US Open 2013: Heineken vs Budweiser - Gramener

Heineken sponsored a CrowdAnalytix contest to analyse their marketing efforts during the US Open.

The US Open was held between Aug 26 and Sep 9, 2013. This is a visualisation of the first dataset that has daily information for 29 days (from Aug 19 to Sep 15) on various social media metrics.

Below is a hierarchical clusterplot showing the Twitter metrics alone. Each cell shows the pairwise correlation between two metrics. Each cell at the intersection of 2 metrics has a value, e.g. 86, that indicates an 86% correlation between the two metrics. These are coloured green if they show a high correlation, or red if they show a low correlation.

Based on this, we can identify whether any metric strongly affects any other metric.

Of course, these insights are indicative. To quote Edward Tufte:

“Correlation is not causation but it sure is a hint.”
Heineken Budweiser 86 86 47 86 24 26 43 25 25 89 10 90 19 19 26 19 17 1 99 39 39 46 42 33 0 -1 3 13 -2 9 35 34 44 38 30 97 83 97 97 81 97 93 82 81 95 Official tweets Official links Official retweets Official replies Retweets received #tag tweets #tag geotweets #tag retweets Links retweeted Influential tweeters 97 72 21 37 75 70 55 79 74 Official tweets 71 9 41 71 65 43 75 69 Official links 33 38 44 39 30 41 40 Official retweets 8 -7 -11 2 -15 -10 Official replies 15 12 12 15 21 Retweets received 99 82 98 98 #tag tweets 82 96 97 #tag geotweets 79 87 #tag retweets 97 Links retweeted Influential tweeters Official tweets Official links Official retweets Official replies Retweets received #tag tweets #tag geotweets #tag retweets Links retweeted Influential tweeters A B C D E F

Insights

A. For Heineken and Budweiser, the number of official tweets, retweets and links shared are highly correlated — understandably.
B. ... but the number of replies is unrelated to these.
C. But while Heineken got a lots of retweets (Retweets received = 86%) when the official responses increase, Budweiser did not (37%).
D. Official replies are completely uncorrelated with any other metric, particularly the number of retweets received. So replying more does not appear to be a good *viral* marketing tactic. (It may make sense for other reasons.)
E. Budweiser's tweets had more impact on its hashtagged tweets than Heineken's. What did Budweiser tweet about that was more effective? Might be worth investigating.
F. For both parties, the number of influential tweeters is perfectly correlated with #tag tweets (97 - 98%). But then, maybe that's the definition of an influential tweeter?

Full metric list

The full list of metrics also includes data on the number of Facebook posts, videos, etc. along with Google trends data. The structure below shows the correllations across all of these, including the Twitter metrics.

Heineken Budweiser 86 86 47 86 24 26 43 25 25 30 20 28 3 -2 18 -12 -14 -15 14 11 -16 89 10 90 19 19 26 19 17 14 15 23 5 7 8 -4 -6 -8 -10 5 -25 1 99 39 39 46 42 33 32 15 23 3 8 3 -6 -10 -11 -4 18 -31 0 -1 3 13 -2 9 11 16 23 -14 -29 21 -13 -12 -10 43 5 27 35 34 44 38 30 29 18 24 7 12 1 -7 -11 -12 -2 14 -33 97 83 97 97 78 -6 -2 -22 -5 -2 28 14 20 -2 59 -17 81 97 93 79 -5 -1 -23 -9 6 23 15 20 1 67 -18 82 81 81 -6 -3 -13 -2 15 5 -5 -2 1 37 -21 95 73 -5 0 -25 -8 -6 24 14 19 4 60 -20 76 -2 3 -22 -4 -3 37 22 29 8 51 -13 -12 -9 -11 -11 18 12 5 9 1 32 -7 96 28 -6 -4 43 45 41 10 25 -4 3 -18 -3 44 47 43 3 21 -5 35 4 2 -1 -1 19 9 -3 20 2 -7 -8 39 -14 -40 -16 -9 -10 -2 9 10 94 96 11 32 0 99 9 31 0 11 32 2 9 8 -6 Official tweets Official links Official retweets Official replies Retweets received #tag tweets #tag geotweets #tag retweets Links retweeted Influential tweeters Unique sources FB posts FB photos posted FB videos posted FB page likes FB page users FB post shares FB post likes FB post comments Google trends WW Google trends US Inbound marketing 97 72 21 37 75 70 55 79 74 67 30 33 -9 -29 -36 -23 -22 -3 46 42 -12 Official tweets 71 9 41 71 65 43 75 69 61 36 36 -4 -23 -38 -18 -20 -1 45 43 -9 Official links 33 38 44 39 30 41 40 38 14 9 0 -13 -29 -26 -27 -15 25 13 -9 Official retweets 8 -7 -11 2 -15 -10 1 -7 -7 -10 -36 -3 -20 -14 -7 7 5 -17 Official replies 15 12 12 15 21 17 -3 -17 71 31 -13 -23 -27 -16 58 53 0 Retweets received 99 82 98 98 80 29 33 -13 -21 -43 -13 -12 -5 51 39 1 #tag tweets 82 96 97 81 26 29 -11 -20 -40 -14 -15 -6 49 36 4 #tag geotweets 79 87 64 6 12 -14 -25 -39 -11 -16 -16 47 32 17 #tag retweets 97 80 31 34 -15 -19 -39 -15 -15 -1 51 42 0 Links retweeted 79 24 27 -9 -19 -40 -17 -16 -3 57 47 6 Influential tweeters 3 11 -20 -16 -37 -13 -14 7 38 30 4 Unique sources 89 9 -14 -2 39 22 10 19 12 35 FB posts -16 -28 -21 43 27 15 6 5 23 FB photos posted 38 10 -7 -10 -7 23 16 13 FB videos posted 46 -13 -19 -25 31 9 -7 FB page likes -2 7 3 -2 -6 1 FB page users 87 60 -20 -15 27 FB post shares 77 -30 -20 2 FB post likes -24 -7 -8 FB post comments 89 0 Google trends WW -12 Google trends US Inbound marketing Official tweets Official links Official retweets Official replies Retweets received #tag tweets #tag geotweets #tag retweets Links retweeted Influential tweeters Unique sources FB posts FB photos posted FB videos posted FB page likes FB page users FB post shares FB post likes FB post comments Google trends WW Google trends US Inbound marketing G G G

Insights

G. Retweets received for Budweiser seems to rise with their FB videos posted.
H. These retweets also seem to be strongly correlated with Google Trends for Budweiser, but not for Heineken
I. While Budweiser #tags and retweets are influencing their Google trends worldwide, whereas Heineken's are only influencing the US.

Timeline & trends:

Another area of interest is how Heineken's performance differed from Budweiser's on a day-on-day basis. For example, were there specific days when one firm's tweets shot up well above the other?

The visualisations below show the metrics for both Budweiser and Heineken. If Heineken does better, the difference is shown in green. If Budweiser does better, the difference is shown in red.

Official tweets Official links Official retweets Official replies Retweets received #tag tweets #tag geotweets #tag retweets Links retweeted Influential tweeters Unique sources FB posts FB photos posted FB videos posted FB page likes FB page users FB post shares FB post likes FB post comments Google trends WW Google trends US Inbound marketing

Insights

J. On Sat Aug 24th, two days before the US Open, Heineken's Facebook posts saw a significant spike in shares (1,800+) and likes (39,000+).
K. On Wed Sep 4th, Budweiser's Facebook page likes shot up dramatically. This does not appear to be driven by any specific photos of videos posted on their page, however. Two days later, the number of FB page users also shoots ip dramatically -- but only for a week. After that, it dies down.
L. On Sun Sep 1st, Budweiser tweeted several times, mostly with links.

These visualisations were created using the Gramener visualisation server. See the [interactive HTML5 version](https://gramener.com/usopen/) with filters on the website.