TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - August 18, 2016) - Technology and data company Engagement Labs, creator of TotalSocial™, the world's first tool to combine in-depth social listening data with comprehensive offline conversation measurement, today released the TotalSocial rankings of the top performing apparel brands in the U.S.

In recent years the U.S. apparel industry has struggled to meet sales targets, which means that brands within the space must focus on marketing efforts to ensure they get a cut of consumer spend.

Based on TotalSocial data, the apparel industry is an above average performer in driving face-to-face conversations when compared to other industries. As two-thirds of sales impact comes from word of mouth conversation, the apparel industry is pulling many of the right marketing levers to drive offline word of mouth. However, the volume of offline sharing is not as strong as it could be for apparel, suggesting a need to improve on that dimension.

On the other hand, the apparel industry lags behind other industries significantly in its online social performance. This suggests an opportunity for apparel brands to improve social media marketing to drive growth. Particular areas for the industry to focus on are online volume, and especially online brand sharing: creating branded content on social pages that consumers find compelling and wish to share with others in their social network.

Top Ten TotalSocial™ Apparel Brands in the U.S.

Source: TotalSocial™ top ten performing apparel brands in the U.S. for the 12 months ending June 2016.

Top Ten TotalSocial™ Apparel Brands in the U.S. Based on Offline and Online Performance

Source: TotalSocial™ top ten performing offline/online apparel brands in the U.S. for the 12 months ending June 2016.

"TotalSocial rankings demonstrate the opportunity for a brand to improve upon online and offline performance in order to drive business results. As marketers, it can be difficult to understand what tactics are truly having an impact on your consumers," said Bryan Segal, CEO at Engagement Labs. "These two types of conversations, those happening online and face-to-face, are often very different. Therefore, having a TotalSocial understanding of your brand performance allows you to fully capitalize on the power of social influence."

Based on TotalSocial rankings, athleisure brands do particularly well in both the online and offline categories. In fact, five of the brands among the top ten fall into the athleisure category. Looking at Adidas and Nike specifically, both brands enjoy plenty of talk online and offline. Content for both brands is highly shared offline, but online the brands can improve the shareability of their content by creating content that encourages consumers to share with others. Adidas has a slight edge over Nike due to their particularly high engagement with influencers, both online and offline.

"TotalSocial measurement not only demonstrates brand strengths, but also identifies areas where brands can improve performance. For instance, American Eagle comes in seventh for overall TotalSocial score and ranks as the fourth highest apparel brand for offline conversation. However, the brand suffers from a low online score and thus should focus on marketing strategies that will amplify talkability and shareability on online channels by engaging more with online influencers," stated Segal.

The TotalSocial measurement solution uniquely shows marketers how their online conversations differ from offline conversation and helps identify areas of competitive opportunity or significant emerging threats. The TotalSocial measurement solution is based on a proprietary scoring system built on the pillars of Engagement Labs' patented social media measurement tool and the world's only offline word of mouth tracking system for brands. The TotalSocial score is based on the most important drivers of brand performance: Volume, Sentiment, Brand Sharing and Influence. As a tracking system that is "always on," momentum is built into each of the metrics. TotalSocial tracks 500 brands within the U.S. across 17 major industry categories, and 350 brands in the UK.

To learn more about the TotalSocial measurement solution visit www.totalsocial.com or contact [email protected]

About Engagement Labs

Engagement Labs (TSX VENTURE: EL) is the world's first TotalSocial™ company, offering intelligent data, analytics and insights for marketers. We are leaders in tracking, measuring and benchmarking the social impact of conversations happening around a brand and industry -- both online and offline. Consumer conversations are a proven driver of critical business outcomes, including sales. Engagement Labs' TotalSocial measurement solutions provides brands with unique data fuelled insights and powerful analytics to understand online and offline social impact and drive business results.

Engagement Labs has a suite of proprietary tools including, TotalSocial an industry first conversation mapping system for companies to understand online and offline social data in a single integrated score. eValue™ Analytics is the global benchmarking tool for social media scoring offering real-time analysis to measure a brand's social media performance. TalkTrack® is the only data system to measures the totality of word of mouth. Engagement Labs maintains offices in Canada - Toronto, ON and Montreal, QC, U.S. - New Brunswick, NJ,and UK - London. To learn more visit www.engagementlabs.com / www.kellerfay.com / www.totalsocial.com

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