AUTOMOBILE: SEDANS

5/17/2016 1KONNECT INSIGHTS

TABLE OF CONTENT

INTRODUCTION 3

AIM & METHODOLOGY 5

BRIEF ABOUT FOLLOWING REPORTS 6

AUDIENCE ANALYSIS 8

TWITTER ANALYSIS 11

BRAND PERCEPTION 13

MEDIA-WISE PERCEPTION 15

WORD ASSOCIATION 16

TWITTER COMPARISON 18

FACEBOOK COMPARISON 25

RECOMMENDATIONS 32

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INTRODUCTION

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The worldwide automotive industry has been enjoying a period of relatively strong growth and profitability, and annual sales have reached prerecession levels in some regions. Yet considerable uncertainty about the future remains. The most immediate challenge is the unevenness of global markets.Automobiles depend heavily on consumer trends and tastes. While car companies do sell a large proportion of vehicles to businesses and car rental companies (fleet sales), consumer sales is the largest source of revenue. For this reason, taking consumer and business confidence into account should be a higher priority than considering the regular factors like earnings growth and debt load.A significant portion of an automaker's revenue comes from the services it offers with the new vehicle. Offering lower financial rates than financial institutions, the car company makes a profit on financing. A majority of hatchback buyers are first-timers, who are more susceptible to economic swings, say analysts. Sedan or SUV customers may be less vulnerable to factors such as higher costs of ownership, they say. Price competitiveness and more features offered by these models encouraged new buyers who would have otherwise stayed away from a sedan or an SUV due to their relatively high prices (Maruti Suzuki Dzire for an example).

INTRODUCTION

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Unlike in the sedan market, where a diesel option is available for all models, compact cars like Hyundai i10, Wagon R, Alto and Santro, do not have diesel variants. As a result, many hatchback buyers who were hit by higher petrol prices either stayed away from the market or went in for low-end sedans or SUVs. Besides the Dzire, Honda Amaze was another model that benefited from having diesel versions.“The trend of shifting towards costlier cars is likely to gain further traction". However, a rebound in the economy coupled with newer, attractively priced models in the hatchback space may slow the pace of the shift.Today, more than 94% of the consumers look up for the brand information online, and thirty-eight 38% of consumers say they will consult social media in making their next car purchase. 23% of car buyers say they use social media to communicate their purchase experience. 84% of automotive shoppers are on Facebook, and 24% of them have used Facebook as a resource for making their vehicle purchases. 40% of new car purchases over the next 10 years will be made by millennials. 94% of millennial car buyers gather information online.

//www.livemint.com/Industry/VfrU9vGsMGECsjcFwoKOzK/Sedans-SUVs-seen-gaining-traction-in-slowing-car-market.htmlCMO Council Report

AIM

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This report aims at the analysis of the online presence and popularity of automobile brands, here we have considered the Sedan models of these popular brands, that how they are doing on the social media platforms, and the sentiments that the audience is holding towards these brands for the sedan model.

METHODOLOGY

Konnect Insights software crawls and analyses social streams—not only to understand broader consumer behaviour, audience engagement and reputation issues, but also to identify the segment and profile individual consumers are based on where they are purchasing and interested in the product, their preferences and needs, and even sentiment analysis that influence how they are and want to engage with brands and service providers. The automobile industry will definitely benefit from data analytics to identify potential customers and convert the neutral or negative sentiment audience into their consumers having positive sentiments with their proper response on time to any complaints.

BRIEF ABOUT FOLLOWING REPORTS

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MONITOR REPORTS TWITTER COMPARISON FACEBOOK COMPARISON

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LISTENING REPORT

AUDIENCE ANALYSIS

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It was discovered that the audience discussing automobile brands on social platforms are overwhelmingly male - 70.42% overall.Audience analysis clearly defines that Hyundai (75.53%), Nissan (73.94%) and Skoda’s (73.29%) are the most male while Fiat Motors (35.45%), Honda (33.71%) and Chevrolet’s (32.16%) are the most female.By thorough study of the gender breakdown across brands, models and campaigns, businesses are better able to identify and target their efforts to the appropriate audiences.

AUDIENCE ANALYSIS

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• Fiat Motors attained its female engagement mostly because of the popularity of its premier sedan LINEA in the female audience as displayed at the side

• Even Chevrolet attained its female engagement mostly because of the popularity of its sedan CHEVROLET CRUZE.

AUDIENCE ANALYSIS

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In case of Honda the maximum engagement of female audience was because of the immense popularity of their HONDA CIVIC TOUR and HONDA CIVIC sedan among the female audience.

TWITTER ANALYSIS

TWITTER BREAKDOWN

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It can be observed that maximum original posts on twitter are posted by Skoda (90.78%), Volkswagen (87.23%) and Toyota (86.53%) but their user engagement is relatively less as compared to Fiat Motors and Honda ( 7.75%, 11.71% and 11.71% as compared to 35.24% and 20.33% ).Most responsive brands were MarutiSuzuki (11.11%) followed by Honda (3.10%). The responsive behaviour of these brands would eventually help them to convert neutral and negative sentiments toward their brand into positive ones and hence gain the trust and satisfaction quotient.

TWITTER ANALYSIS

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The potential consumer base on Twitter network is too large to ignore in an age where most of the life aspects are going digital. Twitter’s success is not surprising though, given its unique balance of business & personal use and high-quality users.

Here, Toyota (18%) and Honda (13%) are the 2 brands enjoying major share of Twitter engagement followed by Ford (12%), Volkswagen (12%) and Nissan (11%).

Maruti Suzuki (1%) and Fiat Motors (2%) are brands with a strikingly low presence on Twitter. It might build up to a matter of high concern for them in near future and it is high time they devise out some strategy to improve their twitter presence.

BRAND PERCEPTION

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As the figure depicts Toyota had the most neutral reviews, but it also had some of the highs in negative also. There were complaints on how to setup the car, complaints on some product recalls and so on.

Moreover, as we focus on the positives, we found that Skoda had the highest amount of positive reviews. Maruti had the highest negative reviews, in terms of relative share on the scale of 100%, where a lot of user complained about bad services, improper delivery time of cars. This could be used as an advantage to improve upon these areas.

BRAND PERCEPTION

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Variety of emotions is relayed on various social media hence it is very important to monitor those social platforms. Especially in cases of negative sentiment so that they could be addressed on timely basis. Following observations were made:• Twitter was the most positively and also the most talking social platform for all the brands• Skoda had the most positively talked brand on Twitter and Toyota was neutrally preferred

brand on the Twitter• Ford was negatively talked about brand on Twitter• Media Platforms like News and Complaint forums were some of the most negatively platform

after Twitter• Though major activity was performed on Twitter, in certain brands like Skoda, Toyota, Nissan

and Honda generated a lot of positive vibes on YouTube through their engagement through videos

It will also help the company to service its customer with greater efficiency and lesser turnaround time. Furthermore, in the long run this could help the company build an image of being customer centric and responsive to needs and necessities of the customers.

MEDIA-WISE PERCEPTION

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It can be clearly observed that News still forms a significant source of online presence for most of the brands but it has been outweighed in some cases by Youtube. It forms the major share in case of Nissan (62%), Toyota (57.88%), Chevrolet (50%) and Hyundai (49.68%) while News forms the major source for Renault (49.72%), Volkswagen (49%), Skoda (46.78) and MarutiSuzuki (35%). Maruti Suzuki (24.71%) and Fiat Motors (29.32%) also had Google+ as a significant contributor while same was the case of Renault (16.39%) with Blogs.Maruti Suzuki was the only brand which was significantly talked about on Complaint Forums (8.98%) so it is suggested that they look into this aspect to rectify their image on complaint forums.

WORD ASSOCIATION

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The extensive Brand-Adjective analysis allows a brand to identify the adjectives associated with it, what a brand can do to eliminate the bad adjectives associated with it, identifying the target segment by analysing which consumers are using which particular word.

The above analysis represents that all the brands score high on the “Launch” keyword with Hyundai, Fiat Motors and Chevrolet standing out. “Comfort” is basically associated with Renault and Skoda whereas Nissan is the next brand which scores decently in “Comfort”. Toyota and Honda are the brands which score high on “Technology” while Ford and Nissan are the 2 brands with negative adjective “Drawback” associated with them. Volkswagen and Renault are also associated greatly with “Fuel”.

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Social Media Activities

TWITTER COMPARISON

TOTAL FOLLOWERS

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• Twitter is a micro-blogging site, through this latest trending topic and what’s on people’s mind gets clear. And brands can encash this, like here in case of automobile brands in Sedan category popularity can be defined in the number of followers of these brands, and which brand is the most popular and the least popular on twitter.

• Ford having the maximum number of followers, turned out to be the most popular automobile brand, it has around 878520 numbers of followers, followed by Honda with 751684 numbers of followers, Renault –103792, Toyota – 70082, Volkswagen – 68329, Hyundai – 38521, Maruti – 36740 and Tata Motors – 36598 followers.

TWITTER COMPARISON

OVERALL COMPARISON

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In the overall comparison, which considers the tweet count, number of followers and the people following, we see that: Honda has the second highest number of followers of about 751684 but has the highest number of tweet count i.e. 196129, which means it is trying to engage the audience by tweeting and to grab their attention. Ford has the maximum followers but its tweet count is 19344 only. Volkswagen has the least tweet count of 487 only. Ford does have maximum number of following also, i.e. 31889, and Volkswagen has dropped down to zero only.

TWITTER COMPARISON

TOTAL ENGAGEMENT

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What matters the most is how many of the followers in your audience are actually active, engaged with your brand in some positive manner. And here, Honda has generated maximum number of engagement - 18457 which is 2.46% of their total followers (751684) and Maruti_Corp has generated least number of engagement - 1165 which is 3.17% of their total followers (36740). Engagement is retweeting your tweets, replying to your tweets or mentioning you in the tweets. But the maximum engagement as the percentage of their followers is in case of Tata Motors, which is 8.48%, followed by Volkswagen – 7.61%.

TWITTER COMPARISON

TWEETS OVER TIME

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Honda has the maximum number of tweets on April 6 and April 7 2016, but these tweets were not positive, these were complaints by audience and the apologies by the company. Accidently, Honda caused their customers to overdraft their account, leading to fees and a possible inability to pay other bills, all due to a technical glitch in the payment processing system. As the sheer number of customers were affected, Honda's customer service phone lines were overwhelmed. Unable to get through to a customer care representative, stressed customers took over to Twitter and Facebook in frustration. But Honda replied to these complaints and tended to fault on the urgent basis.

TWITTER COMPARISON

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On the positive note for Honda, on April 7, 2016 they announced the outline of Honda and Acura exhibits for the 14th Beijing International Automotive Exhibition (Auto China 2016). On April 6, 2016 Tata Motors also have peaked tweets, as Tata launched the much awaited Exciting, Dynamic Hatchback – TIAGO that day.

TWITTER COMPARISON

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FEW EXHIBITS

And people have tweeted about the campaign of Ford, ‘Win a Ford Vehicle of Your Choice’, which is actually to promote the 2017 release of new Ford vehicle in 2017.

Then the tweets were about the new feature added by Ford to prevent their drivers from speeding up the vehicle above speed limits.Then some of the tweets were about Ford’s drugged driving suit also

TWITTER COMPARISON

AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT DETAIL OVER TIME

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Honda has the maximum numbers of mentions of about 5676, followed by Ford, 4476. But Honda has maximum retweets of about 12745, whereas Honda is just behind Ford, with 12414 numbers of retweets and Volkswagen with 4431 retweets.

FACEBOOK COMPARISON

TOTAL NUMBER OF FANS

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• Number of fans is the basic criteria for the measurement of the popularity of any brand on the social platform. This number identifies how many people are interested in your brand and want to be updated with the latest news regarding it.

• These are the people who engage in any kind of activity online, say liking some campaign, participating in it, commenting on the posts, expressing their opinions by tagging the brand, irrespective of the sentiment classification.

• They express their delight and disappointment through this. They can share the important content with their friends and can broaden the base for them.

FACEBOOK COMPARISON

TOTAL FANS

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Facebook engagement is usually possible with higher amount of followers or fans. Product launches, employee engagements or many other take place on the social platform with higher amount of fans. Here, Volkswagen has the highest amount of followers, followed by Nissan and closely followed by Chevrolet Hyundai and Honda.The relative share of fans is Volkswagen at 42%, Nissan at 25%, Chevrolet at 7%, Honda at 7%, Ford Motor Company at 6%, Hyundai at 6%, Fiat at 3%, Toyota at 2%, Renault at 1%, Skoda at 1% and MarutiSuzuki at 0.011%

FACEBOOK COMPARISON

OVERALL COMPARISON

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Looking at the present statistics we visualize the actual statistics, from the number of fans and the audience engaged. Volkswagen has the highest number of followers, but it is not able to engage much of audience. Skoda has one of lowest relative share of followers i.e. 1% is able to engage 36,801, followed by Maruti Suzuki with 14,195 engagements with the audience followed by Chevrolet. Moreover, highest number of statuses was posted by Ford Motor Company i.e. 157, followed by Honda at 135. Though there is a lot of variation in various parameters depending on the activity.

FACEBOOK COMPARISON

TOTAL ENGAGEMENT

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• The maximum engagement is generated by the Eros Now which is only 3% of their number of fans.

• Whereas Times Music has generated 8.37% engagement as the percentage of number of fans, which is maximum percentage of all.

• They are posting 2-5 times a day, about Sada-e-Sufi, Dum A Dum, Delhi to Dublin and Dhanak via Junglee Music.

FACEBOOK COMPARISON

RELATIVE SHARE OF ENGAGEMENT

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Skoda here has engaged nearly 44% in the relative share of engagement, which is just 4% of its fans. Moving onto 17% is engaged by Maruti here and later by Chevrolet. Here, Marutiis earning the engagement through its new car Ciaz, and Chevrolet has been earning a lot of audience for its Car Cruz. The new variant has led people talking a lot on social media.

FACEBOOK COMPARISON

ENGAGEMENT DETAILS

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Looking at the graph it is evident that Skoda has the highest engagement in terms of Likes, shares and then comments. Skoda also had the highest comments. Skoda has shared 16 photos, 7 statuses, 4 links and 2 videos. Hence, the Chevrolet engages a lot of crowd through shares, Skoda and Maruti Suzuki should also focus on shares in order to cover newer audiences and a larger segment of public.

FACEBOOK COMPARISON

ENGAGEMENT BY POST

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Here, Skoda engaged audiences through Photos and Videos and less through statuses and links. Later, Maruti Suzuki focused more on links and then on photos and Chevrolet on Link, Photos and Videos. Hence, different companies have different digital marketing strategies but Skoda has been able to engage a huge amount of crowd through photos and videos. This proves that “A picture and a video say a thousand words”.

RECOMMENDATIONS

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• Volkswagen, Toyota and Chevrolet must increase their response rate in order to reduce the negative publicity on Twitter while Fiat Motors should become more active on twitter as major negative word of mouth in their case is doing rounds on twitter.

• Chevrolet is the least responsive brand on twitter. Instead of confining their focus to only posting tweets they should focus more on responding to consumers in order to increase their user engagement.

• Fiat Motors are significantly responsive and their user engagement is also satisfactory but they should be wary of the saturation point of consumers at which user engagement will reduce rapidly due to minimal content. So Fiat Motors should increase their post content on twitter.

• Despite being active on twitter, the overall net presence of Maruti Suzuki and Fiat Motors is considerably low as compared to other competitors. It is essential that Tata Motors focus on other platforms like Facebook, blogs, etc. as well apart from twitter so that there is a increase in its overall online presence.

• Fiat Motors and Maruti Suzuki enjoy unrivalled media share on Google so they should try to engage more audience there as they would receive a larger and unparalleled share of attention there.

• Presence of Hyundai and Nissan on Facebook is considerably less so they should try and engage more audience at that platform by posting new and engaging stuff at regular intervals.

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