Gatorade and Coca-Cola Are Hydrating Consumers With Positive Conversations

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - May 03, 2017) - In a new, first of its kind analysis that integrates offline and online consumer conversations, Engagement Labs released its TotalSocial™ rankings on the top performing non-alcoholic beverage brands in the U.S.

The analysis, which examined forty non-alcoholic beverage brands, finds that the category performs slightly better offline (through face-to-face conversations) than online (social media). And, of the conversations taking place about the beverage brands, consumers tend to speak positively about the brands, both offline and online. However, there are significantly less conversations taking place about beverage brands online.

The rankings of the top U.S. non-alcoholic beverage brands are based on Engagement Labs' proprietary TotalSocial data, which continuously measures the most important drivers of brand performance with respect to word of mouth conversations and social media.

"It's enlightening to see that four of the top five brands are noncarbonated while only one (Cola-Cola) is a carbonated soft drink (CSD). This is a reflection of a trend in word of mouth we've been seeing for a few years now -- consumers are talking less about CSD's and more about brands that are perceived as healthier alternatives," notes Ed Keller, CEO of Engagement Labs. "At the same time, we see that seven of the top ten brands are owned by either Coca-Cola (four) or PepsiCo (three), reflecting the diversification strategy of these beverage giants."

Coca-Cola and Pepsi, ever in the cola wars, lead the category in offline and online volume. However, success in social influence requires more than just a lot of chatter. Gatorade earns its number one ranking due to its well above-average influence and sentiment scores, both offline and online. Together with its top ten performance on volume, Gatorade is well rounded across all the metrics that make for a TotalSocial leader.

Red Bull, which doesn't make the TotalSocial top ten and is ranked 13, stands out when it comes to its online performance as it is the top ranked beverage brand. This reflects a strong legacy of pushing entertaining and exciting content through its social pages, where fans are interacting with and sharing it across social platforms. However, it lags when it comes to its offline word of mouth performance, where it is below the industry average.

The offline leader, meanwhile, is Minute Maid which helps to contribute to its number five overall ranking. When it comes to the juice brands -- Minute Maid, Ocean Spray (ranked nine), and Welch's (ranked 12) -- all have strong offline sentiment scores. Minute Maid also has exceptionally strong offline influence scores. Welch's does well on this dimension, too.

Keller continued, "For Minute Maid, moms are an important offline influencer segment, and the brand is clearly leveraging them to its advantage. However, Minute Maid has the largest gap of any brand in the category between its industry leading offline TotalSocial and its online score which indicates an opportunity for the brand to fully capitalize on the power of social influence and move up even further in the rankings."

To learn more about Engagement Labs or TotalSocial insights and how to increase your brand's word of mouth in real life and online, reach out at: totalsocial@engagementlabs.com.

About Engagement Labs

Engagement Labs (TSX VENTURE: EL) is the world's first TotalSocial™ company, offering intelligent data, analytics and insights for marketers. We are leaders in tracking, measuring and benchmarking the impact of conversations happening around a brand and industry -- both online and offline. Consumer conversations are a proven driver of critical business outcomes, including sales. The patent pending TotalSocial data solution provides brands with unique insights and powerful analytics to understand online and offline social impact and drive business results. TotalSocial demonstrates to marketers how their online and offline conversation compare and contrast and helps identify areas of competitive opportunity or significant emerging threats. TotalSocial is an "always-on" proprietary scoring system, based on the most important drivers of brand performance: Volume, Sentiment, Brand Sharing and Influence. TotalSocial was built on the pillars of Engagement Labs' patented social media measurement tool and the world's only offline word of mouth tracking system for brands and tracks 500 brands within the U.S. across 17 major industry categories, and 350 brands in the UK.

To learn more visit www.engagementlabs.com / www.totalsocial.com.

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