Part
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Part
01
Digital Media Impressions: Children's Apparel Market
After an extensive search of company materials such as press releases and annual reports, third-party organizations and companies, and relevant market reports, we could not determine the number of earned print media impressions for the top children's apparel companies identified in the previous research (Carter's Inc., Hanesbrands Inc., Fruit of the Loom Inc., Gap Inc., and The Children's Place). However, we have provided a rough triangulation of the number of earned digital media placements for each company below, based on the approximate number of digital articles and Twitter posts made about each company within the last year. Our findings are below, followed by an explanation of our methodology.
Carter's Inc.
- Approximately 109 digital articles about Carter's Inc. were published within the last year.
- Approximately 45 Twitter posts regarding Carter's Inc. were made within the last year.
Hanesbrands Inc.
- Approximately 169 digital articles about Hanesbrands were published within the last year.
- Approximately 160 Twitter posts regarding Hanesbrands were made within the last year.
Fruit of the Loom
- Approximately 158 digital articles about Fruit of the Loom were published within the last year.
- Approximately 330 Twitter posts regarding Fruit of the Loom were made within the last year.
Gap Inc.
- Approximately 144 digital articles about Gap Inc. were published within the last year.
- Approximately 150 Twitter posts about Gap Inc. were made within the last year.
The Children's Place
- Approximately 135 digital articles about The Children's Place were published within the last year.
- Approximately 150 Twitter posts about The Children's Place were published with the last year.
Your research team employed the following strategy:
To determine the average number of digital media impressions and placements of earned media in the children's apparel vertical, we researched five top companies in the children's apparel vertical identified in previous research: Carter's Inc, Hanesbrands, Fruit of the Loom, Gap and The Children's Place. We first conducted a search of each of these companies' press releases, annual reports, and other investor relations materials. However, none provided data regarding the number of earned media placements they obtained in any given year, nor the number of impressions on earned media in any year. While companies may aggregate this data, it is possible that they have chosen to keep it private.
As a second approach, we conducted a search of relevant organizations and media outlets for data regarding these companies' earned media in digital media. This included companies and organizations that may conduct such research themselves, such as Deloitte and Nielsen, as well as advertising-focused media outlets that could report on such data, like AdAge. Again, no data was found, suggesting that no relevant research has been conducted; or, if it has, it has not been released to the public.
As a third approach, we attempted to triangulate an approximate number of earned media placements in digital media for each of these companies. First, we sought preexisting data, such as monthly impressions and placements for these companies, or industry averages, from relevant market reports. Again, no useful data was found.
Our next triangulation approach consisted of attempting to find all examples of earned digital media for each company within the last year. Upon beginning our research, we quickly realized that attempting to count all examples of digital media produced within the last year for each company would be outside the scope of a single Wonder brief, given that, in total across all forms of digital media (i.e., articles, videos, social media interactions, etc.), the amount of individual earned media pieces for each company likely totals in the hundreds or even in the thousands.
Nonetheless, we utilized the news database Google News to determine the approximate number of digital articles written about each company within the last month. While this site does not provide the total number of results, we simply multiplied the number of full result pages by 10 (the number of results per full page) and added the number of articles on the last page, which generally is not a full page. For example, a search of The Children's Place features 13 full results pages and 5 results on the final page; thus, the search produced 135 total results.
Additionally, to provide a social media analysis with our triangulation, we utilized Twitter's advanced search function, selecting only posts within the past year. We utilized Twitter because more comprehensive social media databases, such as Social Searcher, do not allow for a specific date range, nor do other individual social media sites, like Instagram. As such, we simply provided the number of Twitter posts within the past year.