Blockbuster Reveals Top Romantic Movie Scenes

PR Factor: 10
Public Perception: 7
Sample Frame: 1
Interview Bias: 3
Chronology of Interviews: 2
Method of Interviews: 5
How do the media interpret the results: 5
How do the media present the results to the public: 5
Weighting of data: 5
Sponsored survey: 2

Data Dump Index: 45/100

We give Blockbuster low grades on this obvious attempt to lure customers to rent romantic videos for Valentine's Day. The press release explains nothing about the survey method nor the sample frame leaving much to the imagination about the credibility of the results. Marketers who need to know the entertainment habits of romantically-inclined adults should not turn to this study for insights.

Weight Loss Data Updated

New survey data from Medifast shows that 61% of Americans say they need to lose weight. We aggregate that figure with other recent numbers in the chart below. The Medifast survey, however, is quite promotional in nature.


Updated U.S. Weight Loss Data

Harris Fields Study on Use of Digital Services

Press release
Tech web article

PR Factor: 10
Public Perception: 7
Sample Frame: 9
Interview Bias: 5
Chronology of Interviews: 8
Method of Interviews: 8
How do the media interpret the results: 9
How do the media present the results to the public: 5
Weighting of data: 10
Sponsored survey: 2

Data Dump Index 71/100

Sun Microsystems shows with this survey how it can present valuable data in a credible fashion. The press release is open about the methodology and its tone is less promotional and more newsworthy. Techweb, moreover, writes a story that showcases the important findings without pandering to Sun, although it could have interviewed another source on the topic.

What the Numbers Mean

You might have noticed that I've started posting a Data Dump Index for each of the surveys I report to you on this blog. Well, here's an explanation. The DDI is based on a rating of 10 variables, each carrying a score between 1 and 10. Thus, a perfect survey, whose results should be trusted and accepted as a factual representation of the populus, would carry a DDI of 100. My hope is to aggregate enough comparative data on similar subject to be able to compare DDIs across industries.

The variables are as follows:

1. PR Factor -- Does the survey have a lot of promotional push behind it (10 is a high score)
2. Public Perception: How likely are you and I to remember or be affected by the data (10 is high)
3. Interview Bias: Are the numbers tainted due to surveying the wrong or disproportioned audience (1 is a high score)
4. Chronology of Interviews: Was the survey conducted at a time or place where the respondents would have been unduly influenced by the subject or questions (1 is a high score)
5. Method of Interviews: Was the survey methodology appropriate for the desired objective (10 is high)
6. Media Interpretation: Have stories been reported that objectively and accurately reflect the survey's intentions (10 is high)
7. Media Presentation: Do the media create hype around the numbers by interviewing additional experts or presenting graphics that showcase the results (10 is high)
8. Sample Frame: Has a representative sample been interviewed (10 is high)
9. Data Weighting: Have the data been accurately weighted to account for those underrepresented in the sample (10 is high)
10. Sponsorship: Is the study sponsored by a corporation or organization to promote a product, service, event, or other ulterior motive (1 is high)

Shopzilla Conducts Valentine's Day Shopping Survey

Press release

Marketers targeting online Valentine's Day shoppers might think twice before accepting these data as fact. Shopzilla has polled only an online community that is in a shopping mind frame. Moreover, the gender/geography explaination needs to be substantiated since breaking the sample into smaller subgroups tends to create a higher error margin.

Xerox Surveys Conference Attendees on Document Management

Read press release

PR Factor: 10
Public Perception: 3
Sample Frame: 1
Interview Bias: 1
Chronology of Interviews: 5
Method of Interviews: 1
How do the media interpret the results: 5
How do the media present the results to the public: 5
Weighting of data: 2
Sponsored survey: 5

Data Dump Index: 38/100

We give poor marks to this survey primarily due to the interviewing technique: polling conference attendees who are not representative of the general population. While document management is a critical component of successful enterprise development this survey does much promotion of the solution and less education about the problem.

Survey Released on Child Car Seat Usage

PR Factor: 8
Public Perception: 9
Sample Frame: 4
Interview Bias: 8
Chronology of Interviews: 2
Method of Interviews: 5
How do the media interpret the results: 8
How do the media present the results to the public: 7
Weighting of data: 2
Sponsored survey: 7

Total Data Dump Score: 60/100

The Reuters report reveals that the survey was conducted in 2003 but there is no indication why the results have been made public nearly two years later. We are also left in the dark about how the respondents were polled: was it at forum on public safety where their responses might have been swayed? Also, have the data been weighted to account for income levels and types of vehicles driven?

Insurance Firm Says Homeowners Not Prepared for Water Damage

Chubb Insurance claims in the press release that it surveyed 1,633 people last summer, a time when respondents were less likely to be focused on the cold weather and its affects on home plumbing systems. The vendor was also remiss in reporting the locations of the respondents and whether they were currently insured by Chubb for flood damage.

CEOs Expect Rise in Revenues, Says Survey

The Bloomberg report does not divulge how PricewaterhouseCoopers interviewed the CEOs for the study nor the types of industries they represent. If the bulk of the sample includes CEOs from manufacturing or financial services industries, for instance, then then the results might be plausible. But if these industries are underrepresented, then the results should be weighted accordingly.

CEOs Expect Rise in Revenues, Says Survey

The Bloomberg report does not divulge how PricewaterhouseCoopers interviewed the CEOs for the study nor the types of industries they represent. If the bulk of the sample includes CEOs from manufacturing or financial services industries, for instance, then then the results might be plausible. But if these industries are underrepresented, then the results should be weighted accordingly.

Trusted Vendors Get Higher E-mail Marketing Clickthroughs

An e-mail performance management vendor surveyed consumers after the year-end holiday season on their attitudes about e-mail marketing messages related to holiday shopping. We find credence in these data since the vendor used an established online panel for its representative sample, which is comprised of ages with high propensity to be an internet user and e-mail user.

Book Publishers Survey Professors on Textbook Attitudes

The Association of American Publishers commissioned this study on the necessity of textbooks to teach college classes. It provided the sample of 16,000 e-mail addresses of professors of all subjects nationwide and the online survey received a 6% response rate. Margin of error is stated as 3.2% with subgroups having greater error. We question why the largest sample frame is among professors of education/human sciences and science/mathematics courses, whose textbooks likely carry the highest purchase prices.

AARP Social Security Survey Draws GOP Ire

The Republican Party harshly criticized the methods of AARP's survey on the elderly's opinions about Social Security reform. In a two-page rebuttal, the GOP said the AARP's survey relied on slanted wording, misleading questions and an unrepresentative sample of the nation as a whole to come up with its findings. ``Nonetheless, the survey still reveals overwhelming concern about Social Security and support for finding a solution now,'' the GOP added.

Because of the media circus surrounding the survey, marketers to the 65+ demographic should treat these survey results with kid gloves.

Survey: Searchers are Confident, Satisfied & Clueless

SearchEngineWatch article

Kudos to Chris Sherman, Associate Editor of SearchEngineWatch, for his insightful analysis of the survey results. Reading his article sheds light on the how differences in methodology and execution of two surveys on the same topic can lead to varying results. In this case, he candidly comments on the Pew and Keynote studies of searcher behavior.

eBay Drop-off Store Survey Undersells Results

Read the press release here
Read article here
This could potentially be the first ambitious survey to date on the feasibility of a drop-off store model for e-tailing. Unfortunately, the data are suspect since the real sample size used is but 50 stores and the survey was fielded in early January, when most e-tailers are recovering from post-holiday shopping period.

National Survey Reveals Employee Laptop Data at Risk

Here is press release

Imation, in its press release, does not reveal the industries of the businesses it has surveyed on this topic. Data protection would likely seem more of a critical topic in financial services than in education and the responses should be weighted accordingly. Moreover, the sample is only of SMEs, which would benefit most from off-the-shelf solutions that Imation offers.

Quick Coverage Given to Merger/Acquisition Survey

Read the press release

The Business Journal story

Rocky Mountain News article

St. Louis Business Journal story

U.S. newspapers and wire services were quick to run stories citing this survey on the state of the mergers and acquisitions market for 2005. While the results from ACG/Thomson seem valid, the articles fail to disclose that the experts surveyed might have taken the survey to drum up more business for their investment firms.

Survey Reveals Reasons for Quitting Jobs

Press release

Notice how the release does not contain any solid data only a smattering of open-ended responses. The small base sizes resulting from the segmentation of responses likely affects the confidence level of the data.

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

KFC Survey Feeds Off of Inauguration Day Hype

Press Release: Right Wing? Left Wing? It Doesn't Matter When We're Talking About Chicken!

Troublesome about this survey is how the 1,000 Americans were screened. Are they avid KFC consumers? Are they Republicans? I'll follow this one to see who publicizes it.

Low-Carb Dieters are Rising, Says Survey

Opinion Dynamics Corporation | Low-Carb Research

Opinion Dynamics conducted this latest monthly phone survey of 1,000 random Americans during the week of January 10. No doubt the spike in percent who say they are dieting is from the New Year's resolution factor.

Survey on Camera Phones Lacks Focus

Here's one article I found

Snapfish, a digital imaging company, asked 500 people who own or intend to buy a camera phone in the next year about their digital photography opinions. Technology marketers would be remiss if they size the market with these data, given the blatant interview bias of the study.

Parents and Children Crave More Time to Talk and Relax Together;

Here is press release

This research was conducted on behalf of a food company. One data point that stands out -- 58% of parents would spend extra time with their families (if they had a solution to fixing meals more quickly). Comparative data from a Salary.com survey on work/life attitudes found that 39% of adults would choose more time off than a $5,000 raise.

Survey Highlights Super Bowl Viewing Preferences

Read the press release

Circuit City's survey typifies a retailer's attempt to increase store traffic around a holiday or event, in this case the Super Bowl. What's uncertain here is the percent of the sample that includes current customers. Also, the phrasing of the questions (were they aided in the question about HDTVs, for instance?).

More reliable data about HDTV purchase intent is found in a Lyra Research study released on the same day. The graphic below shows a mere 2% would be motivated to buy this television because of the Super Bowl.



Lyra's survey shows purchase intent of HDTVs

New Survey Finds That Men Prefer Women With A Great Body Than A Beautiful Head of Hair

Read the press release

This survey wreaks of sensationalism and the data are highly suspect. First warning is it was conducted for a hair restoration vendor. Next caveat is that the gender split of the sample is undefined (did they survey an equal number of men and women?).

Media Focus Differs on Kaiser Survey

Read the Kaiser Press Release

We read (and heard) several stories about this Kaiser survey of seniors and their online behavior. The press release leads with the astounding result that 31% of the 65+ demographic has gone online. Some sites simply re-purposed the press release (e.g., The Insurance Networking News). CBS MarketWatch led with this stat, too, although it fails to mention the possible large margin of error among this survey segment. It did, however, include quotes from an interview with a Kaiser rep to substantiate the findings.

Data Dump Reveals True New Year's Resolution Data

Chart One: January 14, 2005

Based on the aggregation of like data from disparate sources, The Data Dump concludes that 35% of Americans have made losing weight their number one New Year's Resolution. Chart One shows the multiple sources reporting survey results on this topic. However, The Data Dump weighted these results based on their exposure in the general media, sampling error, interview bias, and other proprietary variables, to formulate the true percentage.

Survey predicts growth in biz travel

Read the CNN story

The CNN report, and a few others that cropped up in the media, fail to mention the nearly 6 percent margin of error on the data related to the surveyed travel managers. The press release divulges that key fact.

Health Surveys Abound As New Year Begins

Americans are More Focused on Shrinking Their Waistlines than Shrinking Their Debt

New Year's Smarter Resolution: Skip The Diet, Strive For Balance

New Year's Resolutions Focus on Fitness and Wellness Over Weight Loss, According to Survey by Omron Healthcare

Survey Reveals Dismal State of the American Breakfast

The High Correlation Between Obesity, Illness and Poor Health

Taken in aggregate, these surveys feed off the promotional wave health and food products companies ride during the weight loss resolution period. Further analysis is needed on the validity of these data.

Americans Doing Little to Plan for Financial Future

Read Press Release

LendingTree provides lots of flashy graphics to convey the data but does little to reveal the methodology behind the numbers. It fails to provide segmentation of its sample of 1,000 consumers over age 21 nor identify if they are current customers or prospects.

Consumers Unaware of Health Savings Accounts

Read the Report here

Further reading of the report failed to reveal the sampling frame. Are these strictly Watson Wyatt customers that were interviewed?

Kaiser Reveals Survey Error in Healthcare Study

Read article and get survey results

Kudos to Kaiser Family Foundation for admitting here that there is likely an 8 percent margin of error among the segment that has the greatest impact on the results -- the elderly -- since this is a study on healthcare concerns.

Survey Splits Hairs with Julia Roberts and George Clooney Winning Best Hairstyles in 2004

Read press release

For a completely puff-piece research study, the results are highly valid given that Harris Interactive did the field work and the sample is evenly split by gender.

Innovation is Key Business Objective for 2005 and Beyond

NewView Press Release

This survey ilicited a 3.1% response rate among 7,000 attempts (217 total interviews). The R&D managers the responded are primarily from aerospace, biotech, pharmaceutical, and chemical companies, where innovation is likely an ongoing business objective. Marketing consultants with expertise in product innovation could find some potential business leads among the data.

Nearly All Parents Monitor Children's Online Actions, Says Conference Board

Article

The Conference Board maintains a panel of 10,000 households to ensure that a representative sample is available for each of its surveys. These results can be confidently validated at the marco level. More granularly results, such as the income levels of households that monitor, are not readily available here.

Wealthy Americans Worry About Financial Security

HNW, a wealth management software company, conducted this study for PNC Advisors. Marketers to wealthy Americans should pause for these data, however, since the demographic is often difficult to reach. But be wary of the 4 percent margin error.

Salary Survey Uncovers Work-Life Attitudes

Press Release

Salary.com touts the 4,600 sample size, despite that it is comprised only of web site visitors and readers of its promotional newsletter. Clicking through to its site for further details does little to reveal the sample profile, such as the income breaks of the respondents. Most interesting, to me, would be the response to the "time off" question by those earning $100K or higher annually.

Americans Underestimate Cost of Long-Term Care

Press Release

Harris conducted this phone survey of adults 18+ and the release does not indicate the incomes of the households. If the sample includes more than 50% of lower- to middle-income households, then the results should be weighted by revenue. Also, if mostly older adults were surveyed, they're opinions could bias the data about what defines "long-term."

Weight Loss Firm Feeds Diet Data

Americans Feel Older Than Their Years, eDiets.com(R) Survey Finds

These data are timed to ride the weight loss New Year's resolution wave. The release fails to cite the sample size, survey methodology, and key demographics.

Consumers Will Prepare 2005 Budget, Says Survey

Survey Finds 75 Percent of Consumers Expected to Prepare a Budget in 2005

FamilyFN's motive is obvious -- to promote its site and give away the budget kits. It conducted the research during the peak holiday shopping time, when consumers would likely be more conscious of their spending habits, too. It would behoove the company to include a demographic profile of respondents and the overall sample size before making a claim that three-quarters of Americans will prepare a budget.

Stanford Study Reports on American Internet Use

If there's one definitive report to read on Internet use a year -- this is it. They've amassed a reliable panel of respondents and their methodology is quite clean. eMarketer, the definitive soruce for Internet statistics, quotes this study frequently. We wish more studies were available like this on other topics.

Tech Experts Respond to Latest Pew Internet Survey

The full report indicates that Pew supplemented its sample of high-tech experts via respondent referrals. This is quite risky, especially for an online survey where anonymity reigns. I would be interested in seeing the roster of experts by industry to substantiate the findings (especially this one: 66% predict at least one devastating attack on network information infrastructure or the country's power grid in the next 10 years.

Survey Finds Relevancy is Key to Building Online Consumer Trust

Internet Marketing and Privacy Survey Finds Relevancy is Key to Building Consumer Trust

Larry Ponemon is a guru of online privacy issues but I question his methods in obtaining the data. While the sample size is valid, the use of an online survey about an online topic is suspect. What's needed is a breakdown of the gender and age of the respondents so any doubts about interview bias can be put to rest. Marketers should be cautious before running with these data.

Santa Did Well This Christmas (Holidays)

Santa Claus apparently was on target with the gifts he delivered for Christmas, according to this survey by Greenfield, a well-respected online surveyor of consumers. What's lacking in this release, however, is the age and gender breakdown of the returners. Are they mostly older females? That would mean that retailers need to improve their promotions to men buying gifts for women.


Media Alert: Greenfield Online Survey Reveals Most Consumers Want the Gifts They Received
WILTON, Conn., Dec. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Greenfield Online, Inc. (Nasdaq: SRVY), a leading provider of Internet survey solutions to marketing research and consulting companies, today announced the results of its post-Christmas survey of 1,079 consumers. The survey reveals that the majority of consumers wanted the gifts they received this year. In fact only 29 percent indicated they would return or exchange their gift. Of those returning a gift, 79 percent plan to exchange the item or request store credit. Interestingly, 18 percent of respondents said they plan to "re-gift" a present they received this Christmas.
"Our survey results indicate that consumers seem content with the gifts they received," stated Hugh Davis, Greenfield Online co-founder and its Chief Technology Officer. "In addition, as the majority of those making a return plan to exchange the gift or request store credit, it would appear that retailers got it right this year and overall gift selections were viewed positively by consumers this Christmas season."
Of those returning a gift, 45 percent indicated they are returning it because it is the wrong size or color, while 18 percent indicated they would return a gift because they already owned the item. 82 percent of the gifts being returned had a value ranging between $10.00 and $100.00, with 31 percent valued between $10 and $25.
About the Survey
This survey was conducted in the Greenfield Online Omnibus. The omnibus study is conducted twice a week among an Internet-representative U.S. sample of 1,000 18+ year-old members of Greenfield Online's panel. Sample frame is selected based on NetRatings Home and Work Internet-User Mail Survey by age, gender, and region; the mail survey represents the proportions of online households. Sample was randomly drawn from a representative subgroup of participants in the Greenfield Online US online panel. The margin of error for a randomly drawn sample this size is +/-3%.

Nutrition Survey Likely Has Sampling Error (Lifestyle)

New Survey Shows Nearly Nine in 10 Mature Adults Consider Themselves On-the-Go; Yet Many Find It Hard to Get Nutritious, Good-Tasting Meals

Pinching Pennies During The Golden Years (Finance)

seniors : Pennies Saved Today Earn More for Retirement Tomorrow [TheMatureMarket.com]

How Folks Are Ringing in the New Year (Holidays)

Many might skip revelry tonight

A "Means" to an End

Last night I heard a caller to a radio talk show (forgot the name of it) say to a political pollster that his research is flawed because he only talked to 500 people. How can he project the results to the entire U.S. population, the caller asked. The pollster assured him that this is statistically valid.

But I beg to disagree. Even a sample of 1,000 carries a 3% error margin for a U.S. population of 250 million!

Smartmoney.com: Breaking News: Survey: Affluent Investors Mildly Optimistic

Smartmoney.com: Breaking News: Survey: Affluent Investors Mildly Optimistic

Herald.com | 01/05/2005 | Consumer Reports survey: Verizon is best of a mediocre lot

Herald.com | 01/05/2005 | Consumer Reports survey: Verizon is best of a mediocre lot