Brand wars in cyberspace: a GIS solution

In the first sight, it seems to be obvious that Nike, the well-known US sports equipment company, is predominant in Great Britain; however, the European (German) giant, Adidas also happens to be very popular in the country. The duel between the global first and second sportswear companies can be traced back to not just their sales numbers in a bid to gain larger market share, but also to soft factors, such as reputation. The only problem is that reputation can be at best measured by well-organized questionnaire data of population samples, which are sometimes difficult to administer. However, this issue can be also solved by capturing the presence of indirect knowledge about the brands, for example, from the geographically localizable content of cyberspace. The indirect application of digital footprints in scientific analyses has notable examples, in which the conclusions are based on the examination of digital data that have been generated as by-products of socio-economic phenomena.