Understanding how long recalls affect consumer opinion

1. Weathering the storm
Understanding how long automotive recalls affect consumer opinion

2. Pain Points
What is ‘normal’
How long does a
recall affect
consumer opinion
of GM. What is the
average length of
time?
When to act
How ‘bad’ is a
particular recall
affecting the
brand? Should
special measures
be taken? When is
the brand in a
crisis?
How to combat
What types of PR
and marketing
efforts have reduced
the length of time
around negative
consumer opinion
of the brand?

3. How?
Use a social intelligence
platform developed to answer
questions through four key
areas of focus:

4. Discovery
Combing through more than 100 trended data
points, Infegy Atlas automatically generates
stories to tell you what’s happening with your
subject, highlights key events over time, and
describes the data, taking you beyond the
charts and straight to answers.
Comparison
Run up to six unique subjects at once, and
Infegy Atlas will give you rich insight into how
they compare, what makes them different, and
what they have in common. Datasets are
analyzed together, giving you new information
impossible to find with a single subject alone.
Data
The longest running social data collection in the
business, broadly sourced from numerous
channels, normalized to reflect the general
population, and rigorously spam-filtered to
ensure accurate, trustworthy results
Linguistics
Infegy Atlas is powered by Infegy Linguistics,
able to read and interpret text more like a
human than software. This technology,
developed at Infegy over more than seven years,
is capable of incredibly complex language
analysis, giving you reliable and rich analysis of
social commentary

5. Discovery
How far reaching are the online
posts that announce the recall?
With the Atlas tool we can find
all posts that mention the recall
and determine how far that
message spread based on
scoring.
Atlas allows us to focus on audience segments. For this
example we’re looking for people who would fit into different
automobile categories.
Based on the findings, awareness of the recalls was somewhat
higher among consumers who were in the market for luxury
vehicles, when compared to those in the non-luxury segment.
Truck shoppers were least aware of the recalls.

6. Comparison
With Atlas we can compare
multiple topics with each other
to determine how they are
related.
For the GM recall we can filter
out messages about the brand
that are not related to the
recall.
We can add other topics related
to the recall, but that may not
specifically mention it.

7. Comparison
To determine what the general lifespan of a recall in the
public eye looks like we’re going to focus on four major
brands’ recalls that occurred prior to the GM recall incident.
The brands that were observed were Ford, GM, Honda, and
Toyota.
To do this we can take a sample of online commentary from
six weeks up to the announcement of a major recall and six
weeks after to gauge how perceptions shifted.
In addition to comparing topics we can compare ourselves next to other brands that are part of the same recall.
For the majority of brands, the recall was just a blip on the
radar in terms of generating negative conversations about
overall product quality.
On the other hand, the GM recall produced a linear increase
of negative mentions about quality that continued to
increase up to six weeks after the announcement.

8. Linguistics
People have a myriad of emotions beyond happy,
sad and angry.
WIth Atlas linguistic analysis we can see a range of
emotions and sentiments and how they relate to a
theme.
What types of emotions were tied to statements
around GM during the recall period and how did
those changed over time?
This will help us understand how long consumer
opinion changed around and during the recall and
how long it took to return to pre recall sentiment
levels.
We can also use this data to steer marketing
campaigns since we will know which parts of the
relationship with the consumer have been
damaged the most.

9. Data
To determine what the normal lifespan of a recall
notice has on public opinion around the GM brand
first we have to benchmark a few other data points.
What has been the historical trend of GM mentions,
automotive industry mentions and automotive
recall mentions.
Atlas has one of the longest running social data
collections in the industry, broadly sourced from
numerous channels, normalized to reflect the
general population, and rigorously spam-filtered to
ensure accurate, trustworthy results.
Good data means better decisions.
By looking through the historical data sets we can
determine that the average recall notice affects
consumer opinions for an average of 6 months
from the date of the first public mention.

10. Key takeaway from analysis
1. Recalls appear to have moderate effects on consumer perceptions of quality and desirability,
and generally produce a negative feedback lifecycle that has week over week positive growth for
6 weeks before leveling out. If GM experiences a recall that produces negative sentiment or awareness
outside of this range action should be taken. This benchmark should be used to track success of any
effort to reduce the negative sentiment trend.
2. Awareness of the GM recall among consumers in the market for a new vehicle was relatively high, with between
50% and 60% of automotive consumers stating they were aware of the recalls. Determine the average time people
spend in the market for a new vehicle. If that number is less than 6 months specific ‘crisis’ campaigns should be
created to target this segment during a recall period.
3. Consumers shopping in the luxury vehicle segments were more aware of brand recalls. This was likely due to the
fact that these consumers place a premium on quality and safety. Appealing to this specific segment with targeted
material online during a recall period should be a priority to help mitigate any brand equity loss.
4. While lasting upward trends seemed to settle after six weeks on the recall timelines, the overall impact on
consumer opinion lasts around 6 months and could have measurable effects on brand affinity. If GM experiences a
recall the lasts outside of this range they should increase efforts to reduce impact.