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00Memo0MemoTo: Pamela IpFrom: Lisa RobinsonDate: Monday, January 30, 2012RE: Dr Pepper Online AuditI am responding to your request for an online audit of the Dr Pepper brand. In gathering this information, I was able to determine the appropriate responses that the Dr Pepper Snapple Group should engage in towards their online influencers; ranging from no action to acknowledgement and praise. Additionally, my findings outline the successful strength of the Dr Pepper brand’s presence within the online community.Background InformationDr Pepper is a popular soft drink brand invented by Charles Alderton in 1885 in Waco, Texas. The Dr Pepper brand became well known by marketing efforts at the St. Louis World Fair in1904. Dr Pepper was known as “Dr. Pepper” up until the 1950s, when the period was removed from the brand nameCITATION DrP123 \l 4105 ( Dr Pepper/Seven Up Inc., 2012). It was part of Dr Pepper Inc. until it merged with Seven Up Inc. in 1986, where it became Dr Pepper/ Seven Up Inc. In 1995, Cadbury Schweppes bought Dr Pepper/Seven Up Inc. In 2008, Cadbury Schweppes created a spinoff company, Dr Pepper Snapple Group, which now owns the Dr Pepper brand CITATION Wik12 \l 4105 (Wikipedia, 2012).Dr Pepper has marketed its products through many slogans of the years, including “King of Beverages”, “Drink a bite”, “the friendly Pepper-Upper”, “Be a Pepper”, “Be You” and presently “Can you handle the taste?". Currently, Dr Pepper’s appeal is based around it flavour, which is said to be a secret mix of 23 ingredients CITATION DrP124 \l 4105 (Dr Pepper Museum).Since the development of the Web 2.0, many companies have taken advantage of online marketing tactics. This goes for Dr Pepper Snapple Group, as The Dr Pepper brand has successful created an online presence. In analysing the Dr Pepper brand’s presence in online communities, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook Google+, SocialMention and IceRocket were used as listening devices. The follow data was accumulated from each of these sites:YouTubeDr Pepper’s official YouTube handle is “drpeppervideos” with an accumulated 1938 subscribers and just over 4 million total video views CITATION drp12 \l 4105 (drpeppervideos, 2012). Almost 2.5 million of these views come from one commercial alone, the Dr Pepper Ten television advertisement; a diet version of the original product targeting the male population. TwitterDr Pepper has an official corporate twitter account under the handle “DrPepper”. This account is consistently updated, with an averaging a post or two of generated content every day. The content seems to be mainly auto generate, with complete relevance and promotion of the Dr Pepper products. The company is also fairly good at responding to direct tweets, replying to individual comments by the masses every couple of weeks CITATION DrP121 \l 4105 (Twitter, 2012). I have followed Dr Pepper’s official corporate account on twitter, but they have yet to follow me back. I decided to personally check their response time by “tweeting” a direct message their corporate account; I have yet to hear a response.FacebookDr Pepper’s official Facebook page has over 11 million “likes”. At the time of my search, 192,586 individuals were “talking” about the Dr Pepper brand using their Facebook account CITATION Fac12 \l 4105 (Facebook, 2012). This figure is automatically tracked by Facebook through searching wall posts and status updates that include the “Dr Pepper” keyword. Most of the content displayed on Dr Pepper’s corporate page is similar to the content summarized as tweets on Dr Pepper’s corporate Twitter account.192,58611,225,894 like this192,586Google+Dr Pepper’s corporate Google+ page is scarce. The company displays no information on their page, besides links to the corporate twitter and Facebook accounts, as well as a link to the official website. It does, however, show pictures of the various Dr Pepper products.SocialMentionSocialMention is a wonderful website for judging the online presence of a brand, as doing so is the primary feature of this site. Using the keyword “drpepper”, SocialMention was able to track down all mentioning’s of the given keyword in real time. According to the results, SocialMention found statements regarding the Dr Pepper brand from 18 sources, including Photobucket, StumbleUpon and Reddit CITATION Soc12 \l 4105 (SocialMention, 2012). At the time of my search, SocialMention was able to determine that the Dr Pepper brand is mentioned an average of every 5 minutes on social media platforms. Most of the mentions were neutral in stance, accounting for 69% of the brands online presence. However, 27% of comments were positive in nature and a mere .04% of comments were negative towards the brand. Such reviews attributed directly to the 6:1 sentiment that SocialMention noted for the Dr Pepper brand. Overall, the Dr Pepper brand was ranked 15% in the strength category; 19% in passion and had a total reach of 47% CITATION Soc12 \l 4105 (SocialMention, 2012).IceRocketUsing IceRocket, a search engine solely devoted to blogs, the first result found was the most irrelevant; it was actually referring to an author by the name of Dr. Pepper. However, IceRocket was able to conclude that within the last 24 hours, 13 blogs posts had been created that mentioned the brand name Dr Pepper ( all of which were referring to the actual product in question).Only one of the 13 websites mentioned Dr Pepper in the last 24 hours was in a language other than English CITATION Ice12 \l 4105 (IceRocket, 2012). Ice Rocket also allows any user to request analytics about certain keywords, providing the searcher with the average blog posts per day and in total regarding the searched term. The only limitation is that you can only measure one to three months prior to the current date. In this case, using the month trend line, it was found that Dr Pepper was mentioned in approximately 36 blog posts a day, a total of 1089 within the last month CITATION Ice12 \l 4105 (IceRocket, 2012).Official WebsiteDr Pepper has an extremely interactive and flashy official website. Displaying its logo on every page, it offers an in-depth timeline of its products birth in 1880 to its present day form in 2012. Current promotional campaigns such as contests are advertised and all 9 forms of Dr Pepper are displayed and detailed under the product category CITATION DrP12 \l 4105 (Dr Pepper/Seven Up Inc., 2012). The company also has an online store promoting various Dr Pepper items such as apparel, décor and memorabilia. The website has clearly displayed links to Dr Pepper’s corporate social media accounts, such as Facebook and Twitter CITATION DrP12 \l 4105 (Dr Pepper/Seven Up Inc., 2012).Risks and OpportunitiesMost of the online presence that Dr Pepper has is neutral in nature; however there are negative and positive penetrations of the brand as well. Favourably, Dr Pepper’s positive online reviews outweigh the negatives, with both being a reflection of the personal preference individual taste. The Dr Pepper brand’s edge and downfall is its flavouring, as many consumers enjoy the product solely for its unique taste, or hate the product due to the same reasoning.One issue that is common among companies’ promoting their brand is their tendency to spread themselves too thin amongst many platforms; resultantly lacking consistency. It seems that this is the case with the Dr Pepper brand’s Google+ page, as it is not up to par with the other platforms in which the company has chosen to marketer itself.Online InfluencersIn searching for online influencers of the Dr. Pepper brand, I used a compilation of various search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo, and typed in pro and anti- Dr Pepper phrases and keywords. It was apparent that this tactic was feasible in finding solid sources for individuals who could potential influence the reputation of Dr Pepper brand, whether for better or worse.Any individual or company determined as an appropriate online influencer were required to meet the following criteria. They must be:Adamant about their position on the brandWilling to express their personal opinion to vast public through an online platformEncouraged others to take part in their stance, whether it be for or against the brandFacebook UsersFacebook allows for any individual to create a page or group about any topic within reason. Dr Pepper has an abundance of Facebook pages devoted to bashing the company and its products. After reviewing some of the extremely anti-Dr Pepper posts, it is apparent that not only do an abundance of people dislike the brand, but they go out of their way to post about their passionate hate and their desire for the product to be banned. There are, however, a few user made groups that promote the Dr Pepper brand, either expressing their individual love for the product, or their hate against those who hate the brand.Online FeministsThere is an apparent uproar in the female online community based on Dr Pepper Ten’s fairly recent commercial that tags the line “No Women Allowed” and “It’s not for Women”. Sites such as “the Mary Sue” and “Outspoken Media” are outraged by the supposed blatantly sexist message relayed by the company. The goal of the commercial was to ironically capture the male audience that tends to be against the purchasing of diet sodas, through associating the product with manliness. Although this thought process seems to emphasize marketer’s ability to play on male stupidity, it seems to somehow offend female consumers. Lisa Barone from Outspoken Media realized the goal of the commercial and was offended by its stupidity as well as slightly by its sexism. She stated via the Outspoken Media website that:There’s nothing wrong with being edgy in marketing or purposely polarizing or pissing off your audience at times. There’s nothing wrong with Dr. Pepper going after a male audience and poking fun at us females. But there is something wrong with insulting everyone’s intelligence to do that. For me, that’s where Dr. Pepper went wrong CITATION Bar11 \l 4105 (Barone, 2011).Non for Profit MuseumThe Dr Pepper Museum is a non for profit website that promotes the Dr Pepper Brand. This website is a definite influencer, composed of various educational and entertaining aspects incorporating the Dr Pepper brand. There is a great amount of information on Dr Pepper’s history, as well as a ton of collectors’ items and memorabilia.RecommendationsAlthough it is apparent that the Dr Pepper brand does have an abundance of haters on the social media platform of Facebook, it is unreasonable to suggest that they take action against such a stance. There is no particular way for Dr Pepper to change the opinion of those who genuinely dislike the product based on its taste as it is a mere matter of personal preference. In fact, if Dr Pepper Snapple Group were to try and reach out to all Facebook haters, they might just end up encouraging the haters to continue promoting their views, as said individuals might be given more power by having such recognition. The dislike that the Dr Pepper brand is experiencing from some feminist is recommended to be ignored as well, as the commercial is blatantly poking fun at both sexists. Those who wish to spread that the commercial as sexist are really just promoting the commercial anyway.However, Dr Pepper should take into consideration that the Dr Pepper Museum is effectively promoting their brand, and in turn should recognize the non for profit company’s efforts, either through a personal written acknowledgment or even a donation.It is recommended that the Dr Pepper Snapple Co. integrate their well-developed online brand awareness tactics throughout all of their social media platforms. This specifically should apply to the brand’s Google+ page, as at the moment it is not up to par with its other promotional platforms. If the Dr Pepper Snapple Group cannot manage all corporate accounts, then they should choose the platforms that are most beneficial and remove themselves from the platforms that are being neglected. It is disappointing to viewers to find the brand being represented poorly on any platform, especially on Google+, as this platform alone is predicted to be a critical marketing arena in the near future, with a forecasted growth of up to 400 million users by the end of 2012 CITATION Ree11 \l 4105 (Reed, 2011).Bibliography BIBLIOGRAPHY Dr Pepper/Seven Up Inc. (2012). Corporate Info. Retrieved January 29, 2012, from Dr Pepper Offical Website: , L. (2011, October 12). Dear Brands, Be Edgy Without Being An Idiot. Retrieved January 29, 2012, from Outspoken Media: Pepper Museum. (n.d.). History of Dr Pepper. Retrieved January 29, 2012, from Dr Pepper Museum: Pepper/Seven Up Inc. (2012). Dr Pepper Promotions. Retrieved January 29, 2012, from Offical Dr Pepper Website: . (2012). drpeppervideos. Retrieved January 29, 2012, from Youtube: . (2012). Dr Pepper. Retrieved January 29, 2012, from Facebook: . (2012). Dr Pepper Search Query. Retrieved January 29, 2012, from IceRocket: , J. (2011, October 10). Dr Pepper Ten is for Men. Retrieved January 29, 2012, from The Mary Sue: Top Ten Things That Make Us Scream Incoherently: , F. (2011, December 28). Google Predicted to Have 400 Million Users By End of 2012. Retrieved January 29, 2012, from Marketing Pilgrim: . (2012). Dr Pepper Search Query. Retrieved January 29, 2012, from SocialMention: . (2012). Dr Pepper Corporate Twitter Account. Retrieved January 29, 2012, from Twitter: . (2012, January 19). Dr Pepper. Retrieved January 29, 2012, from Wikipedia: ................
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