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 […]
Olympic 2012 Logo: Learning from Iran Boycott Reaction
Developing a logo is an interesting experience. Recently several organisations have found that the internet provides a platform for dissenting voices to grow into active movements to oppose designs that they don’t like. Gap, who some have suggested were really undertaking a publicity stunt, Starbucks and the Portland Timbers have all experienced an adverse reaction when plans of their changes came to light. Recently, the Iranian Olympic Committee has said that they think the London 2012 logo is racist, spelling out the word Zion. There are a number of reasons not to pay too much attention to this complaint: It doesn’t spell out Zion, it says 2012. If it did spell out anything in English it would be “Zo in”, since we read left to right and, with no hyphen, the second line should be taken as a new word. Perhaps animal welfare groups should be boycotting the Olympics instead! […]
Market Research Recruitment: Be Honest
People aren’t desperately honest creatures. Through no fault of our own we’re victims of the way our brains have evolved; it’s wise not to take the things people claim at face value. Among the many issues affecting market research the quality of respondent recruitment is reasonably frequently debated. It’s not something I got into in Consumer.ology mostly because even when you recruit the “right” people, asking them questions throws up a whole world of other issues. However, over the last couple of days I’ve had a fascinating insight into the recruitment process and can, at no charge to the market research industry, offer them a high quality recruitment tool. I was contacted by a television network who wanted to interview me about a story that has been in the news regularly over the past few weeks; the cost of filling your car with petrol (or diesel). Prices have risen substantially over the past few weeks and since […]
When Market Research Gets it Wrong
With my book Consumer.ology now published I’m starting to hear back from people who have heard about it, read it or read or heard an article or interview about it. One of the very positive upsides to this is that more people are starting to share their stories of market research getting it wrong. Whilst I managed to unearth a good number of examples for the book, the fact is that it’s not really in anyone’s interests to publicise occasions when money spent on research was wasteful. Occasionally there’ll be times when someone’s decision was vindicated and they’ll speak about it, but often the people making the final decision are also the ones who have decided to spend several thousand pounds on research, and choosing to ignore it doesn’t reflect particularly well on that decision even if it’s the right thing to do! One reader contacted me to tell me […]
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