Social Media Face Off: Ben & Jerry’s vs. Haagen-Dazs

Summer might be winding down, but it’s still the perfect time for ice cream. (Is there ever really a bad time?) To help you pick your cool-down treat, we’ve put two of the most recognizable brands of ice cream, Ben & Jerry’s and Häagen-Dazs, head-to-head in this week’s Social Media Face Off to see which brand is sweetest in social.

In order to compare the brands in social media, we set up search streams for each brand in the uberVU platform, including variations in spelling (e.g. “haagen dazs”, “häagen-dazs” and “haagen-dazs”; “ben & jerrys” and “ben and jerry’s”). We’ve compared the results from the past two weeks to determine our winner.

Get your spoons ready. Let’s see which brand is making the best social sundae.

Round One: Mentions

Ben & Jerry’s takes round one with 46,601 mentions, doubling the 21,292 mentions of Häagen-Dazs. As you can see in the line graph, Ben & Jerry’s hit a spike on August 11th so we dug a little deeper to find out why. The below tweet by UberFacts about the ice cream brand’s employees was the cause. Do you think Ben & Jerry’s shops also saw a surge in job applications?

Each employee at Ben & Jerry’s gets to take home 3 pints of ice cream a day.

— UberFacts (@UberFacts) August 11, 2013

Winner: Ben & Jerry’s

Round Two: Conversation Mapping

In round two we’ll take a closer look at what’s being said about each ice cream brand in social by comparing their conversation maps.

Both brands have similar conversation maps, with “ice cream” ranking first and featuring words like “love” and different flavors. Where they differ is with phrases that seem to be off brand, like “Bradley Cooper” and “Debuts Musical” which appear on the Häagen-Dazs map. Turns out there is a lot of buzz around the brand’s new commercial featuring the actor. And “Debuts Musical” refers to a new augmented reality iPhone app called the Concerto Timer. To use the app, users point their camera at the lid of a pint of of Häagen-Dazs to see a “virtual violin concerto.” Dessert and a show.

While both brands have positive conversation maps, we give this round to Häagen-Dazs for not only generating buzz about its product but other brand-building efforts as well.

Winner: Häagen-Dazs

Round Three: Engagement

A great way to establish which ice cream brand is best in social is to compare engagement. We’ve compared RTs and Likes to see which brand is driving the most engagement across Twitter and Facebook. And since both brands have shops throughout the country, we also decided to compare the number of Checkins.

Häagen-Dazs easily wins Checkins, but Ben & Jerry’s takes the win in round three by winning in both RTs and Likes.

Winner: Ben & Jerry’s

Overall Winner: Ben & Jerry’s

With wins in overall mentions and engagement we declare the winner of this Social Media Face Off to be Ben & Jerry’s: Vermont’s—and social’s—finest!

Want to see how your social stacks up against your biggest industry rival? Get a custom Social Media Face Off report!

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