The Survey Geek

Let's hear it for conventional wisdom!

The post begins, "Contrary to conventional wisdom, U.S. consumers age 65 and older are most likely to shop online (77%). Consumers ages 45-64 and ages 30-44 follow at 71% with those ages 18-29 at 70%, a new report finds."  So 77%of persons aged 65 or older shop on line?  That's especially astounding because by most estimates only about 45% of persons 65 and older are online.  And presuming this study was done online (the post doesn't offer that detail) we need to also accept the reasoning that seniors on somebody's online panel are just like all online seniors in their use of the Internet.

Someone (The Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing) is actually selling this stuff!  One only hopes that nobody is buying it.

Clients say the darndest things

For the past couple of weeks I have been mulling Stan Sthanunathan's remark at the IIR conference in Las Vegas reported as "quality doesn't matter."  I've also been getting reactions from friends and colleagues around the industry.  They vary from "I'm glad we don't work for Coke" to "How should this impact our strategy" with a midpoint of "He's just trying to make a point." 

I'm not going to reprise his entire argument here. That's why there's a hyperlink in the first sentence.  But it's worth a read because it seems to me to raise an interesting question, one that I have asked here before.  Do we really understand what level of precision clients need for the business decisions they make? There is this tendency for researchers to believe that when a client commissions a piece of research the results of that research and that research only drives a business decision. And so it needs to be spot on in terms of measurement accuracy or you get a bad decision.   But when you talk to clients they often tell you that they look at a whole range of data points as part of their decision making process and that one study we did for them is only one piece of a much larger puzzle.

There is, of course, at least one other explanation.  That would be that clients expect us to deliver accurate results.  Those are table stakes.  We differentiate ourselves through interpretation, not measurement.  Either way, these are tough lessons for a survey geek. 

Clarification on the MR "exemption" to Do Not Call

A self-described "devoted reader" has sent me a private message reminding me that the status of the US MR industry relative to Federal Do Not Call legislation is not "exempted."  That would imply a specific exemption in the law which is incorrect.  MR simply is not included.   While operationally there's not much difference, the legal advantages of being not included as opposed to exempt are significant.  My son the attorney no doubt would be very disappointed in his old dad.  And thanks to the reader for pointing this out.