© 2008 CIC

Tuning into Sports IWOM, 2007 Q4

An overview of Internet Word of Mouth around sports on Chinese online social media (BBS and Blog)

May 8, 2008

Study Background and Quick Takeaways

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 3© 2008 CIC

STUDY BACKGROUND

• The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of Internet Word of Mouth (IWOM) for the mainland China sports industry with a categorical focus on basketball and football.

• The systematic online sports industry analysis used in this study is based on 4,311,758 BBS (online message board) messages from mainland China related to sports written by 296,017 unique user names from October 1 to December 31, 2007.

• The scope of sports industry study covers 14 sports brands, 597 basketball and football athletes, and 187 basketball and football teams.

• The messages were collected and mined using CIC’s patent pending data collection & text mining tools and methodology with analysis by CIC’s Sports IWOM analyst team.

* This study was conducted independently and not sponsored by any manufacturer or any organization.

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 4© 2008 CIC

KEY FINDINGS

• Nike led Q4 buzz among the 14 tracked brands with over 42% share of voice. New product and campaign launches had a noticeable impact on buzz volume for several brands including Nike, Adidas and Reebok. For example, the launch of Nike’s new basketball sneakers and the launch of Adidas’ and Reebok’s campaigns in Q4 drove the high buzz volumes around these three brands.

• Basketball and football dominate the sports category buzz. Yao Ming and Houston Rockets topped the basketball player and team buzz, with 7.7% and 13.0% share of voice respectively. Football star Kaka and football team AC Milan occupied the top positions for football players and teams.

• Compared to those on larger portals or sports vertical communities, online fan club community members are over 2 times more active in creating content. Administrators of these fan clubs are not only among the most active content creators, but also possess rich knowledge of the forum discussions and utilize a number of tactics to influence others’ messages.

• Sports net culture is filled with a number of unique elements and serve as both media and communication platforms. E-zines (e-magazines) are created and/or supported by brands, websites and fans, rivaling traditional magazines in terms of content and overall quality. “Group reporting” of live matches on BBS is similar to recent development of Twitter “sports groups” (i.e. “Twitter Super Bowl”) in the West (though predates Twitter by many years). Cartoon blogs are finding new ways to communicate and represent fans’ passion and love of sports.

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 5© 2008 CIC

• The systematic analysis of over 4 million BBS sports related postings demonstrates not only the popularity and passion of netizens toward sports and sports-related culture and brands, but also serves as a window to consumer and youth culture that can provide insight for more effective marketing communications.

• Chinese net culture is extremely developed, if not more developed than the West and other markets. For example, the recent development of Twitter groups in the United States to “group” watch events like the Super Bowl and Boston Red Sox games are predated by group reporting of NBA games and football games on Chinese BBS.

• The recent launch of “Nike iD” in China is an example of how a product can “ride the wave” of consumer net culture. Chinese “sneaker heads” and other fans of sneakers have long posted pictures of their DIY (do it yourself) personalization of sports shoes. Brands can learn from their consumers and leverage the learning with more effective product design, campaign development and campaign targeting.

KEY IMPLICATIONS

An Introduction to Chinese Sports IWOM

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 7© 2008 CIC

Definition: Text and multimedia content related to companies, products or services shared by netizens, including brands and consumers, via online community platforms such as BBS (online message boards), blogs and video sites.

BBS Blog Video-Sharing

WHAT IS INTERNET WORD OF MOUTH (IWOM)?

Any information of the sports world you want to Know?! Just come to join us !

For more on this definition, see our blogs here (EN) and here (CN)

Provide up-to-date information on tennis world.

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 8© 2008 CIC

IWOM HAS MASSIVE REACH

3.311.2 15.0

19.6

46.2 50.6

74.6

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

15.8

34.7

49.4

2005 2006 2007

*Data Source: The 21st Statistical Survey Report on the Internet Development in China by CNNIC, January 2008

• 210 million Internet users in China*

• 74.6 million regular BBS users (35.5%)*

• 49.4 million Chinese bloggers (23.5%)* 1 2 9

23 3459

8094

111137

210

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

Internet User in China (Unit-million)

Regular BBS User Online (Unit-million) Regular Blog User Online (Unit-million)

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 9© 2008 CIC

IWOM BRINGS COMPLEXITY TO COMMUNICATIONS: Consumers are gaining influenceConsumers have their own media in blogs, BBS and other community platforms that can both amplify and influence traditional media as well as reflect and influence consumers themselves.

InfluenceShape ReshapeIWOM

Mainstream Media

Video SharingNewspaper & Magazines

BillboardTVC BBS Blog

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 10© 2008 CIC

UNIQUE NETIZEN LANGUAGE: The presence of online culture is represented by a unique lexicon

某蜜/某黑(-- lover/ -- hater):The people who strongly supports certain athletes or teams will be named “-- lover“, e.g. Yao lover (姚蜜). On the contrary, those who frequently criticize certain athletes or teams will be named “-- hater”, e.g. Yao hater (姚黑).

筒子 / (mates):Used to refer to other netizens chatting in the same forums. It is frequently used in sports forums.

小黑屋 (little black house):The name for a netizen who is banned from posting in the forum by BBS administrator.

卡路里 (calorie):In a particular basketball e-community, this term refers to virtual money within the forum (not the heat energy unit).

See more sports net languages on seeiee blog (Chinese)

Selected Net Language on Sports E-community

Alessandro Del Piero

Yao Ming

Selected Athlete and Team Nick Names

Nick Name Interpretation

大姚 Big Yao

胡子明Ming with mustache

明王 King Ming

点球皮Piero for penalty

goal

斑马王子 Prince of zebra

绿衫军The green shirt

army

蚱蜢 The grasshoppers

蚂蚁队 The ants team

枪手 The gunners

我厂 My factory

Boston Celtics

Arsenal

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 11© 2008 CIC

NETIZENS’ GREAT PASSION FOR SPORTS: CIC sports practice collected over 4,300,000 posts generated by netizens in 2007 Q4

Sports practice data for Q4, 2007

4,311,758

296,017 269,390

# of Post # of Poster # of Conversation

Sports Brand IWOM

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 13© 2008 CIC

SPORTS BRAND BUZZ: Nike leads with 42.5% of sports brand buzz in Q4

Portal

Portal

Portal

Vertical

Fans club

0.5%

2.7%

2.9%

3.4%

3.8%

4.0%

5.0%

11.8%

21.9%

42.5%Nike

Anta

Puma

AND1

Kappa

Mizuno

Adidas

Reebok

Lining

Converse

* Notes: Sports brand buzz incidence is the number of brand mention that occurs in all sports brands posts

Base: Total number of sports brands posts in Q4 2007 is 229,087

* Buzz incidence of top 10 mentioned sports brands in Q4, 2007

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 14© 2008 CIC

SPORTS BRAND BUZZ: New product and campaign launch are main brand buzz drivers

Base: Total number of sports brands posts in Q4 2007 is 229,087

Weekly trends for top 3 sports brands buzz in Q4, 2007

Num

ber o

f pos

t

0

5,000

10,000

15,000

10.1-10.7 10.8-10.14

10.15-10.21

10.22-10.28

10.29-11.4

11.5-11.11

11.12-11.18

11.19-11.25

11.26-12.2

12.3-12.9 12.10-12.16

12.17-12.23

12.24-12.31

Nonofficial ZK3 and AJ23 pictures release A series of real AJ23

pictures release

Adidas Olympic campaign launch

Reebok Yao campaign launch

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 15© 2008 CIC

NETIZENS’ PASSION TOWARDS SPORTS: Sports fans use brand assets for creating original content

Original Nike slogan

Original “Where Amazing Happens” TVC

Recreating content among brand fans

“Just over time it!”“Just Nike it!”

Slogan recreating

TVC recreating

Content recreating

Netizens’ recreating drawings

Netizens’ recreating videos

Netizens’ recreating slogans

“Just do it”

Original “My Story” content

Link Link

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 16© 2008 CIC

NETIZENS’ PASSION TOWARDS SPORTS: Brands can ride the wave of sports net culture

Many netizens have begun to show off their unique creativity and personal style through sneaker DIY, especially with graffiti. Brands such as Nike and Mizuno have launched campaigns and products that engage such active netizens.

Hot sneaker DIY culture among sneaker heads

Mizuno’s “Table Tennis Shoes Graffiti” campaign invites netizens to design shoes for China’s table

tennis athletes

Nike iD allows consumer to design his or her own unique sneaker

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 17© 2008 CIC

NETIZENS’ PASSION TOWARDS SPORTS: Brands can ride the wave of sports net culture

“Showing off” is popular among online sports fans

Lining’s “One Team” campaign Inspires netizens to make TVC version

Conversations about Gatorade’s “Crazy Fans” campaign shows netizens’ enthusiasm toward sports

The conversation received over 9,000 replies and 166,087 page views

Enthusiastic sports fans are becoming more open to expressing themselves by “showing off”or “shai-ing” their sports collections via online community platforms like BBS (for more “shai” culture click here). Brands can leverage this trend by initiating campaigns which encourage netizens to show themselves and their sports collections off in front of large online audiences.

Basketball and Football IWOM

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 19© 2008 CIC

BASKETBALL BUZZ: Yao Ming and Houston Rockets buzz topped basketball player and team buzz respectively

Yao Ming

Kobe Bryant

Tracy McGrady

Yi Jian Lian

Michael Jordan

Houston Rockets

Los Angeles Lakers

Milwaukee Bucks

Phoenix Suns

San Antonio Spurs

*Buzz incidence of top 5 mentioned basketball athletes, Q4 2007

• Base: Total post number of basketball athletes is 1,714,008, Q4 2007• Notes: Basketball athletes include NBA and CBA players.

• Base: Total post number of basketball team is 2,111,352, Q4 2007• Notes: Basketball teams include NBA and CBA teams.

*Buzz incidence of top 5 mentioned basketball teams, Q4 2007

3.3%

3.7%

6.1%

6.7%

7.7%

1.9%

1.9%

3.2%

4.3%

13.0%

Not surprisingly, as one of the most popular athletes in China, Yao and his team Houston Rockets, topped the athlete and team buzz.

*Buzz incidence of basketball athlete/team is the number of athlete/team mention that occurs in all basketball athletes/teams posts

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 20© 2008 CIC

FOOTBALL BUZZ: Kaka and AC Milan buzz topped football player and team buzz

Kaka

Ronaldo

Ronaldinho

Messi

Cristiano Ronaldo

AC Milan

Manchester United

Juventus

Inter Milan

Arsenal

*Buzz incidence of top 5 discussed football athletes, Q4 2007

*Buzz incidence of top 5 discussed football teams, Q4 2007

• Base: Total post number of football team is 2,481,461, Q4 2007• Notes: The football teams include top 5 European football leagues teams and Chinese league teams.

• Base: Total post number of football athletes is 965,225, Q4 2007• Notes: Football athletes include top 5 European football league players and Chinese league players.

1.6%

1.7%

2.0%

2.7%

4.2%

1.7%

2.6%

2.7%

2.7%

4.1%

Kaka’s Golden Ball award win in 2007 and AC Milan’s match against Inter Milan in Q4 triggered high buzz volumes for Q4.

*Buzz incidence of football athlete/team is the number of athlete/team mention that occurs in all football athletes/teams posts

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 21© 2008 CIC

TEAM VS. PLAYER: Football teams dominated total team buzz (7 out of top 10) while basketball athletes dominated total player buzz (8 out of top 10)

Houston Rockets

AC Milan

Manchester United

Juventus

Los Angeles Lakers

Inter Milan

Milwaukee Bucks

Arsenal

Barcelona

Real Madrid

*Buzz incidence of top 10 mentioned sports teams *Buzz incidence of top 10 mentioned athletes

Base: Total number of athlete post is 2,679,223, Q4 2007Total number of team post is 4,592,813 ,Q4 2007

Yao Ming

Tracy McGrady

Kobe Bryant

Michael Jordan

Yi Jian Lian

Lebron James

Kaka

Steve Francis

Allen Iverson

Ronaldo

Basketball related

Football relatedUnderstanding the differences between netizens’ communication habits and focusing on their interests can help brands to create effective campaign/promotion strategies which will be more welcomed by netizens.

6.0%

3.0%

3.0%

2.0%

2.0%

2.0%

1.5%

1.3%

1.2%

1.1%

*Buzz incidence of athlete/team is the number of athlete/team mention that occurs in all athletes/teams posts

0.9%

1.0%

1.1%

1.5%

1.6%

2.1%

2.3%

3.8%

4.3%

4.9%

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 22© 2008 CIC

TEAM VS. PLAYER: Basketball fans discuss players, football fans discuss teams

Quote : That’s why Chelsea is better than Liverpool. We have seen what Liverpool can do, but we haven’t done our best yet.

帖子示例 ：切尔西比他本事的地方。昨天利

物浦的本事我们看到了，那就是他的全部。

而我们还没做到最好

Quote : Luther Head is really disappointing. When Yao is at his best, he still needs support from other team members. In the end, basketball is a team sport.

帖子示例 ：海德让人失望 咳 姚明继续出色的

同时 需要队友们的支持 楼主说的很队正确 毕

竟篮球是一项整体的运动

Football Basketball

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 23© 2008 CIC

BUZZ TREND FOR AC MILAN: AC Milan fans are united in support, especially during important matches against competitors like “Milan Derby”

Quote: The Milan derby will begin soon, is there anyone who is interested in the match? Let’s discuss together.帖子示例：米兰德比开始了,有没有同好?一起吼

起来!!Quote: AC Milan is playing against Boca Junior and the score is 1:1. Let’s go pay attention to it.帖子示例：AC米兰 VS 博卡青年队

目前的比分是1：1去关注下啊

Weekly buzz trend of Ac Milan in Q4, 2007

0

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

10.1-

10.7

10.8-

10.14

10.15

-10.21

10.22

-10.28

10.29

-11.4

11.5-

11.11

11.12

-11.18

11.19

-11.25

11.26

-12.2

12.3-

12.9

12.10

-12.16

12.17

-12.23

12.24

-12.31

Milan Derby at Dec 23rd

drove Ac Milan buzz

*Keyword frequency: the rank is according to CIC Keyword Frequency Analysis around “AC Milan” in terms of No. of mentions

Discussion Content

Rank Keyword Frequency

1 Inter Milan – 国际米兰 6,922

2 Milan derby – 米兰德比 5,325

3 Juventus – 尤文图斯 3,898

4 Boca – 博卡 2,473

5 Shakhtyor Donetsk Team – 矿工

1,976

*Keyword Frequency Rank for AC Milan Unit post

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 24© 2008 CIC

BUZZ TREND FOR YAO MING: Yao Ming’s fans created articles in preparation for his first match against Yi Jianlian

Subject: have been waiting for a long time, Yao vs. Yi [Authorship]帖子主题: 千年等一回，姚明大战易建联[原创]Subject: [Absolutely Original] Yao Ming VS Yi Jianlian帖子主题：[绝对原创] 姚明VS易建联

Weekly buzz trend of Yao Ming in Q4, 2007

0

5,000

10,000

15,000

20,000

10.1-

10.7

10.8-

10.14

10.15

-10.21

10.22

-10.28

10.29

-11.4

11.5-

11.11

11.12

-11.18

11.19

-11.25

11.26

-12.2

12.3-

12.9

12.10

-12.16

12.17

-12.23

12.24

-12.31

Yao Min and Yi Jianlian’s first competition in NBA

drove Yao’s buzz

Discussion Content

Rank Keyword Frequency

1 Rockets – 火箭 18,462

2 McGrady – 麦蒂 3,978

3 Yi Jianlian – 易建联 2,610

4 Kobe – 科比 1,492

5 Adelman – 阿德尔曼 1,294

Keyword Frequency around Yao Ming

*Keyword frequency: the rank is according to CIC Keyword Frequency Analysis around “Yao Ming” in terms of No. of mentions

Unit post

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 25© 2008 CIC

0

10,000

20,000

30,000

40,000

Portal Site Vertical Site Fan Club0

50

100

150

200

No. of Poster Avg. post number per poster

ATTRIBUTES OF DIFFERENT SPORTS COMMUNITIES: Online fan club users create over twice the amount of content of users on portal and vertical sports sites

*Selected hottest site from each type of BBS community in terms of the buzz volume in Q4 2007 for data comparison

**Avg. post number per poster: the higher the rate is, the more passionate the netizens are to take part in conversation.

159

6468

Comparison of 3 of the hottest BBS communities*

**

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 26© 2008 CIC

ADMINISTRATOR IN FAN CLUBS: Administrators are among the most active users with the highest prestige

Netizens’ comments on administrator Quote: “The administrator’s resource forum is always the specialty for our fans club.”帖子示例: “斑竹的资源版一直是我们的招牌菜.”Quote: “Support~~, administrator’s decoration design [for sneaker] is beautiful; the article is very professional.”帖子示例: “顶～～，版主装修的很华丽～写的也

灰常的专业。”

Rank Poster Identity No. of Post in Q4 2007

1 Administrator 3,029

2 Administrator 2,134

3 Member 1,993

4 Member 1,598

5 Member 1,514

Top 5 active posters in the hottest fan club

BBS administrators possess rich knowledge of the fields or topics discussed in the forums and possess power within the BBS community. They manage the forum based on their professional knowledge, authority and influence. They are among the most active users.Cooperating with administrators can be one way for brands to connect with e-communities.

• Ensure the user content is appropriate and legal• Recommend and highlight high quality posts• Delete meaningless, rule breaking, and/or commercially seeded posts• Restrict/delete posters who break the rules• Answer questions and educate users

Administrator is powerful

Administrator is respectable

Administrator is activeMain functions of BBS Administrator

Sports Net Culture

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 28© 2008 CIC

SPORTS E-ZINE: E-zine is becoming a communication tool for sites, online fans clubs and brands

E-ZINE (Electronic-magazine) is a magazine/newsletter published online. With the frequent match/athlete updates and demand for information through multi-media channels, E-ZINE is an easy way for netizens to access sports related information. E-ZINE is also used as a promotion tool for commercial sites, online fans clubs and brands.

The E-ZINE can be seen as an alternative platform for brands to deliver information. More importantly, it can be seen as an opportunity for brands to build long term relationship with core netizens or fans communities.

SITE – Sports related sites offer E-zine download

FAN – Athlete fans create and update e-zine for idol

BRAND – Sports brand delivers running information

Music in magazine

• Online running training place

• Fans running MV

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 29© 2008 CIC

GAME ‘GROUP REPORTING’: Netizens passionately and systematically report on and discuss games

During match - Live game discussions

After match- Discussing conclusion and

updating game statistics

Quote: “I applied for a group reporting hotline. I hope I can have the chance to report it.”帖子示例：”我申请 热线 做好

并经过检查，希望给我机会”

Quote: “It is so scary. Rockets are already 8 points behind at Hawks’ court.帖子示例：很凶险啊，在鸟

的主场，落后8分了”

Quote: “Hayes established the game’s tone for Rockets’ win. He is the king of defense.”帖子示例：”海耶斯奠定了火箭

本场赢球的基调 防守之神。”

Before match- Announce group reporting

topic

Group reporting is popular among netizens and is done by a group of passionate and professional sports fans. Brands could acquire useful content by cooperating with these netizens, e.g. NBA has already begun to invite bloggers to write match reports for its official site. (see Chinese blog article here).Moreover, popular activities on E-communities dedicated to sports like “grab floor”, building long conversation threads and match promotion can be leveraged by brands to participate in e- community. (To learn more about these activities, see here)

Topic: Special post for Rockets group reporting

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 30© 2008 CIC

Sports Blogs

SPORTS BLOGOSPHERE: Blogs are another popular media and communication channel for sports fans

Sports writer blog group

Cartoon blog group

Athlete blog group And more…..

Sports apparel blog group

Blogs have become a popular platform for individual netizens to show their passion for sports. Furthermore, individual bloggers are beginning to form “blog groups” to increase communication and the exchange of ideas between bloggers.

Sports fan blog group

Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4 31© 2008 CIC

CARTOON BLOG: Cartoon bloggers are well received by sports fans especially when they create new cartoon images

Sports cartoon blogger are a growing trend generating impressive page views.

Brand’s direct or indirect involvements with cartoon bloggers demonstrates a new way to connect to fans for brands.

PV 6,020,539 PV 1,454,755

PV 15,733,672

Cartoon Bloggers in the club

PV 326,344

Netizen adds Pepsi can to the cartoon picture of Beckham drawn by a popular cartoon blogger.

Sports blogger with over 1 million page views

About CIC

33© 2008 CIC Data Source: CIC Sports Practice, 2007 Q4

ABOUT CIC

CIC is the leading Internet Word of Mouth (IWOM) research and consulting firm in China. Established in 2004 in Shanghai, CIC is the first IWOM research and consulting firm in China and has pioneered and significantly contributed to the growth of the IWOM industry in China.

CIC helps its clients “make sense of the buzz” found on Chinese blogs, BBS, and other IWOM platforms using proprietary and patent pending data harvesting and text mining technology developed for the unique Chinese social media landscape and language. Based on systematic analysis of the buzz, our analysts provide insights with sensitivity towards market research, marketing and campaign strategy, PR and crisis management, R&D, competitive intelligence, and marketing effectiveness measurement to a stable of Fortune 500 clients in China and around the world. CIC also has strong partnerships with leading international PR, advertising and digital media firms.

For more information, please visit www.cicdata.com (CIC website), www.seeisee.com (CIC Company blog in Chinese) and www.seeisee.com/sam (CEO’s company blog in English).

Thank You

OUR BLOGS:www.seeisee.com (Chinese)www.seeisee.com/sam (English)

OUR WEBSITE:www.cicdata.com

CONTACT US:info@cicdata.com

© CIC 2008