantly, with low-fat and low-calorie mentions remaining steady or slightly in decline, as low-carb mentions rose sharply over the last few years.  We decided to take a closer look at the light beer industry, specifically tracking the launch of "low carb" beer.  Cymfony examined the following brands:

  • Amstel Light
  • Aspen Edge
  • Bud Light
  • Coors Light
  • Corona Light
  • Michelob Light
  • Michelob Ultra
  • Miller Light
  • Rock Green Light

And once again, as expected, the coverage of light beers has been relatively in line with their respective market shares. However, Michelob Ultra - launched as a premium, low-carb beer by Anheuser-Busch - captured a disproportionate degree of coverage since it was introduced.  And while coverage for Micelob Ultra to a certain extent replaced coverage for Michelob Light, instead of eating into media presence of Bud Light, it took away from the mentions of its main competitors, Miller Lite and Coors Light. 

The most surprising discovery of this analysis is that prior to the introduction of Michelob Ultra as a low-carb beer and others marketing themselves to that effect, Miller Lite owned 41% percent of the media share in 2000.  By the end of 2004, its coverage dropped to only 26% percent.  If Miller Lite had been looking at the industry and low carb, they may have been able to shift marketing or messaging earlier on to capitalize on this trend. 

Posted by Cymfony on August 2, 2005 at 10:15 AM | Email this post Permalink

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