SPIM Attacks on the Rise, says Pew Survey

Washington Post article

Data Dump Index: 93/100

Pew's expertise in tracking Internet data coupled with the mainstream media's elevated coverage of Pew's research well-positions these survey data to be top of mind for marketers to the online community.

Merrill Lynch Survey of Baby Boomers is Booming with Good Data

dBusinessNews story

Data Dump Index: 98/100

We are confident that marketers to baby boomers and new retirees can benefit from this study. Harris has taken great strides to weight the data effectively enough to minimize error and maximize the pool of responses from a rather complicated phone and online survey.

Half Survey is Half Reliable

York Daily Record story

Data Dump Index: 27/100

We give low marks to both the methodology and media coverage of this survey because of its use of unbalanced confidence scales and high error margin. Marketers interested in employee confidence data would find little value here.

Korn/Ferry Surveys Executives on Career Changes

Read press release

Data Dump Index: 71/100

While we don't normally assess surveys with a global sample profile, we find these data quite relevant to U.S.-based marketers. The changing tide of the U.S. economy appears to be pushing executives to take risks and move their incomes to foreign soil. We would like to understand the industries that are affected by this trend.

Survey Eyes Celebrity "Spex" Appeal

Read press release

Data Dump Index: 54/100

While this is obvious sponsored research using the Oscars as a news hook, we have not found much data on consumer opinions about eyewear. Marketers of CPG beauty products might look twice at these data to understand how potential buyers perceive eyeglasses as a purchase catalyst.

Survey: Wealthy Clip Coupons

Read newspaper article

Data Dump Index: 68/100

While we have confidence in Michael Weiss' expertise in consumer behavior, we are a bit dubious about the sampling in this survey. Were the affluent respondents randomly selected and did they know of Mr. Weiss' prior work in clustering research? Marketers to affluent Americans would likely find value in Mr. Weiss' new book, but should cautiously heed these survey data.

Intuit Survey Finds Small Business Optimism Growing for 2005

Read press release

Data Dump Index: 43/100

Marketers to small businesses would find little value in these data. Intuit is strengthening its foray into the SOHO arena with its QuickBooks product and the findings here are more tied to promoting its own products than widening the knowledgebase of small business attitudes.

Survey Probes Technology Preferences of Home Buyers

Read article

Data Dump Index: 55/100

The research firm has not provided access to the questionnaire for this online survey, which was sponsored by numerous home-products retailers. We question whether the questions were stacked with product-related hints. Marketers should heed the 5% error margin and proceed cautiously with these results when crafting messages to technology-savvy home buyers.

Survey: More Americans Support Stem Cell Research

Read press release

The timing of the research to coincide with the introduction of the Congressional bill to expand federal stem cell research undermines the credibility of the results, we believe. However, marketers interested in understanding the ethical and moral beliefs of the general U.S. population could find some beneficial nuggets of data here.

Survey Shows Changes in 50-plus Consumers' Attitudes Toward Real Estate

Read the article

Data Dump Index: 42/100

We would like to digest the questionnaire for this survey to understand whether it was done blindly or if it contained loaded references to ERA Real Estate and its services. Marketers to the mature (50+) segment should proceed cautiously with these data.

Bad breath can be kiss of death, Close-Up survey says

Washington Times article

Data Dump Index: 46/100

We're surprised at the coverage The Washington Times has given to this highly product promotional survey by the manufacturer of Close-Up toothpaste. While we can appreciate the Valentine's Day angle, we would have expected the media to at least question the validity of the survey methodology instead of arbitrarily quoting percentages and interviewing third-party book promoters.

Survey by Diet.com Reveals Lull in Romantic Mood around Valentine's Day

Read press release

Data Dump Index: 38/100

While we appreciate the attempt to correlate weight loss attitudes with romance we must caution marketers who read this survey's results. We are not told the composition of the sample (which is likely all diet.com subscribers), such as their gender, age, and level of obesity.

Survey by Diet.com Reveals Lull in Romantic Mood around Valentine's Day

Read press release

Data Dump Index: 38/100

While we appreciate the attempt to correlate weight loss attitudes with romance we must caution marketers who read this survey's results. We are not told the composition of the sample (which is likely all diet.com subscribers), such as their gender, age, and level of obesity.

Transamerica Releases Comprehensive Report on Retirement Attitudes

Full results here

Data Dump Index: 96/100

We applaud Transamerica for once again conducting a thorough investigation into consumer attitudes about employee retirement plans. Their methodology and analysis is quite comprehensive and marketers of financial services products or employers considering retirement plans can learn much from this report.

Cingular Reveals Valentine's Day Survey on Wireless Courtesy and Dating

Read press release

Data Dump Index: 68/100

We find some credence in these data because it is a tracking study by nature but would caution marketers considering wireless as a customer communications medium.

Survey Reveals Changes In 50-Plus Consumers' Attitudes Toward Real Estate

Read press release

Data Dump Index: 44/100

Marketers of products and services to the mature (50+) segment should use these data cautiously. We are curious if the sample is comprised of ERA customers who were given an incentive to respond. We would also like to understand the geographic composition and income level profile of the sample before accepting these results as fact.

Comparative Estimates on Office Romances

While one data point is from a leading online service company and the other from an online executive search firm, we converge our estimate closely with the two because of the two company's abilities to escalate the scope and reach of the data quite easily.

AOL press release
The Ladders.com release


Comparative Data on Office Romances

U.S. Newswire : Releases : "New Research: How Young Adults Make Decisions..."

Press Release

Data Dump Index: 94/100

We are confident these results can withstand debate from education marketers and others with a vested iterest in reaching educated teens and young adults. The blending of big business with a non-profit agency to achieve market intelligence is typically done effectively and accurately.

Study Finds Young Volunteers Help Themselves While Helping Others

Read press release

Data Dump Index: 42/100

Lacking from the press release are any hard data from the survey results, which makes us skeptical about the validity of the message. Marketers who need to understand youth habits and attitudes towards volunteering would not benefit from this research.

Survey Reveals How to Market to Gays

Article

Data Dump Index: 58/100

We advise marketers of products and services for gays and lesbians to tread cautiously with these results because of the low base size of gays/lesbians in the total sample. We would further investigate if there is a statistically significant difference between the gay and heterosexual groups on the key findings.

Survey: Travelers Have Health Fears

Article

Data Dump Index: 62/100

Buried in this article is the reason for the survey: Chubb's new offering of insurance for thrill-seeking vacationers. We are not privvy to the composition of the sample here, which could have been skewed by travelers to higher risk destinations.

Poll Describes American Religious Landscape and 2004 Presidential Vote

Get the full report

Data Dump Index: 87/100

Marketers can comfortably mine these data for nuggets on political and religious attitudes of a multitude of ethnic backgrounds. One point of contention is that this is a re-survey of respondents from a year ago and there is little or no comparison to pre- or post-election responses.

Average Salaries for Tech Professionals Decline in 2004

Read press release

Data Dump Index: 91/100

Dice.com, an online job resource for high-tech pros, surveyed its visitors from Jan. to Dec. 2004 on their skill sets and salaries. We applaud Dice for its clear presentation of results and accessibility to the data on its website. Marketers to technology-savvy consumers can learn a lot of demographic information about their prospects from these data.

Comparative Estimates on Valentine's Day Data

CNN Story on National Retail Federation
Press Release on Verizon
Press Release on Womenswallstreet.com

The data on Valentine's Day consumer attitudes continues to grow and coverage has been brisk. Here we aggregate data on average spending for the holiday and percentage of consumers who will buy flowers. Marketers of holiday-related goods and services should cautiously digest the Verizon and Womenswallstreet.com data due to their heavy promotional slant. However, the NRF data are more statistically reliable. The charts include our own projections based on the aggregated data and other modeling efforts.



Buying Flowers on Valentine's Day


Average consumer spending on Valentine's Day

Networking Pipeline | Consumers Are Cool To VoIP: Survey

Information Week Story

Data Dump Index: 92/100

The tech media prudently follow and report on research from the large IT consulting firms, and Forrester is one of them. Marketers can expect to pay a premium for the full report but Information Week and others have done a good job reporting on the results, which are likely highly reliable.

NRF Asks Consumers About Super Bowl Plans

Data Dump Index: 82/100

We praise the National Retail Federation's open accessibility to the survey data but take off points for its presentation of the results. For example, this pie chart fails to reveal that the respondents are aged 18+. Also, the question prompted the responses about their party plans.


National Retail Federation Survey Data

Rules of Survey Disclosure

Read the state of disclosure

The National Council on Public Polls has written standards on how pollsters and research firms should disclose the methodologies of their surveys to ensure their validity in the public domain. We wish more would comply. We will continue to use these standards to supplement our analysis of surveys in The Data Dump.

One in Five Adults Currently Have a Home Computing Network

Press release

Data Dump Index: 95/100

We applaud Harris Interactive's press release for its frank disclosure of the methodology and the clear explanation of the possible errors in this and other similar surveys. So far, the media appear to have accurately represented these results in articles targeted to high-tech marketers.

Teens Know Safety Rules of the Road

PRESS RELEASE

Data Dump Index: 60/100

Besides the obvious sponsorship factor, this survey likely has credible data for marketers to teens to use when positioning products or services with safety features. However, we would like to privvy to the sociographic and geographic profile of the teen respondent base as safety is more of an issue in more densely populated and poorer regions of the country.

CareerBuilder Polls Workers on Super Bowl Pools

Press release

Data Dump Index: 58/100

We find little value in this ad hoc poll of "workers" on gambling attitudes at the office, especially by a job hunting resource. Enough said.

First Amendment goes "too far," say students in survey

Seattle Times story

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

Data Dump Index: 89/100

We give high marks to UConn's survey because of its scope, accuracy, timeliness, and presentation. Wide mainstream media coverage followed the release of the data and we see little misinterpretation of the findings. Marketers to teens should take these results into consideration when crafting messages that could evoke feelings about free speech or other First Amendment issues.