SOCIAL MEDIA BRAND RELATIONSHIP REPORT

INDEX

ABSTRACT................................................................... 2 INTRODUCTION ......................................................... 3 METHODOLOGY.......................................................... 4 GUINNESS................................................................... 5 PERONI........................................................................ 9 HEINEKEN...................................................................14 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS............................... 21 TEAM.......................................................................... 22

ABSTRACT
THE REPORT ANALYZES THE SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDING ACTIVITIES OF THREE BEER BRANDS: GUINNESS, PERONI AND HEINEKEN. IT FOCUSES ON THE QUALITY OF RELATIONSHIP BUILDING IN SOCIAL MEDIA AND THEIR CAPABILITY TO ENGAGE AND INVOLVE THE AUDIENCE.

INTRODUCTION

Today companies need to understand how fundamental it is to see the market world from a different perspective, not focusig their efforts just on competition but being more costumer-oriented and, more than anything, inclined to innovation. The only way of building competitive advandage is thus not through imitation; it is through uniqueness and relationship strategies, aimed at comprehending what is valuable and relevant for their specic customers. In the eld of digital marketing everything changes very fast such as costumers and behaviors; for this reason, in order to be competitive, companies have to focus on their unique resources, on what makes them special, adapting their products to changes and building collaborative actions. In this new environment social media become strategic and fundamental for the brands survival, being the right tool to take advantage of the co-operation with customers. Industries do not have to use these platforms just to give themselves a touch of modernity but they have to exploit them effectively to gain business results. As Kozinets states, brand meanings do not start with the company, they grow from community.
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METHODOLOGY

To evaluate the brands we used seven variables that represent the brand relationship index and we assign a vote from 1 to 10 for each of it. These evaluations help us to compare the three different beer brands. 1) Social presence: analysis of the number of relevant platforms/channels in which the brand is present. 2) Dialog/customer engagement management: analysis of the number of users with whom the brand interacted through social media and how the brand stimulates engagement of users. 3) Sentiment/advocacy management: research about both positive and negative comments in particular how they manage conversations through supporting positive world-of-mouth or coordinate negative conversations. 4) Support/value: analysis of the type of content and support that the brand offers to costumers (e.g. customer care, services, information). 5) Innovation: analysis regarding collaboration and co-production in terms of new ideas for products, solution to problems and service/product improvement that the company requires users. 6) Leadership: analysis about appreciation and sharing of brand stories by people in social media. Evaluation of the brand openness regarding conversations and interactions with users. The focus is also on the company connections with relevant inuencers (e.g. bloggers) in social media. The people perceptions about the transparency, honesty and authoritativeness of the brand communication in social media conversations. 7) Linking value/community: capability of the brand to become a social connector and the percentage of users who connect to their peers using the brand-related social media spaces. Capacity of the brand to directly manage proprietary brand communities or support independent brand communities in social media.

Social presence The Guinness brand is present in different platforms, like web site, Facebook page, Twitter (@guinnessIrland), Instagram, YouTube. Its presence on Social media is spread among different countries, so there is not only the ofcial platform, but also the user generated ones. Moreover it has a web page dedicated to its Storehouse in Dublin, which is at the same time a museum, a restaurant, a shop, brewery. The Storehouse is even very social: it engages its community throughout Facebook, Twitter, YouTube channel, Trip advisor and it has an own application for android, apple and blackberry. Last but not least Guinness has got a web store (www.guinesswebstore.com) where it sells its best and original merchandising. Grade: 10 The brand is present, active and interactive on the relevant platforms and channels.

Dialog/customer engagement management The Guinness Facebook page has 447.718 likes and 18.106 people talk about it. Twitter is followed by 25.955 followers and it has 3.176 tweet. There are 1.546 subscriptions on the YouTube channel and 4.613.045 visualizations. Instead there are 4.452 followers and 135 post on Instagram. The Guinness Storehouse Facebook page has 51.498 likes and 4.842 people talk about it. Twitter has 3.749 followers and 1.724 tweet. You Tube Guinness Storehouse channel has 629 subscriptions and 141.768 visualizations. There are 5.064 reviews. Through its website and social platforms, Guinness tries to engage and stimulate participation. One clear attempt of customer involvement is creating global events and promoting them online. The more recent was the Arthur Guinness Day, event created 250 years ago and still very appreciated by the public, where concerts and shows are organized all around the world to remember the great work of Arthur Guinnes, the funder of the brand. On social platforms like Facebook and Twitter, audience is asked to participate to discussions, to tell their stories and share their opinions. For example on October 16th, Guinness posted on its Facebook page this question: Pouring the perfect pint of Guinness can be tricky. What are you trying to master at the moment? #madeofmore. The post received a lot of answers from users. Moreover, every post of this kind (both on Fb and Twitter) has the particular hashtag #madeofmore. Grade: 7 Despite the large community, the user participation is not that big, for example in the post mentioned above more than 3.000 people liked, but only 47 commented. Sentiment/advocacy management The brand has a visible strategy for simulating positive comments. For instance, on the Facebook page there is posted a picture about two people toasting with Guinness beer for their wedding with the sentence

Amy O'Gara @AmyLou_OG 23 Ott Just downloaded the new Guinness Plus app @GuinnessIreland Perfect for me....defo gonna get my value from it.! " #

Guinness is best shared with someone you love. The picture inspires some positive comments, like True love. On Instagram there is a picture showing a birthday cake made of Guinness beer cans. The picture got 472 likes and stimulated positive comments, like this is the cake I want for my Birthday or Genial. About the Guinness Storehouse Facebook page there are a few negative comments, but there wasnt an answer. Grade: 8 The users spread positive word-of-mouth about the brand. There are a tiny negative comments, but both on Facebook and on Trip Advisor they receive no answer. Guinness should manage negative comments as well as it does with positive ones. Support/value The company offers free and valuable content such as videos about the most famous Guinness commercials, interviews, images, recipes, event clips. The company answers more often to some general comments or post participating to conversations going on between costumers, but it doesnt answer so often to specic questions related to services provided by the company, like the sell of tickets to attend events and concerts organsed by the Guinness team. Grade: 6.5 They offer high quality contents to entertainment customers, but they do not answer when information is needed. Innovation The percentage of users proposed new ideas is low. An example is a user that posted a picture on Facebook showing an homemade Guinness bottle made with beads. There are some ideas to improve the service at the Storehouse on Trip Advisor. Some users complain about the price of the service, too expensive. Instead some people gave some negative comments about the

Storehouse because if you dont pay to enter inside, you cant get to the Guinness shop. Grade: 5 The company evolved during the years, especially regarding the merchandising. Instead about the participation of the users, it doesnt ask for collaboration to improve he product.

Social presence Peroni brand is active in many digital channels: it has got its own Facebook page, Twitter, YouTube channel, Instagram and LinkedIn prole. A very important role is played by the website (www.peroni.it), which design is catchy and which pages provide useful information about the product, engage people, give the users the opportunity to interact, socialize, have fun and get informed with the various branded contents uploaded. On the other hand, Instagram is less developed, maybe because at the moment it doesnt suit the needs of the company. Grade: 10 The brand is present is all the relevant platform; its active, partecipative and above all it uses each platform in a very efcient way, conscious that each channel has its own medial speciality and characteristics.

Dialog/customer engagement management Peroni Facebook Page has 121.982 likes and 2.137 people talk about it. Twitter is followed by 2.945 people and it has 7.763 tweets. The YouTube channel has 1.943 subscriptions and 491.531 visualizations. On Instagram it has 543 followers and 28 posts. Moreover, the company is present also on LinkedIn and has 4.779 followers. All the Social Media platforms have a link to the website where it is possible to have details about every offer and promotion. They are used to stimulate participation, promote events, contests and responsibility for environmental care. One of the main focus of the company in social platforms is to engage the users making them participate to challenges and competitions. Being an Italian brand, Peroni is also active in the culinary eld giving advices about the possible beer combinations with food. Available on the website there is also a list of recipes where users can nd special dishes to prepare and to taste with beer. On social media this side of Peroni is nevertheless not so appreciated: videos of recipes are less commented and shared, maybe because it is a male oriented brand (graphs on keyhole.co show that only 8% of users are female). Another aspect on which the rm stresses on is about sport, developing a variety of initiatives related to soccer and rugby. One of these requires that the users, buying Peroni products, can receive the card to see the soccer matches at home. They could also win the contest where there are a season ticket for the Stadium and a 1.500 euros of grocery shopping as prizes. In order to participate to challenges and contests where it is possible to win a prize, users have to subscribe and they can do it also through the Facebook page. Furthermore, if users follow the different Peroni Social Media, they have more opportunities to win: this aspect shows the importance that Peroni gives to Social Networks. Grade: 10 The brand has a strong strategy to stimulate participation and users engagement, indeed there is a huge response from them on the social media platforms.

Sebastiano L Martini @SebaLucaMartini 18h da grandi birre derivano grandi responsabilit #Peroni

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Sentiment/advocacy management Analysing the last 2 months comments both on Facebook and Twitter, it emerged that there are no negative comments about the product but there are some about a specic contest (in which participants can win limited access to Mediaset premium). More specically, around 10% of comments (analysed from October the 1st, 2013) complain about issues related to services (not) provided by Peroni. For example there is no telephone number to call in case of disagreement, often expected prizes arent received at home by the winners and so on. It has to be said that the company always answers to complains, even if not in an exhaustive manner. Speaking about the the product in each social media comments are enthusiastic and people are willing to share images, videos, comments and opinions about the relationships they have with the brand. But it is also true that the company has the control over its channels so they easily cancel negative and disturbing comments about the product. Positive comments and word-of-mouth are stimulated thanks to the specic campaigns based on hashtags and picture-sharing. For example, Cuoreperoni, that invites people to share their daily life, especially the meal-times and beer nights. Grade: 8 Peroni should increase its presence on social media and its responsiveness to improve brand image and build awareness. Support/value The company offers free and valuable content to customers such as videos about the recipes of Chef Rubio and about sport, commercials, pictures and photographs, initiatives, events, information about food recipes, experiences, stories and interviews. On the Facebook page most of the people who ask for some information or doubts about the initiatives, receive an immediate answer from the brand. Unfortunately those are not always exhaustive answers and often the users have to ask for more explanations after the rst answer. Grade: 8

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Innovation In general Peroni doesnt ask for participation when speaking about product or service implementation. By the way there are other occasions in which users are required to actively support certain specic initiatives. For instance the salva la tua birra (save your beer) campaign that stands up for lowering taxes on alcoholic beverages, asks people to sign up a petition to contribute to their cause. A really important demand for participation was asked in a post of November the 14th that was aimed at raising sensitivity related to recycling issues. Despite its importance, the message didt get the required attention by the users. Grade: 6 Peroni should take advantage of the collaborative spirit of users and ask them for tips and cooperation in order to improve the product and the brand image. Leadership Peroni brand stories are appreciated and shared by people especially on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube (which has a great number of visualizations). The brand doesnt participate to conversations that develop from its own posts, while it answers to questions about the service (even if it does it in a supercial way, as already mentioned). Concerning link backs to brand sites, we can say that Peroni has developed partnerships with some two important italian broadcasting brands like DMax tv channel and Mediaset Premium. Moreover, it is also connected with the campaign alcolparliamone.it to build awareness among drivers and consumers about the risks of an inappropriate alcohol consumption. Both on Facebook and Twitter there are no relevant inuencers that help Peroni spread its contents and values. Peroni is a very transparent company: on the website it is possible to have information about the production process and about all the ingredients used. On social media there arent specic comments about the
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beer ingredients and the companys ethic; users just comment on the high quality of the product (which means that the Peroni is trustworthy) and on their drinking experiences (when they drink Peroni and with which meal). Peroni stresses on the fact that its malt is 100% Italian, but people seem not to care about the origins of the ingredients (there arent many positive comments under the relative post). Grade: 7 The brand could lead conversations on social media in a better way. It is present but not very active and this could reect on users behavior. On the other hand it has built good partnerships with other brands like alcolparliamone.it, which contributes to communicate the social responsibility of the company and improve its image. Having strong relationships with bloggers and web inuencers would certainly enhance Peronis visibility. Linking value/community The brand become a social connector through the website and Social Media because succeeded in involving more and more people with its original initiatives, videos and photo contests. From every post on the Facebook page arise a variety of comments, suggestions and shares. The company manages directly the content on its ofcial pages on the Social Networks (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Instagram). At the same time there have been developed other non-ofcial contents by users, for example: the fan page on Facebook is not ofcial, some videos on YouTube uploaded by users, the prole PeroniMiAmi on Twitter which is not ofcial. Grade: 9 The community in Social Media is participative and active, this is due to the capacity of the brand to use effectively and efciently the different channels.

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Social presence Regarding the social presence of the Heineken brand, several platforms are considered to be very important. Heineken is basically present on web site, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Google with Google Plus, LinkedIn, blogs and on the mobile channel with the QR Codes. All these platforms are relevant for the companys business and relationship strategy.! ! Grade: 10 The social networks are considered as a essential part of the brands communication and since Heineken is one of the largest global beers brand, its distribution is spread on a worldwide level.
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Dialog/customer engagement management This brand has a very interactive approach through the social media. The Heineken Facebook page has 15.789.816 likes and 293.825 people talk about it. There is also an important Heineken Fans growth: + 17.086 by day, + 133.521 by week and + 535.684 by month. Talking about Twitter, this one is followed by 65.519 followers and it has 4.025 tweet. On YouTube, instead, the number of visualizations are 34.391.585 and the subscribers are 43.916. Moreover on Instagram we nd 3.474 followers and 47 posts. Even on the search channel Heineken shows good outcomes, controlling the 60 percent on Googles rst-page search results. Heineken, thanks to the social media, has a great opportunity to follow strategic marketing actions for stimulating participation and customer engagement. A signicant one is Your Heinekenpersonalization bottle with Facebook contacts. For celebrating its 140 years old, the company created in fact a Facebooks contest where product designers from everywhere were invited to pair together and design a limited edition Heineken bottle in order to celebrate the occasion. This interactive campaign is a great example of how Heineken has been able until now to increase its customer engagement.! Another example that increased customer engagement is the Departure Roulette campaign: people who commented a video on Facebook and Twitter pages were selected by the Heineken Team for leaving for an unknown destination sponsored by the company. Grade: 8.5 For enhancing customer engagement and improving at the same time its products and services, Heineken takes care about the customers opinions and needs, focusing on building individual conversation with each user.

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Sentiment/advocacy management The brand has a strong visible strategy to stimulate positive comments and to foster positive word-of-mouth. Heineken is not simply a brand of beer: it is globally active in experiences that go beyond the promotion and sale of a product. It has recently developed a video, The Candidate, regarding how job interviews you cant prepare for, instead of prepared ones, are better to nd the right talent the company is looking for. The video highlightes the people and their personality in spontaneous situations. The video has been watched by more than 5 thousand people on YouTube. ! When people post it on Facebook, they dont talk directly about beer itself, but they share Heineken content which is like recommending the beer to others. In doing so, they make a positive word-of-mouth campaign. The video received many positive comments like that the company actually cares and believes in its employers. It is also the ofcial sponsor of UEFA Champions League, and the day of the football game it posts something related to it in order to stay closer to football fans. ! ! Grade: 9 The brand knows how to make people talk about itself: it provides the consumer with extra entertainment contents. Support/value The brand offers free and valuable content to customers throughout the different platforms. On the ofcial website there is a section dedicated to frequent questions with the relative answers. The question area concerns only the companys activities, products and rm. The company participates to conversation with consumers on the social platforms. On the Facebook page Heineken answers to questions and comments of its fan. Particularly, it exploits the opportunities the mobile is offering to be part of a conversation in real-time, mostly regarding topics and events related to the sport and music industry. It engages football stars to join con16

versations and to respond in real-time to sport events.! ! Grade: 8 Even though the section about answers&questions on the ofcial website is built by the company itself, the company is socially active on social media. Innovation Heineken collects costumer's ideas thanks to the Heineken ideas brewery. During these projects, customers are encouraged to submit their ideas on an online platform. Towards different stages, these ideas would be enriched by others and the last best one will be developed by the Heineken's experimentation. Until now, there have been three different projects in different periods. The rst one, The sustainable packaging challenge, was aimed to nd sustainable ideas in areas such us: re-using and recycling packaging, discovering new packaging materials and considering transport as a mean to create a sustainable future for beer packaging. The second one, The draught beer experience challenge, had the aim to nd new ways to create a new era in draught beer. Finally, The 60+ insights challenge focused on studying the old generation (60-70 years-olds) about the change in their preferences and aptitudes. For example, in the last project, the rewards for the costumer's contributions were of 2000 USD for the 3rd price, 3000 USD for the second one and 5000 USD for the rst one. Moreover, the participation was of about 27% of people from Western Europe, 18% from Central & Eastern Europe, 29% from Americas and 26% from Africa & Middle East. Grade: 8

Nastafari @princetarzan 14 Nov Damn!! I am thirsty. Craving a cold sweaty #Heineken

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Heineken found a professional and interactive way to ask to its loyal customers a contribution by giving them the possibility of participate to its experiments. Leadership Heineken put a lot of effort in managing a consistent, professional presence across all social platforms. ! It is active on Facebook and Twitter but it also maintains branded presence on other social media platforms like LinkedIn, YouTube, Google Plus and Instagram. Heineken frequently uploads images to its photo albums, showcasing events held, which allows it to show the sociable side of the brand. Heineken page is very rich with content, with more than 20 custom tabs but the problem is that most of the posts go unnoticed registering few hundreds Likes or Shares; however, every now and then, Heineken posts something that connects with a huge number of fans, showing a quite big appreciation of the company brand stories. Heineken has become more and more present on the social media, receiving positive response from the users who are all potential inuencers.! The brand seems to be connected to relevant inuencers and bloggers mostly for what concerns the sport world, in particular football and Rugby; we did not see a relevant connection with bloggers focused on the food and drink section. We did not notice any link back to brand sites, except for being in collaboration with two of the most important e-commerce websites: Amazon and Ebay. Important partnership were made with Facebook and Google in order to collaborate on digital campaigns and advertising; the latter one focuses on distributing our commercials on YouTube, mobile ads, but also on promotions such as banners on Google.

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Finally, the company partnered with Twitter to leverage Vine, the videosharing platform, and use it in future marketing efforts. ! Since 2007, Heineken has worked with BlackPlanet.com, which bills itself as the largest Black community online. Concluding, an analysis of tweets about Heineken showed that people perceive the brand as highly honest, with high prestige and love attachment, more than other beer brands. In general, they tend to be more neutral about the brand with posts and comments without a expressing explicitly their sentiment. Grade: 8 Thanks to several collaborations and partnerships, Heineken has a consistent and professional presence on social platforms which allow it also to be connected to relevant inuencers and bloggers . Linking value/community Heineken works also as social connector in so far that it has multiple apps for apple, where people can register and act in that community. For instance, with the HeinekenMyAccess App you can collect points with every purchase of Heineken, compare the points with other users, comment and compete for winning VIP access to Heineken events. Another one is Beer Mobile, where people can get to know where to drink Heineken and share the position with other users. A further one is the Heineken Social Bottle: a Heineken bottle opener with which you invite friends over for a beer every time you open a Heineken. While you open the bottle it connects to your Facebook home page and shares it. It is a brand which is highly visible through the social media, also on YouTube, and it has a global partnership with Facebook. About proprietary brand community there is the Heineken website which supports the other social communities in order to increase brand value. Grade: 7.5
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! The brand is good at relating people who enjoy it, and in doing so, it acts as a social connector.

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GUINNESS Social presence Dialog/user engagement Sentiment/advocacy management Support/value Innovation Leadership Linking value Average 10 7 8 6,5 5 7,5 7,5 7,4

PERONI 10 10 8 8 6 7 9 8,3

HEINEKEN 10 8,5 9 8 8 8 7,5 8,4

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Beer brands are very dynamic and engaged in the social media sector. This is due to the fact that beer advertising campaigns are often linked to friend associations, that is the reason why these brands receive high engagement rates. The aim of beer brands is that of linking people together, making them feel part of a community. In this way the three brands analyzed have been able to engage consumers in such activities that go beyond the simple content of the beer. They all have been able to build a relationship with their audience, keeping a quite good control over the interaction and conversation on social media platforms. Considering the real way in which the product is consumed and its purpose in the customers real life, beers are intended to be perceived as cool drinks to employ in a relaxing or pleasing atmosphere with the aim to transmit happiness and joy. This connection of the beer with friendship and fun let the products engage consumers showing a positive brand image at their eyes.

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TEAM

We are students from Universit della Svizzera Italiana. We attend two different Master Programs: Marketing and Media Management. The team is composed by Micol Biasoli Cirille Bonini Giulia Bongiovanni Chiara Casnati Fabia Casnati Federica Chinetti Caterina Croveri Ambra Gadioli Federica Margoler Cristina Paracchi Giulia Pirini

Thank you for your attention and for commenting our project. Your opinions are valuable to us!!

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