THESIS DEFENSE Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of South Carolina Candidate: Surya Bhatt Advisor: Dr. Csilla Farkas Date: Tuesday, March 24, 2015 Time: 2:00pm Place: Swearingen (3A75) Abstract There’s a significant increase in online consumer forums. When customers set out to buy a product they have a preconceived idea about it. They mostly form the idea/expectation from print, audio/video advertisements, online reviews and word of mouth. There have been previous researches on how user generated content can be used to determine the market structure insights [Meeyoung Cha et. al. 2007]. The audio analysis is divided into two parts. One is linguistic research which focuses on the language and content of the input. The second one is paralinguistic which focuses on how words are spoken (prosodic effects). Our research focuses on comparing Brand positioning maps based on consumer reviews with and without linguistic audio analysis of advertisements and reviews. Our goal is to show that this hybrid approach helps us analyze the effectiveness of advertising on brand positioning maps. This approach shall also help us in making association graphs for a brand using words of perception/opinion flowing with that brand/product. Which may in turn assist companies in improving the focus of their advertisements in order to persuade the required set of crowd and drive the public perception.