Silly market research
Aug. 18th, 2009 04:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chrishansenhomeI participate in a number of market research panels. Normally they don't care much for my answers, as I am not young, I am not employed, and I am not an IT decision maker. But some panels don't mind that. I fill out a daily forvey on TV and radio which is fairly interesting and in which I can pan some of the crap comedy that Radio 4 has been commissioning lately (one called "Cabin Pressure" that has to do with a fly-by-night charter airline is particularly loathsome and I take every opportunity to listen to part of it so that I can give it "1 out of 10" on next day's survey.)
This same panel called me recently and said they'd like me to fill out a scrapbook and do a daily diary for them. Part of it included pictures—and they included a disposable camera with the survey materials, as well as a Dictaphone.
I was bemused, but I thought that the scrapbook/diary was the usual kind of "fill out what you're watching now and why" and I can do that. They said they would pay £60 for completing this. I told them that sure, I'd be interested in it.
Well, this morning, just after I finished my blood glucose test, the doorbell rang. It was a special delivery parcel with all this stuff in it. I've just taken a look through it.
The scrapbook is like something that a kindergarten child would do. Put a picture of yourself in the front. Put a picture of your family on the next page. Draw a diagram of your family relationships. It goes on.
The Dictaphone is for recording a passel of stuff everytime you consume some kind of medium. This includes websites. How do you feel now? Why did you pick this particular website. And it goes on. No wonder they are paying £60 for this—people are very unlikely to be motivated to finish such stuff unless there is a large reward.
I am considering just sending the thing back with a "no thanks; sorry for your trouble. Had I known it would be like this I would have saved you the effort of putting this together." The Dictaphone diary is to be kept for a week. I will spend more time relating what I'm doing into the Dictaphone than actually surfing.
Will decide tonight.
This same panel called me recently and said they'd like me to fill out a scrapbook and do a daily diary for them. Part of it included pictures—and they included a disposable camera with the survey materials, as well as a Dictaphone.
I was bemused, but I thought that the scrapbook/diary was the usual kind of "fill out what you're watching now and why" and I can do that. They said they would pay £60 for completing this. I told them that sure, I'd be interested in it.
Well, this morning, just after I finished my blood glucose test, the doorbell rang. It was a special delivery parcel with all this stuff in it. I've just taken a look through it.
The scrapbook is like something that a kindergarten child would do. Put a picture of yourself in the front. Put a picture of your family on the next page. Draw a diagram of your family relationships. It goes on.
The Dictaphone is for recording a passel of stuff everytime you consume some kind of medium. This includes websites. How do you feel now? Why did you pick this particular website. And it goes on. No wonder they are paying £60 for this—people are very unlikely to be motivated to finish such stuff unless there is a large reward.
I am considering just sending the thing back with a "no thanks; sorry for your trouble. Had I known it would be like this I would have saved you the effort of putting this together." The Dictaphone diary is to be kept for a week. I will spend more time relating what I'm doing into the Dictaphone than actually surfing.
Will decide tonight.
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 03:45 pm (UTC)Invent a persona who is actually taking this survey. Call him - I dunno, Matthew E. Castle, to distinguish himself from you in your mind. Maybe Matthew is a dipstick who gets rilly rilly excited and pleased when he eats pasta (and pouts when he has to make do with baked beans or fish&chips). Maybe Matthew is a crotchety old geezer who thinks the rot started when BBC went to Radio 1-2-3-4 instead of the good old Light - Home - Third (the way god intended). Maybe Matthew has a nervous breakdown over the course of a week (documented on paper and with a camera).
the fun possibilities are endless.
disingenuous? moi?
no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 04:41 pm (UTC)One major twat in market research in New York was having trouble interviewing enough people for the study he was conducting. So, he just multiplied the respondents by a factor of 3 to get the total sample he wanted.
His client was happy with the survey. He only had one question: "Why is every response divisible by 3?"
This guy (the twat, not the client) was found at the foot of a cliff in Hawaii. They _said_ he'd committed suicide. But WE know better, don't we?
no subject
Date: 2009-08-18 05:01 pm (UTC)but what's to stop you -er- exaggerating your responses from your normal calm, polite, anglican ones? Go rapturous with approval, comatose with boredom, obscene and spitting when you disapprove. don't fake your answers, just -um- turn the volume up.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 07:16 am (UTC)I have the dictaphone next to me now.