Casestudy: Product Development

Email: [email protected] | Tel: (+44) 7557 874 230 | Web: www.makesocialsense.com
Contact:

Grillstock
TM, BBQ Industry Report

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The Aim of This Report
SocialSense | www.makesocialsense.com | [email protected] Powered by Brandwatch | www.brandwatch.com
Background

•  Grillstock asked us to produce a simple, unbiased report analysing current trends in peoples’
interests and online conversaPons surrounding the UK BBQ industry.

•  The purpose of this analysis was to help Grillstock idenPfy what products customers may want
to see on the shelf, and/or how Grillstock should posiPon and diﬀerenPate their products to be
aligned with current consumer wants.

Report Outcome

•  Grillstock have used our analysis in the development of their new sauces. Currently under
experimentaDon are a new sauce aimed at the home sandwich market, and a new sauce for
the takeaway market with an alcohol-‐based theme.
•  Based oﬀ our analysis, Grillstock have pivoted away from focusing exclusively on pulled pork,
and are exploring various BBQ chicken recipes in their new restaurant.
•  Our analysis of trends in fashions over Dme has led Grillstock to experiment various BBQ-‐
themed snacks and take-‐away side orders.
(We are unable to disclose further details out of respect for Grillstock’s privacy)

•  Grillstock have incorporated our analysis of the USA’s commercialisaDon of social media in the
BBQ industry into their own online markeDng strategies. New techniques have been launched
to encourage customer loyalty, and raise online publicity surrounding the brand.
(We are unable to disclose further details out of respect for Grillstock’s privacy)

In order to respect Grillstock’s privacy, certain conclusions and sec6ons of the report have been omi;ed. This
sample report is for illustra6ve purposes of our work and ability only.
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Data & Methodology
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
1.1.12 1.3.12 1.5.12 1.7.12 1.9.12 1.11.12 1.1.13 1.3.13
53,997 menPons
Related to BBQs, 01-‐Jan to 31-‐Mar 2013
9,371
MENTIONS
BBQ Meats
6,473
MENTIONS
Branded Sauces
13,394
MENTIONS
Sauces
Current Period
01-‐Mar – 31-‐Mar
•  We analysed peoples’ interests within the UK BBQ industry for the recent period of 1-‐Jan to 31-‐
Mar 2013, and invesPgated how interests trended over Pme for the period 1-‐Jan-‐’12 to 31-‐Mar’13.
•  We further conducted a deeper analysis into consumers’ interests and discussions regarding BBQ
sauces, the single most spoken about topic.
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ExecuDve Summary
•  BBQ flavours and sauces were the most spoken about topics. There were more posts from
people using BBQ sauces on fast food, sandwiches and their breakfast than there were menPons
of people having pit barbecues.

•  BBQ sauces were predominantly used with fast food (especially chips and chicken nuggets),
followed by fried breakfasts (eggs, bacon, sausages), and home-‐made sandwiches.

•  Sauces were referred to by their brand, not their flavour. Any flavour menPons were within
brand context, e.g. HP’s Classic Woodsmoke BBQ Flavour. Outside of branded menPons BBQ
sauce was leb unbranded simply as ‘BBQ sauce’, e.g. BBQ flavoured sauce on McDonald’s chips –
there was no discussion of unbranded sauces having different flavours.

•  Alcohol associated BBQ sauces are becoming fashionable. 40% of the voice surrounding branded
BBQ sauces was about Jack Daniels and Budweiser BBQ sauces. Restaurants that offered these
sauces received publicity; TGI Friday’s was repeatedly menPoned for offering Jack Daniels BBQ
Sauce.
•  Comments about the taste of these alcohol sauces were very mixed. Approximately 2/3 of the
comments were posiPve, 1/3 negaPve.

•  HP BBQ Sauce was the single most spoken about branded sauce, with “Classic Woodsmoke”
being the most popular flavour. MenPons for HP and Heinz BBQ sauces suggested incredibly
strong brand loyalty.

•  53% of all meat discussion was about chicken, and a further 24% was about pork. Turkey, lamb
and sausages received few menPons.

•  Cooking method menPons differed by meat. The most discussed ways to serve barbecued
chicken were served with rice, served wrapped in bacon, and served with chips. Pork and beef
cooking discussions resembled a more American BBQ style, with pulled pork, shoulder pork and
beef brisket slow cooking being the favourite styles.

•  Mixing Coca-‐Cola with pulled pork is a new trending recipe.
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Contents
Current BBQ Discussion 5

•  BBQ Sauce 7

•  BBQ Meats 8
•  Other 10
Historical PerspecDve 11

•  Current Interests Over Time 12

•  Seasonal Trends 13

•  Special Events 14

BBQ Sauces 16

•  HP & Heinz 17

•  Jack Daniels & Budweiser 19

•  Nandos & Reggae Reggae 21

BBQ in the USA 23

Contact Us 26

4

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Current BBQ
Discussion

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Current BBQ Discussion
•  BBQ ﬂavours and sauces received the majority of anenPon. There were more posts from people
using BBQ sauces on fast food, sandwiches and their breakfast than there were menDons of
people having pit barbecues.

•  Our search found 53,997 results relevant to the UK BBQ industry for the recent quarter; 1-‐Jan to
31-‐Mar 2013.
•  The following topic groups received the greatest amount of online anenPon:
BBQ Flavour,
Sauces
13,394 menPons
BBQ
Chicken
4,967 menPons
BBQ
Pringles
787 menPons
BBQ Area,
Holiday Home
379 menPons
Tesco
Burgers
918 menPons
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BBQ Sauce

•  BBQ Sauce was the single most spoken about topic.
•  People predominantly menDoned they were using BBQ flavoured sauces with fast food
(especially chips and chicken nuggets), followed by fried breakfasts (eggs, bacon, sausages),
and home-‐made sandwiches. There was linle culture of people having American style barbecued
pork and ribs (with or without sauce) at home.

•  Sauces aimed at home sandwich and breakfast use were consequently the most popular. HP
BBQ flavoured sauce was the single most menPoned, with 30% of branded sauce voice.
•  The emphasis was on brand. BBQ sauces were referred to by their brand, not their flavour. Any
flavour menPons were within brand context, e.g. HP’s Classic Woodsmoke BBQ Flavour. Outside
of branded menPons BBQ sauce was leb unbranded simply as ‘BBQ sauce’, e.g. BBQ flavoured
sauce on McDonald’s chips – there was no discussion of unbranded sauces having different
flavours.

•  40% of the voice surrounding branded BBQ sauces was about Jack Daniels and Budweiser BBQ
sauces. BBQ Sauces containing alcohol are the new fashion. People posted their enthusiasm
upon discovering these sauces exist, and restaurants that offered alcohol associated sauces
received publicity.

Current BBQ Discussion
28-‐Jun-‐10 28-‐Oct-‐10 28-‐Feb-‐11 30-‐Jun-‐11 31-‐Oct-‐11 29-‐Feb-‐12 30-‐Jun-‐12 31-‐Oct-‐12 28-‐Feb-‐13
Jack Daniels
Budweiser
Jack Daniels and Budweiser menPons over Pme
Nr. MenPons
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BBQ Meats

•  53% of all meat discussion was about chicken. Approximately half of chicken menPons came
from people preparing food at home, and half were from people talking about fast food; mostly
chicken nuggets. Discussion surrounding the other meats was predominantly centred around
home cooking. There was no indicaDon of BBQ restaurant culture.

•  Cooking method discussions diﬀered by meat. The most spoken about ways to serve barbecued
chicken were:
-‐ served with rice
-‐ served wrapped in bacon
-‐ served with chips
Whole barbecued chicken, chicken wings and drumsPcks were equally menPoned.

Pork and beef cooking discussions resembled a more American BBQ style. Pulled pork, shoulder
pork and beef brisket slow cooking were the most menPoned styles. Mixing Coca-‐Cola with
pulled pork was a popular new trending recipe.
53%
11%
24%
4%
2% 6%
Chicken Beef Pork Sausages Turkey Lamb
9,371
MENTIONS
BBQ Meats

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•  Turkey, lamb and sausages received few menPons.
•  Most of the content for lamb consisted of blogs and forums promoDng lamb as an alternaDve
BBQ food. The most popular recipes were lamb chops and barbecued kebabs. Some of the
promoPng websites were popular, e.g. www.them-‐apples.co.uk which received 4515 backlinks.

Indian lamb kebabs
These skewers of lamb are perfect for the barbecue and make a good
alterna6ve to the normal barbecue standards of burnt sausages and
undercooked chicken. They’re easy to make, and cook in just a few
minutes. It’s be;er if the lamb is cooked slightly pink. The ﬂavourings
here are most deﬁnitely Indian, a heady mix of chili, garlic...

www.them-‐apples.co.uk

•  Tesco burgers came up as a topic due to Tesco receiving criPcism for its horse meat scandal. There
was linle construcPve informaPon in these posts regarding customers’ purchasing interests.

•  Forums played a key role in online meat discussions. People mainly discussed inexpensive places
to buy quality food, and BBQ recipes; in that order. Recipe discussions focusing on which side
orders to serve with meats were the most viewed.

11%
6%
31%
< 1%
34%
3%
11%
1%

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Other

•  There were numerous results from various travel agent websites; agents adverPsing a BBQ area
as part of a holiday home package. These results were however from professional websites; this
was not a topic that Grillstock’s target customers spoke about.

•  The two most acDve forums for BBQ meat discussions were Yahoo Answers and Money
Supermarket. We recommend monitoring these for the latest meat trends.

www.answers.yahoo.com

Site Visitors: 410,000,000 per month
Backlinks: 755,736

www.forums.moneysavingexpert.com

Site Visitors: 6,000,000 per month
Backlinks: 5371

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Historical
PerspecPve

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Historical PerspecDve
•  We analysed trends over Pme in people’s interests and fashions within the UK BBQ industry. To
compliment our earlier analysis of Q1 2013, our period of study covers 01-‐Jan-‐2012 to 31-‐
Dec-‐2012.
•  We focused on 3 areas:

(i) How did people’s current discussion interests (between 01-‐Jan-‐2013 to 31-‐Mar-‐2013)
hold over the past year? Are these sustained interests?

(ii) Seasonal trends over the year.

(iii) Special events. Do barbecues form part of the public holiday culture?

(i) Current Interests Over Time

0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
27-‐Dec-‐10 27-‐Mar-‐11 27-‐Jun-‐11 27-‐Sep-‐11 27-‐Dec-‐11 27-‐Mar-‐12 27-‐Jun-‐12 27-‐Sep-‐12 27-‐Dec-‐12
% Chicken % Pork % Beef % Sausages %Turkey % Lamb
%
% of Meat MenPons
•  For the period Jan 2011 – Mar 2013, there were no signiﬁcant changes in the proporDon of
discussions surrounding each meat.

•  Chicken remained by far the most discussed, comprising 40% -‐ 60% of all menPons. Pork was the
second most discussed, with 15% -‐ 30% of total voice.

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(ii) Seasonal Trends


1 Jan

1 Feb

1 Mar

1 Apr

1 May

1 Jun

1 Jul

1 Aug

1 Sep

1 Oct

1 Nov

1 Dec

1 Jan

1 Feb

VIDEOS TWITTER NEWS IMAGES GENERAL SITES FORUMS BLOG
1-‐Jan – 31-‐Mar
Q1
1-‐Apr – 30-‐Jun
Q2
1-‐Jul – 30-‐Sep
Q3
1-‐Oct – 31-‐Dec
Q4
Current Period
•  To form an understanding of seasonal panerns in consumer interests in the BBQ industry, we
have provided a brief overview analysis for each individual quarter.

45,576
MenPons

88,478
MenPons

75,331
MenPons

39,891
MenPons
In order to respect Grillstock’s privacy, the following secDon has been
omiced: pages … -‐ …
This sample report is for illustraDve purposes of our work and ability only.
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1 Jan

1 Feb

1 Mar

1 Apr

1 May

1 Jun

1 Jul

1 Aug

1 Sep

1 Oct

1 Nov

1 Dec

1 Jan

1 Feb

VIDEOS TWITTER NEWS IMAGES GENERAL SITES FORUMS BLOG
BANK HOLIDAY DATE PERIOD ANALYSED NR. MENTIONS ANALYSED
Easter 6-‐Apr to 9-‐Apr 3-‐Apr to 12-‐Apr 10,165
Early May Bank Holiday 7-‐May 4-‐May to 10-‐May 7,255
Spring Bank Holiday 4-‐Jun 1-‐Jun to 7-‐Jun 11,042
Bacle of the Boyne (N. Ireland) 12-‐Jul 9-‐Jul to 15-‐Jul 6,196
Summer Bank Holiday (Scotland)
6-‐Aug 3-‐Aug to 9-‐Aug 6,487
Summer Bank Holiday (England & Wales)
27-‐Aug 24-‐Aug to 30-‐Aug 5,161
St. Andrew’s Day (Scotland)
30-‐Nov 27-‐Nov to 3-‐Dec 3,024
7 -‐ May
4 -‐ Jun
12 -‐ Jul
6 -‐ Aug
27 -‐ Aug
30 -‐ Nov
6 -‐ 9 Apr
(iii) Special Events

•  We analysed BBQ menPons surrounding
(i) Bank holidays

(ii) Special events in 2012; The Diamond Jubilee and The London Olympics

27th July – 12th Aug
London Olympics
5th June
Diamond Jubilee Extended Weekend
BANK HOLIDAYS:
Bank Holiday details:
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•  For each Bank Holiday, we analysed the 7-‐day period covering 3 days before and 3 days aber the
holiday date.

•  Our analysis data surrounding the Diamond Jubilee and the London Olympics was based on the
following volume of menPons:

Diamond
Jubilee
13,280 menPons
London
Olympics
36,180 menPons
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BBQ Sauces

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BBQ Sauces
•  We conducted a deeper examinaPon into BBQ Sauce menPons, the most spoken about topic.

•  People spoke about sauces by their brand name rather than by their unique ﬂavour; each sauce
seemed to have its own ‘niche’. We invesPgated the online discussions surrounding the various
sauces on the market.

HP & Heinz
•  All the menPons came from people using these sauces with their cooking at home, or takeaways
they have brought back home. HP and Heinz BBQ sauces were associated with adding BBQ
ﬂavour to sandwiches, or being used as a dips for wraps and sausage rolls.

30 %
11 %
11 %
8 %
29 %
11 %
HP Reggae Reggae Nandos Heinz Jack Daniels Budweiser
6,473
MENTIONS
Branded Sauces
e.g.
17

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•  The menDons for both HP and Heinz BBQ sauces suggested incredibly strong brand loyalty. HP
was furthermore the most spoken about sauce. People praised HP for its disPncPve taste, with
some even commenPng that a cheaper alternaPve would be out of the quesPon. This was
however for home kitchen use; there was no evidence of people choosing these sauces at
restaurants.

•  Heinz BBQ sauce was menPoned in a very similar context to HP, though received fewer
menPons.

•  For HP Sauce, “Classic Woodsmoke” was the predominantly praised ﬂavour. “BBQ Honey” was
the second most menPoned.

BBQ Sauces
e.g.
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BBQ Sauces
Jack Daniels & Budweiser

•  There is no doubt that the popularity of these two sauces came from their associaDon with
large alcohol brands. Licle was said about what they actually taste like. Most comments came
from people expressing their excitement and enthusiasm that they have discovered these sauces
exists, or from people announcing that they have just tried one for the ﬁrst Pme.

•  There was a trend for people to mix the HP and Heinz sauces together with other sauces. We
did not observe this for any of the other BBQ sauces we analysed. Popular mixers were ketchup
and unspeciﬁed brand “BBQ sauce”.
•  Posts for HP and Heinz were very posiPve. A handful of people however complained about the
design of the tradiPonal bonle; how the sauce comes out all at once in large chunks.
e.g.
e.g.
e.g.
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BBQ Sauces

•  The results indicate that these sauces are a novelty, and their alcohol associaDon presents an
interesDng concept to customers. These sauces were not household names, unlike HP and
Heinz.
•  Comments about the taste of these sauces were very mixed. Approximately 2/3 of the
comments were posiPve, 1/3 negaPve.

PosiPve:
66 %
NegaPve:
33 %
e.g.
20

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BBQ Sauces

•  Restaurants that offered these sauces received acenDon. People were excited about the idea
of trying food with a branded alcohol sauce. TGI Friday’s was repeatedly menPoned for offering
Jack Daniels BBQ Sauce.

e.g.
Nandos & Reggae Reggae

•  Nandos and Reggae Reggae both received praise from loyal customers for their sharp, disPncPve
flavours. Both sauces were used for home cooking, however these sauces received far less
anenPon than HP or Heinz.

e.g.
21

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BBQ Sauces

•  The majority of comments suggested people use these more niche, upmarket sauces alongside
more tradiDonal cooking, rather than to add BBQ ﬂavour to their fast food and sandwiches as
with Heinz and HP BBQ sauces. The most common forms of food menPoned were chicken, fried
breakfast, and crisps.

•  As stated above, there was a trend of people using both of these sauces with crisps, especially
Pringles and Doritos.

•  Nearly all comments were posiPve. A few people trying these sauces for the ﬁrst Pme however
commented that they are much honer than they were expecPng.

e.g.
e.g.
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BBQ in the USA

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BBQ in the USA
•  We analysed BBQ related online posts and discussions in the USA for the recent period 01-‐Jan
to 31-‐Mar 2013. We focused on idenDfying lessons from the USA’s more developed BBQ
industry that could bring immediate commercial value to a UK company.

•  Our results show the USA’s barbecue industry has commercialised the use of social media to
engage customers on a much deeper scale than in the UK.
•  Automated messages and menPon volumes from sources such as Foursquare check ins,
compePPons and offers dwarf out individual topics and consumer generated forums.

•  Foursquare check ins generated a greater number of menDons than any other topic, with
people checking into BBQ restaurants, or achieving and/or commenPng on their BBQ “Porky
Badge”. Every Pme someone achieves a higher Porky Badge level, the following automated
message was posted:
“I just unlocked the “Porky” badge on @foursquare for checking in to barbecue spots! Brisket all
around!”

Foursquare’s Porky Badge

The Porky Badge is a collecPble profile badge on Foursquare, where users
progress onto higher levels by checking into more venues via Foursquare.

To level up users need to check into the same BBQ venue 5 Pmes, or check in at
3 different BBQ venues.

24

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Email: [email protected]

Web: www.makesocialsense.com

Tel: (+44) 7557 874 230

Contact:
The information in this document has been checked for accuracy and completeness, however SocialSense shall
not be liable for any errors or omissions.
The views and opinions expressed in this presentation are those of the authors in their private capacity, and do not
represent the views of Heron’s other brands.
26

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Casestudy: Product Development

Casestudy: Product Development

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