MCDONALDS GREEN TEA MCFLURRY PROCESS NOTES FOR DATA STORYTELLING

Marshall Sponder

Zicklin School of Business

For Spring 2017 MKT 4620 Class / Text Analytics

HISTORY

WHAT IS THE GREEN TEA MCFLURRY?

• Back in 2013, McDonald’s Japan released the Matcha Oreo McFlurry, which blended rich vanilla ice cream with powdered green tea and crunchy chocolate biscuit pieces.

• The mix was so popular it returned for an encore season in 2014, and while it was missing from menus last year, the Matcha McFlurry has finally returned with a whole new look, featuring more traditional Japanese flavors.

It Began in Japan ….

http://en.rocketnews24.com/2016/03/23/mcdonalds-japan-releases-brand-new-matcha-mcflurry-for-a-limited-time

FOR A LIMITED TIME THE GREEN TEA MCFLURRY IS AVAILABLE IN MALAYSIA

http://www.mcdonalds.com.my/desserts/dessert-month-greentea/

MCDONALDS HAS BEEN CREATING

THEME AND CULTURAL FOOD KNOCKOFFS ALL

OVER THE WORLD.https://www.buzzfeed.com/spenceralthouse/17-bizarre-mcdonalds-items-america-desperately-needs?bffbfood&utm_term=.rjpjqRODo4#.jaXX23bQ57

LOCAL PROMOTIONS OF A PRODUCT

NEED TO BE LOOKED AT REGIONALLY AND CULTURALLY , AS

THERE OFTEN ISN’T ENOUGH VOLUME TO DO A WIDER ANALYSIS

#McDonalds: Green Tea McFlurry Is Finally Here In Malaysia!

After introducing the Milo McFlurry, Red Bean Ice Cream, Pineapple Sundae Cone, and Hershey’s Sundae Cone to the Malaysian public, the fast food chain has now launched another dessert flavor – the Green Tea McFlurry.

This comes after a Facebook post introducing the “special flavors from Japan” went viral last year. Many thought that the flavors – Matcha Top (sundae cone), Matcha Oreo McFlurry, and Matcha Ogura McFlurry – would be introduced in Malaysia, but was hugely disappointed when they realized it was posted by McDonald’s Indonesia.

Don’t worry though, we can confirm that the Green Tea McFlurry is now in Malaysia, and it comes in 2 varieties!

https://hype.my/2017/134691/mcdonalds-green-tea-mcflurry-finally-malaysia/

ONLY A SAMPLE OF THE DATA IS GEOCODED THAT BRANDWATCH CAPTURES, BUT IT IS ENOUGH TO GET AN IDEA OF WHERE THE IMPACT OF THE CAMPAIGN IS, AND

WHERE IT IS

THE ORIGINAL FACEBOOK POST

SHOWED MCDONALDS CORPORATE THAT

THIS PRODUCT MIGHT BE POPULAR IN

REGIONS OF ASIA WHERE GREEN TEA IS

POPULAR (SUCH AS S INGAPORE AND

MALAYSIA)

USING SOCIAL MEDIA FOR TREND ANALYSIS

AND PRODUCT IDEATION IS ONE OF

ITS BETTER USES CASES

https://www.facebook.com/McDonaldsID/photos/a.273566402670094.85966.216380195055382/1550127101680678/?type=3&theater

IDEATION AND QUERY ADJUSTMENT

GET A FEEL FOR THE BEST QUERY TO CONTAIN THE RELEVANT CONTENT,

KNOWING THAT THERE IS NO QUERY THAT WILL EVER CAPTURE EVERYTHING BEING

POSTED IN SOCIAL MEDIA (AS COVERED IN THE CLASS LECTURE.)

HOWEVER, WE SHOULD PLAY AROUND WITH THE QUERY TILL WE HAVE SOMETHING TO WORK WITH THAT WE FEEL COMFORTABLE

WITH, GOING FORWARD.

GOOGLE TRENDS DOESN’ T SHOW US

MUCH BECAUSE THERE IS

LOW VOLUME

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=mcdonalds%20green%20tea%20mcflurry,green%20tea%20mcflurry,mcdonalds%20matcha,Pineapple%20matcha%20mcdonalds

C H A N G E D T H E B R A N D W A T C H Q U E R Y W H I C H G A V E M E 1 0

T I M E S T H E V E R B A T I M V O L U M E A S W H A T I H A D

B E F O R E

QUERY DONE IN CLASS:

(McDonald's OR "McDonalds") AND (McFlurry OR "Mc Flurry") AND ("Green Tea" OR Matcha)

Updated Query:

(McFlurry OR "Mc Flurry") AND ("Green Tea" OR Matcha)

Everyone knows that McFlurry is a branded name – therefore, it will be easier to isolate via Brandwatch.

CREATED SEVERAL DASHBOARDS AND KEPT LOOKING AT THEM TILL AN IDEA FORMED IN MY MIND ABOUT WHAT I WANTED TO EXPLORE ON THIS TOPIC.

ALSO, I GIVE MYSELF THE ROOM TO AS I GO ALONG, AND DISCOVER NEW THINGS ABOUT THE PRODUCT IN MY RESEARCH.

S E E M S T O B E W A Y M O R E F E M A L E S T H A T A R E I N T E R E S T E D I N T H I S T O P I C T H A N M A L E S .

I S T H A T I M P O R T A N T ?

W H Y D O Y O U T H I N K T H I S I S T H E C A S E ?

C O U L D B E A N I N T E R E S T I N G S U B T O P I C T O E X P L O R E

W O M A N A R E M O S T L Y S T U D E N T S ( A C C O R D I N G T O B R A N D W A T C H ) A N D L O C A L B A S E D - A N D P A Y I N G A T T E N T I O N T O T H E M C D O N A L D S C A M P A I G N A S I T I S B E I N G R O L L E D O U T

BY HONING IN USING PICODASH I COULD PICK UP BETTER HASHTAGS TO GO FURTHER WITH MY QUERY IDEATION IF I

WANTED TO, PERHAPS GIVING ME BETTER RESULTS.

https://www.picodash.com/explore/tags#mcflurry then filtered on “green” and focused on Malasyia

THIS IS JUST ANOTHER WAY OF

SAYING “SEMENTATION ”

GOING FURTHER …. I DECIDED TO GET AN

EXTRACT OF THE DATA FOR MALAYSIA AND

THIS IS WHAT I FOUND…

MCDONALDS MUST BE RUNNING SOME TYPE OF REGIONAL

CAMPAIGNS ON CONTINENT WITH

MCFLURRIES.

GET THIS FILE: https://www.dropbox.com/s/w431dpuq5obzj2u/picodash_instagram_explore_tags_mcflurry_2017-03-26.xlsx?dl=0

WORD MAP OF INSTAGRAM VERBATIM IN

THE SPREADSHEET

WE CAN USE THESE BIG WORDS AS

ADDITIONAL FILTERS IN OUR ANALYSIS IF WE

WANT

TOP LIKED INSTAGRAM POST AND WHERE IT WAS TAKEN –GOOGLE CAN RESOLVE LAT/LONG CODES DIRECTLY IN THEIR

INTERFACE

USE THE DATA TO ITERATE, EXPLORE, FIND THE STORY.

ONE THING THAT WOULD BE INTERESTING TO DO IS CREATE A

AUTHOR LIST OF THE FEMALES AND FIGURE OUT WHAT OTHER THINGS THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT.

This might be a good analysis for cross selling or up selling, or even product ideation.

What about the Green Tea McFlurry actually appeals to the females?

In the behavior atypical of other types of things they search about?

SENTIMENT AROUND THE GREEN TEA MCFLURRY IS ANOTHER AREA TO EXPLORE. IF WE CAN ALSO TRY TO USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO UNDERSTAND AND SUMMARIZE

WHY PEOPLE LIKE OR HATE THE MATCHA MCFLURRY, THE ANALYSIS SHOULD BE MORE HELPFUL TO WHOM IT WILL

PRESENTED TO.

LETS LOOK AT YOUTUBE VIDEOS (MAYBE WE CAN HAVE

BRANDWATCH DO THAT TOO)

(McDonald OR McDonald's) AND (“green tea” OR greentea OR Matcha) AND (mcflurry OR sundae OR icecream OR "ice cream")

https://www.youtube.com/results?sp=CAM%253D&q=%28Mcdonald+OR+McDonald%27s%29+AND+%28%22green+tea%22+OR+greentea+OR+matcha%29+AND+%28mcflurry+OR+sundae+OR+icecream+OR+%22ice+cream%22%29

In fact, why don’t we make another query in Brandwatch and see what that brings up, vs, the first one? Plus, lets see if it will also index YouTube videos (I think it should – lets try it.)

One of the biggest surprises is that YouTube seems to accept our Boolean query!!

Turns out Brandwatch doesn’t really collect much YouTube data – so we must do our research on YouTube for YouTube, or another platform.

A N OTHER WA Y WE COULD HA V E GON E – NE TWORK ANALYSIS OF THE YOUTUBE SE ARCH RE SULTS AROUND

GRE E N TE A MCFLURRY( M C D O N A L D O R M C D O N A L D ' S ) A N D ( “ G R E E N T E A ” O R G R E E N T E A O R

M A T C H A ) A N D ( M C F L U R R Y O R S U N D A E O R I C E C R E A M O R " I C E C R E A M " )

http://lexiurl.wlv.ac.uk/searcher/youtube.html

THIS IS WHAT PROFESSOR GOHAR F. KHAN DID WITH A BUNCH OF YOUTUBE VIDEOS – I WILL PRESENT ON THIS SEPARATELY

CASE STUDY: HYPERLINKS AND VIRAL YOUTUBE VIDEOS

Do hyperlinks play a role in the popularity of a video posted on YouTube?

• YouTube popularity was one of the questions that a research team at Centre for Social Technologies (a research center dedicated to understanding social technologies: http://centreforsocialtech.com/) set out to explore. [Note: the url for the Centreforsocialtech.com no longer works]

• The research team knew that the answer lied in extracting and visualizing hyperlinks (particularly in links pointing to a video) network and was looking for ways to get hands on YouTube videos data.

CASE STUDY: HYPERLINKS AND VIRAL YOUTUBE VIDEOS

• The research team identified 100 most viewed YouTube videos. Every video posted on YouTube was automatically assigned a unique ID embedded within the URL of the video.

• Use the Webometrics Analyst platform (http://lexiurl.wlv.ac.uk/) to examine the video files IDs as text file as an input, examining the number of external links and Internet domains pointing to a video.

• This data was used to construct a two-mode network diagram below for better understanding using UCINET social networking tool (network analysis is examined in a later chapter.)

Our view: The value of this type of Link Analysis depends on what the researcher is trying to test or prove. The analysis here suggests that the system for the top most watched videos is largely gamed, because almost all the top 100 most watched videos got their incoming links from the same domains (sources) – that could have been deliberate, not based as much on the content on it’s own merits (or lack, there of).

Were the purpose of the analysis is to show that the top trending videos are largely controlled by a couple of players backed by corporate interests (who own many of the sites via corporate entities – then the analysis confirms this.) If the purpose is to show that incoming links from important domains impacts the viewability of the videos, the study also shows this is the case.

CASE STUDY: HYPERLINKS AND VIRAL YOUTUBE VIDEOS

Here is the TWO-MODE network that the researches constructed:

Note: This image does not appear in the textbook, but is owned by Gohar. F. Khan. Focus on the unique identifier (usually has VEVO in name) and the structure of a TWO-MODE Network, which is covered in a following chapter.

Original Source: compiled from Khan, G. F., Sokha, V., (2014), Virality over YouTube, Internet Research, Vol. 24, Issue 5.

Results: Most of the top 100 most viewed videos received URLs from a common set of domains. However, some videos received more links from URLs than others, while other domains sent more links, etc.

TURNS OUT OUR NEW “MATCHA 2” QUERY BRINGS UP LESS RESULTS BUT IS CLEANER, SO I THINK WE

SHOULD GO WITH THAT ONE – DEPENDING ON WHAT WE WANT TO SHOW

MULTIPLE QUERIES AND TOOLS FOR VARIOUS ASPECTS OF YOUR REPORTING

• As we’re learning – some queries work better for some aspects of this analysis than others. For example, the narrower query is better for sentiment analysis because it’s much cleaner and more precise. Also, for Influencer Analysis the narrower query might be better.

• But, for trend analysis, the narrow query might not have enough data, also for psychographics, not enough – so a wider query (our first, corrected query) might be better for this.

• As a result, it may be necessary to have multiple lens, multiple queries, and ultimately, multiple tools to create a decent analysis.

• Caveat – multiple tools means we are mixing apples and oranges – we are mixing up data sets that are measuring different things, making our work much more qualitative and dependent on the analyst conducting it, and therefore, not easily replicate able.

• We call this “Bespoke” analysis – we have to trust the analyst (much as we would trust a doctor, I suppose) – but if another person takes the helm, we might come up with totally different findings. We should treat this then, as EXPLORATORY RESEARCH, taken on it’s own merits. If it helps, we do more of it, if it’s faulty, then we can take what might be useful and ignore the rest.

USING CRIMSON HEXAGON WITH OUR QUERIES

NOTE : STUDENTS DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO CH BUT I CAN RUN SOME QUER IES I F EMOTION ANALYS IS IS DES IRED TO HELP A STUDENT WITH A PROJECT .

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=what+is+crimson+hexagon&*

Crimson Hexagon uses assisted learning which is different than Brandwatch, which is manual and rules based.

EMOTION ANALYSISWE WIDENED THE TIME SCOPE TO THE BEGINNING OF 2015 SO WE COULD S HOW ALL FEATURES OF CRIMSON HEXAGON. WITH THAT SCOPE, ~20% OF THE VERBATIM HAD

ONE OR MORE OF THE 6 DETECTABLE EMOTIONS CH ANALYZES.

FOR THE PURPOSE OF THE EMOTION ANALYSIS , WE’LL JUST LOOK AT THE LAST 45 DAYS AS THE CURRENT CAMPAIGN IN

MALAYSIA IS FAIRLY RECENT.

THE EMOTIONS ARE JUST NOT A GOOD ENOUGH MATCH - I SPENT 90 MINUTES TRAINING, IT WOULD PROBABLY TAKE ME

A DAY OR TWO OF CONSTANT REVISIONS AND TESTING TO MAKE IT MUCH BETTER.

OVERALL SENTIMENT (IF WE CAN TRUST IT) IS MORE POSITIVE THAN NEGATIVE.

FOR THE LAST 5 WEEKS WE CAN NOT DO ANY DEEP ANALYSIS (UNLESS WE WIDEN

THE SCOPE PAST THE CAMPAIGN)

THE TOPIC WHEEL FOR THE SHORT TIME PERIOD LOOKS RELEVANT, AND MIGHT GIVE US SOME IDEAS FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION.

TOPIC CLOUD BASED ON 71 POSTS

TOPIC WAVES IS PART OF

CH’S AI , BUT ONLY

WORKS WHEN WE WIDENED THE T IME PERIOOD

CRIMSON DOES A

PRETTY NICE INFLUENCER

BREAKDOWN, BUT IT REALLY DEPENDS ON THE QUALITY

OF THE QUERY AND THE ANALYSIS

LEVEL PUT ON TOP OF IT.

OBVIOUSLY, THE WAY THE MONITOR IS SET UP IS GOING TO DETERMINE WHAT WE SEE

OUT OF CRIMSON HEXAGON

IF THIS WERE A SUBJECT WHERE THERE WAS MORE VOLUME AND WE COULD GET A CLEAN QUERY, NOT AN EASY THING, BTW, THEN OUR READOUT MIGHT BE MORE USEFUL

When the monitors are set up well and there is a lot of verbatim, I think the readouts can be pretty darn good.

But I have worked in a lot of environments where people simply do not have the time or want to spend the money to use these tools at the level where it would provide accurate enough results to make the effort worth it.

It could be worth spending the effort in some situations, but that needs to be defined after stakeholders have a realistic concept of what these platforms and social data can deliver.

SUMMARY

• Social Media has a wealth of data that can be harnessed by marketers (and others) for a variety of use cases.

• Unfortunately, social media analytics tools are just that, “tools” – not solutions. No tool actually provides an actual solution. The solution needs to be delivered by a informed knowledge worker(s) who are also business experts in the business operations they are using these tools to better understand.

• Most tools that we have discussed should be looked at as an exploratory method, similar to the use of a telescope or microscope. These tools allows us to peer into the heavens or into the microscopic worlds – but they do not tell us what our view actually means. Today, only humans can provide that – with a lot of effort and time. Businesses can get valuable insights from these tools, but they must weigh the time investment against what they hope to learn, to decide if the effort is actually worth the exploration.

• Most Social Media Analytics Tools are good for Data Storytelling. If you have a good idea of the story you want to tell, the tools can help you find that story in the data, and tell it.

• Due to the plastic nature of the data and the variability of the analyst, most analysis produced by this method/approach will be “bespoke” and almost impossible to replicate.

• The tools can’t tell that story by themselves (even though some vendors would like to tell you otherwise).