Introduction, key learnings, and methodology
How can brands navigate the social media world in 2024?
Looking into the dynamic landscape of social media in 2024, brands face an ever-expanding array of platforms, constant algorithm updates, and the evolving digital footprint left by the tech giants. These challenges make it increasingly complex for social media marketers to effectively connect with their audience.
Our comprehensive analysis of 347 brands across eight industries shows that brands initiate only a fraction of the entire brand-related conversation: 1.51%. This reveals untapped potential for brands to do more to influence the narrative.
Consumers are steering the course of brand-related discussions online, leaving brands no choice but to listen and learn from their consumers. In this report, we surface the most important consumer insights across eight sectors. Our goal is to empower marketers and insights professionals to build viable business strategies for the year ahead.
Key findings from the report
Our methodology
We analyzed hundreds of millions of data points across eight industries from January 1 to June 30, 2023, using Brandwatch Consumer Research.
The eight industries we examine:
- Automotive
- CPG
- Consumer tech
- Energy
- Entertainment
- Retail
- Food
- Financial services
The report offers a comprehensive analysis of 347 brand queries, resulting in a thorough understanding of insights and trends.
Notably, we surface numerous brands that went viral during this period. To determine the factors that contributed to their viral status, we used Brandwatch’s AI assistant, Iris.
Trends and social benchmarks
What trends are dominating social right now?
In this section, we’ll explore trends and social engagement benchmarks spanning the eight selected industries. You’ll also find tips on how social media marketing professionals can effectively use these insights to engage their audiences across the various social media platforms.
- AI is ablaze with innovation. Generative AI tools like AI content writers, image generators, and chatbots continue to gain traction among marketers and other professionals. As these tools rapidly advance, they are reshaping the way businesses approach content creation, visual representation, and customer engagement on social media.
- ChatGPT: A social marketer’s secret sauce. Marketers explore tools like ChatGPT to streamline everyday tasks, spark creativity, and amplify output. (Explore our Social Media Manager’s Guide to ChatGPT for inspiration).
- Major marketing platforms develop their own proprietary AI tools. Hubspot and Salesforce launched their own AI products to boost productivity and save time for their users. Meanwhile, with Brandwatch’s AI, you can elevate your research skills and boost your social strategy – all in one place.
- Global social media growth drives platform enhancements. A growing number of social media users is pushing social networks to continuously enhance their platforms to better serve their audience. Among the recent updates, TikTok launched text posts, and YouTube’s Shorts introduced Collab, interactive stickers, and a go-live feature to give creators more ways to create.
- Social media fragmentation. Amid this flourishing landscape, we face social media fragmentation. In recent developments, Meta has thrown another curveball with the launch of Threads, adding to the already fragmented social media landscape.
- Online reviews take center stage. According to a US report by PowerReviews, a staggering 99.9% of customers read reviews when they shop online. Notably, industries like the food sector often contend with higher volumes of negative consumer feedback. Its clear that online reviews wield considerable influence and must be a focal point of any modern marketing strategy.
Cross-industry social benchmarks
Benchmarking is a valuable tool for measuring performance and making comparisons within and across industries. By examining industry benchmarks, you can gain valuable insights into how various industries utilize social platforms, identify their key accomplishments and challenges, and pinpoint opportunities for improvement and growth for your own business.
Please note: These benchmarks are industry averages, offering a solid starting point for analysis. We recommend that you conduct your own analysis, too, as your brand's benchmarks will likely be different.
Best times to post by industry
When is the best time to engage with the audience in your industry?
Through social data analysis, marketers can discover who’s driving the conversation about a particular industry or brand — including what’s being discussed and when it’s the best time to engage. Marketers can also find additional topics that resonate with their audience to maximize the brand’s influence and impact on social.
We analyzed social media data to understand the best time for brands to join and engage in social media conversations by industry.
When is your audience the most engaged online?
Industry audience breakdown by gender
The following analysis reveals the gender breakdown of authors on X (formerly Twitter) discussing brands across the selected eight industries.
Here’s what we found
- On average, more men than women discuss brands across the selected eight industries on the social network X.
- Retail and entertainment saw the highest share of conversation by women compared to the other studied industries, with 39% and 38% of mentions being posted by women, respectively.
- The automotive and consumer tech sector saw the highest proportion of male authors engage in brand-directed conversations.
Pro tip
Gender breakdown analysis also represents an opportunity for brands to assess whether their content naturally appeals more to one gender over the other and consider refining their approach to better engage the underrepresented gender in each category.
This gender breakdown in brand discussions potentially holds valuable insights for marketers. Tailoring strategies to align with the predominant gender in each industry, such as targeting content for women in retail and entertainment or engaging effectively with men in automotive and consumer tech, could enhance marketing impact through more personalized approaches.
Industry audience breakdown by generation
We also looked at the generational breakdown of audiences within the eight selected industries.
Here’s what the data shows
- Across all eight sectors, the energy sector saw the highest percentage of brand-related mentions from baby boomers (39% of all generation-categorized mentions).
- Consumer tech and food services brands saw the highest percentages of brand-related mentions from millennials (Gen Y).
- Gen Xers tracked the most brand-related mentions in conversations about retail.
- Of all sectors, entertainment brands saw the highest percentage of brand-related mentions from Gen Z.
Pro tip
Understanding generational trends in brand discussions across sectors is key. It highlights opportunities to tailor marketing strategies to specific age groups.
Consumer-brand interactions by industry
How do consumers and brands interact on social media?
Engagement levels vary across industries. For instance, creating shareable content and getting messages retweeted proves effective for brands in the entertainment and consumer tech sectors, as highlighted in the chart below. Conversely, brands in the financial services sector are seen leveraging social media for customer support, addressing inquiries, and resolving complaints.
The chart below illustrates the diverse ways in which brands and consumers interact on X (Twitter) across various sectors.
Here’s a breakdown of the chart’s takeaways:
Brandwatch data shows that the retail, entertainment, and energy sectors generate the highest percentage of consumer-initiated conversations.
Let’s look at the numbers for retail as an example. A whopping 84% of the conversation originates from individuals posting about and commenting on retail brands. A mere 13% constitutes what we call 'audience replies,' meaning interactions where consumers engage with the social media content shared by retail brands. This data prompts an interesting question: Who truly shapes the narrative – brands or consumers? In the retail sector, it becomes abundantly clear that consumers wield significant influence.
To compare, audience mentions of brands in the food sector account for 56% of the entire industry-related conversation. Audience replies, however, saw a higher share of the conversation compared to the retail sector, accounting for 31% of the entire industry-related conversation.
This may mean that consumers in the food sector are a lot more engaged with the industry’s brands. Knowing this could help food brands introduce new products, promote ideas, and get instant feedback.
Across all studied industries, brand-owned accounts, on average, are responsible for only 1.51% of the conversation around their brands (brand-owned posts).
However, the proportion of brand-initiated posts varies depending on the industry. For instance, financial services and consumer tech brands generate a relatively significant share of brand posts, making up 6.4% and 4.1% of their industry-related conversations, respectively. In contrast, brands in the automotive and entertainment sectors contribute a much smaller portion, accounting for just 0.41% and 0.69% of their respective industry-related discussions.
Consumers are the ones shaping the narrative on social, with brands owning just a tiny fraction of the overall conversation that surrounds them online.
By embracing the opportunity to learn from their audience, brands can discover many insights into consumer online behavior and gain more influence over the narrative on social.
Audience emotion and sentiment benchmarks
Emotion and sentiment analysis can help your organization assess the public opinion about your brand, products, and services, as well as the content you share across your social channels, essentially providing a “health check” of your online presence.
Hitting the right emotional tone on social media is a huge asset, helping brands change the general sentiment and overall narrative in their favor. Marketers and social media professionals can – and should – iterate their strategy and overall messaging based on the emotional response from consumers.
Which emotions do consumers express in brand-related discussions?
Looking at the emotion-categorized conversation broken down by industry, we see that:
Retail and entertainment were the happiest sectors, with joy accounting for 57% and 56% of all brand-related conversations.
Consumer tech, automotive, and financial services accumulated the highest volumes of angry mentions, with 39%, 30%, and 29% of all mentions displaying anger, respectively.
The energy sector amassed the highest portion of sad mentions, accounting for 23% of the entire industry-related conversation.
Food services and CPG aggregated the highest volume of mentions of disgust, representing 27% and 26% of their respective conversations. This is typical for the industries to do with food and with ties to hygiene.
Lastly, the automotive, energy, and finance sectors saw a higher volume of mentions showcasing surprise than the other five studied sectors. Each of these three sectors accumulated 1% of surprise mentions within the overall conversation.
Pro tip
Monitoring emotion-categorized discussions online helps uncover customer pain points that could be turned into opportunities. Understanding your audience's real feelings means your brand will be better positioned when it comes to online communication and brand management.
Consumer sentiment across industries
Another way to check your brand health – how the brand is perceived by consumers and positioned against the competition online – is through sentiment analysis.
Using sentiment analysis, marketers can classify posts as positive, neutral, or negative and enhance their understanding of customer perceptions and overall industry sentiment.
This analysis can also help marketers benchmark the sentiment of new conversations surrounding their brand or industry against old ones, which is particularly useful for PR and social media managers.
Using sentiment analysis, we found:
- The online sentiment surrounding the food and CPG sectors was more negative compared to the other six studied industries. For food services, 29% of the mentions were negative, and for CPG, 22% were negative.
- Energy and financial services generated the lowest volumes of positive mentions, with only 3.2% and 4.2% of all sentiment-categorized mentions being positive, respectively.
- Brands in the entertainment sector have accumulated the highest share of positive mentions in this period, with 12% of sentiment-categorized mentions as positive.
These findings empower marketers to make informed decisions, fine-tune strategies, and address areas that may require reputation management or engagement improvements.
We also examined shifts in attitudes towards the brands in the selected eight sectors over time.
How consumer attitudes have changed over time
Examining how consumer attitudes have shifted in the last 6 months is intriguing because it offers valuable insights into the immediate impact of recent events, trends, and changes in society.
- Data shows a 41% drop in positive mentions and a 6% rise in negative mentions for food services brands in the first two quarters of 2023 compared to the previous six months.
- Energy brands saw a 33% increase in positive mentions between January 1 - June 30 2023, compared to the previous six months – the highest increase across all eight studied sectors. That being said, it’s worth noting that this sector accumulated the lowest amount of positive mentions overall.
- Automotive brands showed the least fluctuation in sentiment, with only a 6% rise in negative mentions and no change in positive mentions in the first six months of 2023 compared to the previous six-month period.
Understanding these shifts is crucial for marketers in todays ever-changing landscape, making it a compelling topic to explore.
Pro tip
The online sentiment in brand-related discussions helps social media marketers understand consumer feelings and opinions about their brand. Changes in sentiment can serve as a temperature check, assisting various teams across your company in building and adjusting their strategies.
This section has taken an in-depth look at the ever-evolving landscape of consumer attitudes and behaviors, focusing on key trends and social benchmarks across industries. These insights serve as a foundational framework for the following section, where we will delve into industry-specific spotlights and real-world examples. By understanding the broader trends and benchmarks, we now move on to explore how these factors shape and influence businesses within the specific industries.
Industry spotlights
In this section, we’ll look closely at each industry, revealing valuable insights specific to each market.
We also uncover key takeaways so social media marketers can adapt and leverage their strategy.
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01 Automotive sector
- Vehicle electrification, spotlighting Ford’s plans to expand the production of electric vehicles (EV) in the USA, as well as the impact of the move to electric cars on the UK car industry.
- The electric vehicles charging wars: Consumers compared Tesla and Ford in the context of charging wars and the adoption of Tesla's electric vehicle plug.
- Many consumers voiced their opinion on the importance of standardizing the charging infrastructure for electric vehicles.
- Consumers shared their purchasing experiences, such as recommending certain salespeople or dealerships and their overall customer experience.
- SUVs were mentioned in conversations about the types of vehicles being purchased or in reviews and recommendations. One consumer even said: “No need for a home if you have this Mercedes-Benz SUV. 😊” This post received many likes and reposts.
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02 Consumer tech sector
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03 CPG sector
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04 Energy sector
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05 Entertainment sector
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06 Financial services sector
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07 Food services sector
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08 Retail sector
- Etsy saw the highest share of joy mentions relating to coupons.
- In conversations mentioning coupons, Bath & Body Works and Walgreens saw the highest share of angry mentions compared to their overall emotion-categorized conversation.
- Sam’s Club led the way with the highest share of disgust mentions, accounting for 68% of their emotion-categorized conversation about coupons.
We compared conversations about 47 major automotive brands between January 1 - June 30 2023 to the previous six-month period.
When looking at the size of the conversation, brands in this sector gathered fewer mentions in the first half of 2023 (62.81m) compared to 66.51m mentions between June 1 - December 31 2022 – a 6% decrease.
The number of unique authors also decreased by 1%, from 9.77m authors talking about auto brands between June 1 - December 31 2022 to 9.67m authors in the first six months of 2023.
Key topics fueling the auto scene online
Using Brandwatch’s AI-powered topic cloud, we quickly surfaced the main themes in the online conversations about the automotive sector.
We then used Brandwatch’s Iris Conversation Insights to summarize key insights about the biggest topics revealed by the topic cloud.
Here’s what consumers discussed:
Top five brands by audience @ mentions
Top five hashtags in the automotive industry by number of posts
#Bitcoin and #crypto made it to the top five most popular hashtags list. This is due to consumers discussing car brands that now (or used to) accept Bitcoin as a form of payment, such as Tesla and a Porsche and Maserati dealer in El Salvador.
We compared conversations about 45 consumer tech brands between January 1 - June 30 2023 to the previous six-month period.
By volume of mentions, consumer tech brands accumulated 5% fewer mentions (57.2m) between January 1 - June 30 2023 compared to 59.9m mentions between June 1 - December 31 2022.
When looking at unique authors discussing consumer tech brands, there was a slight increase of 1%, from 8.42m (June 1 - December 31 2022) to 8.47m in the first six months of 2023.
What’s driving the consumer tech conversation?
Nintendo (the brand and the products) was among the bigger trending topics in conversations between January 1 - June 30 2023.
The company’s game announcements and upcoming releases generated large volumes of discussions. Consumers also discussed and compared Nintendo to other consoles, including Nintendo’s lack of cross-play compatibility, and expressed interest in adding more games to the Nintendo Switch.
Artificial intelligence (AI) was another big topic in these conversations. Major AI advancements across every sphere, including health and wellness tech (Apple’s AI health coach and Google’s life coach, for example) and the creative industry sparked online discussions.
One company is taking a stand against AI-generated images. Nikon’s “Don’t give up on the real world” campaign sparked a lot of conversations, with Nikon accumulating over 968k mentions between January 1 - June 30 2023. The ad campaign featured photorealistic images of nature accompanied by a so-called “prompt,” describing exactly how each image might have been generated using AI. The Hornocal mountains in Argentina, for example, were shown with “image prompt: psychedelic mountain range painted in colors with expressionism art style.”
This ad campaign was designed to remind people that the world is full of amazing natural places. It was positively received online, with people calling it “smart and touching” and even “genius marketing.”
Top five brands by audience @ mentions
Top five hashtags in the consumer tech industry by number of posts
Placed second on our list is #Samsungunpacked, which is the official hashtag of Samsung Unpacked, a biannual event held by Samsung Electronics. If you tap #Samsungunpacked, you’ll uncover brand news, images, product reviews, consumer opinions, and much more – all carefully curated under the hashtag.
We compared conversations about 50 of the biggest CPG brands between January 1 - June 30 2023 to the previous six months.
When looking at the size of the conversation, brands in this sector gathered 4% more mentions in the first half of 2023 (12.84m) compared to 12.35m mentions between June 1 - December 31 2022.
The number of unique authors also saw an increase of 3%, from 4.1m authors talking about CPG brands between June 1 - December 31 2022 to 4.2m authors in the first six months of 2023.
What’s driving the CPG conversation?
There are three main drivers of the CPG conversation online: Celebrity-brand collaborations, calls for brand boycotts, and public price wars leading to empty stores. Let’s look at all three individually.
1. Celebrity-brand collaborations
With Coca-Cola's newly appointed global brand ambassador, NewJeans, K-pop continues its world dominance. The brand has snagged the girl band off the market just a year since their debut in 2022.
And Coca-Cola is not the only one. Pantene Thailand has also chosen Jackson Wang, a member of the popular K-pop band GOT7, as their spokesperson. This exciting news has delighted fans, resulting in over 12k mentions for #Pantenethailand and over 15k mentions for #jacksonwang.
2. Consumers call for brand boycotts
Several brands have recently faced online backlash due to their marketing campaigns. For instance, a prominent candy brand encountered criticism for their International Women's Day campaign. This sparked the use of harmful hashtags, garnering thousands and thousands of mentions. Not the thing you want to go viral for.
Likewise, other brands have also experienced negativity from consumers as they hollowly attempted to promote gender equality in their campaigns. These criticisms have led some consumers to call for boycotts of the products associated with these campaigns.
And it extends beyond social media, with some boycotts even gaining political support and local retailers opting to remove certain products from their shelves.
3. Empty shelves caused by price wars
The CPG supply chains are feeling the impact of inflation and rising expenses for raw materials, energy, and packaging. Our analysis surfaced consumer mentions discussing “price wars” between local supermarkets and their suppliers, with some mentioning empty shelves as a result.
Top five brands by audience @ mentions
Top five hashtags in the CPG industry by number of posts
It’s all about branding (and rebranding).
Large-scale marketing campaigns, partnerships, and other initiatives sent Pepsi and Coca-Cola trending on social. Pepsi dominated the top five CPG hashtags list, taking four out of five spots.
This year, Pepsi launched a number of collaborations with K-pop and T-pop (Thai pop) artists and sponsored events and music festivals. In March, Pepsi revealed a new logo and visual identity, and teaming up with musicians and collaborators helped strengthen Pepsi’s rebranding plan.
Coca-Cola has also launched multiple collaborations, including releasing two brand-new energy drinks in partnership with Japanese musician Yoshiki. They’ve also partnered with Realme, a Chinese consumer electronics brand, to create a co-branded phone.
We compared conversations about 27 top energy brands between January 1 - June 30 2023 to the previous six-month period.
When looking at the size of the conversation, brands in this sector gathered 5% fewer mentions in the first half of 2023 (4.78m) compared to 5.03m mentions between June 1 - December 31 2022.
The number of unique authors remained the same, with around 1m unique authors discussing energy brands in the first six months of 2023.
What’s driving the energy conversation?
Analyzing the content, two prominent themes emerge in the online conversation data: One related to emissions and climate change and one about sustainability and eco-friendly initiatives.
1. Emissions and climate change
Many discussions emphasized the need to shift to sustainable energy sources over non-renewable energy. People also discussed large energy brands and their record-breaking earnings, and expressed concerns about their insufficient efforts to protect the environment.
Some consumers pointed out instances of greenwashing and inconsistencies between energy brands’ climate objectives and the same companies' actions. We found over 28k mentions of greenwashing in the first six months of 2023.
2. Sustainability and eco-friendly initiatives
Companies that were focused on promoting sustainability and creating environmentally friendly products were discussed in positive terms. Some of those initiatives were Indian Oil’s indoor solar cooking stove and Petronas' Race2Decarbonise, a crowdsourcing and open innovation for decarbonization solutions.
Top five brands by audience @ mentions
Top five hashtags in the energy industry by number of posts
#IndianOil was the most popular hashtag in conversations relating to the energy sector. The brand’s new, large sustainability initiatives, including the solar cooking stove, synthetic 4T engine oil for motorbikes, and the #Unbottled campaign, promoting clothing made from recycled PET bottles, got consumers talking on social.
We compared conversations about 36 top entertainment brands between January 1 - June 30 2023 to the previous six-month period.
The entertainment sector is going strong. Entertainment brands gathered 9% more mentions in the first half of 2023 (116.29m) compared to 106.93m mentions between June 1 - December 31 2022.
The number of unique authors remained the same in the first half of 2023 – 10.5m authors compared to the previous six-month period.
Key topics driving online discussions in the entertainment sector
Looking at the AI-powered topic cloud, we can’t help but highlight the strong influence of K-pop on the entertainment industry, with the likes of BTS, Jimin, Jungkook, and Suga featured prominently.
Many of these musicians reportedly broke streaming history on various music streaming platforms. For example, BTS' Jimin became the fastest K-Pop soloist to reach 1 billion streams in this streaming service’s history, and BTS became the first act to have 10 albums surpassing 2 billion streams.
Streaming media was a huge theme in conversations.
Netflix’s recent decision to crack down on password sharing didn’t go unnoticed by consumers, with many taking to social media to voice their dissatisfaction. Netflix-related conversation saw 7% more negative mentions and a 3% drop in positive mentions in the first six months of 2023 compared to the previous six-month period.
Consumers also compared various streaming services in relation to their streaming quality, complaining about buffering, freezing, and other technical issues. We found 10.81k mentions of buffer or buffering in conversations in the first half of 2023, a 6% increase since the previous six-month period.
And as you might guess, the brands providing better streaming quality received praise on social.
Top five brands by audience @ mentions
Top five hashtags in the entertainment industry by number of posts
The power of the public consumer opinions
Two of the top five most reposted hashtags on X (Twitter) are related to an American fantasy drama TV series, Warrior Nun, which Netflix canceled in December 2022. #WarriorNun is a fan-led campaign, with the series’ fans looking for another streaming service to save the show.
In their response to the Warrior Nun fandom, Netflix suggested that the show wasn’t a success, and fans are not taking it lightly, with one fan saying that they felt “disrespected.”
We compared conversations about 42 top finance brands between January 1 - June 30 2023 to the previous six-month period.
Finance brands amassed 47.1m in the first six months of 2023, a 14% increase compared to 41.13m mentions between June 1 - December 31 2022.
More people joined the finance conversation on social as well, with 5.28m unique authors discussing finance brands in the first two quarters of this year, a 7% increase from the previous six-month period (4.91m unique authors).
Key topics fueling online discussions relating to finance
#1: Payment providers: Flexibility is still key
Visualizing topics in conversations relating to finance surfaced various payment options such as Cash App, PayPal, ApplePay, Venmo, Zelle, and other brands, indicating an in-depth discussion about payment method preferences.
People often mentioned Cash App, Venmo, and PayPal to either request to get paid, or when they were prepared to send money to others. And some consumers mentioned a lack of control and protection over their funds when using these apps. We found this particular news story coming up a lot in consumer conversations, with many news outlets, like CNN, covering the story.
In conversations relating to payment providers, consumers also mentioned a lack of payment options offered by merchants, such as a variety of payment providers and the ability to pay in installments.
Consumers also voiced concerns about encountering technical issues when using their debit and credit cards online.
#2: Broken trust and its impact on brand reputation
State Farm Insurance has been the topic of many conversations: The brand gathered 720.44k mentions between January 1 - June 30 2023 – a whopping 60% increase compared to the previous six months’ worth of data.
People discussed everything from the State Farm #Gamerhood Challenge to their involvement in the NBA Draft, tapping into K-pop, and the brand’s decision to stop offering home insurance in the state of California due to wildfires.
The latter story contributed to a rise in negative sentiment in the first half of 2023 (+77% compared to the previous six-month period).
Many people echoed the sentiment shared by these two consumers, pointing out that the company is prioritizing profits over everything else.
#3: Consumers increasingly expect brands to “walk the talk”
Some consumers accused large corporations of "rainbow-washing" their company pages during Pride month but not demonstrating a commitment to those values the rest of the year.
To truly embrace and enact inclusivity, brands must live their values and show support to their customers and employees all year round. That being said, many brands did an excellent job celebrating diversity this year.
#4: Good experiences and deeds get amplified on social
Lastly, customers who have had positive experiences with finance brands didn’t let those positive stories go unnoticed.
In those conversations, consumers discussed credit card benefits and made recommendations for specific banks, encouraging others to use their services. One influential consumer turned their post into a guessing game, sparking an engaging conversation and amplifying the brand name to their 283.8k followers on X, formerly Twitter.
The news about a plastic payment card recycling initiative launched by several bank brands was also embraced and boosted by environmentally-conscious consumers on social.
Top five brands by audience @ mentions
Top five hashtags in the finance services industry by number of posts
We compared conversations about 37 top food services brands between January 1 - June 30 2023 to the previous six-month period.
Food services brands gathered fewer mentions in the first half of 2023 (19.7m) compared to 25.4m mentions between June 1 - December 31 2022 – a 23% decrease.
Key topics driving online discussions relating to the food sector
#1: Consumer perceptions towards food delivery brands
The conversation around food delivery has been a hot topic in the last few years. In the early days of COVID, we saw a surge in grocery delivery chatter. Consumers enjoyed the convenience of having items like wine delivered to their doorsteps at all hours of the day. However, this surge in interest was accompanied by online outrage sparked over price hikes, stock shortages, and delivery service fees.
How are food delivery brands being discussed today?
We analyzed six months’ worth of conversation (January 1 - June 30 2023) relating to seven popular food delivery services brands: DoorDash, Uber Eats, Just Eat, Seamless, GrubHub, Deliveroo, and Postmates.
Looking at the brand share of voice, DoorDash saw the highest share of brand-related conversation in the first six months of 2023 (36% of the entire conversation), followed by Uber Eats (21.7%).
However, DoorDash also received the highest share of negative mentions, making up 37% of all sentiment-categorized mentions in the DoorDash conversation.
Grubhub received the highest share of positive mentions, accounting for 9% of all sentiment-categorized conversations related to the company.
The sentiment analysis also showed that negative mentions accounted for 31.6% of all sentiment-categorized mentions across all seven delivery brands, and positive mentions accounted for 7.2%.
What’s making consumers unhappy?
Many consumers complained about high delivery fees, leading some to openly – and very publicly – reject using delivery services altogether.
Some consumers called out a popular food delivery service brand for hiking the order costs by up to 130%. In their posts, the complaining customers stated that they’ve deleted all food delivery apps from their phones, and that they’ll never use them again.
Lastly, customer service was another big one. Consumers talked about getting the wrong orders, orders being delivered to the wrong address, and that the customer service staff were lacking sympathy.
What made consumers happy?
Consumers took to social to share their positive experiences with other apps like Swiggy and some of the restaurants’ owned delivery apps. In these conversations, consumers would praise their user-friendly interfaces, accessibility features, efficient ordering processes, and the food being on par with expectations.
#2: Rising prices on groceries and at restaurants
Many consumers mentioned the climbing costs of eating out and buying groceries, and some even stated that it could be cheaper to order a delivery than to cook at home.
In the first six months of this year, we tracked over 511k mentions of “expensive” and “costly” related to food services brands, a 9% increase compared to the previous six-month period. We also saw 13% more unique authors engage in discussions about food and rising prices in the first half of 2023 (222.9k unique authors) compared to 196.7k unique authors between June 30 - December 31 2022.
#3: Buzz-worthy marketing from McDonald’s
Between January 1 to June 30 2023, McDonald's gathered the highest share of brand-related mentions across all 37 food brands studied in this report, accounting for 24.43% of the total conversation.
What drove engagement on social?
The McDonald’s Grimace shake ad went viral on social, gathering close to 60k mentions at its peak on June 28 2023. First introduced in 1972, Grimace is a large purple monster and one of the brand’s long-living mascots with strong brand associations to their products.
The clip below was viewed 1.3M times, received over 63k likes, and it was reposted over 10k times on X (Twitter).
Thanks to Grimace, brand sales rose 10.3% in the second quarter of 2023.
Another successful marketing initiative by McDonald’s was launched in the Philippines, and it was dedicated to this year’s Pride month.
The campaign video, celebrating the queer community in the Philippines, was a big success, peaking on social on May 30 with close to 38k mentions.
Looking at all sentiment-categorized mentions relating to McDonald’s, the brand saw an increase of 21% in positive mentions in the first half of 2023 compared to the previous six-month period.
Top five brands by audience @ mentions
Top five hashtags in the food services industry by number of posts
The power of unprompted social proof
What could be better than free user-generated content praising or elevating your brand?
There's nothing like unprompted social proof to boost your brand’s perception online. In the examples below, consumers talk positively about brands without directly tagging their social pages. Both posts got a lot of engagement on social media – indirectly influencing brand sentiment along the way.
The following example showcases an opportunity for Taco Bell and illustrates another brand (Dude Wipes) cleverly tapping into an already existing positive narrative.
We compared conversations relating to 64 top retail brands between January 1 - June 30 2023 to the previous six-month period.
Retail brands accumulated 14% fewer mentions in the first half of 2023 (99.73m) compared to 116.24m mentions between June 1 - December 31 2022. This might be because retail brands tend to generate higher volumes of conversation in the second half of the year – thanks to Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, etc.
In the first half of this year, the count of different authors talking about retail brands also went down by 4% (to 11.47m) from the previous six-month period, which tracked 11.93m unique authors.
Key themes driving the retail conversation
#1: The retail boycotts
Brandwatch data shows that the CPG industry is not the only one to get “boycotted.” Retail brands saw a fair share of consumer calls for boycotts as well in the first half of 2023.
Some consumers cited unfair and biased treatment they’ve received from these brands as their reason. Others claimed that the companies’ values no longer matched theirs. This led some groups of consumers to pressure big retailers to remove products from their shelves.
Between January 1 - June 30 2023, we tracked close to 517k mentions of boycott – a 150% increase from the previous six months.
#2: Consumers react to big-box retailers going bankrupt
The news about the long-standing big box retailer Bed Bath & Beyond filing for bankruptcy and their subsequent acquisition by Overstock made waves on social media, with the conversation peaking at its highest on April 24 (close to 43k mentions).
How did consumers react to the news?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, coupons were at the center of the conversation, gathering close to 2.5k mentions in conversations relating to the brand. The retailer, in part, gained recognition for sending big, blue paper coupons that customers could redeem in-store at any time (the coupons were known for not having an inspiration date.)
Upon hearing the news, some consumers wondered about the fate of those coupons (many of whom have accumulated dozens of coupons over time.) Others shared they’d now need to get rid of their stash of coupons, as they were about to become useless.
And some consumers embraced the news as an opportunity to get a good deal.
Overall, the brand gathered 49% more mentions in the first half of 2023 (494k) compared to 195k in the previous six-month period.
#3: Consumers are seeking money-saving opportunities
Coupons were a big theme in conversations across the retail sector. Overall, mentions of coupons were down slightly – 1.3m in the first half of 2023 compared to 1.4m between June 30 – December 31 2022. However, the number of people discussing the topic saw an increase of 48%, from 119k to 177k individuals. The rise in the number of people discussing the topic suggests that consumers in the retail sector are still highly interested in using coupons and saving money.
Our emotion analysis of the conversations relating to coupons and mentioning the top 10 retail brands (by volume of emotion-categorized mentions) revealed:
Here’s what we gathered when looking at the coupon conversation:
1. Consumers are sharing their coupon tips and hacks
This consumer explains in depth how they seek out coupons and deals and use them to stretch their dollars. And by the looks of it, others are also exploring their options, and they are willing to sit it out and wait for better deals.
2. Consumers do get excited about saving money using coupons.
When coupons work, consumers get excited and spread the word on social media, elevating the brands that make them happy.
3. The offer is only good when it can benefit the consumer.
Our analysis of coupon-related conversations unveiled consumer concerns on social media. These included complaints about coupons that don't work, unfulfilled discounts at different stores, and mistimed promotions rendering coupons irrelevant and causing frustration among consumers.
Top five brands by audience @ mentions
Top five hashtags in the retail industry by number of posts
