Chipotle aired its first national television commercial during Sunday night’s Grammy Awards on CBS. The animated ad took an entire year to produce and didn’t involve an advertising agency. The ad, more like a short film, features puppet-like characters depicting a farmer who turns to industrial methods, only to think again and return to his earth- and animal-friendly methods. The spot’s goal was to make more consumers aware of Chipotle’s commitment to sustainable farming.

We used Social Radar to analyze conversations around Chipotle online.

Chipotle buzz

Chipotle mentions spiked more than 300% over the weekend. We analyzed our database back to 2008, and found that Chipotle chatter is currently at its highest point. Chipotle was also recently named one of Fast Company’s 50 most innovative companies.

Chipotle conversation sentiment

Conversations around Chipotle are currently 69% positive. The terms Grammys, Coldplay or commercial appear in 15% of Chipotle mentions. The spot is set to a Willie Nelson cover of Coldplay’s “The Scientist.”

Matthew Yglasias for Slate recently compared Chipotle to Apple, saying that Chipotle’s CEO Steve Ells is revolutionizing fast food in the same way that Steve Jobs transformed personal electronics. Do you agree?

Charlie Sheen has been everywhere the past few weeks: TV, Twitter, UStream. Sheen broke the Guinness World Record by amassing one million twitter followers in just over 24 hours. DJs are remixing songs with Sheen quotes. Internet junkies are calling his ‘#winning’ catchphrase the new ‘FTW’ (for the win).

Regardless of whether you love him, hate him, or feel sorry for him, Sheen seems to be the hottest brand in America.

Sheen vs. CBS buzz

Although Sheen was recently fired from his hit CBS show Two and a Half Men, he is currently generating 7x more buzz than his former network CBS.

Is the old adage ‘there’s no such thing as bad press’ true for Sheen? Can he monetize America’s obsession with him through endorsements or reality show deals? Or will he soon fade into obscurity?

The September 2009 Social Radar Top 50 measures the brands with the most active Web presence based on overall online conversation volume. To create the Top 50 list, we used Social Radar to analyze millions of blog posts, news feeds, forums, social networks and Twitter posts to aggregate a list of the words and brands mentioned most frequently on the Web during September 2009. The list measures the number of unique individuals or sources that posted content about each brand during September 2009 rather than the overall number of mentions, which would be more heavily influenced by big fans who post frequently about a specific brand.

Twitter falls a bit, but still takes top spot. LG’s new BL20 Chocolate helped LG jump 11 spots. NFL rises again this month as the NFL season heats up. MTV jumps 13 spots due to buzz around the MTV Video Music awards. AT&T’s announcement of MMS support on the iPhone raised AT&T’s position up 5 spots.

View the full list below, or download the PDF. For additional information about how you can analyze chatter sentiment to gauge positivity/negativity, view key words mentioned about your brand and identify key influencers, visit www.infegy.com/socialradar.

Questions or comments? Twitter me @adamcoomes.

Nielsen ratings have long been the measure of TV success. For the week ending March 22, ABC, CBS and Fox dominated the Nielsen top 20. Not a single NBC or CW show made the list. But does that tell the whole story? Thanks to websites like hulu, viewers are consuming information online in demand.

We measured web chatter for the Nielsen top 20 during the same week, and added several popular NBC and CW shows to our research as well. The results were surprising. Half of our top 10 is comprised of shows on NBC or CW.

1. American Idol (Fox)
2. Gossip Girl (CW)
3. Saturday Night Live (NBC)
4. Dancing with the Stars (ABC)
5. Desparate Housewives (ABC)
6. Grey’s Anatomy (ABC)
7. Heroes (NBC)
8. 60 Minutes (CBS)
9. The Office (NBC)
10. 30 Rock (NBC)