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Since the start of the opening kickoff, though, Adidas has reasserted itself at the top of World Cup brand dialogue. When looking at the top 10 official sponsors and their major competitors, a follow-up study by NM Incite, a Nielsen McKinsey Company, found that in the first two weeks of the tournament Adidas overtook Nike as the top brand. Adidas buzz accounted for 25.1% share of World Cup buzz online compared to 14.4% before the event. Nike, meanwhile, dropped from 30.2% to 19.4%.

Part of Adidas’ increased buzz levels were due to discussions around the controversial official ball of the World Cup – the Jabulani. For the week ending the 13th June, which included the first three days of the tournament, the ball accounted for 8% of all English-language messages related to the World Cup.

“Half the game in buzz is ‘fanning the flames,’” said Pete Blackshaw, executive vice president of digital strategy at Nielsen. “The Adidas football Facebook page, for instance, is now up to over a million fans and they are dropping new content several times a day, all while the average post is generating upwards of 100 comments. At the end of the day, brands need to keep the buzz ball in the air as long as possible – sponsored or otherwise.”

Budweiser, too, overcame a pre-tournament ambush from Carlsberg to assert itself as the most highly buzzed beer brand tied to the World Cup. Buzz share for the official beer of the World Cup climbed to 4.9% as it overtook Carlsberg, whose share fell to 2.4%.

Other official sponsors who enjoyed a noticeable increase in World Cup buzz included Hyundai/Kia (from 2.4% to 4.7%) and McDonald’s (2.8% to 4.2%).  The overall share of buzz for the 10 official World Cup partners/sponsors increased from 52% to 66% since the start of the tournament.

“Sponsorship still matters, but it’s far from a ‘conversational’ guarantee,” added Blackshaw. ”For big events like the World Cup and Olympics, you can always expect a modest ‘echo effect’ from any level of paid or sponsorship investment, but that’s just the foot in the door. The rest really depends on variables like timing, creativity, controversy, and a combination of brand readiness and agility.”

The NM Incite follow-up study compared the share of online buzz between World Cup sponsors and their major competitors in relation to the World Cup in the run up to the event (month-long period ending June 6th) and during the first two weeks of the tournament (11th -25th June). English language World Cup-related messages on blogs, message boards, groups, video and image sites – including Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter – were monitored for the study.

All three participants couldn’t stress strongly enough that the social landscape has changed and that the relationship between brands and consumer has been flipped on its head because of the way consumers connect. So much influence (and insight) is now in the hands (and tweets, posts, votes and updates) of the consumer. “Consumers expect brands to be listening,” said Blackshaw. “It’s a no-blink environment for brands.” Consumers aren’t always paying attention to your marketing message, warned Taqqu, but they are paying attention to each other. Brand loyalty is in no way a lock for today’s consumer who is constantly reevaluating brands.

The power and appeal of social media is not just hype. The facts bear it out. After friends and family, the number one driver for brand trust is online reviews and feedback from the social media space. If brands believe that trust is central to their message and their marketing, then social networks must be part of the ROI equation. Eliason notes the immediacy of response can be not only a huge credibility and trust builder with customers, it can also help the bottom line. He said a when customer tweets about a station outage, it saves Comcast considerable time and money in its response effort because information was received in real time.

Fast Facts

• More than 40% of consumers go online to check reviews and consumer feedback before purchasing consumer electronics.
• 60% of those going online have visited a social network, with half going back everyday according to Facebook.
• 23% of social network users expect companies to listen and respond to what is said online

The Big Question
A conference attendee asked if brands were alienating their older customers by focusing on Twitter, or blogs. Comcast’s Eliason stressed the importance of meeting the customer where they are. It’s critical that brands have multiple channels to allow feedback. While Twitter customer service is hot right now, traditional surveys, call centers and focus groups aren’t going away. Just like every social media space is different, every interaction point is different, so brands need to rethink and expand all their customer touchpoints.

According to a Nielsen analysis of online messages surrounding all U.S. and English national team players in the week ending Monday, June 14, Green garnered 11.4% of the total buzz, the most of any man from either squad. Nielsen’s study also found that his name was seven times more likely to appear in a World Cup message in the last week than in the prior seven-day period. It was the second most dramatic week-over-week change behind U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard, whose gutsy performance earned him “Man of the Match” status. His buzz levels soared more than 750% week-over-week.

“Nielsen’s analysis illustrates just how much the online community discusses these games,” said Pete Blackshaw, VP of digital insights at Nielsen. “Moments of greatness – or even the briefest of errors – can thrust any of these players’ names under the social media microscope for hours and days at a time and can have an effect that spreads far beyond the 90 minutes of game time.”

The contrasting week-over-week change in overall buzz levels for each of the two squads highlights the effect the game’s result had in each country. Social media discussions around the England squad dropped by 21%, reflecting the disappointment and subdued reaction to the game in England. In stark contrast, buzz levels around the US squad increased by over 250%, highlighting the delight with the result in the USA.

Blackshaw observes, “What’s happening in social media indicates that the error could help fan the flames of World Cup fever in the US and help the sport gain a mass share of mind it’s not previously enjoyed for a tournament held outside its own shores. If Green hadn’t made the blunder, the US would have lost their most anticipated match (it was the most watched first round game ever in the U.S.) and interest could have dwindled before it had a chance to really start going.”

USA and England Soccer Player Buzz Rankings
(Week ending Monday, June 14)

Despite a somewhat muted performance, English star Wayne Rooney still managed to receive the second highest levels of buzz last week among the teams’ players with a 9.1% share. Howard finished third overall with a 6.7% share, while the game’s goal scorers Clint Dempsey and Steven Gerrard rounded out the top five with 5% each.

It was also notable that David Beckham, who isn’t playing in the tournament, still managed to feature amongst the most buzzed players. It seems the obsession with the star plays out in social media just as it did with the TV cameras, which frequently cut to slow-motion clips of Beckham’s reaction to events during the course of the game.

There was one positive for England’s Green: the buzz levels for England’s backup goalkeepers, David James and Joe Hart, actually decreased in the last week – suggesting that even if fans are unsatisfied with Green, they weren’t eager to discuss the need for a replacement.

Nielsen’s latest study, conducted the week ending Monday, June 14, 2010, looked at English language World Cup-related messages on blogs, message boards, groups, video and image sites – including Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter – that mentioned at least one of the players related to the 2010 US and England Team Squads.

How do you really measure the total advertising effectiveness of a Super Bowl ad? This is a complicated question because TV advertising increasingly triggers a host of direct or indirect online activity, from visiting a website to talking about the ad on Twitter or Facebook. Recently at Nielsen we began testing a new metric, the Blended Media Score (BMS), with the goal of giving brands and content providers a more complete view of ad effectiveness. This BMS metric tracks the impact from traditional “Paid Media” (TV ads, banner ads) but also “blends” data from online buzz and social media – what we’re calling “Earned Media.” There’s no better environment to road test this Blended Media Score than the Super Bowl, where the online conversations can impact brand perception in new and meaningful ways both before and after a traditional ad hits the airwaves.

Biggest Bowl and Biggest Buzz
Roughly 106.5 million tuned into CBS’ telecast of Super Bowl XLIV, making it the most watched TV program ever in the United States. In addition, the game generated the highest volume of online conversation and “Earned Media,” with conversation spikes on Facebook and Twitter playing a disproportionate role in the growth of overall conversation.

The top Blended Media Score performers for the 2010 Super Bowl managed to perform well in both earned media (buzz volume, sentiment, increased engagement through social media channels) and paid media (recall, likeability, audience/reach).

Brands that succeeded in only one area fell in the middle of the pack for their BMS ranking. For example, Focus on the Family over-indexed on earned media due to their very high volume of conversation (122) but under-indexed in paid media (80), causing them to fall 16th out of 43 advertisers.

Brands that offered free products or trial incentives (Denny’s, Dockers) over-performed in earned media relative to other advertisers. The offers not only spurred higher levels of buzz, but also appeared to provide unique “pass along” currency to consumers. Specifically, Denny’s succeeded largely due to the earned media its advertising gained because of the “free factor.” Offering free breakfast won over consumers and led to very high likability scores as well as a large amount of online discussion. Their frequent updates and teasers on Facebook led to many individuals becoming fans of the brand online.

E*Trade leveraged a integrated social media campaign to gain attention of their Facebook page and YouTube channel. They integrated their Facebook page across their full advertising strategy; as a result, they experienced a large influx of Facebook fans and experienced the second largest increase in fans among all advertisers.

Post-Game Plan
So where is this going? The first half of 2010 will see the single largest concentration of high-spend “advertising” events in recent memory in the form of the Super Bowl, Winter Olympics, and World Cup. Our Super Bowl analysis is the first phase of a three-part “Trifecta” that will take a deep and holistic cross-platform look at advertising effectiveness. All three of these events will involve unprecedented levels of integrated marketing, and we’ll continue applying BMS to these events.

Additional support and analysis: Kim Cox, Alka Gupta and Nina Stratt

“Focus on the Family” earned 33.4% of total Super Bowl buzz in a two-month period ending January 31st. ManCrunch achieved 6% of the total online buzz in that time, even though its commercial will not air during the Super Bowl after CBS declined to run it. Similarly, Pepsi is the second most discussed advertiser associated with the Super Bowl in the last two months, despite company plans to not advertise the brand during this year’s game.

“The early buzz data makes one thing clear — controversy drives conversation,” said Pete Blackshaw, executive vice president of digital strategy at The Nielsen Company. “Both the anti-abortion ad and the gay-themed ad have triggered significant levels of conversation. Other advertisers looking to drive buzz on top of their ads may need to work a bit harder to navigate around the controversial content.”

Even though the “Focus on the Family” ad has earned the most online buzz, 75% of it is not directly linked to the organization. Consumers instead often refer to it as the “Tim Tebow ad” or the “Tim Tebow pro-life ad” without directly mentioning “Focus on the Family.”

The emergence of hot-button social issues alters the landscape of where Super Bowl marketing is discussed. While online sports communities remain a force in the Super Bowl marketing dialogue, political message boards are driving 21% of the buzz.

There’s a reason why products, brands, and issues associated with the Super Bowl generate so much hype. According to Nielsen’s historical data, ten Super Bowls rank among the 20 highest rated U.S. broadcasts since 1961. Meanwhile, the top 50 sports broadcasts of all time include 40 Super Bowls – meaning only three of the game’s telecasts do not make the list.

Last year’s game was the most viewed Super Bowl ever with an average of 98.7 million viewers. It was the fourth consecutive year of overall viewership growth since Super Bowl XXXIX was viewed by 86.1 million in 2005. The trend is also clear when broken down by men and women.

Is the Super Bowl the ultimate marketing ecosystem of paid and earned media? 2010 will be a huge test, as the new reality of consumer expression and cross-platform integration create a powerful new dynamic hovering over the largest single-spot ad spend on record.

What marketers urgently need to understand is not only total ROI on that mega-media buy, but the full return on all the other activities triggered or reinforced by this paid media stimulus. How does paid media drive earned media? And to what degree does earned media halo future paid media efforts? These are critical questions that Marketers need answers to – along with a metric or common yardstick that quantifies the blending of the two.

Getting Real about Real-Time
In a more agile and flexible marketing environment, where there’s actually a chance of making real-time changes based on available data, marketers need to understand the real-time role they can play in making tactical interventions to grow earned media impressions and ultimately, increase odds of success.

Twitter brings a fresh dynamic and promise to Super Bowl media efficiency. The platform reached a reach tipping point in 2009 – so much so that marketers increasingly use it to fan the flames for events, interact with brand mavens or enthusiasts, and, in a growing number of cases, manage or sandbag tension points like customer disappointment or service shortfalls.

Tweets are also increasingly embedding themselves in Facebook feeds, blog entries, and Google search results, magnifying their long-term value. Translated to the Super Bowl, positive playback about Super Bowl ads can have a “latency” effect and provide brands with an almost endless annuity of “earned media.” The same dynamic will be at work with Facebook brand fan pages, which can see massive growth – hundreds of thousands – following a major ad campaign, offline or online.

Quantifying the Big Picture
In the end, Super Bowl spots today need to meet two distinct “torture” tests – one measurable based on traditional TV scoring, and another based on unique dynamics of cross-platform engagement, most notably word-of-mouth and conversation. On a pure TV-impression alone, one can argue that the Super Bowl has become such an unusual magnet for consumer attention and recall – the one day of the year that we “celebrate” advertising – that it is worth every penny. Indeed, curiosity, anticipation, guessing, nostalgia come into play big time before this festival of brand persuasion. Consumers, after all, want to see the ads, almost akin to seeing a movie.

The entertainment halo certainly matters. Over the last three years, Nielsen IAG research found Super Bowl spots achieved a 31% higher break-through and 93% higher likability than the typical ad on television. But it’s not that simple. Timing is also a factor. First and second quarter spots yield more yardage than second half spots, and 4th quarter spots are about comparable to a “normal” TV buy in terms of generating ad recall. The viewer’s ability to associate the correct brand with the ad, and reported likability levels similarly wane over the course of the game. Surprisingly, branded integration effectiveness shows an opposite trend. Recall and brand opinion are lowest pre-game, moderate during the game, and big gainers post game. For Marketers, the mix is clear: focus on ads early and branded integration efforts late. Lastly, the SuperBowl is a touchdown for brands generally: purchase consideration for the average ad the week after increases +13% versus the week prior.

So that’s the foundation of pure “paid” measurements. What about the “earned” side of the equation, which factors in free media, consumer conversation, participation, and the like? Clearly, the Super Bowl in particular shines light across a far more complicated mix of marketing activity and user-engagement. Great copy finds life in other places.

An engaging, even participatory Pepsi game spot, for instance, might trigger a site visit, a Google search, a tweet, retweet, fan-page sign-up, or DVR rewind. It might trigger a desire to share, forward, discuss, critique, rate, or review. It might bleed over into the social media stream of a New York Times or any media reporter (a growing number of whom leverage social media across all platforms.)

The good news is that this digital trail can be quantified with high levels of precision – by volume, reach, tone, source, or even depth of brand advocacy. And much of this can be delivered in real-time, empowering today’s brand manager to make real-time changes or adjustments to the site. Last year, for instance, a large percentage of brands buying spots on the Super Bowl made real-time adjustments to their websites or social media efforts based on pre-game variables.

This year, Frito-Lay’s Doritos brand sits on the extreme of early-adjustments, as the four spots they are running are sourced from user-participation events and contests. In this case, the “earned media” is stimulating the paid side of the equation. Then again, this can work in reverse. When P&G’s Tide brand ran a highly engaging “Talking Stain” spot two years ago, it triggered a user-generated contest that created an impressive annuity of online video that quickly reshaped the brand’s search results for the better. Three years ago, Nationwide insurance estimated that the “earned media” dividend from their Kevin Federline spot totaled over $20 million dollars.

So in the end, it’s just not as simple as “buying” high-reach media. The broader ecosystems truly matter. This year, Nielsen is putting its biggest effort into measuring and quantifying the full return of Super Bowl advertising, combining a comprehensive suite of paid media and earned media metrics into a total “engagement” score. And we don’t intend to stop at the Super Bowl. Over the course of 2010, we’ll be applying our new cross-platform engagement metrics across our work on the Winter Olympics, Academy Awards, and the World Cup.

Webinar: Learn more about Nielsen’s comprehensive approach to the Super Bowl. Join Pete Blackshaw and Randall Beard for a webinar Maximizing Advertising ROI in a Paid vs. Earned Media Environment on December 8 at 2:00PM EST.

• Download a healthcare-focused whitepaper authored by Melissa Davies: Listening to Consumers 101, How Marketers Can Leverage Consumer-Generated Media

SUMMARY: When is a phone not a phone? In the hands of children and tweens, today’s cell phones are primarily used as text messaging devices, cameras, gaming consoles, video viewers, MP3 players, and incidentally, as mobile phones via the speaker capability so their friends can chime in on the call. Parents are getting dialed in to the social media phenomenon and beginning to understand—and limit—how children use new media.

• This article draws from a keynote speech delivered last month at the Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) annual conference.

Digital media is an enabling framework for brands, parents and educators—it’s on demand, interactive, sensing and connected. And social media adds expression and sharing capabilities. A vast menu of web and mobile tools has been developed to facilitate information sharing and commentary on the Web. Applications and outlets have kept pace as consumers rush to populate blogs, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, forums, message boards and online communities.

In the marketing world, the buzz is all about consumer-generated media. Companies have discovered thatno paid-for communication campaign has the impact of missives penned by consumers grounded in relevant, first-hand experience. Their influence is immediate, highly viral and authentic, with an extremely long tail attributable to archived material.

Giving voice
What motivates people to go online and on the record with personal opinions and information? In part, it is the very human need to be heard and to connect with others. It is the desire to make a difference, to influence the world around us. It is the drive to evangelize on behalf of the things and the people we love. And it is the ongoing quest for authenticity in a world governed by image.

Mobile devices represent a major impetus behind the social media movement, driving part of the 250% audience increase for the year ending February 2009. Teens represented 19% of the 12.3 million active social networkers.

Childhood connections
To adults, cell phones are a communications device. To children, they are a lifeline. Consider that the average 13-17 year old sends more than 2,000 text messages per month. Compared with the total mobile Internet population, teens are much bigger consumers of social media, music, games, videos/movies and technology/science.

Parental use of advanced data services mirrors that of their tween kids. If their children text, then 80% of parents will text as well. Although following their kids’ lead on devices and media, parents still set limits. Six in ten forbid downloads onto their children’s phone for financial and security reasons.

TV times
Even as social media dominates press coverage, TV viewing is on the rise among children and teens. Younger children age 2–11 spend almost 102 hours per month watching traditional TV at home—a 17% increase from May of 2008 to the second quarter of 2009. The increasingly popular time-shifted TV option averaged 5:26 hours during the timeframe, a 26% year-over-year increase.

Traditional TV viewing expanded at a slower rate (13.5%) among teenagers than among younger kids—to 101+ hours, and teen time-shifted viewing showed a 35% growth rate with 4:54 hours of watching time. Interestingly, Internet use was down (-15%), to 10:22 hours per month. The biggest media gainer was video viewing on the Internet, where Hulu and YouTube helped spike time by 66% for a total 2:41 viewing hours. Teens deployed mobile phones to catch videos, spending 6:30 hours with mobile video streams—a 20% year-over-year increase.

Young enough
The debate rages on: what is the right age to give a child their own phone? The answer seems to be younger every year, and if you don’t give them a phone, they’ll just borrow one. In 2008, the average age when kids started to borrow a cell phone was 8.6 years; in 2009, it was down to just 8 years old. As to ownership, in 2008, a child typically was given a mobile phone at age 10.1 years; by 2009, it was down to 9.7 years old.

The next time you hear “everybody’s got one”, the fact is, that classic ploy may be true. By age 10, roughly half of children own a mobile phone. By age 11, six in ten own a mobile phone. By age 12, fully three-fourths of all children have their own mobile phone.

Game on
How do they use phones? Two-thirds of tween mobile phone owners took pictures with their camera phones in the last year. Half spent time playing the pre-installed games. Four in ten activated the speakerphone feature. Twenty-eight percent filmed a video clip, and 24% listened to the MP3 capability.

More than half of the youngest (age 8) mobile phone owners used their cell to send text messages in the last 12 months. That figure soared to 81% for 12-year-old mobile users. The vast majority of text messages were directed to friends and family (90%). All other cell phone uses tracked in the single digits, such as voting on TV shows (8%), buying a ringtone or music (9%), buying wallpaper or a screensaver (4%), buying a game (5%), responding to an ad (5%) or looking up their horoscope (4%).

Parental controls
Surprisingly, given all the publicity about cyber stalking and cyber bullies, more than half of parents do not apply any parental controls offered by service providers to their children’s cell phone usage—although the use of these paid-for controls is increasing. Among those who do assert these built-in controls, 20% limit the number of calls, texts or instant messages, followed by download limits (17%), talk time or voice minute allocations (16%), mobile website access limits (15%), locator services and restricted in/outgoing number access (13% each), time of day restrictions (11%), and alerts to unauthorized texts, IMs or callers (6% each).

While the use of paid-for controls may not be high, just about all parents restrict how tweens use their phone and six in ten prohibit downloads that incur charges. Not taking the phone to the dinner table and maintaining certain grades are other rules put in place by 42% and 40% of parents, respectively.

Coming challenges
From a media perspective, choice leads to fragmentation, and ultimately, divided consumer attention and diminished import for a single medium. Even as social media gains popularity among the general public and marketers, there is no accepted benchmark or measure of effectiveness, making it difficult to forecast or predict the impact of a campaign.

A particular challenge for companies wanting to incorporate social media into their communications arsenal is the blurred line between private and public information, given the highly personal nature of many postings. Advertising models are still in flux, exploring boundaries of ethics, taste and transparency.

Untapped potential
Social media presents a world of new possibilities. Not a better mousetrap, but a new operating DNA for interacting with consumers. It can serve as an early radar or warning system, alerting to trouble spots and yielding fresh insights.

For parents, old rules still govern new media. They will need to stay engaged, enrolled and involved in their children’s lives. The motto “trust but verify” applies. For advertisers, old rules also are still in force. The need for transparency and trustworthiness becomes amplified on new media circuits. Ultimately, the nature of new media will prove its value, as all parties engage in an interactive, ongoing, mutually beneficial conversation. Social media is organic and ever-evolving, constantly presenting new opportunities and challenges.

Kid Stuff
For more on children and their media habits, check back next month. We’ll be exploring television, DVD, DVR, VCR, on demand, online streaming and gaming preferences for children ages 2–11. The silver screen represents marketing gold!