In our regular monthly league table of online coverage of top brands, Disney moves into the top five, thanks largely to its pre-Christmas DVD release of Toy Story 3 and the imminent release of the movie Tangled. Not only has Disney made it into the top table of brands being talked about, but it also gained the highest percentage of positive coverage (53 per cent of reports were favourable) and none of its coverage was negative. For example, in one article at thewrap.com on 24 November, Disney is praised for its focus on female lead characters: “Disney’s new animated movie Tangled, the updated version of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale Rapunzel, has hit theatres, and my three-year-old daughter couldn’t be more excited.”

The PR League November

Google continues to be the UK brand talked about most in online news. Google's main coverage last month concerned the Android phone alongside stories of the search engine being victim to hackers. Privacy was still an issue, for example bbc.co.uk reported on 19 November: “The UK's information commissioner has said that wi-fi data accidentally collected by Google's Street View cars will be deleted ‘as soon as possible‘“. Google also featured in the extensive press coverage surrounding the Wikileaks story (which broke on 28 November).

Tonality Assessment

Coverage of the other brands:

Apple – news included a recent survey suggesting that one in three children would like an iPad for Christmas. The iPad also gained coverage as it is soon to be launched by Orange and T-Mobile, at lower prices than those offered by the current agent O2.

Microsoft – The launch of Microsoft's Kinect add-on for the Xbox 360 generated a large volume of coverage early in the month, from editorials to reviews. Microsoft was also in the news after the launch of the game Call Of Duty: Black Ops. In other Microsoft articles, the Windows 7 phone was mentioned, and these stories sometimes converged with iPhone news.

Mercedes – coverage was dominated by the end of the Formula One season. Mercedes also received mentions in UK news when a dying man was found in a white Mercedes Sprinter van.

Methodology

PRmoment asked Echo Sonar to look at all UK online media coverage of the 20 top global brands as identified by Interbrand. Echo Sonar further analysed coverage of the five brands which had most coverage from 1 November to 29 November 2010, looking at volume and tonality.