Editor’s note: "War Stories " is a regular feature in which Art Shulman, president of Shulman Research, Van Nuys, Calif., presents humorous stories of life in the research trenches.
Political pollster Arnie Steinberg, speaking at an American Marketing Association meeting, reported that in one of his surveys consumers were asked on an aided basis which of the potential candidates for senator they were aware of. One consumer indicated that he had heard of none of the candidates, who included the current senator of the state, a former vice president of the United States and several other luminaries. Later in the survey, when asked what was the greatest problem facing the nation today, the same respondent replied, "Apathy."
Market research interviewers always record responses verbatim don’t they? Ask that of a certain researcher, who prefers anonymity, who tells about reading the recorded response to one of the open-end questions in his study. "None of my business," the questionnaire said.
Sometimes interviewers are not quite properly trained, or do not have common sense. An unnamed researcher at an unnamed upscale women’s apparel retailer tells about reporting to work one morning at one of their stores to brief an interviewer for a customer exit survey. The interviewer, in her early 20s, showed up in a racy outfit that didn’t quite mesh with the clothing preferences of the store’ s target group -although the interviewer’s black mesh stockings did mesh with the rest of her outfit! Needless to say, the interviewing was cancelled for that day.
Marketer Peter Rich of Lois/EGL recalls a time early in his career when he was involved with home placement of a frozen product. He was at the airport at a central California city, awaiting delivery of the product, which was packaged in a special version of dry ice to keep it from spoiling. Along with the product, also being transported in the baggage hold on that flight was a dog who’d just won Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club. When the flight arrived it was soon determined that the product apparently wasn’t packed properly - the fumes emanating from it had taken the dog’s life.
Rich always wanted to be a killer marketer, but not that way.
Saul Cohen of Saul Cohen & Associates reports preparing for a focus group in a facility with multiple rooms. It was the practice of the facility management to place a sign with the moderator’s name on the door of each viewing room. While in the hallway preparing for his own group, which hadn’t yet begun, Cohen noticed a man dash out of the room where one session was underway. The man, obviously in a great hurry, quickly strode down the hall, unzipping his fly to save every second, and thrust open the door with the sign "JOHN" on it.
A few seconds later, the man exited the room apologetically, zipping up his pants, having just encountered the disbelieving stares of the clients observing the session he was a participant in.
Joyce Rachelson of Computers for Marketing recalls a time over 20 years ago - the days of keypunch cards and countersorters - when she was working for a major advertising agency. She was tabulating the results of an awareness question on a personal care product, where consumers were asked which brands they were aware of. The project analyst requested a tabulation of the number of people who had a 1 and a 2 and a 3 punch. Rachelson dutifully supplied this. Then the analyst requested a tabulation of the number of people who had a 2 and a 1 and a 3 punch as well as a tabulation of the number of people who had a 3 and a 1 and a 2 punch. Rachelson told her that in both cases, the answer was the same as the number of people who had a 1 and a 2 and a 3 punch.
"No it isn’t," insisted the analyst. "I asked for them in a different order."
Rachelson reports it took three hours of conversation and running the cards through the machine to convince the analyst that no matter what order, the answer would always be the same.
She further reports that the analyst was soon promoted to a vice presidency.
In future issues, we’ll report on more quirky, loopy and strange happenings in the world of market research.