MediaRadar: Sleep Number, EBay Exhibit Most ‘Brand Safe’ Behavior

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Sleep Number, eBay and Nestle exhibit the most “brand-safe” behavior, according to MediaRadar in a report made available to AList. Cutting programmatic spending while increasing direct placement, the company asserted, grants these and other brands more control over where advertisements are seen.

MediaRadar observed the spending behavior of major digital advertisers that spent at least $1 million on both direct and programmatic placements between 2017 and 2018. Approximately one-third of these advertisers reduced their programmatic ad spend in 2018 while increasing their spend on direct placements year-over-year (YoY).

Sleep Number was observed as having the most “brand safe” behavior. The mattress brand reduced programmatic ad spend by 74 percent while raising direct placement spending by 99 percent YoY.

EBay came in at number two on the list with a 66 percent reduction in programmatic and 100 percent increase in direct placement YoY.

Confectioner Nestle cut programmatic by 57 percent YoY and spent 39 percent more on direct. While Royal Caribbean Cruises cut its programmatic by nearly half, it increased direct placement spending by an impressive 257 percent YoY between 2017-2018.

The Top 10 “Brand Safe” Digital Brands

  1. Sleep Number (-74/+99)*
  2. eBay (-66/+100)
  3. Nestle (-57/+30)
  4. Kellogg (-55/+59)
  5. Lions Gate Entertainment (-54/+88)
  6. Walmart (-52/+57)
  7. Spotify (-52/+15)
  8. Gap (-52/+25)
  9. Honda (-50/+55)
  10. Royal Caribbean Cruises (-48/+257)

* (percent of programmatic/direct placement change 2017-2018 YoY)

Direct placement spend was especially common among toiletry and cosmetics, increasing by 126 percent and cutting programmatic by 21 percent YoY. This trend was followed by children’s brands and automotive companies, which increased direct placement spend by 121 percent and 54 percent, respectively.

Not everyone followed this pattern. The athletics industry increased programmatic spend YoY by 70 percent, MediaRadar observed. Professional services also spent more on programmatic with a 45 increase YoY, as did the financial and real estate industries by 27 percent.

In a 2018 poll of advertisers by Oath and Advertiser Perceptions, nearly all (99 percent) of respondents said they were concerned about brand safety. Eliminating programmatic may not also be the solution of choice, however. Sometimes if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

According to recent data by the IAB Data Center of Excellence, 44 percent of marketers predicted both better audience targeting and more effective campaigns as rewards for bringing programmatic in-house.

Predictions on how much companies will spend on programmatic vary. Zenith predicts that programmatic ad value will reach $84.9 billion in 2019. EMarketer, meanwhile, predicted that total programmatic ad spend would be around $46 billion in the US last year.

 

Coors Turns Bud Light Jabs Into Free Beer With Smart Tap

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When life gives you insults, give out free beer. MillerCoors has introduced a smart tap handle that monitors social and broadcast media channels in real-time. Whenever AB InBev’s Bud Light takes a stab at Coors Light, the tap lights up and every patron in the bar will get a free drink—of Coors Light, of course.

Ryan Reis, vice president of the Coors family of brands, presented the smart tap handles to distributors on Tuesday as a way to turn negative press into bar patron engagement. They will launch on March 23 to coincide with NCAA March Madness in select bars across New York, Philadelphia, Dallas, Omaha and Texas. A simplified version will be installed in a broader market.

Bud Light debuted an ad during Super Bowl LIII called “Special Delivery” that called out Coors Light and Miller Light for using corn syrup. The theme continued during the Academy Awards with a commercial that showed a dramatic reading of beer ingredients.

“Bud Light has been attacking us out of frustration and criticizing our ingredients for weeks now,” Reis said in a blog post. “We know drinkers don’t want to hear it. They want to move on. And according to a survey we conducted last week, 80 percent of premium light drinkers said they just want to enjoy a refreshing beer without being subjected to a debate about ingredients. So we’re giving it to them.”

Reis cited recent data by Nielsen showing that Bud Light sales have dropped 8.8 percent since its Super Bowl ad aired in February. Coors Light, he points out, has held share.

Ironically, a number of Anheiser-Busch products use corn syrup, Reis pointed out, adding that it’s used by many brewers. As MillerCoors explained in a blog post, yeast eats these simple sugars during the fermentation process and converts them to alcohol and carbon dioxide.

Coors Light also responded to the jabs by organizing Toast to Farmers, an event honoring American farmers who grow beer ingredients.

“When they bring hate, we will literally bring light,” says Reis. “The more Bud Light talks, the more we refresh.”

MillerCoors has utilized emerging technology in campaigns before, such as a 360-degree VR experience. Three videos put the consumer in a first-person view of whitewater kayaking in Queensland, downhill biking in Cairns and big wave surfing in Tasmania. Each experience ends with twenty-something adventurers cracking open a cold can of Coors Light.

EMarketer: US Marketers Carve More Budget For Social Video Ads Each Year

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US brands will spend $10.35 billion on social video ads in 2019, according to new estimates by eMarketer. Social will account for 28.7 percent of all video ad spend.

Spending on video ads in the US will grow at a rate of 44 percent between 2019 and 2021, eMarketer predicts, ultimately reaching a total of $14.89 billion—30.4 percent of the total video ad spend.

Overall video ad spending will increase, as well, at a rate of 62.1 percent between now and 2023. Video now accounts for a quarter of US digital ad spend.

While eMarketer names Facebook and YouTube as dominant players, they admit that YouTube is not factored into these social video ad estimates. Last year, eMarketer estimated that YouTube would generate $3.36 billion in net US video ad revenues, although it does not consider YouTube to be a social network.

Google keeps its YouTube revenue figures close to the chest, but analysts theorize it could have been around $20 billion for 2018 alone.

EMarketer previously stated that Facebook would capture nearly one-quarter (24.5 percent) of all video ad spending in the US for 2018, bringing in a healthy $6.81 billion (including Instagram).

By comparison, eMarketer says that Twitter’s US video ad revenues will pass $1 billion in 2021. Twitter has placed a strong emphasis on video to its investors and advertisers over the last few years. In a Monday blog post, Twitter announced that video is its fastest-growing advertising tool. The platform sees around 1.2 billion video views daily, which is 2x growth in just 12 months.

The push for video, as well as a string of exclusive streaming partnerships, may account for Twitter’s anticipated payoff.

Snapchat, meanwhile, is expected to grow its US video ad business 19.9 percent year over year in 2021, reaching $727.4 million. To put that into perspective, Roku is expected to earn $758.4 million in US revenues by the same year.

Snapchat finally crossed the $1 billion revenue mark in 2018. Like Twitter, Snap is touting video as a profitable sales tool. The company reported that in the fourth quarter, its premium mobile video ads reached over 70 percent of 13- to 34-year-old US consumers every month.

EMarketer’s predictions do not include videos that brands have created for their own channels. A report by Mobile video production company Magisto estimated that American brands would spend $135 billion on digital video in 2017. This figure included the cost of video capturing, creation, hosting, distribution, analytics and staffing.

Report: Mobile Gamers More Influential And Receptive To Advertising

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Mobile gamers are not only more receptive to advertisements, but they are 23 percent more influential with their purchase decisions than non-gamers, according to a new report by Activision Blizzard and Newzoo.

“Betting on Billions: Unlocking the Power of Mobile Gamers,” released on Monday, explores the habits of mobile app users around the world. Respondents included 12,327 mobile app users from the US, UK, France and Germany who were between the ages of 18-65. Surveys were conducted over a period of two weeks between December 10-24, 2018.

Half of all mobile users surveyed reported playing games, according to the report. Games were the third-most-popular kinds of apps opened in the previous week after social media and shopping. The most popular game played was Candy Crush Saga (good news for Activision Blizzard), followed by Pokémon GO and Fortnite, at 35 percent and 19 percent each, respectively.

Mobile game users are split nearly down the middle in terms of gender, with 51 percent of men vs. 49 percent of women. Genre preferences vary between the two groups, however, as well as among ages.

Puzzle games like Candy Crush were most popular among the 36-50 age group, with two-thirds being women. Competitive genres such as action/adventure, strategy and shooting, on the other hand, were preferred by those aged 21-35. Two-thirds of this group were men.

Just over half (51 percent) of all mobile game users agreed that advertisements help them keep up to date about products/services they need or want to have. Newzoo found that when comparing gamers to non-gamers, the former group is more likely to splurge every once in a while, look for promotions and purchase premium brands.

They are also more likely to look for promotions, to prefer buying a premium brand over a store brand, and to find a brand’s values important.

“Brands should consider highlighting their company values and social responsibility endeavors when advertising to mobile gamers,” advises the report.

Newzoo estimates that 2.4 billion people will play mobile games in 2019. That’s a massive market for Activision Blizzard—one of the leading AAA game publishers—that is, not coincidentally, at SXSW touting its media prowess. Activision Blizzard is a combination of publishers Activision (Call of Duty), Blizzard (Overwatch), King (Candy Crush), Major League Game Publishers (MLG) and others. The company reported $7.5 billion in sales and $1.8 billion in profit last year and is in the midst of a restructuring that resulted in hundreds of Blizzard layoffs in February.

Pedigree Appeals To Animal Lovers With ‘Every Pup’s Superpower’ Campaign

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Pedigree is celebrating all the brave canines who help their owners in a new campaign called ‘Every Pup’s Superpower.’ The promotion is a tie-in to Mars Petcare’s sponsorship of IMAX film Superhero Dogs and includes donations to local shelters.

Pet food brand Pedigree is appealing to animal lovers with its latest cause campaign. To celebrate the launch of Superhero Dogs in IMAX theatres, the company is asking social media users to share what makes their dog special. (Spoiler alert: everything, because they’re dogs.)

Superhero Dogs is an original film that tells the story of dogs from around the world that work as rescue, training, emotional support and security. The film is running at select IMAX theaters in the US through January 1, 2020.

Beginning March 11, Pedigree will donate one bowl of food to shelter dogs waiting to be adopted, up to 500,000 bowls, every time that someone shares their dog’s story with the hashtag #EveryPupsSuperpower or engages with a like, etc.

In addition, the Pedigree brand will donate $250,000 to the Pedigree Foundation to support shelters around the country.

‘Every Pup’s Superpower’ uses influencer marketing to increase the campaign’s exposure. Pedigree partnered with best-selling author and animal activist Kathryn Schwarzenegger to highlight the campaign and encourage followers to use the hashtag.

Schwarzenegger has nearly 800,000 followers on Instagram and Twitter alone. Her post has garnered over 11,000 Instagram likes in the first six hours.

The partnership is timely for both Pedigree and Schwarzenegger, as she who recently released her book, Maverick and Me. The book introduces children to the concept of animal rescue. Schwarzenegger also found herself in the spotlight through her engagement to actor Chris Pratt. The timing of this new campaign allows Pedigree to reach users who are just starting to get to know Schwarzenegger as well as her loyal fans.

“The ‘Every Pup’s Superpower’ program is a demonstration of our commitment to finding loving homes for all dogs,” said Elizabeth Barrett, Pedigree brand manager in a statement. “We hope this program inspires people to share stories of their own dogs’ amazing abilities and to spread awareness about the need for pet adoption so that more animals end up in forever homes.”

Pedigree launched ‘Every Pup’s Superpower’ as an extension of its global ‘Feed the Good’ campaign, highlighting how dogs and human benefit from each other. The Mars-owned brand highlights pet adoption and uses real-life stories of dog heroes to drive its positive message home.

In a time when Americans, especially millennials, treat their pets as family, animal-centric cause marketing campaigns stand to reach consumers on a uniquely emotional level.

SXSW 2019: Should Brands Use Memes? It’s Debatable

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Should brands enter into the increasingly weird space of internet and meme culture for marketing purposes? Panelists offered differing opinions at ‘Wacko World and the Rise of Memelord Brands,’ but agreed that unless those brands are willing to use alternative metrics for success while giving up creative control to the content creators they employ, it’s likely to be an ineffective marketing tool.

Sarah Rabia, global director of cultural strategy at TBWA Backslash, was joined by Snap’s camera platform brand manager Amelia Hall, Brad Zeff, chief strategy officer and general counsel at GIPHY as well as meme creator and media personality, Ka5sh.

Hall suggested that brands can have a meaningful role as patrons of content-creators in weird meme communities, but it comes with inherent risk.

“There’s risk involved. You’re kind of putting your brand in the hands of a 20-something-year-old…but I think that brands need to realize that if they [want to be] embedded into these communities that they kind of need to give the reins up a little bit,” said Hall.

“As communication becomes increasingly more 1:1 and people become skeptical about the ‘influencer industrial complex,’ and sponsored content and broadcasting Facebook… all this kind of broadcast-oriented social platforms vs. narrowcasting, which is what’s happening in DMs and Snapchat and iMessage…how do brands even determine the amount of share of voice you’re commanding when it’s happening in those behind-the-scenes spaces? That’s going to be a big question that lots of platforms will need to solve.”

“How do we guarantee that a brand will have their content seen or used in a conversational context when measurement is increasingly difficult?” Hall asked, rhetorically. 

Brad Zeff of GIPHY shared similar thoughts on measurement.

“You might not be able to measure it in terms of a specific, ‘you spent x amount of dollars and got 2x back.’ I think there needs to be a commitment from brands that, there’s a place for direct-response and there’s a place where, if you want to exist and be let into people’s bedrooms then you need to create cool content that doesn’t have ‘tune in’ all over it and huge logos.”

“Let the creators be the creators for the sake of creating interesting things and do it in a way that dissociates somewhat from traditional ROI. If that really is the path. If in the end, it’s ‘click here to buy this,’ that actually doesn’t work. That will ruin it, and so, there’s an opportunity for brands but they actually have to know who they are and subsidize creativity,” said Zeff.

“Brands are going to be around, so why don’t we just push that a new direction,” said Zeff. “As a practical matter, brands are everywhere where ‘Wacko World’ exists…it is inevitable, and brands are part of our culture,” Zeff continued, “What we don’t want is brands who just think that they’re part of our tribe when they’re really not. I see a huge opportunity for brands right now…there’s a blurry line between what a brand is and what a person is; brands are becoming more like people and people are becoming more like brands.”

“The fundamental challenge… and this is a tricky one: If I’m a brand and we know that the momentum is going toward more privacy and more 1:1 communication, how can brands be a part of that?”

Zeff’s advice to brands who want to tap into memes and internet humor is to “not treat every interaction like a transaction. You actually have to have an identity outside of trying to sell shit.”

Ka5sh provided a different perspective as a content creator and firm fixture within these meme communities.

“Brands will never be a part of meme culture or internet culture, they’ll always be outliers. Most of the time it sounds like, ‘Hey fellow millennials, how do you do?’”

“I think for 99 percent of the time when a brand gets ahold of a meme it ends it,” said Ka5sh. “Anytime Wendy’s or Burger King or Target, Walmart, Netflix… any brand, gets ahold of a meme format that was sort of popular…they cut the shelf-life of it in half. No one wants to participate with it, it’s like your dad just got in on the joke.”

SXSW 2019: These Brands Aren’t Political: They’re Doing What Their Consumers Expect

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There’s no doubt that consumers are asking more and more from brands. But it’s not accurate to say that the response from companies like Patagonia, Lyft and Airbnb are politically motivated: in fact, they’re motivated by each company’s core founding vision and the consumer expectations related to that.

That was the key takeaway from Saturday’s ‘Brand: The New Political Reality,’ panel which included panelists Joy Howard, CMO of Lyft, Corley Kenna, senior director, global communications & PR at Patagonia and Nancy King, director of global guest marketing at Airbnb.

“In many ways, it’s not about politics. This is about the 40+ years of advocacy that this company has, and standing up behind it. I think that’s what allows us to, no matter where we are in the world [. . .] to take the positions that we do and to challenge governments to do better to protect the environment,” said Kenna.

For Patagonia, initiatives such as securing Bear’s Ears national monument, or preventing the construction of dams in the Balkans are existential to their business.

“We’re still in business today because we fight to protect those places.”

“It’s not [a] political statement. Amid a world that is becoming more polarized: What are our values? How do those manifest in the world, and how do we make decisions based on those beliefs?” said Kenna.

Nancy King of Airbnb echoed the sentiment.

“Our CEO talks about, what does it mean to be a 21st-century company? It’s that we have to support all of our stakeholders—and so those are shareholders and communities. Without our community, without our hosts, without our guests, I don’t know where Airbnb would be.”

King also had choice words for so-called corporate social responsibility or CSR and whether it’s sufficient for brands.

“Now that I work at a company where the language is values and purpose, the idea of CSR is kind of like eating your peas: something that you have to do. I really hope that it changes [. . .] a lot of companies see it as a marketing lever instead of something that’s baked into the DNA of the company and actually shapes the way they behave, and the decisions that they make. My hope is that more companies will start to embed that thinking into their decision-making process.”

Why is embedding values into a company’s mission statement so important? It all goes back to what consumers expect of brands in the current political climate. Or, as King explained: “Making decisions now becomes marketing.”

“I think being a CMO is getting harder and harder,” said King, noting the obligation to drive culture through brands. “Especially at tech companies, there’s an appetite for marketing to move closer and closer to the product development process […] At Airbnb marketers sit on product teams, which is amazing because we finally have the opportunity to share what’s being built and not just how to talk about what’s being built. ”

Lyft’s Joy Howard stressed the point further: “You’re not just a marketer anymore, you’re not just a communications person anymore. There’s an appreciation for [. . .] the mission we’re going towards. I love it when someone from accounting is like, ‘did you see what’s going on here? Shouldn’t we be talking about this?’”

What does this mean for the bottom line and shareholder value?

“I don’t think you can be a great brand and not be close to your customers,” noted Howard.

Kenna put it bluntly. “Patagonia’s revenues, profits have quadrupled in the last 10 years […] for us, it’s absolutely benefited business.”

King agreed: “We see that as a key driver of our growth.”

According to a report from Sprout Social, “Sixty-six percent of consumers say it’s important for brands to take public stands on social and political issues.”

 

SXSW 2019: Brands Discuss The Importance Of Sound In An Age Of Voice Search

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With comScore predicting that voice search on the web will be 50 percent of all searches in the next few years, brands are discussing how to carve out a sonic niche in an increasingly noisy environment.

That was the core of the conversation at Saturday’s SXSW panel, ‘The Invisible Brand in an Audio-First World,’ moderated by Man Made Music’s Joel Beckerman and including chief marketing officer for NPR Meg Goldthwaite, Citi’s managing director of global branding, media and marketing Mark Ingall and Matthew Benson, advanced innovation lead at Faurecia.

According to Beckerman, “audio-first media is exploding: devices, immersive spaces, smart speakers like Alexa, while traditional media like television and radio is in decline.”

“As technology becomes more and more intertwined in our lives, the winners will be the brands that humanize technology while getting credit for every aspect of their role in experiences and products humans love,” said Beckerman.

But it’s not that sonic logos and audio branding are necessarily new; you can hear it in the soft hum of HBO’s opening to the satisfying ‘swoosh’ of an email being sent. However, there’s a renewed focus for brands to lay the groundwork for a future where most consumers interact solely through voice technology and to do so in a way that’s sensible for the consumer interaction in question.

For NPR, sound is part and parcel of its storytelling and brand identity. CMO Meg Goldthwaite put it like this: “It’s the play on sound that is what we want to do as marketers because that’s what we’re trying to elicit: emotions that are affiliated with the brand.” “We’re sort of tied to this old-timey device of a radio,” said Goldthwaite. “Radio has been purported to be dead for quite a long time. It’s my job as the chief marketing officer to that people know that NPR isn’t just radio.”

“My challenge is that as our content gets disaggregated, and you’re not just hearing [. . .] “This is NPR,” before every bit of audio, it’s trying to find a way to brand our audio and make certain that people understand that what they’re about to hear is good, quality sound: that sound that has made NPR the most loved and most trusted for over 50 years.”

Mark Ingall of Citi has a different challenge: how do you sonically translate feelings of security and trust while providing consumer touchpoints that are sensible for a banking company?

“Sometimes the best sound for a customer is no sound,” said Ingall. “There’s a fascinating thing where people would rather interact with machines than they would persons [. . .] It’s only when you’ve got a problem and you want someone to scream at.”

“What you don’t want to hear is when people make a mistake [. . .] that ‘BZZZ’ sound.” That audio cue can make the difference between punishing or rewarding a consumer for their transaction.

Whatever the touchpoint, Ingall’s priority remains the same: “How can we make people feel comfortable about their money [. . .] how can we make sure we’re present in that transaction?”

“If you’ve signed up to get stuff from us, that email push sound feels like us as well. It doesn’t sound like Apple, it doesn’t sound like Chase, it doesn’t sound like anyone else. You know that it’s Citi that’s actually giving you something.”

“When you transact on our app, what we’re looking for is that you’re reassured that that action has gone through and what you intended to happen has happened.”

Beckerman concluded with a few statistics: “If you like the sound in association with a particular experience, you’re 86 percent more likely to actually want to have that experience again with that brand [. . .] If you’re doing a step-by-step process to fix something, scored experiences actually help people. It’s 20 percent more likely that you’ll find that experience fast or easy and it’s 32 percent more likely you’ll want to have that experience again. These things actually have data-points which can monetize across experience.”

 

SXSW 2019: Brands Discuss The Importance Of Marketing To Women

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At ‘Women are Building the Brands We’ve Always Wanted,’ panelists gave their perspectives on why consumer connection is critical and why women should be leading marketing efforts behind consumer brands.

The panel was moderated by Jamie Gilpin, chief marketing officer at Sprout Social Inc. who shared statistics to support why consumer connection is essential, especially the relationship that brands have with women.

“We look to the trends. It’s more than a feeling. Seventy-to-eighty percent of consumer goods are purchased by women [while] 50 percent of traditional male products are purchased, or driven by women. It’s not just about filling a functional need, and that’s what a lot of brands have done in the past. It’s about [the] connection [. . .] 68 percent of female consumers say they want to connect with a brand.”

Gilpin put it bluntly: “The stakes are high for us marketers. To feel connected to a brand, female consumers, over half of them say, ‘we feel connected to a brand when they understand us and our desires.’”

Also included in the panel were Amanda Clark, head of NA development/senior vice president of Taco Bell, Rachel Blumenthal, founder & CEO of Rockets of Awesome and AJ Hassan, VP, executive creative director at R/GA.

“Time’s are a-changing,” said Amanda Clark, reflecting on brand evolution over the past few years. “I think brands are embracing a lot of the qualities that we as a society label as traditionally female [. . .] those characteristics, we talk about them as transparency, connectedness, honesty, emotion.”

In the case of Taco Bell, this comes through in their brand voice across social and the transformation of retail spaces into places where people want to stay.

“We never try to talk down to people,” she said. “If you look at Super Bowl ads, and I look at my own industry [. . .] maybe we had some busty women selling burgers, tacos. That’s not a good thing. We’ve got to progress.”

But, there’s a wrong way to progress.

“You have to stay true to you are [. . .] OK, Gilette. I think they took a hard left [but] you still have to be authentic to your brand voice.”

AJ Hassan, who led the Always campaign “Like A Girl” for R/GA, tied its success to the team that created it—and a divergence from the brand communication of confidence as the ability “to wear white pants.”

“Because it was rooted in something that’s so visceral for these girls, we needed to create a work that was truly representative of a woman’s point of view, and really bring in partners to do that in the most authentic way, and also to manifest a piece of work that [. . .] let the girls use their own voices to share those experiences.”

Hassan also elaborated on the need for connection through a physical brand space, brick-and-mortar.

“I think as much as people love the convenience of Amazon Prime there’s still a craving to touch materials, to see things in person, and I think the brands that we’re going to see succeed are thinking about creating those experiences.”

“We’ve seen the whole generation of millennials, 80 percent of them being belief-driven buyers, because of technology [. . .] they’ve grown up living in their phones. And there’s a power in the ability to keep up with everyone you’ve ever known on Facebook, but there’s also a degree of anonymity that’s ironic in that it does get to this lack of connection. That’s what brands are really looking at with technology: to create more meaningful connections, to bring more purpose, to understand my audience,” said Hassan.

“Who do you make friends with? You make friends with someone who gets you, who can have a conversation with you, who understands you.”

While the panelists agreed that there has been some progress in terms of representation, the statistics are startling, as Gilpin points out.

“Only 28 percent of CMO’s are females, and only 30 percent are leaders in the agency world.”

Donut Fries: How Influencers Impacted Both Dunkin And McDonald’s Launches

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McDonald’s recently launched Donut Sticks to its breakfast menu, eliciting some Twitter sass from Dunkin. Talkwalker measured social engagement with both brands and determined that influencer marketing had a significant role in the conversation.

In 2017, McDonald’s placed a higher priority on long-term growth which included the retention of existing customers. Part of this strategy, the company said in its annual report, was to focus on breakfast.

Lo and behold, the quick-service restaurant giant introduced donut fries in February—fried strips of dough packaged similarly to French fries. But as Dunkin pointed out, the new product was eerily similar to its own, limited-edition donut fries last summer.

Dunkin fired back with an illustration of Dunkin-branded packages made to look like the cardboard boxes used for a Big Mac.

“What a coincidence,” the Dunkin Twitter account joked, “McDonald’s just released donut fries and we just released blueprints to our new donut packaging.”

Talkwalker took a look at the buzz surrounding each donut fries launch to determine which brand was leading the conversation.

Dunkin’s Donut Fries launched its donut fries after a pre-run in Boston last year. The topic generated cumulated 25,900 mentions and a strong 708,000 engagements in the last 13 months, Talkwalker observed.

Despite only having launched a month ago, McDonald’s Donut Fries grossed 9,900 mentions but 306,200 engagements, “thus still staying behind’s Dunkin’s social media storm.”

A comparison of the two launch strategies found that Dunkin relied heavily on influencer marketing to gain social traction on National Fry Day (July 13). A sponsored post by food and fashion influencer Rebecca Azamolo garnered 104,778 shares/likes. Social influencer Nia Sioux, meanwhile, earned 74,138 likes posing with the fries and Miranda Sings made a music video calling donut fries one of the best pregnancy cravings. The post has earned 93,478 likes to date.

Talkwalker attributes part of Dunkin’s social success to its photogenic pink packaging. McDonald’s is serving its donut sticks in relatively plain white bags.

That’s not to say that McDonald’s isn’t getting any traction on the new menu item. Influencer Trysha Paytas filmed herself trying the donut fries and garnered over 1.1 million views. Make-up artist Jeffree Star posted a photo of the treat on Twitter, earning over 43,000 likes.

Since their launch, however, McDonald’s has slowed its promotional efforts. As of this writing, the brand has not replied to Dunkin’s joke tweet, either.

“There are many takeaways, one of them being the importance of timing: these products are relatively similar, but the #NationalFryDay boost might have given Dunkin the winning advantage,” Talkwalker CEO Todd Grossman told AList. “Dunkin also managed to transform this new McDonald’s launch into one more opportunity to get their name out there through clever tweets, and ultimately remind their audience that they ‘own the Donut Castle’.”