Last Thursday saw the Onalytica offices hosting our first ever Software Influentials event. We were very fortunate to have Udi Dahan as our guest speaker which meant for an interesting and fun evening.
We would like to thank all of those that took the time out to come along to our event and stay for drinks and canapés with us afterwards, and a special thank you to Skills Matter for their support which was greatly appreciated.
The event went well and we have had some very good feedback, so watch this space for news of future events!
The below graph shows the Share-of-Influence for various election issues from 22nd April to 5th May.
The comparison issues (Hung Parliament, Expenses Scandal, and Electoral System) were also major stories during the election and selected here to provide a benchmark for measuring the scale of the Bigot-gate story. The chart shows us:
- Bigot-gate (and associated terms) were discussed more than any of the benchmark topics for two days, the 28th and 29th of April.
- Among the other issues selected, Hung Parliament was discussed the most.
- Bigot-gate declined rapidly in Share-of-Influence after the 29th of April but did continue to be widely discussed on May 5th.
The chart below shows the daily sentiment score associated to Gordon Brown between 6th April and 6th May. The daily sentiment score gives immediate insight about the overall positive or negative opinions about a product or brand, or in this case, Gordon Brown. A shift in sentiment can indicate a positive or negative shift in a brand’s value or perception. We can see from the below graph that:
- Over the study period Gordon Brown was associated with negative sentiment scores.
- From 6th April to 22nd April the daily sentiment score for Gordon Brown was decreasing. (This suggests that relative incidents of negative terms, on pages mentioning Gordon Brown, were increasing).
- On the 28th April there was a massive drop in Sentiment score. This date coincides with the ‘Bigot-gate’ event.
Change is an election buzzword, and ‘Vote for Change’ was part of a major advertising campaign. By monitoring how often this word is associated with each party or party leader we gain immediate insight regarding how much traction the relevant campaigns obtained.
The below graph shows the association analysis of David Cameron and Nick Clegg matched to the word ‘change’ in the UK election debate. If one of the party leaders was mentioned with the word ‘change’ more often than the other, their relative Share-of-Influence in relation to that word would increase. Our UK Election debate sample includes data from 77,000 sites between 29th March and 6th May. This association analysis shows:
- Nick Clegg had relatively low Share-of-Influence in the week of 29th March; this means that relatively little discussion included his name with the words ‘election’ and ‘change’ at that time compared to David Cameron.
- In the week of 5th April Nick Clegg made a gain, from 5% to 25%. This gain was disproportionate: his Share-of-Influence when ‘change’ was mentioned was twice that of his overall Share-of-Influence for that time: only 12 % (see dashed line below).
- In the weeks of 29th March and 19th April, Nick Clegg continued to make gains in his Share-of-Influence, overtaking David Cameron. This evidence supports the hypothesis that among the party leaders it was Nick Clegg who was gaining attention relative to the other leaders and the one who was most associated with change at that time.
- The growth trend in Nick Clegg’s Share-of-Influence did not continue past the week of April 19th; following that week, David Cameron regained his lead in Share-of-Influence from Nick Clegg and became the candidate most associated with the word change in the last few days preceding the election.
Last night Onalytica sponsored the drinks reception for the PdF (Personal Democracy Forum) post election review “Action Replay” at the RSA in London. We were able to showcase to a very interested audience some of the results of our analysis of the debate - analysis that we have been tracking in the run-up to the election.
The below chart shows a sample of ‘UK election’ daily buzz and influence – calculated using InfluenceMonitor between 6th April and 6th May. As the discussion was monitored on a daily basis, we can instantly see when the topic is most and least discussed. When the amount of talk rapidly changes – we can drill into the debate to learn why.
- 6th May had the greatest amount of discussion – the actual day of the election.
- There is a clear pattern of discussion throughout the days of the week – for example, the UK election was not discussed as much at the weekends.
- Weekly peaks coincide with Thursdays – the 15th, 22nd and 29th April – these were the days of the TV debates.
- The peak in discussion in the run-up to the election was Wednesday 29th April, the day of the third TV debate which gained most attention; this also coincides with “bigot-gate”.
- 6th April – the day the election was announced was also the day that saw the second most discussion, after the actual day of the election.
- It is interesting to note that at the beginning of this analysis, 6th April, when the election was announced - the share-of-influence was significantly higher than the share-of-buzz, however share-of-buzz caught up fairly rapidly and followed the share-of-influence throughout the remainder of the debate.
