May 4, 2023
Kingy thingy, King’s Corry, Corry-naish, whatever you want to call it, we’ve got a big ol’ event happening this weekend. Big events = big moments, and big moments draw in consumers and marketers like moths to a flame. But not this time!
At IF, you know we love a bit of data. And we’ve had our ears to the ground for the King’s Coronation, with our Trendwatch series. Using Brandwatch, we’ve been uncovering consumer insights and mentions about the upcoming moment, and seeing what they’re really thinking about it all.
Tumbleweed Moment
Although the Coronation is set to be a pretty spectacular event, let’s just say that consumer sentiment isn’t too great on social… In April, negative mentions accounted for around 37% of total volume (456k), and only 8% of the total were positive ones. Since then, however, we’ve seen positive mentions rise by 51% as people become more excited about the day/extra bank holiday, and the chance to spend time with family or friends.
Of those negative mentions, 1.5M impressions have been related to the cost of living crisis, and how the bill is falling on the taxpayer’s shoulders. This lack of positive sentiment could be one of the many reasons why many brands have been pretty quiet on social about the Coronation. Although, brands generally do avoid aligning with anything political!
Cakes & Coronation Quiche
Some food & drink brands, however, have been making a little noise. Brands like Walker’s brought out limited edition flavours of their Sensations line (Regal Lamb & Mint has divided our office – I’m firmly on the ‘love’ side, and spent 6 weeks trying to track down a packet! Thanks to Belle Lawrence for finally finding them!), and other brands have brought out other themed lines, but still no social noise. In fact, there are only 29k posts across Instagram as a whole that have used #KingsCoronation.
When it comes to moments/occasions in the UK, consumers tend to eat and drink to celebrate, so food & drink brands fit nicely into that little pocket of positivity. In our research, we found that afternoon tea mentions were up by 44% WoW in mid-April, and the following week we saw tea mentions soar again with an increase of 96% in mentions – very typical of us Brits if you ask me! Again, not much chatter from brands, but there has been some from local businesses such as cafes and restaurants. In fact, consumer mentions of eating and shopping locally went up by 23% WoW in the last week of April.
It seems that the retro-revival trend has been strong with Coronation chatter; there were 1.8k mentions of 1970’s favourite, quiche in just one week, following the announcement of the dish as the ‘Coronation food’, personally chosen by King Charles himself (what on earth was he thinking?! No offence to Quiches). On the subject of ‘Coronation food’ consumers have been getting creative with themed cakes, which has led to a whopping +400% increase in mentions over the past month.
What Can We Expect From Brands This Weekend?
Well, we’ve never had a Coronation happen in the age of social media, so we won’t know until it happens. But there’s a lot of controversy around the event from consumers, and brands have been rather quiet so far. So my guess is that there won’t be a lot of noise from brands this weekend.
As mentioned, audience sentiment data suggests that consumers aren’t too impressed with the Coronation, and this poses a risk to reputation if the wrong type of brand posts about it, to an audience who wouldn’t be positively receptive.
What about BAU posting? Our recommendation is to pause any paid ads in case there’s too much noise to cut through.
Trendwatch Continues…
The weekend might upon us, but we’ll be carrying on with our Trendwatch series on social. So keep your eyes peeled for more data and insights on the latest topics!