Adweek serves you Advertising News Blogs - Get the latest Advertising News

Adweek Advertising Home > Advertising Data Center > Buzz Marketing Metrics

Brands Blog Buzz

'SNL' enjoying record approval ratings

October 06, 2008

—By Tim Nudd

Barack Obama and John McCain continue to fight it out, but the election has already produced one clear winner: NBC's Saturday Night Live.
    Thanks to the most random of coincidences—Tina Fey's striking resemblance to Sarah Palin—SNL has suddenly become must-see-TV during this election cycle, as Fey, an ex-cast member and former head writer, impersonates the Republican vice-presidential candidate each weekend. In a way, it's the perfect storm: Palin, of course, is already the subject of intense, unprecedented fascination among the public, who follow her every word—and then tune into SNL to see it all deconstructed. Cultural commentary has rarely followed cultural history so closely.
    Anyway, you can't argue with the numbers. According to The Hollywood Reporter, SNL's Sept. 13 premiere, featuring a skit with Fey as Palin and Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton, averaged a 7.5 household rating/18 share in the metered market overnights—its highest-rated show since Dec. 14, 2002, when Al Gore and Phish appeared. And they're keeping the momentum going. This past weekend's show averaged a 7.4/18. You can see similarly strong numbers on this BuzzMetrics chart. The blogosphere has been on fire with SNL mentions in the past month, reaching levels well above the show's high points last season. (The program enjoyed a cluster of smaller spikes last March, when Mike Huckabee and Hillary Clinton appeared. The spike from June was due to the death of George Carlin, who was mentioned in many remembrances as the very first host of SNL.)
    At this point, if he's not already, Lorne Michaels should start giving to the McCain campaign. If McCain and Palin win, and Michaels can rope Tina Fey back in, he'll be able to keep the show on the air for at least four more years.

Yankee Stadium: a brand all its own

September 22, 2008

—By Tim Nudd

The New York Yankees have had an underwhelming season on the field, but their ballpark, the hallowed Yankee Stadium, has stood tall in its final season, enjoying a flurry of attention, from fans and foes alike, in the blogosphere.
    The stadium hosted its final Yankees game last night, barring some miracle. (The Yanks are still technically alive in the playoff race, but will be eliminated from contention shortly.) This BuzzMetrics chart shows the spike of attention from bloggers in the past 24 hours. "It still hasn't sunk in," writes MLB beat writer Bryan Hoch. "It's still very, very difficult to imagine that Sunday's game was the final one we'll ever see at Yankee Stadium. Personally, I'm still trying to sort out what I think and feel about what happened last night." LiveJournal's KrispyTin feels "it was such a relief that my Yankees won their last game in Yankee Stadium. ... I would have been so embarassed if they lost. ... and it was a good game too!!" Of the stadium, a 39-year-old named Chris writes on his MySpace page: "I'll miss you, old friend, but I'll still have the memories that the ESPN generation could never hope to have."
    Even Red Sox fans offered a few good wishes. "Despite being a lifelong Red Sox fan (my father's best friends were from Baaaahston and taught me well), I am terribly saddened by the passing of Yankee Stadium," writes Stepping on Cracks. And (transplanted) nation was moved to poetry: "Farewell Yankee Stadium, it's been fun/Some games we lost, some games we won/You've stood strong for many, many years/Your closing brings me to tears/Not because I root for the Yanks, believe me/But because of all the things you've stood to see."
    Of course, a milestone like this one has finite appeal outside of New York. As you can see from the chart, Yankee Stadium got even more buzz when it hosted the All Star Game back in July.

AIG commercials finally entertaining

September 18, 2008

—By Tim Nudd

We've never much liked commercials in which kids talk like adults. But plenty of bloggers are now seeing more than a little humor in AIG's ad campaign, which shows kids talking in supposedly comic specifics about their parents' choice of insurance options.
    As this BuzzMetrics chart shows, the insurance giant has seen a giant spike in online mentions overall this week—quite expected, giving its $85 million bailout by the U.S. government. The company, which garnered 2,500 blog mentions yesterday, usually gets very little online buzz. In fact, many consumers' only exposure to the company before this week has been through its TV spots. (As The Danifesto writes: "All I knew about AIG was that Stockard Channing did the voiceovers for their commercials.") Bloggers are revisiting those spots this week, of course, and mostly chuckling at the tagline, "The strength to be there."
    Consumerist thinks the commercials are "suddenly hilarious," and one commenter there added: "Sad times, but at least we have ironic commercials to keep us entertained." David Griner at AdFreak suggests that "maybe it's not too late for AIG to hitch itself to a new tagline for its bright new future. If they hurry, maybe they can beat Jim Cramer to trademarking the phrase, 'We're all communists now.' " Adds Random Chaos: "I'm terrible. I totally shouldn't be finding this crisis amusing. But."
    The New York Times' The Board blog has even taken the liberty of imagining a new version of the popular AIG ad with the stressed-out kid who bugs his parents while they're lying in bed. "If they were shooting the ad today, the ending should be changed to A.I.G. chief executive Robert Willumstad lying in bed, telling the little boy 'Buddy, we're with the Federal Reserve.' "

False buzz pummels United Airlines

September 09, 2008

—By Tim Nudd

For anyone who doubts the impact a single online story can have on a company and its stock, look no further than the performance this week of United Airlines.
    On Monday, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel published a story on its Web site about United filing for bankruptcy. A Florida investment newsletter picked up the story, as did Bloomberg, which snapped a one-line brief about it. Those three dominos toppled, and suddenly, so did United's stock—falling to $3 early Monday, from $12.30 at close Friday. This all happened before it became apparent that the bankruptcy story wasn't current. The Sun-Sentinel, it turns out, had published an old Chicago Tribune story from 2002.
    Buzz—good and bad, rooted in facts, rumors or even outright falsehoods—takes hold at lightning pace on Wall Street. Only later in the day did bloggers catch up to the news and have a chance to weigh in. And some of them, predictably, were in a conspiratorial mood. Wrote Snooze Button Dreams: "Did United push this out there through a company shill in an effort to drive the price down, so it could snap up shares and sell them later, generating a vast amount of cash for itself? Or was it one of the many powerful but teetering investment banks that did it, to help shore up losses in their real estate portfolios? Or was it just a giant fuck-up?"
    Only time will tell. In any case, the story didn't end up generating a huge volume of buzz overall—the damage was done by a few small, well-placed (or ill-placed) nuggets. (And actually, the stock has mostly rebounded, restoring the carrier's value, though perhaps not in the eyes of investors who sold low.) Taking a broader look, this BuzzMetrics chart shows that United has only registered one major spike in blog buzz over the past year—on Sept. 11 of last year, as the Internet remembered United Flight 93. We can expect a similar spike for United this Thursday—proof, along with the bankruptcy story, that old news is sometimes never old enough to have an impact.

Complete chart listing