Crimson Hexagon's social listening technology distill's the agony and the ecstasy of the NCAA Final Four men's basketball tournament and audience's reactions to Liberty Mutual's "Amateur Athletes" March Madness ad campaign.
2. FINAL FOUR 2013
SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYSIS
DESCRIPTION
The Crimson Hexagon ForSight™ platform uses proprietary, patented, example-based,
statistical classification to quantify the social media conversation in near real-time in most
languages. It combines human judgment and computer automation to identify key themes,
topics, and opinions on any given topic within the social media universe.
Crimson Hexagon measures, quantifies and tracks any topics or opinions that are being
expressed online. Because our underlying technology is set up to replicate and amplify how a
human analyzes the conversation, any online opinion or topic that can be identified and
understood by human judgment, can be quantified by our platform. Therefore, any business
question which is discussed online, can be tracked and measured by Crimson Hexagon.
Creating monitors within the Crimson Hexagon ForSight™ platform is a highly customizable, yet
efficient process. The overall structure of the analysis is entirely user-defined, guided by the
business question at hand. Users can set up a Topics of Discussion, Basic Sentiment, Drivers
of Sentiment, or Customer Segmentation monitor by adding new categories, grouping
categories together, and changing category labels. The platform gives users the ability to export
visual results, such as graphs, charts, topic wheel, sample posts, etc. as an image or into excel.
Summary:
We used the ForSight platform to analyze various conversations around March Madness and
the 2013 Final Four tournament. Through the use of the platform, we were able to capture all
tweets about the tournament on Twitter, and quantify the granular themes in conversation. This
report contains the results from three different analyses:
1. March Madness: Road to Final Four – Topical analysis of tournament conversation during the
days leading up to the Final Four.
2. NCAA Men’s Basketball Final: Michigan vs. Louisville – Topical analysis of the tournament
conversation during the final championship game.
3. NCAA Basketball Ad Campaign: Liberty Mutual – Sentiment analysis of Liberty Mutual’s
“Amateur Athletes” ad campaign which aired during the Final Four tournament.
3. MARCH MADNESS: ROAD TO FINAL FOUR
TOPICAL ANALYSIS
Volume & Topics
The volume of conversation around March Madness during the days leading up to the Final Four peaked at
about 1,200,000 relevant tweets on March 21st. The total volume for this time period reached 6,964,140
relevant tweets.
Volume 3.21.13 – 4.4.13, Road to Final Four
Topical Breakdown 3.21.13 – 4.4.13, Road to Final Four
4. MARCH MADNESS: ROAD TO FINAL FOUR
TOPICAL ANALYSIS
Topical Trends 3.21.13 – 4.4.13, Road to Final Four
1
3
4
2
At the beginning of the tournament, hype around March Madness drove much of the conversation on Twitter.
1 Fans vocalized their love for the tournament and their excitement for the upcoming games.
March 21st proved to be a day of upsets during the tournament as various “underdog” teams beat their higher-
2 ranked opponents. As shown in the trend analysis, fans took to Twitter to express their anguish at their
brackets being ruined as Harvard beat 3rd seeded New Mexico and Florida Gulf Coast University beat 2nd
seeded Georgetown.
The March Madness conversation remained relatively consistent as the games went on, and conversation
3 around winning and losing brackets fluctuated with the tournament schedule. Fans discussed their favorite
teams as they tuned in to the national tournament.
However, on the 31st of March the conversation changes drastically as fans witnessed the gruesome injury
4 suffered by Louisville's Kevin Ware. In the trend analysis we see that conversation around the injury spikes on
the 31st, and actually comprises the majority of the March Madness conversation. This trend continues for
several days as fans and viewers discuss the injury and express their sympathy for the basketball player.
5. MARCH MADNESS: ROAD TO FINAL FOUR
TOPICAL ANALYSIS
Visualizations
Busted Bracket Conversation
Injury Conversation
6. MARCH MADNESS: ROAD TO FINAL FOUR
TOPICAL ANALYSIS
Influencers & Demographics
Top Influential Authors Most Prolific Authors
Twitter Impressions
Author Location
Author Gender
7. NCAA MEN’S BASKETBALL FINAL: MICHIGAN VS. LOUISVILLE
TOPICAL ANALYSIS
Taking a similar set of keywords, we analyzed the March Madness conversation during the last few days of the
tournament, April 7th – April 9th. We find that the themes in conversation during the final game of the
tournament vary drastically from the themes we discovered earlier in the tournament. As Louisville and
Michigan battled for the NCAA title, the conversation on Twitter broke down as follows:
Topical Breakdown 4.7.13 – 4.9.13, Michigan vs. Louisville
Discussion around the Tournament Championship drove 56% of the March Madness conversation during this
time period. The majority of this conversation was due to fans voicing their enthusiasm for the two teams.
Another 17% of this conversation came from general NCAA tournament enthusiasm, while a small
percentage (2%) was driven by those expressing how happy they were for Kevin Ware that Louisville had won.
Another large portion of the conversation during this time period involved the sharing of news as well as
the posting and predicting of scores (38%). Finally, 6% of the conversation was driven by somewhat
negative sentiment as fans expressed relief at the tournament being over, their criticisms towards specific
programs, and other negative comments.
8. NCAA BASKETBALL AD CAMPAIGN: LIBERTY MUTUAL
SENTIMENT ANALYSIS
Throughout the Final Four tournament, Liberty Mutual Insurance ran its “Amateur Athletes” commercials as
part of the company’s recent ad campaign. The commercial includes a clip of an innocent driveway
basketball player who brings the hoop crashing onto the hood of their car as they attempt a slam dunk. The
final narrative of the commercial explains how Liberty Mutual can save the day and help repair the damages
caused by the “amateur athlete”.
We analyzed the conversation around these commercials to determine how consumers were engaging with
this creative basketball content on social media during March Madness. Per the results below, we see that
viewers found the commercials to be exceptionally engaging. Of the 7,700 relevant tweets, 93% were
positive about the ad. Specifically, 12% of the entire conversation was driven by those engaging with the
creative basketball content found in the commercials.
Only a small portion of the conversation (7%) was negative, and this conversation diminished as the
tournament went on.
Drivers of Sentiment 3.22.13 – 4.9.13, Liberty Mutual Ad Campaign
9. NCAA BASKETBALL AD CAMPAIGN: LIBERTY MUTUAL
SENTIMENT ANALYSIS
Visualizations
10. FINAL FOUR 2013
SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYSIS
About Crimson Hexagon, Inc.
Crimson Hexagon, founded in 2007, is the leading provider of analysis software
that delivers business intelligence from social media data for global corporations.
Powered by patented technology developed at Harvard University's Institute for
Quantitative Social Science, the Crimson Hexagon ForSight™ platform delivers
the industry’s most comprehensive Big Data analysis capabilities for a variety of
largescale data sources. Clients include leading agencies like Saatchi & Saatchi,
Cripsin Porter + Bogusky, Weber Shandwick, and Havas Worldwide as well as
global organizations such as Microsoft, Paramount Pictures, Starbucks, Simon &
Schuster, Twitter, The United Nations, and many more. For more information visit:
www.crimsonhexagon.com.