NEW YORK, Oct. 11, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — Today’s polarized political environment is increasingly impacting brand marketers, as dramatically illustrated by Nike’s decision to launch a controversial campaign featuring ex-NFL player Colin Kaepernick.  So far, the ad campaign has led to higher sales and company stock price, despite many pundits’ predictions of a negative backlash. It appears Nike’s deep understanding of its target market was a key factor in the initial success of the campaign, as its share of positive word of mouth grew.

The intersection between brand marketing and politics is illustrated in a new way today as Engagement Labs, a leading social intelligence data and analytics company, has released an online quiz called “Do You Live in a Political Brand Bubble?” based on its data indicating that the advocates of many brands also lean strongly toward either Democrats or Republicans.

“Some brand allegiances are obvious, such as Democrats recommending MSNBC and Republicans recommending Fox News among cable news channels. But many other brands have advocates who lean red or blue as well, and are harder to guess,” said Engagement Labs’ Chief Commercial Officer Brad Fay. “Do Republicans or Democrats recommend Allstate for insurance?  What about State Farm? And which party’s supporters are more likely to travel booking sites Hotels.com and Trivago? These are all brands that lean red or blue, and factor into the new Engagement Labs quiz.”

Engagement Labs created the quiz drawing from its TotalSocial® data platform that contains online and offline consumer conversation data of routinely recommended brands that lean left or right in terms of their most ardent fans. The results on whether the quiz-takers are living in a Democratic or Republican “Brand Bubble,” links to Engagement Labs study at the end of the quiz.

“Some brands are getting involved with politics willingly, as in the Nike example, but others have been drawn in unwillingly, such as Nordstrom when they were criticized by President Trump for dropping the Ivanka Trump brand from their stores and catalog,” said Fay.  “Our quiz is meant to highlight one critical factor—the importance of knowing your audience.  Before deciding whether to jump into the political fray, brands really need to do their homework and figure out whether their target markets leans left or right, and it’s not always obvious.”

Another brand that made a political calculation, Dick’s Sporting Goods, wrongly predicted they would lose business when they stopped selling assault weapons in the wake of the Parkland, Florida shooting tragedy.  CEO Edward Stack publicly predicted revenues would suffer for having made a decision based on corporate ethics, but Engagement Labs’ measured more positive offline sentiment for the brand that ultimately led to a higher stock price for the company.

Quiz-takers can share their results by tagging @EngagementLabs and #PoliticalBrandBubble on Facebook and Twitter, and invite their friends and family to learn more about their political allegiance based on the brands they recommend.

About Engagement Labs
Engagement Labs (TSXV: EL) (OTCQB: ELBSF) is an industry-leading data and analytics firm that provides social intelligence for Fortune 500 brands and companies. The Company’s TotalSocial® platform focuses on the entire social ecosystem by combining powerful online (social media) and offline (word of mouth) data with predictive analytics. Engagement Labs has a proprietary ten-year database of unique brand, industry and competitive intelligence, matched with its cutting-edge predictive analytics that use machine learning and artificial intelligence to reveal the social metrics that increase marketing ROI and top line revenue for its diverse group of clients.

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

About TotalSocial^®
TotalSocial^® is a premier data and analytics platform that provides brands with unique insights, improved marketing ROI and strategies to grow revenue. Fueled by actionable online and offline data, TotalSocial is the only platform that encompasses and listens to the entire social ecosystem. TotalSocial offers unique, proprietary data about brands, its industry and competitors. With cutting-edge diagnostics, patent-pending predictive analytics and machine learning, TotalSocial identifies business opportunities and provides recommendations and a roadmap to grow revenue and achieve business and marketing goals.

For media inquiries please contact:
Vanessa Lontoc
Engagement Labs
732-846-6800
vanessa.lontoc@engagementlabs.com

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SOURCE Engagement Labs