Brand Crisis-Sentiment Analysis of User-Generated Comments About @Maggi on Facebook

Abstract

This paper examines the brand crisis faced by Maggi, Nestle’s brand of instant noodles in India, and analyzes the extent to which a health-related crisis can impact consumer response on social media (Facebook) for a strong and trusted brand. The sentiment analysis of the consumer comments and posts was done using Lexalytics and brand associations were ascertained through generation of word clouds. It was found that the impact of negative consumer sentiments on net polarity score during the crisis was mitigated to a significant extent by high positive valence of counterarguments put forth by committed consumers. Today, social media has emerged as a major platform for brand crisis and reputation management and this paper contributes to literature, by proposing a conceptual model based on consumer sentiment in response to corporate communication by the affected brand and its key competitor on social media, both during and post the brand crisis. The findings and implications of this research can help brand managers formulate their social media strategy for effective crisis management.