Consumer Behaviour

I just bought a new printer.  It’s wireless.

Buying it was tricky.  The Amazon reviews of Wifi printers had alerted me to the fact that getting them set up wasn’t necessarily easy.  In the end I selected one that almost everyone said was easy to set up.

And it was, sort of.

I decided to reconfigure my network a bit, because the last addition to the Wifi set up was temperamental in that way I associate more with pet cats than digital devices.

In the end all was well and the printing thing happened from all machines.

Until it stopped happening.  The printer interface told me that it was looking for the printer… (grrrr) and then that the printer was off-line (bigger grrrr).

The manual had already presumed that I knew the difference between an infrastructure installation option and an ad-hoc one: I didn’t.  It offered no suggestions as to why a once on-line printer had taken a printer vacation.

The printer was sitting happily, lit up like a Christmas tree, giving no hint of being anything other than on, connected to the network and happy.  So I took a deep breath and called Samsung.

It didn’t go well.

After a moderate time spent navigating automated menus that instilled that fear of dread experience associates with painful experiences of the past that were similarly primed, I’m sure I’d heard at least three times that the call was going to be recorded.

Although, I’m guessing, the parts where I was swearing at the menus and messages about recording me were not recorded.

The Samsung representative was polite enough.  But clearly he had been tasked with taking my life history with a thoroughness that the National Health Service could benefit from adopting.  None of which was helping me.

His instructions to get the network settings from the printer didn’t work.

He then left me on hold for two minutes whilst he went off in search of greater wisdom.  He had taken my number, but didn’t offer to call me back.

Whilst he was gone I did the only sensible thing to do: I pushed all three of the buttons on the printer in different combinations and for different periods of time.  At some point I turned it on and off and this, it transpired, was what the printer had wanted all along.

My new remote printer will need turning on and off every time it goes into standby – a maximum of two hours that is set via a web interface the manual omitted to mention.

When the Samsung representative returned I told him what I’d done and he explained about the standby system and broke the news about the web interface.  He also asked me if I would complete a short questionnaire after the phone call.

Overall, I was happy that my printer now worked.  Unhappy that it needed manual stimulation to bring to life each day.  And unhappy that I’d had to spend fifteen minutes on the phone getting to the bottom of a basic issue that the manual should have explained.

Normally I wouldn’t answer a satisfaction questionnaire, it’s a waste of my time and the company’s (although they don’t realise it), but on this occasion I did.

I also rated everything as highly as possible.

Why?

I had discovered during the call that the chap I was speaking to was in Egypt.  In the greater scheme of things any issues I have with a printer designed in South Korea that now works in my comfortable English home as it was intended to do, pales into a pathetic irrelevance against the troubles experienced in that country.

Whilst this is an extreme example, it reflects the complex issues that sit behind any customer satisfaction questionnaire.  Ultimately, what frame of reference are people using when responding.  The way to deliver good customer satisfaction is to design a good customer service experience and then, as you constantly tell people you do, listen to a random sample of the recordings to gauge the quality of the exchange taking place.

Anyone following this approach would have known within the first ten seconds how irritated I was by the live-history-taking.

And if that recording technology had extended to the time I spent on the phone menus and listening to messages about my call being recorded they would have learned some good Anglo-Saxon words too.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves Uncategorized

One of the advantages of understanding how the process of asking people questions influences them is that you can have fun demonstrating its impact.

I was recently invited to speak to a local business group and took the opportunity to demonstrate the frailty of asking questions and the nature of the unconscious mind.

Whilst the samples were too small to be scientifically valid, the differences in responses to my fake research were both predictable and entertaining.

I set up a taste test using three very similar products: one was from a value range, one from the ‘standard’ range and one the premium offer.  Everyone was led to believe that they were taking part in legitimate market research and that they all had the same questions.

In fact there were five different questionnaires, all asking the participants to taste three products and answer some questions.

What was I able to demonstrate?

1. People will express a preference when given identical products to rate.
2. People’s taste preferences are influenced by branding.
3. People have no clue how much most products normally cost.
4. When asked to analyse aspects of a product (like sweetness and texture) people reach a different conclusion about which product is best (compared to when asked simply to select a favourite).

Philip Graves consumer behaviour, market research market research

One of the things I really enjoy about the calls I get from journalists is that they prompt me to consider new aspects of consumer issues.  This morning I was called by BBC Radio Bristol to talk about the rise of charity shops on UK high streets.

At the heart of the issue is the advantageous cost base that charity shops enjoy.  Not only do they receive heavily discounted business rates (80% discounts are mandatory), they also capitalise on difficult economic conditions by taking on retail premises at very low rents: the landlords must continue to pay business rates even if their premises are unoccupied, so they are under considerable pressure to find a retail tenant.

With their donated stock and volunteer staff, charity shops benefit from significantly lower running costs.

The issue is far from simple.

The very nature of ‘charity’ is highly emotive: few people would say charities are, in themselves, bad things or motivated by anything other than very worthy goals.

A high street with empty shops is not a good thing, so in filling such a space a charity is making the retail environment better for everyone.

Whether being next to a charity shop (or several) is good or bad won’t have one answer.  Some retailers will benefit from the extra traffic and framing of their store against a charity one.  Others may be undermined by this context, and be perceived as more expensive or more indulgent than when the psychological frame of a charity shop was not present.

At present the default advantage given to charity shops makes no allowance for how their presence or weight of numbers might impact the high street as a whole, but it would be relatively straight-forward for a team of behavioural economists to identify when their presence was for the greater (retail) good and when it would be better to say no.

However, there is another issue involved.

At present the UK itself is virtually a charity case.  The revenue generated from charity shops who charge no VAT on the sale of donated goods, who pay no tax on profits and who pay tiny business rates, is very small indeed.

In my view it would be far better to create a level playing field.  Have business rates linked to profitability to encourage more people to start retail businesses (not just charities).  One consequence of this would be to create a more level playing field between the supermarkets and high street stores, the former enjoy substantially lower business rates, proportionately.

A prosperous retail environment is vital to the economy and that is more likely to be obtained with diversity: not just in terms of charity and non-charity, but in terms of the psychological drives that people can satisfy there: yes, saving money is one, as is buying something to fulfil your sense of social belonging, but feeling great from the purchase of a designer shirt that satisfies your desire for status is another that is no less important in psychological terms to some people.

Subsidies always risk corrupting markets.  My view is that the commercial advantage charity shops enjoy is too great.  Particularly when you consider that we may all be paying the price for them for many years to come, in terms of their very limited contribution to the local economy (they are often not paying staff a wage) and the national economy.

As I mentioned, none of the above is intended to take-away from the role charities play in society.  But the balance is all important and other routes to charitable fund-raising don’t have the same long term cost to the economy.

For example, a charity concert has the capacity to boost the economy as a whole.

Where a charity shop is an asset to the shops around it, where the upside has been evaluated and is understood, then the incentives should exist.  But a charity shop isn’t always the answer and, by affording non-charity retailers similar opportunities the potential prize is arguably greater for society as a whole.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves behavioural insight charity shops, high street, retail

We live in a consumer age.  My own view is that consumerism is part of evolution.  I know that there are a few people out there who really hate how far it’s gone: I’m certainly not arguing that the consequences of being a consumer society are all good.  However, I don’t think we can turn back this particular tide.

Increasingly, what was once a case of consumer need (indeed, many marketers still talk in such terms – mistakenly, in my view) is now much more often a case of consumer desire: we meet our basic psychological desires by buying products.

These psychological desires that have served us so well in evolutionary terms, can now be satisfied from a trip to the shops: if you want status, buy a Rolex or an iPad; if you want power, buy a high performance car; if you want romance get a make-over and buy some new, attractive clothes; if you want to fit in with the crowd, buy the things your friends own.  And so it goes on.

With consumerism such a large part of what people do these days it sounds like having consumer interest groups to lobby for and protect consumer rights would be both necessary and good.  But I’m not so sure.

Recently the product testing and consumer campaigning charity Which? complained to the UK’s Office of Fair Trading about the fees that some travel companies (like Ryanair and EasyJet) charge when customers use their debit or credit card to pay for a flight.  The charges, they said, were significantly in excess of the actual cost to the company and were tagged on to the end of the purchase after lower prices had lured customers in.

Do I think this is a nice thing to do? Absolutely not.

Do I think it’s misguided of the companies that do it? Yes, I think they would be better to advertise as the honest, transparent (for which read ‘trustworthy’) travel company.  Brands are, after all, a guarantee of sorts.

Do I think this should be legislated against or reviewed by government departments? No.

Here’s the problem: the OFT say that consumers ended up spending an extra £300 million for their travel in 2009 as a direct result of these kinds of charges.  Given that the costs are negligible, that’s mostly profit for the companies involved.  But does anyone seriously think that these companies accept a hit on their bottom line as a result of the ruling and incur the wrath of investors when their profits are down at the end of the year?

Of course not.  Instead they will find a way to get that money out of customers in some other fashion: perhaps that will be more transparent, perhaps not.

And in the meantime, the Office of Fair Trading has carried out a very costly review of pricing practices, involving extensive consultancy with psychologists and market research firms, there will have been legal advice and lengthy reviews.

Add in that the companies being challenged will have to mount a defence (more legal costs) and make changes to their websites and advertising, and possibly pay fines too.

Who should we suppose ends up picking up the tab for every single one of these costs?  Of course, it’s the customer / tax payer.

Now, I’m all for the government protecting people from manipulative traders.  Those people who don’t reveal all the information about a product or service or who actively mislead customers; salespeople who put customers under huge pressure to buy something… these people should, in my view, face much stiffer charges than they currently do.

But adding in extra charges before someone confirms a purchase, provided that they see a clear final total, is an issue between the customer (who should, by rights, be feeling very aggrieved) and the brand that thinks this is an acceptable way to price their goods.

Now, everyone can play the ‘spot where they put the card fees’ game with their favourite low-cost airline, but don’t forget to check for the legal fees that will be in there somewhere too.  I’m not convinced this is in consumers’ best interests.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves Uncategorized consumer interest groups, OFT

It’s always interesting to see what ideas a web giant like Amazon is evaluating, particularly when the change is more than just a subtle adjustment.

At present they’re trying out a very different home page.

One thing Amazon does that is super-smart is split test.  They don’t rely on the vague irrelevancies of what customers tell them in market research to decide whether a change is worth making: they send customers to the new look at random and check to see what the impact is on behaviour (and particularly on conversion).  This means the evaluation isn’t done as an artificial conscious exercise, people don’t know they’re taking part in research: as a result the unconscious drivers of consumer actions are still ‘in-play’ and the artificial influence that comes from asking questions isn’t an issue.

From this perspective it doesn’t really matter what I or anyone else thinks when they evaluate the new design.  You may love its clean look, the absence of clutter, the way it works properly in a wide screen format, enjoy accessing menus when you choose (rather than having them forced on you)… but if you end up not searching so effectively or not clicking on the day’s promotions, Amazon will quietly revert to a more profitable previous look and go back to the drawing board.

Tiny changes can have a big impact on conversion.  In Consumer.ology I recount a number of examples where changing a photograph, moving a logo or reducing the number of items returned from a search all increased conversion significantly.  Whilst as a consumer psychologist I can help identify what might work, and can speculate on what has made a change effective by explaining how it has connected with unconscious drivers of behaviour, it’s only through carefully conducted experiments that we can know for sure what the outcome of a change will be.

Fortunately, split testing is relatively straight-forward on-line, it’s actually reasonably straight-forward in most consumer scenarios, given a little thought: and it’s an investment that is well-worth making because what you get is genuine learning.  If you apply the AFECT criteria for psychological confidence, you will realise why you can trust the results of such a test far more than anything from a survey or focus group.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves consumer behaviour, market research Amazon, design, website

Anyone who works for a large organisation and who has ever wanted to do something constructive for that organisation, will have experienced the same questions and the same dark forces waiting to challenge their brilliantly conceived scheme: the finance department.

Arguably, it’s reasonable enough that a corporation, preoccupied as it is with making, sustaining and growing profit, should have a beady eye on every single cost that is incurred in the course of such pursuits.

That this can lead to conflicts and disputes is unquestionable.  Frequently the return on investment from activity, particularly marketing activity, is hard to evaluate: it can be tricky to gauge how long a long term brand-building exercise will be making a return and valuing brands themselves is a topic that is hotly debated.  Assumptions are made (explicitly or implicitly) and models constructed: although often the casual observer might question the extent to which these are attempts to justify the intended decision, rather than entirely objective evaluations: the latter being fraught with difficulty precisely because of the number of assumptions that must be made.

All of which, in a roundabout sort of a way, gets me to my point about what companies might be missing: psychology.

Consider for a moment all of the corporate functions that deal in areas that are directly or indirectly concerned with psychology:

• Marketing and market research deal directly with the business of influencing and understanding consumers.  Human resources are frequently involved in matters of appraisal, evaluation and motivation.
• The facilities management people create the environment in which workers work or customers shop (arguably there is no bigger influence on either workers or shoppers than the environment in which their activity takes place).
• There is a lot of good work being applied to the sales arena from psychology (the psychology of influence), and it’s relevant in procurement negotiations too.
• Add in the issue of Groupthink and all the problems it has been shown to cause in organisational decision-making: management teams and boards of directors routinely tread in areas where psychologists can help them avoid succumbing to confirmation bias and group influence.
• Consider also inter-personal and inter-departmental dynamics: getting these relationships functioning appropriately is critical to organisational success.
• Finally, employing someone who would understand the merits, design requirements and interpretation of experimental tests could save organisations from leaping too far without adequate evidence.

So almost every function dabbles in psychology, just as every function is involved in finance, but there is never (in my experience) a corporate resource to oversee the way in which psychology is applied, or even that it is considered at all.

Companies could gain enormously from having a psychologically well-informed eye watching over their actions.  Should any enlightened organisation reading this care to make a positive step and offer me a non-executive director role with their company I would be happy to consider it!

Philip Graves

Philip Graves behavioural insight, Marketing non-executive director, psychology

Willow the dog is teaching me a lot about psychology (honestly, we’re a lot more like dogs than we’d ever want to think).

But her food could smell better.

I’m beginning to understand how those petty ‘office rules’ about eating at your desk come into existence!

It’s worth noting, her productivity could be higher.

Philip Graves Uncategorized

The title the ‘International Journal of Market Research’ (IJMR) sounds undeniably impressive.  Generally speaking journals are good things, bringing together peer reviewed papers from people pushing the boundaries in a particular field.

But I wonder… do astrologers have a Journal of Astrology?  Google suggests that they do, sort of – it looks as though it might just be one astrologer selling predictions.

There’s a National Journal of Homeopathy – I wonder, to paraphrase Tim Minchin, if they’ve had any papers on how water forgets about the wee and poo it’s had in it and just remembers the traces of medicinally advantageous ingredients?

My point is that it’s easy to get a false sense of validity from a name.  In Consumer.ology I describe market research as a pseudo-science and, arguably, having an ‘International Journal’ is all part of the industry’s mystique.

I must declare a personal interest at this point: recently the IJMR reviewed my book; the reviewer hated it.  But the review, a viewpoint article and one of the papers made for particularly interesting reading: let me explain…

[Curiously, the reviewer's reading skills didn't extend to my name: I was called Robert Graves and Peter Graves, but never Philip.  I wonder if the book had him in such a rage that he struggled to focus on all the words.]

Pedantry aside, the IJMR’s choice of reviewer was somewhat self-satisfying.  As far as I can tell, the reviewer earns his living conducting the research that Consumer.ology questions the fundamental validity of.  How is such a person to address the evidence from psychology and neuroscience that shows people aren’t very good witnesses to their own behaviour and that the process of asking them what they think influences them to say particular things?

The somewhat strange thrust of the review is that the market research industry knows all about the problems that lead me to believe asking questions isn’t worthwhile – “… they have long been widely recognised by many in market research.”  Strange then that if you look at the Market Research Buyer’s Guide virtually every single one of the companies listed is offering the sorts of research that is beset by these problems.

Do they tell prospective clients all about these “widely recognised” problems when they come to them requesting a survey or focus group be commissioned?  I suspect not.  Partly I suspect this because no research company has ever mentioned them to me when I was commissioning research.  And partly I suspect not because, were they to mention the problems, the research wouldn’t go ahead.

Entertainingly, the review was, I assume, written before the recent Scottish Parliamentary elections.  My rejection of opinion polls was described as ‘…simply not justified by reality.’  He adds that, ‘When it became clear a few years ago that something was going awry in the accuracy of such polling, the industry effort aimed at addressing these issues was remarkable…’  Remarkable until they got the results wrong again in the Scottish elections.

Election polls conducted close to the date of an election should be quite accurate, and yet even they prove problematic to the research industry.

Elsewhere in the same edition two contributors attempt to reconcile market research with behavioural economics.  In a ‘Viewpoint’ article Nick Southgate attempts to align asking questions with behavioural economics by pushing it into the gaps that a behavioural approach can’t fill. That behavioural economics can’t identify (at least not directly) the content of people’s decisions, doesn’t mean that market research can.

In a (presumably) peer-reviewed paper (market research peers, of course), Wendy Gordon draws the astonishing conclusion that a new branch of (dynamic) market research can help provide behavioural economics with “the practical skills and applications that they need to solve the problems that face them in an increasingly complex world context.”

Psychology and behavioural economics have provided the basis for identifying the folly of traditional market research (evidence that is quoted in the paper): expecting the people whose work up to this point has been so clearly undermined to be the custodians of a new approach is, it strikes me, somewhat risky.

This risk is evidenced when Gordon advocates “not throwing the baby out with the bath water” before going on to suggest that qualitative research has strengths in certain areas including identifying values and beliefs: behavioural economics has demonstrated that espoused values and beliefs can be (and frequently are) irrelevant, when examined alongside actual behaviour.  Surely, that’s a case of pouring the bathwater back in again.

The problem for the IJMR is that people don’t approach anything with an open mind.  We arrive burdened with associations and experiences that colour how we interpret what we find.  It seems that the IJMR wants to take the challenges from outside its field and force its existing techniques onto that evidence.  Put another way, how can someone who has spent their entire career asking questions reconcile themselves to the information that there is little evidence to support the validity of asking questions and much to undermine it as a reliable tool?

The belief that you can ask people questions and what you hear back will be an accurate insight is just that, a belief.  It’s an apparently plausible concept that fits with people’s view of themselves as the conscious agents of their actions.  Its reinforced by those times research appears to confirm something we believed, or appears to be born out by what happens next: of course, the same benchmarks are what perpetuates the use of things like astrology.

With so much that is central to market researchers’ beliefs questioned in Consumer.ology, I would advise them not to read it.  Or at the very least, they should consult their horoscope to see if it’s a good day for reading a book.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves consumer research, Getting a Book Published, market research consumer.ology, IJMR, market research

I honestly believed that I would stick with PC based computing.  After twenty years using PCs they’re more familiar than my wife and kids!

Despite all the positive things friends have said about Macs, and even though I have owned an iPhone for the last couple of years, there were good reasons not to change.  PCs have always worked well for me and, on the occasions when I have used Macs, I’ve always found them uncomfortably unfamiliar.

If nothing else, we humans are creatures of habit: it takes quite a shove to push us out of our comfort zone and into unchartered territory.  For me and PCs that shove was Dell.

I enjoy observing my own consumer decision-making and, although I know that much of the action takes place outside of my conscious awareness, my work on the consumer unconscious mind gives me a dual perspective for my own consumer behaviour.

I’ve owned several Dells, you could have called me brand loyal.

When my Dell XPS 420 greeted me with news of a critical drive failure (Windows Recovery did nothing of the sort) my immediate reaction on being told to replace it was to go to Dell.

Within half an hour I had found a specification that worked for me and ordered a laptop.

So, despite the trauma of a crashed computer, I still went back to the company I knew and that had worked for me in the past: call it the “better the devil you know” heuristic.

However, I discovered, after a fairly painful on-line ordering process, that somehow my billing address had been entered into my account, but that my old address – one that I haven’t lived at for four years – was still recorded as the delivery address.

Unperturbed, I immediately called Dell to ask them to correct the address.  To my astonishment this was not possible.

My bank had verified the payment, but Dell’s own systems had held the order up because the delivery address didn’t match the card address (the whole reason for my call and a helpful safeguard against fraud).

However, apparently this couldn’t be corrected with a few key strokes and would take 3-5 days.  This despite the fact that the address I wanted the item sent to was the only one that would have passed their internal fraud checks – the one that matched the card I’d paid with.

Staggered that a computing company could have such cumbersome systems I asked to speak to the department concerned.  I was told that communication with them was only by email.

Frustrated, I asked them to cancel the order.  Rightly or wrongly, my intention at this point was still to order another computer from Dell after updating my address details.

I was told that I couldn’t get confirmation of my order being cancelled for 24 hours – it might not be possible to cancel it. Both the operator and I knew that the order hadn’t been despatched, it was just sitting there because of the erroneous address.  And yet, it couldn’t be cancelled!  (I should add that this wasn’t for a ‘made-to-order’ machine.)

This was the final straw.  I decided that to continue a consumer relationship with a company whose systems were so fundamentally consumer unfriendly was asking for trouble: heaven help me if I had a problem with the new computer.

A visit to the local stores involved the anticipated issue of computer staff who knew less about the products than me (and I don’t know much).  Enquiring about Sony’s power-save feature, which offered the potential of squeezing out more than the pathetic two hours of battery life from their top of the line machine, resulted the ‘revelation’ that it used less power and meant that the laptop battery would last a lot longer if you weren’t using it.

I wandered over to the Apple display, to consider if I could make the switch.  There was a lot to consider: running Microsoft products on a Mac, transferring my old PC files, even running software not designed for Macs.

When I heard a voice ask if I needed help I was ready to say “No thanks” until I glanced up and saw that the person was dressed differently from the rest of the salespeople I’d encountered.  He was wearing a black t-shirt with a white Apple logo.

My heart leapt.

Or rather my unconscious mind fired off a set of associations; all the brand values and social proof about Apple that have permeated through to my unconscious were fired up, along with the creative values that have been shown to be stimulated by (unconscious) exposure to the Apple brand.

“Yes,” I found myself saying, “you probably can help.”

Half an hour later every question I’d had had been answered.

The contrast between the Apple staff and the Dell phone experience could not have been more marked.  Similarly, the contrast between the useless store staff and the ‘branded’ Apple employee was enormous.

Apple was already delivering a nicer life (and I hadn’t bought the MacBook yet).

Being a great brand isn’t (conceptually) hard.  It requires just two things.  An attractive concept and congruent delivery.  Apple get top marks for delivering both.

I don’t intend to become an Apple evangelist: I think my brother is doing enough of that for the UK population, but I can’t hide my admiration for their products and services.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves consumer behaviour, Customer Service Apple, consumer behaviour, Customer Service, Dell

Every now and then I receive an invitation to complete an on-line survey.  They’re normally hopelessly poor tools at understanding real consumer motivations.  They interrogate the wrong part of the respondent’s mind (the conscious mind) and unwittingly influence the part they should be targeting (the unconscious mind).

So today, I thought that, as I plod through the survey, I would include a running commentary of what’s bad, just in case anyone else is thinking of running an on-line survey any time soon. 

The First Few Questions
A few classification questions to see where I live, when I was born, to check that I watch television (the subject of the research) and to check that I’m not involved in marketing, market research, journalism, advertising, public relations or television: arguably I’m involved in all of these but, just like any other respondent, I’ll be ticking the answers that suit my purpose: “None of these”.

Questions
The first proper question asks me what channels I can name, other than the five original terrestrial channels.  This awareness question has evidently been written without any awareness that memory is context-based.  Sitting in front of my computer I may recall one set of channels, but when it comes to watching a programme I will select in a completely different environment and mindset.  Has anyone correlated top of mind channel awareness with anything?  What, you many well ask, will this question prove?  I suspect that a TV channel has been advertising itself and thinks that unprompted awareness is a good measure of their advertising impact; I’m betting they can’t substantiate a link between the two.

I’m now presented with ten channels and asked to say how often I watch it, of if I never watch it, if I’ve heard of it.  My options are “most days”, “at least once a week”, and so on.    I select a programme by the programme’s title, I don’t always know which channel I’m watching.  Fortunately, the television companies have tracking data from boxes that actually monitor what a sample of UK viewers watch: why, you may well ask, are they inviting in this meaningless self-reported data?  Presumably it will drive questions later in the survey, but since I suspect I don’t know which channels I watch when I flick through, this isn’t going to be very accurate.

I’ve just seen I have to do this for sixty programmes; who would volunteer for this kind of pain normally?

Now I’m invited to say “how I feel about each of these channels” ranging from a “channel I love” to “no strong feelings”.  So I will rationalise my feelings about a channel.  What, you may ask, would it say if I watched a channel a lot that I didn’t love?  Or if I love a channel but don’t watch it often?  There is an implicit assumption in the questionnaire – in my case one that is misfounded – that I know what I’m watching and can match my viewing to a channel. 

Oh Dear
I realise this might seem like a writer’s licence, but I have actually been going through and documenting my thoughts step by step.  Having reached this question about “channels that I love”, the on-line survey has broken.  I’ve tried two browsers and several refreshes, but the page doesn’t work.  The table of pre-coded responses and channels has disappeared.  Nothing I click helps.  Going forwards delivers a warning that I need to give my answers, but I can’t because it won’t let me.

So, regrettebly, I can’t get to the heart of the survey.

But already I know that no one should attach much significance to this survey’s results.  At it’s heart is a fundamental assumption that people link their viewing to the channel they are watching.  A lot of TV viewing is done in a very ‘withdrawn’ mental state.  We let a familiar programme wash over us like a sort of brain support system: there’s processing going on, but it requires no effort or involvement from us.

Ask yourself this: what did you watch on television the night before last?  The chances are that, unless it was a significant sporting event or a film that you had actively selected, you won’t remember the titles of the programmes, never mind the channels.

I’ve been commissioned to study viewing behaviour and programme selection behaviour in the past, and neither has very much to do with the conscious mind. 

As always with poor market research, the waste in terms of the money spent on the survey is probably minor in comparison with the cost associated with making the wrong decision and not acquiring

Philip Graves

Philip Graves consumer behaviour, market research commissioning, market research, on-line survey