The next pair of brands we analyse in the Food edition of Talkwalker’s Battle of the Brands are Britannia and Parle, two food brands which have been part of a long-term rivalry in the business of biscuits. How are consumers engaging with these household names? And what are some of the ongoing trends in their conversations? We provide a sneak peek in this discussion.
Talkwalker is the leading consumer intelligence acceleration platform, helping over 2,500 brands drive business impact by getting closer to their consumers. The Battle of the Brands series utilises Talkwalker’s AI-enabled Blue Silk technology to demonstrate how to conduct a competitor analysis across millions of images, videos, audio, conversations, and tags from across social media, blogs, news channels, and more. Providing a bird’s eye view of mentions, engagement, and sentiment surrounding some of the biggest brands in India today.
Mentions and engagements
Looking over results from the past 13 months, Britannia comes up stronger in both mentions and engagements, with significant peaks occurring around its #SnackerCrackerContest run in November around its NutriChoice crackers, and an innovative, feel-good Kayi Smiles Nayi Smiles campaign organised around the launch of the new brand identity for its Good Day cookies.
As a continuation of the December launch, Good Day fans were also presented the option to create their own Good Day cookie packaging in January - celebrating the different kinds of smiles across India in a heartfelt way. The inclusive and personalised campaign garnered at least 2.1K posts, 4K engagements, and 97.2% positive sentiment within a single week, giving the brand’s visibility a happy boost.
Mentions around Parle and Parle-G biscuits, on the other hand, show up more strongly in organic social media posts - revealing the brand’s status as a staple reference in popular culture and meme culture – such as in this meme picked up and shared by actor Shraddha Srinath.
Mentions and engagements on food brands Britannia (pink) and Parle (purple), covering the past 13 months, from March 2021 to March 2022.
Top hashtags: Britannia vs Parle
Our hashtag analysis reveals some of the downside when a brand isn’t fully running its own PR machine. The top hashtags shared in association with the Britannia brand, for example, reveal mostly positive associations and amplification of Britannia’s original brand messaging.
Talkwalker’s theme cloud shows the top 25 hashtags surrounding the Britannia and Parle brands.
An analysis of Parle-related posts, on the other hand, reveals a mix of positive mentions, in terms of associations with media and popular television programmes, and also less savory references, when the brand is dragged into tabloid stories and controversies.
With the majority of mentions driven by popular culture and tabloid news, consumer conversations around the Parle brand were less closely tied to the brand’s messaging.
Brand affinity
The consumer’s relationship with each biscuit brand also becomes apparent when we look into the ecosystem of brands it gets featured alongside, and this is revealed through Talkwalker’s visual analytics.
With its association to the SpongeBob cartoon, and other cookie and soft drink brands, Parle-related conversations invite full-blown childhood nostalgia, whereas Britannia gets drawn into more investment-related conversations citing market movements as well as people movements – including the appointment of ex-Britannia COO as CEO of Bata India.
The Parle brand shows affinity with a smaller set of brands according to Talkwalker’s visual analytics, in comparison to Britannia which is frequently mentioned in business news.
Will Parle continue to capture the hearts of younger consumers today? How are other major food brands keeping their consumers loyal and engaged? Stay tuned to the Food edition of our Battle of the Brands series for your weekly analysis and, in case you missed it, catch up on our past articles covering snack brands, and emerging themes in the food industry.
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