By Michael Haydock
IBM Global Business Services
Chief Scientist
This week we released the global IBM 2Q Retail Forecast, which found that home furnishing sales are going to receive a boost over the next three months— a healthy 8 percent increase for in-store sales and 28.44 percent for online sales. Combined, we expect to see a 16.6 percent increase in home furnishing sales in the months of April, May and June. This is good news for the retail industry.
There were a number of factors that contributed to this uptick – including an increase of rental activity, the rise of disposable incomes, and a trend toward “accessorization.” Perhaps the most interesting driver of future home furnishings sales– was discovered within a hidden correlation to the Chinese Year of the Dragon.
During the auspicious “Year of the Dragon” which falls once every 12 years, tens of thousands of people around the world plan their marriages and births to get an extra dose of luck and good fortune.
We decided to test our hypothesis against our in-store sales data. Did the home furnishing sales actually spike during the last Year of the Dragon, in the year 2000?
The answer is yes. Interestingly, home furnishings sales in the year 2000 ranked the third-highest out of a period of 22 years.
by Dr. Björn Christensen, Chief Executive Officer of meteolytix
A rainy day can generate a sudden spike in cupcake sales while a hot summer day can generate a surge in the sales of panini’s.
These are some surprising trends hidden in mountains of information that analytics can unearth to help businesses understand their consumers better and seize the unexpected business opportunity.
Consumer-focused businesses know all too well just how much weather shifts can affect consumer demand. Retailers, restaurant chains and consumer product companies often point to the weather as a key factor driving positive and negative variations in sales.
So how can your business manage weather’s impact to predict consumer buying trends more effectively?
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by Jill Puleri, IBM GBS Retail Leader
We grew up hearing the story of Hansel and Gretel, but it’s not until recently that the moral became applicable to the business world. According to the story, Hansel leaves a trail of breadcrumbs so the duo can find their way home, but they get lost after the birds make the bread their dinner. As the IBM GBS Retail Leader, I’ve taken a lesson or two from Hansel’s mishap — it’s that if you don’t watch the breadcrumbs carefully, you’ll never find your way to the prize. Continue Reading »
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USC, the Los Angeles Times and IBM Go Beyond
Best Picture to Look at the Bigger Picture
By Jonathan Taplin
Director of the Annenberg Innovation Lab
The University of Southern California
As the parade of gowns and penguin suits made their way down the red carpet and into the Oscar awards ceremony last night, I had one eye glued to my TV and the other to my Twitter feed.
For more than three decades, my career in entertainment has spanned the worlds of music, film, technology and finance. As a long-standing member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Director of the Annenberg Innovation Lab, I always await this event with eager anticipation.
But this year I decided to marry my love of film, digital media and technology by applying science to the Oscars. Why? I wanted to better understand how the public’s opinion of Oscar nominees stacks up against the actual winners on awards night.
Like many movie fans, not all of my favorite picks mirror the Academy’s choices, or those of the movie-going public for that matter. I’m not ashamed to admit that I was shouting at the TV during the 2011 Oscar telecast when “The Social Network” didn’t take home Best Picture. That’s why the collaboration between our Lab, IBM and the LA Timesto create the Oscar ‘Senti-Meter’ was so groundbreaking.
Using advances in analytics and natural language processing, the Senti-Meter enabled us to analyze millions of daily public comments via Twitter, comparing volume and even more importantly assessing the tone. It let us pick up on positive, negative and neutral opinions, even snarky vs. sincere tweets about the best actor, actress and film nominees.
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by Yuchun Lee, Vice President and General Manager, IBM Enterprise Marketing Management Group
Consumer empowerment is the name of the game today. Since IBM launched its Smarter Commerce initiative, we’ve seen companies transform the way they buy, market, and sell products and services. Why? Because customers now use social networks, mobile devices, Web sites and influencers to make buying decisions. Continue Reading »
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John Squire is IBM’s director of Digital Marketing and Analytics.
Updated Post
AN UPSET IN THE MAKING
3 February 2012, 11:30 AM Eastern
Just like on the field, Eli Manning is riding a late surge to overtake Tom Brady in the IBM and USC analysis of Super Bowl XLVI social media sentiment. Overnight results of Super Bowl Twitter buzz drove Giants quarterback Eli Manning’s ‘T score’ for positive sentiment ahead of Tom Brady. Manning now leads with 66% vs. Brady’s 61%, which represents an 8-point shift compared to the previous day. In another interesting development positive sentiment for Giants head coach jumped dramatically with his score rating increasing to 76% positive. That places Coach Coughlin above all of the players and coaches on both teams.
This day-to-day shift in Super Bowl fan sentiment illustrates the speed at which consumer sentiments can shift online — a factor that businesses are watching closely due to the potential impact on their brand equity and sales.
By applying analytics in social media settings we can identify nuances – positive, negative, irony, snarky vs. sincerity, in real-time. That’s enough time to help an organization, or in this case professional athletes, adjust their comments and actions to dramatically (and positively) impact their brands.
Original Post
SUPER BOWL ANALYSIS TAKES US BEYOND THE TWEETS
2 February 2012
One of the most dramatic NFL games ever played was Super Bowl XLII pitting the undefeated (18–0) New England Patriots led by record-setting quarterback Tom Brady against the surprising NY Giants with young, unproven Eli Manning at the helm. A thrilling, some say shocking victory for the Giants ended the Patriots bid to be the only 19–0 undefeated champion in league history. And now Super Bowl XLVI – The Rematch — anticipated to be the most watched American television show in history, promises to take social media to a whole new level.
As my colleague, and former NFL player Kevin Nosbusch posted on Wednesday, IBM and the University of Southern California Annenberg Innovation Lab are conducting the first sentiment analysis of the two Super Bowl quarterbacks to illustrate how new analytics technologies make it possible to quickly assess the positive, negative and neutral sentiments shared by fans.
Why is this sentiment analysis important to IBM? In addition to being a longtime partner of the NFL, IBM recognizes that its clients, just like football players, are closely connected to their brand presence.
Using advances in analytics companies, academics, journalists can gain new insights into consumer perceptions via social media on endless topics from football and baseball to movies and retailing. Technologies can even distinguish irony and figure out which tweets are just background noise and those that are truly important.
Branding Upset on the Digital Playing Field
The Super Bowl analysis shows us that today the two quarterbacks, Tom Brady and Eli Manning are in statistical dead heat: Brady earning 65% positive sentiment and Eli Manning earning 62% positive sentiment. That actually represents a big branding upset on the digital playing field. Most sports and marketing followers would assume that Brady should be far ahead given his lofty status as an elite QB for many years and three championship rings.
Other noteworthy findings show that wide receivers have upstaged the quarterbacks, who are being positioned in the news media as the chief protagonists — Wes Welker is #1 in positive sentiment and Victor Cruz is a close 2nd. Interestingly Brady leads by 3% points, exactly the point spread Las Vegas oddsmakers have favored the Patriots.
So while it looks like Tom Brady is going into the game as the Social MVP, now is not the time to get cocky. Eli Manning is holding his own against the more experienced Brady in terms of positive sentiment.
The IBM USC analysis illustrates the potential insight and benefits that social media analytics can deliver to a brand — whether you’re an professional football player or a global enterprise. Businesses that ignore the impact of social media will be stuck on the sidelines.
Learn more about IBM and USC AIL social media analysis projects.
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Kevin Nosbusch is an IBM senior technology consultant based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In 1973 he played for the Fighting Irish during Notre Dame’s National Championship season, and went on to play for the San Diego Chargers.
When I played football at the University of Notre Dame and for the San Diego Chargers, broadcast television and radio were the primary ways fans enjoyed the game. There was no ESPN, no sports talk radio, the Internet was only known by DARPA scientists and social media didn’t exist.
Gosh, I sound pretty old. But in just 30 years the media and sports industries have been completely transformed by technology. Today, fans are not only Tweeting about their favorite players and teams, but just last week at the Pro Bowl athletes were participating in the virtual conversation on the field at Twitter stations.
This week, IBM and the University of Southern California Annenberg Innovation Lab (AIL) are conducting an analysis of social media trends related to Super Bowl Quarterbacks Tom Brady and Eli Manning. By analyzing hundreds of thousands of public tweets they’ll determine the fans’ sentimental favorite – the people’s champion if you will.
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by Jill Puleri, GBS Global Retail Leader
There’s nothing more crucial to retailers than how well they understand the consumer.
Understanding consumers in a complex world is no easy feat. Consumers have become more selective, independent and self-servicing. Simultaneously, technology has transformed how consumers, shop for, share and recommend products. To influence purchasing decisions today–retailers must be perceptive enough to anticipate and respond to consumer wants, needs and desires before the act of browsing even begins. Continue Reading »
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By John Squire
Director, Product Management, Enterprise Marketing Management Group
IBM Industry Solutions
A couple of weeks ago when I wrote about online shopping trends and predictions for this holiday season, I focused largely on the rise of the mobile shopper. Today in honor of Black Friday, I’d like to focus instead on social shopping.
Social shopping, as I’m sure most of you know, refers to those people who turn to their social networks for advice or research when they’re considering a purchase. Seems like a pretty intuitive concept. But the fact is that I’ve spoken to far too many retailers who have either discounted the notion that social shopping will ever make significant contributions to their bottom lines or who throw up their hands in frustration and say something along the lines of “I just don’t understand how to use it to drive revenue.”
These are the kinds of perspectives that drive retailers out of business. Here’s why. IBM data shows that people who arrive at a retailer’s site from Facebook are nearly twice as likely to buy something than other people. Put another way, social media’s ability to influence consumer behavior far outstrips that of other channels.
The reason lies in the very nature of social media. Social media is built on the premise that one person’s opinion is not only as valid as anyone else’s, but that it’s authentic and therefore trustworthy. People tend to trust someone (even a perfect stranger) who has taken the time to post an opinion on a Facebook page much more than they trust an ad. More to the point, IBM data shows that people are willing to act on the opinions of strangers. It turns out that even on the Internet, it’s the human relationship that matters.
When it comes to mobile shopping this holiday season, there will be no place for the makers of smartphones and tablet computers to hide. Analysts will be able to detect not just the brand of the device from which a consumer forays to retailing Web sites; they’ll know what model each shopper is using.
This bit of intelligence comes from John Squire, chief strategy officer–smarter commerce, for IBM. Squire is the maestro behind the annual IBM Coremetrics Benchmark campaign–which monitors shopping activities on more than 500 US retailing Web sites and lesser numbers of sites in other countries. Each year, Squire and his team issue a series of updates during the crucial Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping days. And, this year, the data will be made public in rapid-fire mode. If you have a large appetite for online retailing data, check in frequently at #holidayretail on Twitter.
Mobile shopping is expected to be hot this season. Squire expects about 12% to 15% of transactions on retailing sites to come from mobile devices, up from 4.5% during last year’s holiday shopping season. “We can detect exactly what device they’re using–the exact device,” he says. “That information can help retailers decide how to invest in enhancing the mobile shopping experience.”
Right now, the trends are favoring Apple and its iPad tablet. Squire says iPad users are aggressive online shoppers. In October, for instance, the ratio of iPad users who visit sites and actually buy something reached 6.8%–compared to a so-called conversion rate of 3.6% for mobile devices as a category. As a result of this and other indicators, retailers are adding elements to their Web sites that take advantage of iPad’s capabilities, such as the pinch and zoom features. Giving consumers a rich interactive shopping experience on their iPads likely will increase the demand for the devices–so this trend could snowball for Apple.
