I Spy with My BrandsEye: Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto- The battle continues

Last week on I Spy: two young men battled it out for the title of King of the Starship Enterprise. Chris Pine (right) came out tops, with hoards of young girls ogling over his beautiful blue eyes. This week we will look at how Zachary (left) can gain an upper hand over Chris. We will also take a look at what the true Trekkies are saying about this fierce battle.

Last week turned out a massive 1038 mentions for the phrases “Chris Pine” +“Star Trek” and “Zachary Qunito” +“Star Trek”. Over the last week 2224 new mentions poured in, showing that this topic is not going to slow down any time soon! Let’s look at what these new mentions revealed.

The origin of the mentions:

The amount of mentions coming from consumer generated media increased from 88.28% to 92.05%. This means that even less mentions are coming from Press and Enterprise with Press mentions decreasing from 1.47% to 1.32% and Enterprise mentions decreasing from 10.29% to 6.62%. It seems that the Press still have not recognised the immense buzz around this topical story. Enterprise sites have also failed to see the value in using topical stories to create conversation on their sites.

Let’s break down this big 92.05% chunk of consumer mentions to more digestible bites. The majority of the consumer mentions (62.6%) are still coming from Twitter with the rest coming from Livejournal posts(17.3%), Blogspot hosted blogs(7.9%), Wordpress hosted blogs (2.2%), Backtype discussions(1.4%) and other blogging platforms (8.6%). Compared to last week, the number of mentions coming from Twitter and Livejournal have increased. As mentioned last week this topic is one of personal taste, which explains why these two platforms seem to be used the most.

What are the mentions saying?

This week we promised you a look at how Zachary could yield an upper hand over Chris. To do this we are going to look first at the negative mentions and then at the positive mentions.

Only 5.3% of the mentions were rated with -1 Downplay or less. However few, these negative mentions can reveal some important insights.

Unlike last week, this week’s negative mentions were mainly directed towards Zachary. An example would be this extract from a Livejournal post:  “The real letdown is Zachary Quinto, whose overhyped performance is just plain bad.”  However there were still more negative mentions overall for Chris.

Unfortunately you can’t win them all, and one has to look at the good with the bad. Despite his negative mentions Chris has received more positive mentions than Zach. Generally these positive mentions all say the same thing; “i love chris pine!!!!he is so sexy in star trek!!”

Regardless of receiving fewer positive mentions, Zach’s mentions generally praise his acting rather than his looks. This extract from a Livejournal post is an example of a typical positive mention for Zach: “I thought Zachary Quinto made an awesome and amazing Spock. I was really impressed with him.”

How can this information be used?

It is clear that Chris has a younger, female following. The type of movies that he would do well in would be ones aimed at this group.  Zachary on the other hand is appreciated for more than just his brooding dark looks. He is a fine actor and should choose to act in movies that have an older target audience. Each actor can be appreciated in their own right, but maybe not in similar genres. Zach should continue to build his fan base by continuing to impress. It shouldn’t be long before he over takes Chris.
 

The culmination of two weeks of tracking: the final reputation scores

If any of you are slightly confused as to who is the king, this might help to sort it out. The graph below is a summary graph of two weeks of tracking Chris and Zach. It shows the number of mentions received for each actor on the left axis and the sentiment rating on the right axis.

 
This graph clearly illustrated what an even battle it has been. It also shows that Chris has consistently received more mentions than Zach, especially in the last week. The final reputation score for Chris after two weeks of tracking is 2.30 (out of a possible 5). Zach’s score sits ever so slightly lower at 2.24. After such a tight battle, Chris clinched it in the final round. This was a battle of attrition rather than a clear knockout.

And what about the Trekkies?

Only one rated mention  was clearly from a hard-core Trekkie fan. This post was generally positive about the film and the author was particularly complimentary towards Chris while Zachary was not even mentioned. If any Trekkies are reading this, let us know what you think. Are you a fan of Chris or Zach or both?

Next Week on I Spy:

I could track these two young men forever, but alas this is our final week with Zach and Chris. Next week, we have decided to take a more corporate approach and will be tracking Apple and their recent debacle with the Eucalyptus iPhone application.  Is Apple’s devoted following starting to waver?  We will look into how Apple’s reputation has been affected by their rejection of the Eucalyptus application and see what kind of pressures from the community forced them to change their mind. 

Ps:

Susan Boyle performed on the 24th May, two days ago, in the semi-final of Britain’s Got Talent.  An enormous 13.6 Million people watched her sing on live television, and the YouTube clip has received over 1 million views since it was uploaded just 2 days ago. You can literally watch the views increasing by the minute. So for old times sake we thought we would let you know how Susan is doing, and from the looks of it she is doing very well!