Consumer sentiments pre, during and post public announcement

170 Pages·2015·1.94 MB·English

Consumer sentiments pre, during and post
public announcement:
Implications for corporate handling of social
media

Adel Megdyatova

A dissertation submitted to
Auckland University of Technology
in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of
Master of Business (MBus)

2015
Faculty of Business
Primary Supervisor: Dr. Crystal Yap
Secondary Supervisor: Dr. Sonjaya Gaur
Abstract

The marketing landscape has gone through significant changes with the growing popularity of social
media platforms. The role of the consumer in the marketing process has changed and social media
has presented us with a new consumer, who is now actively sharing and expressing opinions to a
large number of people. This trend has presented a number of challenges for practitioners and a
new research area for researchers. For practitioners especially the main goal is to understand how
to manage consumer comments online and impact consumer attitude towards the brand. This
becomes of critical importance when there is a risk for consumer attitudes to turn negative.
The objective of this research is to understand what consumers are saying on social media during
the time of risk for the company, the time when company actions might impact consumer attitudes.
For that reason consumer sentiments during an announcement period will be analysed and
compared to pre and post announcement. Qualitative content analysis method was used to study
consumer sentiments on social media. Analysis of 4,595 social media messages from Twitter,
Facebook and blogs were evaluated and categorized.
This study identified that the overall volume of consumer comments and negative sentiment
comments increase for both positive and negative announcements during the announcement stage.
Comments categorized as sarcastic humour and negative feedback or anger tend to be the most
dangerous ones at all announcement stages because of their ability to attract the attention of other
consumers who then become engaged in the conversation. This study identified that all consumer
comments tend to fit one of four topics: emotional reaction, feedback, humour or comparisons and a
consumer sentiments matrix was presented. A 15-item consumer sentiment categorical framework
was developed for this research and the main themes within each category by announcement stage
were presented.
A two-dimension consumer typology based on consumers’ purchasing relationship and overall
attitude towards the brand yielded four types of consumer: defender, attacker, retractor and
interactor along with analysis of how each consumer types interacts with the company and each
other. A social media decision making process map was presented to act as a strategy blueprint for
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practitioners. Theoretical and managerial implications for the main research findings were
discussed. The main theoretical contribution is the integration of social media attitude concepts by
using customer-centric model and developed frameworks. Major managerial contribution is the
recommendations made to practitioners on handling consumer sentiments during the
announcement and proven impact of social media strategy on financial indicators.
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Table of Contents

List of figures………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….7
List of tables…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..8
List of graphs………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….9
Attestation of authorship.............................................................................................................. 10
Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................................... 11
Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................ 11
1.1 Overview ................................................................................................................................. 12
1.2 Problem statement ................................................................................................................. 13
1.3 Research objectives ................................................................................................................ 15
1.4 Significance of the study ......................................................................................................... 16
1.5 Organisation of the thesis ....................................................................................................... 17
Chapter 2: Literature Review ........................................................................................................ 19
2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 19
2.2 Social Media ............................................................................................................................ 19
2.2.1 Overview of the pre-social media marketing landscape ..................................................... 19
2.2.2 Transition from traditional media to social media .............................................................. 20
2.2.3 Social media and the new consumer ................................................................................... 21
2.2.4 Social media risks and opportunities for practitioners ........................................................ 22
2.2.5 Social media use by practitioners ........................................................................................ 24
2.2.6 Social media strategy recommendations............................................................................. 25
2.2.7 Social media and brand community .................................................................................... 27
2.3 Consumer Sentiments & Attitudes ......................................................................................... 28
2.3.1 Consumer sentiments & link to attitudes ............................................................................ 28
2.3.2 Attitude formation components .......................................................................................... 30
2.3.3 Types of attitude and attitude models ................................................................................ 31
2.3.4 Emotions and link to attitudes ............................................................................................. 33
2.3.5 Emotions and consumption evaluation ............................................................................... 36
2.3.6 Consumption evaluation impact on attitude and brand relationship ................................. 37
2.3.7 Attitudes Conceptual Framework ........................................................................................ 41
2.4 Public Announcement ............................................................................................................. 43
2.5 Customer Centric Model ......................................................................................................... 44
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2.6 Research Gap .......................................................................................................................... 48
2.7 Summary ................................................................................................................................. 50
Chapter 3: Research Methodology ............................................................................................... 52
3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 52
3.2 Content Analysis Background & Definitions ........................................................................... 52
3.3 Advantages of Content Analysis ............................................................................................. 54
3.4 Criticism & Limitations of Content Analysis ............................................................................ 56
3.5 Data Collection ........................................................................................................................ 57
3.6 Inductive Content Analysis Process ........................................................................................ 58
3.7 Unit of analysis ........................................................................................................................ 60
3.8 Sampling Units ........................................................................................................................ 60
3.9 Sampling method & Sample size ............................................................................................. 61
3.10 Preliminary Study .................................................................................................................. 63
3.11 Main Study ............................................................................................................................ 63
3.12 Coding ................................................................................................................................... 64
3.13 Coding Procedures ................................................................................................................ 64
3.14 Summary ............................................................................................................................... 66
Chapter 4: Findings & Discussion .................................................................................................. 67
4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 67
4.2 Consumer sentiment categorical framework ......................................................................... 68
4.3 Research Questions One & Two ............................................................................................. 73
4.3.1 Humour ................................................................................................................................ 75
4.3.2 Comparisons ........................................................................................................................ 81
4.3.3 Feedback .............................................................................................................................. 93
4.3.4 Emotional Reactions .......................................................................................................... 106
4.4 Research Question Three ................................................................................................. 122
4.4.1Different categories of consumers ..................................................................................... 122
4.5 Research Question Four ........................................................................................................ 125
4.5.1Differences between positive announcement and negative .............................................. 126
4.5.2 Company responses ........................................................................................................... 127
4.6 Financial Implication Analysis ............................................................................................... 129
4.6.1 Financial Impact of Social Media Strategy ......................................................................... 130
4.7 Additional consumer sentiment findings .............................................................................. 136
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4.7.1 Consumer sentiment change after a response from another consumer or company ...... 136
4.7.2 Comments that show both positive and negative sentiment............................................ 138
4.7.3 Use of Hashtags.................................................................................................................. 139
4.7.4 Neutral comments: fact-based, asking a question, discussing rumours, unclear sentiments
.................................................................................................................................................... 141
4.8 Summary ............................................................................................................................... 141
Chapter 5: Conclusions & Implications ....................................................................................... 133
5.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 143
5.2 Major Research Findings ....................................................................................................... 143
5.3 Implications & Recommendations ........................................................................................ 147
5.3.1 Theoretical Implications ..................................................................................................... 147
5.3.2 Managerial Implications..................................................................................................... 149
5.3.3 Recommendations ............................................................................................................. 151
5.4 Limitations ............................................................................................................................. 155
5.5 Further Research ................................................................................................................... 156
5.6 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 158
Reference List .............................................................................................................................. 161
Appendix A……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 167

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List of Figures

Figure 1: Attitudes impact on relationship formation conceptual model…………………………… 35
Figure 2: Positive sentiment categories………………………………………………………………....62
Figure 3: Negative sentiment categories……………………………………………………………… 63
Figure 4: Neutral sentiment categories………………………………………………………………….64
Figure 5: Consumer sentiments matrix………………………………………………………………….67
Figure 6: Humour category themes…………………………………………………………………….. 68
Figure 7: Comparison category themes…………………………………………………………………74
Figure 8: Feedback category themes……………………………………………………………………86
Figure 9: Emotional reactions category themes………………………………………………………..98
Figure 10: Customer typology matrix……………………………………………………………………115
Figure 11: Social media decision making process map………………………………………………145

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List of Tables

Table 1: Companies and announcement types……………………………………………… 56
Table 2: Categories and sub categories……………………………………………………… 66
Table 3: Humour/Sarcasm Themes………………………………………………………… 72
Table 4: Humour/Sarcasm Comments by Announcement Stage…………………………. 73
Table 5: Positive Humour by Announcement Stage………………………………………… 74
Table 6: Positive Comparison to Competitors Themes…………………………………… 84
Table 7: Negative Feedback/Anger Themes Pre Announcement………………………….. 88
Table 8: Negative Feedback/Anger Themes During Announcement………………………. 90
Table 9: Negative Feedback/Anger Themes Post Announcement…………………………. 92
Table 10: Positive Feedback Themes Pre Announcement………………………………… 95
Table 11: Positive Feedback Themes During Announcement………………………………. 98
Table 12: Positive Feedback Themes Post Announcement…………………………………. 98
Table 13: Disappointment Themes Pre Announcement……………………………………… 100
Table 14: Disappointment Themes During Announcement…………………………………. 102
Table 15: Disappointment Themes Post Announcement……………………………………. 104
Table 16: Defending the Company Themes Post Announcement………………………… 111
Table 17: Sentiment Themes by Category…………………………………………………….. 114

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List of Graphs

Graph 1: First dairy manufacturer share price movements…………………………………………123
Graph 2: Second dairy manufacturer share price movements……………………………………. 123
Graph 3: First telecommunications provider share price movements…………………………… 125
Graph 4: Second telecommunications provider share price movements…………………………125
Graph 5: Banking sector company share movements…………………………………………… 126

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Attestation of Authorship

I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and
belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person (except where
explicitly defined in the acknowledgements), nor material which to a substantial extent has been
submitted for the award of any other degree or diploma of a university or other institution of higher
learning.
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