NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - March 21, 2017) - In a new, first of its kind analysis of combined offline and online consumer conversations, Engagement Labs released its first ever TotalSocial™ rankings on the top performing food brands in the U.S. and identified Kellogg's and Hershey's as the leading food brands in consumer engagement.

The rankings of the top U.S. food brands are based on Engagement Labs' proprietary TotalSocial data, which measures the most important drivers of brand performance in the only continuous measurement of social media and word of mouth conversations.

Based on the TotalSocial data, the food category as a whole performs equally offline (face-to-face conversations) and online (social media mentions). However, there is room for performance improvement on both fronts.

The number one food brand on TotalSocial, Kellogg's, also boasts the strongest offline score, meaning the brand has been successful in driving face-to-face conversations when compared amongst its category peers. Its strong offline score can be attributed to its unique and buzz-worthy campaigns, such as the recent transformation of its New York eatery into a Pop-Tarts Cafe which offered customers a unique dining experience with new and creative ways to customize a Pop-Tart.

On the other hand, when it comes to online scores, Kellogg's falls short while Betty Crocker takes the top spot in the rankings. Betty Crocker is a brand that performs better online than it does offline, with particularly high online sentiment, brand sharing and influence scores. These scores indicate that Betty Crocker is posting relevant, shareable content online that is gaining traction among its key influencers.

"When conducting our research, we examined each brand's individual strengths and weaknesses, and found that many food brands are what we call 'Whisper Brands.' This means they perform below average, both online and offline, as compared to our full list of 500 brands. However, there are three brands that successfully pushed the limits -- Kellogg's, General Mills and Hershey's -- as 'Conversation Commanders' which perform above average both online and offline," said Ed Keller, CEO of Engagement Labs. "These three brands each provide a unique blueprint for how food brands can succeed in leveraging social influence to drive results. Online and offline work in tandem with one another, and our data proves that, in order to drive business results, brands cannot solely rely on one over the other."

Keller continued, "For example, we found that Quaker Oats performs substantially better offline than online which is driven by a low online brand sharing score. While consumers are referencing Quaker Oats advertising and marketing in real-world conversations, they are not sharing the brand's content on social platforms. This suggests an opportunity for Quaker Oats to improve social media marketing to drive growth."

Opposite to Quaker Oats, Nestlé's digital investment is clearly paying off by driving above-average online volume, brand sharing and influence scores. However, its offline conversation volume is not keeping pace, which could be hindering its ability to fully capitalize on the power of social influence and moving up to the top of the TotalSocial leaderboard. Overall, the food category is categorized by high sentiment scores both online and offline. In terms of online sentiment, Dole takes the lead. Interestingly, Pillsbury is the stand-out leader for offline sentiment as it not only ranks first in the food category but the brand also ranks second out of all 500 TotalSocial brands.

To learn more about brands that buck their category trend and enjoy the financial benefits of leading in consumer conversations, download Engagement Labs' latest e-book, Lessons from the Leaders of Social Influence here.

To learn more about Engagement Labs or TotalSocial insights and how to increase your brand's word of mouth in real life and online, reach out at: [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 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. The patent pending TotalSocial data solution provides brands with unique insights and powerful analytics to understand online and offline social impact and drive business results. TotalSocial demonstrates to marketers how their online and offline conversation compare and contrast and helps identify areas of competitive opportunity or significant emerging threats. TotalSocial is an "always-on" proprietary scoring system, based on the most important drivers of brand performance: Volume, Sentiment, Brand Sharing and Influence. TotalSocial was 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 and tracks 500 brands within the U.S. across 17 major industry categories, and 350 brands in the UK.

To learn more visit www.engagementlabs.com / www.totalsocial.com.

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