by Damian Grimling | Nov 6, 2021 | Categorising comments, SentiBrand
Shopping is a constant part of our lives. Every day, we come into contact with a huge number of more or less recognizable brands and companies. However, only some of them we choose more often and more willingly. Sometimes it happens completely automatically. Why does this happen and what determines our choice? It is probably emotions.
Brand loyalty vs. brand strength. What determines our choice?
There’s no denying and it’s been proven that our purchasing decisions are mostly influenced by emotions and the bond that a brand has developed with us. A recent study conducted by Deloitte entitled “From disparate signals to transformative action. The latest research by Deloitte “From disparate signals to transformative action” shows that emotional attachment to a brand is a decisive factor when making purchases for a group of 80% of consumers. In turn, 62% of them declared that they have some kind of relationship with a given brand.
– The brand-consumer relationship is a particularly important factor in sales strategy because it is directly related to customer satisfaction. We as manufacturers are constantly challenged to create better and better offers that meet consumer expectations,” – reads the report.
For what purpose do we shop? Consumers often shop primarily to improve their mood. Nowadays, the purchase of a particular good or service does not have to be dictated by discounts, promotions or low prices. The key here is the mentioned emotions. They are the reason why some of our purchasing decisions are not very rational, made on impulse and at the moment.
So, what can a brand do to generate emotions and become even more liked and recognized by consumers? What is the secret and power of the biggest brands and their messages? Apart from emotions, it is important to build positive associations in the recipients. It is worth remembering to adjust the communication strategy to the target group. An advertising campaign addressed to teenagers should look different from one addressed to people aged 40+.
Visual identity also plays a huge role in consumers’ perception of a brand. We live in a world of short information, slogans and signs. That is why logos, colors, symbols and general aesthetics of products are important. All this also creates the image of the company according to the buyer and has a bearing on building a relationship between him and the brand.
The basis is brand loyalty and trust
Today’s market abounds in various brands, and more and more are created all the time. We are almost flooded with various products and symbols, often not knowing what it all means. However, companies that enjoy the greatest recognition and consumer choice are not resting on their laurels and are constantly developing their offers. The key is to constantly work on the image because without this, it is impossible to maintain the leadership position.
In the aforementioned Deloitte report we read that if a brand wants not only to stay on the market, but above all to boast of constant trust, it needs constant work and listening to consumers. This means staying up to date with the ever-present changes and new trends. Without this, it will not be possible to maintain the highest standards and respond to the preferences of as many customers as possible.
The consumer who has established a bond with the brand is then not only a recurring generator of profit, but also an engaged recipient. Building long-term partnerships with consumers means, above all, responding responsibly and effectively to their needs. More and more companies emphasize personalization and considering individual preferences of consumers to provide them with the most suitable benefits.
Many factors contribute to the choice of a particular brand, but first there are positive emotions and associations. To build them, we need a dialogue with consumers, a trusting answer to their needs as well as building the opinion of a unique brand, positively distinguishing itself from the competition. We can easily learn about emotions by analyzing media, including blogs, news portals, internet forums and most of all social networking sites. That’s what Sentimenti tools are for.
by Sentimenti Team | May 9, 2019 | Lifestyle
Fashion brands are very popular on social media. When we analyzed the Facebook communication of banks, we didn’t think the topic would be so successful – it’s our most-read post. We hope that hints and tips for improving social media communication can be drawn from it – with an emphasis on “let’s not overdo the display of surprise in official posts.” Now we want to show that we can study emotion on fanpages from different industries, including fashion.
Fashion brands on Facebook
Social media is now the most widely used way to maintain daily communication with customers. Even if they don’t bring direct purchase profits (here a newsletter still works better) they influence the perception of the brand by the wide audience. In short, they set a tone, including an emotional one.
We took a look at the Facebook activity of several Polish brands throughout 2018:
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- high-profile (Vistula, Monnari),
- casual (Reserved, House, H&M),
- youth (Cropp / LPP),
- patriotic (Red is Bad).
We assume that the tone of their posts will vary, after all, brands want to create their image and react to who they are or what their audience is doing. First, we had to select a few companies with active followers. To do this, we compared the numbers of likes and comments under their posts. The size of the bubble showing the brand’s position reflects the number of posts. In this respect, all the companies we selected are very similar. According to the ratio of likes to comments (like to comment ratio), the best performers are those profiles where this ratio approaches 1.
We decided to analyze the profiles of: Reserved, House, Red is Bad, Cropp, H&M and Monnari. The first four are very similar in terms of Facebook activity, while H&M and Monnari not only stand out from the rest, but are also kind of opposites.
Emotions in fashion brand posts
How different are the various clothing brands? The chart below shows how they compare to the average. For example, a value of 60% for anticipation (orange emotion) in the case of House (black line) means that this company expresses this emotion in its posts that much more often than average. By the same token, -40% joy in the case of Red is Bad (violet) tells us that the brand expresses this emotion significantly less often than others.
Fashion brands create their image on Facebook as environmentally conscious (H&M), very cool (Cropp), elegant and friendly (Monnari), patriotically committed (Red is Bad). The differences between them can also be seen in the results of the sentiment and emotion analysis. Red is Bad expresses a lot of negative emotions: fear, disgust, sadness, anger. Much more than any other company.
House, on the other hand, heavily promotes its future activities while expressing surprise and expectation. Reserved seems to express a very “model” set of emotions, usually staying around the average (0% line) – just what we have come to expect from the communication of an everyday brand, aimed at a very wide audience. Cropp’s profile also has a very similar tone.
Emocje klientów
Facebook is used to communicate directly with the customer, but also with the brand. Observers, private individuals and other companies comment on official posts. What emotions do they express?
Let’s first look at the results of the sentiment analysis. Fashion brands, or rather their customers, seem similar to each other – the differences usually reach 10%, while those between emotions in posts reached 60%. Only Monnari outweighs the others in terms of positive sentiment (20% more than average). House turned out to be a model brand in this comparison, performing at the average level.
Being a model pays off: fashion brands Reserved and Cropp kept their posts within the average intensities of each emotion – and so do those commenting on these statements. Monnari, confirming the results of the sentiment analysis, stands out above the average in terms of joy and anticipation. Perhaps this was influenced by the competition under the slogan “I feel best…”. H&M receives a lot of trepidation in the comments – it’s mostly about complaints and questions about whether it’s possible to buy clothes from the ending collection. The most confidence is expressed by Red is Bad customers.
Fashion brands and their communication with the customer
For now, we know how brands differ. But what about the relationship, fit or rift, between the company and its customers? What is the ratio of emotions in comments to those in posts?
The chart above shows that customers always express more negative sentiment than the brand itself – an expected result. The brand does not complain and complain. But that, among other things, is why it has social media, so that it can quickly receive them from customers and be able to publicly show how efficiently it solves problems. And yet… In the case of Monnari and Red is Bad, this ratio is close to 1, which means that customers complain very little, almost not at all. They are faithful consumers of products and brand statements. What’s fascinating is that these are the only companies where commenters are even slightly more positive than the brand itself.
Fashion brand communication vs customer communication
In the case of Red is Bad, it may be about comments about soccer (the brand talked to observers about the World Cup) and the fact that it itself expresses a lot of negative emotion. However, this trend is observed throughout the year, except for the first quarter, so it is not affected by a single event. In the case of Monnari, we observe satisfied customers writing about when they feel best. We see this trend especially in the third and fourth quarters of 2018.
Finally, our most complicated graph – the relationship between the intensity of emotions in comments and posts. Red color means that a particular emotion appeared in the comments under the company’s posts twice as often. Gray – that it was about the same or a little less.
We immediately see two interesting cases.
H&M has received far more fear than it has expressed – and this has been the case for all quarters of 2018. In addition, commenters also expressed a lot of anger in the first and third quarters of last year – H&M’s customers use the company’s Facebook more often than others to seek help, report problems, and request refunds.
Monnari, on the other hand, shows the opposite, very positive trends. Customers express a lot of joy and (especially in the second and third quarters) expectations in the comments. They are confident that the company and its products are something good, pleasant for them.
We can also observe reverse trends between Reserved and Cropp and Red is Bad when it comes to the emotion of fear. In the case of the first two brands, it is rather expressed by customers. In the case of patriotic clothing – the retailer itself.
Emotions of fashion brands and their customers – conclusions
Monnari and Red is Bad are two brands aimed at completely different target groups. However, they have proven to communicate with their customers most efficiently. They receive positive comments from them, and seem very attuned to their audiences in terms of the tone of their mutual communication.
H&M’s Facebook situation turned out to be the most complicated. This brand received a lot of negative emotion in 2018, although it expressed itself in a moderate way. The other everyday brands and those aimed at a wide audience, Reserved, Cropp and House, stayed around average in both the emotion expressed in posts and that received in comments.
As in the case of banks, it turned out that customers tune into a company’s communications – unless the company lets them down. Then they don’t focus on reading and responding to its communications, but instead express their own opinions, often strongly negative.
Brand monitoring and emotion analysis
This is our next post showing how emotion analysis sheds interesting new light on about various companies in the market. Previously, we examined banks and their Facebook communications. We also examined how various beauty brands are talked about – and which ones are given warmer feelings than others. Sentiment analysis worked well in both the beauty industry, whose representatives differ little from each other, and the heavily diversified entertainment industry.
Sentiment and emotion analysis is a direct insight into the mechanisms that control consumer behavior of customers. That is, our decisions to like something on Facebook, sign up for a newsletter, and finally buy something. If we are not convinced by the emotional overtones of a brand’s communication, if it does not seem sincere to us, we will not want to listen to it. In this study, we found that the customized, out-of-the-ordinary communications of two extremely different companies hit the mark. Their customers wrote a great deal of positive comments on Facebook.
