Can You Trust Political Polling, Consumer Research or TV Ratings? - Steve Blacker

1 Political polling research has several major consumer behavior flaws For example undecided voters when seeing a particular candidate is ahead may decide they will vote for the person who seems most likely to win Conversely seeing their candidate is significantly down in the polls could discourage someone from taking the time to vote for their candidate figuring it doesn39t matter2 Given the low turnout we have for most elections even people who claim they will vote often do not Ironically often times a major TV or cable station will start predicting potential results based upon exit polls even though people are still voting Thus often times rather than predict accurate outcomes political polling may well influence it3 Nine out of ten new products fail in the market place Why Because most often companies will test a concept instead of showing an actual product Without people being able to see the actual product hold it examine the packaging etc the consumer research is taking place in a major reality void Most people tend to like new product concepts until they actually have to decide to purchase the product4 When Coca Cola tested their New Cola everyone liked it a great deal Unfortunately they did not ask people how they would feel if the New Coke replaced the current one The actual market place results were disastrous and the New Coke became history5 Nielsen is a highly regarded and capable research company But imagine the type of viewer who would actually keep a daily log of the programs they watched A better solution may occur some day when TV sets may actually be able to measure viewing habits automatically6 While research is a multibillionaire dollar a year business it still remains mostly misunderstood because of the terminologies lack of practical market place and marketing applications Whether or not someone buys a product or watches a TV show is nice to know What39s much more important is why that action takes place This is an area where most research falls short Why Because the wrong questions are often asked For example rather than give a consumer a list of things ie supposed brand attributes to check off why not ask them more open ended questions such as what one thingimprovement could be made to this product to make you want to buy it7 Open ended questions create a wealth of verbatims that if properly analyzed and interpreted will dramatically impact your results Creating the right open ended questions is much more a marketing function than research Setting up an actual display rack along with your competitors and having one hundred actual customers shop it while you monitor their comments will often be much more predictable and accurate than a traditional survey of five thousand or more people It also costs much lessSteve39s most recent book You Can39t Fall Off The Floor The Insiders39 Guide to ReInventing Yourself and Your Career chronicles his 50 year career working for over 25 different companies with 189 lessons learned and insider tips from Gayle King Cathie Black Chuck Townsend and 28 others Blacker is still going strong today as a partner in Frankfurt ampamp Blacker Solutions LLC His web site is blackerreinventionscom and email address is blackersolutionsaolcomRead all Steveamp8217s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Media ReinventionsCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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Can You Trust Political Polling, Consumer Research or TV Ratings? - Steve Blacker

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Can You Trust Political Polling, Consumer Research or TV Ratings? - Steve Blacker

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