The popular War Stories column, which presents humorous tales of life in the research trenches, has historically been compiled by Art Shulman, president of Shulman Research in Van Nuys, Calif. Each month in our e-newsletters we feature anecdotes from past War Stories columns and over time, we have received a handful of submissions from our e-newsletter readers who want to share their own outlandish or otherwise entertaining experiences of research gone just-slightly awry.
Submit your own War Story today!
A small amount of money
October 22, 2024
Is there such a thing as too much honesty?
Jeff Totten cites a mail study where his firm sent out a small amount of money as an incentive. An elderly minister returned the money, along with the questionnaire, writing how sinful it was to "guilt" people into responding.
Take up a collection
October 8, 2024
When first breaking into the research business, Kevin C. Reilly was asked to attend a rally for a Midwestern Evangelist preacher, for whom his firm was conducted an extensive quantitative study. During his performance to a packed auditorium of several thousand loyal followers, the reverend at one point asked, “How many of you thought that I would take up a collection tonight?” With some hesitation, hands slowly began to go up throughout the auditorium, until virtually all hands were raised. At this point the preacher started forthrightly, “I will not disappoint you!”
Hundreds of pieces
September 17, 2024
Donna Tinari-Siegfried reported doing a series of focus groups with children on lighted pegboard toys. The sessions were audio and videotaped, and after the first evening’s session her clients left for dinner, Siegfried planned to join them after cleaning up a few things. She went into the focus room, and to her horror, tripped over an electric cord. All of the games tumbled to the floor, with hundreds of colored pieces, arranged into intricate designs, flying from the pegboards. She called the restaurant and told her client she was a bit more fatigued than she thought and would see them the next day. Siegfried then spent the better part of the night putting all the colored pieces backin their spaces.
Cryptic notes
September 3, 2024
J. Patrick Galloway noted that interviewers sometimes make cryptic notes on their questionnaires to explain things. For example, on an incomplete door-to-door callback questionnaire an interviewer wrote the letters SOP. Turned out this stood for "snake on porch."
Attending to her reflection
August 20, 2024
Mary Ann Farrell tells of a focus group she heard about among women who had very recently given birth. Before the session, one woman walked up to the mirror to apply lipstick. At that instant, as she was attending to her reflection, one of the clients in the viewing room, standing just behind the mirror, lit a match for his cigarette.
The woman suddenly saw, through the mirror, superimposed on her face, the face of a man with a flame in front of it. She fainted.
The need for extremely high security
August 6, 2024
Ken Hollander remembers the time his firm was retained by a very large computer hardware manufacturer to conduct user research. The client seemed extremely concerned about maintaining anonymity. His firm had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, and was visited by a member of the client’ s security department, who not only checked locked closets and files, but looked into their windows with high-powered binoculars from the roof of an adjoining building to ensure that no competitive spy could read materials on the desktops.
Having passed these stringent tests, Hollander’s firm proceeded to brief the field service, stressing the need for extremely high security. The study designed was double-blinded so that no one (including the field service) would know the identity of the company sponsoring the research.
Shortly thereafter a delivery truck pulled up to the field service with the client’ s name and logo emblazoned on its sides. Two of its employees, wearing company uniforms, then entered the facility to deliver, in clearly marked boxes, the hardware to be tested.
So much for the security of the client’s identity.
A flatulent dog
July 23, 2024
A client recently asked Doug Schorr if he had any stories from a week of shop-along and in-home ethnographies that were conducted in Dallas. At first the answer was a simple no, just the usual cast of characters. But then his team remembered the extremely flatulent dog (the respondent stated the dog was nervous of the interview), the cat in a dress chasing a wasp on the ledge, a 1940s murder house and being sequestered in a retail store while on lock down from a horrible hail storm. Maybe not just the usual after all!
Her number came out of a computer
July 9, 2024
Mike Halberstam reports that an elderly female respondent contacted in one of their telephone surveys asked how she was selected to be called. The interviewer advised her that her number came out of a computer. The indignant woman complained, "That's ridiculous! I have never, ever put my number into any computer!"
Roach traps
June 25, 2024
Sherry Haub cites a focus group on roach traps she conducted early in her career. The session was held in one of the loveliest rooms she ever moderated in, with plants everywhere and a large skylight highlighting a big round marble table. The table featured a plateful of elegant goodies for respondents to snack on, surrounded by a dozen of the client's roach traps, the intended subject of discussion.
The group was progressing nicely when suddenly all faces in the room registered surprise, then puzzlement, then dawning dismay as they noticed the Madagascar-sized roach perched insolently on the edge of the goodies plate, safe amid the armada of roach traps it had so casually negotiated on its way to the snacks.
A 20% discount
June 11, 2024
Consultant Alan Fine reports that when he worked for a supplier earlier in his career, clients occasionally called and asked if his firm could complete a study and provide a report within a very unreasonable time period. Fine would tell them, "Listen, I have a report on tuna fish, and if you want I'll just replace 'tuna fish' with (the client's product type). And that's the only way I can get you the report in the time you want it."
Fine indicates that once in a while a client tried to take him up on his offer, with one of them saying, "OK, but I want a 20% discount."
"Oh, he works in advertising"
May 28, 2024
Imagine how Donna Tinari-Sigfried felt when, while moderating a focus group on a new product being tested as a promotion by her telecommunications company client, a respondent said, "I love this new promotion, my dad sent me a whole bunch." "Your dad sent you these?" Sigfried asked, somewhat panicked, as a large contingent of agency and client personnel observed through the mirror. "Oh, he works in advertising for [the client company]," explained the consumer.
"Murder?"
May 14, 2024
Doug Conwell once told about a opinion poll regarding the possible merger of two local municipalities. Respondents tended to be older retirees. The first night of interviewing, when a respondent was told the topic of the survey was the "merger," she replied - in horror "Murder?"
Conwell and his group at first thought it was very funny. But when it started happening over and over again, they had to change the terminology.
Green bananas
April 30, 2024
J. Patrick Galloway cites a telephone study of recent appliance purchasers, where one 93-year-old respondent expressed an interesting view of extended warranties.
Interviewer: "And why do you say you would 'definitely not' purchase an extended warranty for your new dishwasher?"
Respondent: "Honey, at my age I don't even buy green bananas."
“I think I left it in my car”
April 16, 2024
A researcher who prefers anonymity reports on a focus group he conducted among cigarette smokers, back when smoking was much more prevalent but starting on its decline. The session was going fine, with many seeming insightful comments. The last portion of the session involved a comparison test where respondents were to light up their current brand, which presumably they brought with them, and then compare it with the client’s new product.
But when the moderator asked respondents to light their current cigarette, one by one each respondent claimed not to have their cigarettes with them. “I think I left it in my car,” “They’re on my desk at home,” etc. Finally, everyone confessed.
Turns out none of the respondents smoked.
A peanut butter taste test
April 2, 2024
Al Popelka remembers the time his company was shipping product around the country for a peanut butter taste test, and the test product for one city disappeared. In the midst of the sweat and tears of vexation, one of his project directors came up with the only logical solution, "It must be stuck to the roof of the truck!"
Make some money
March 19, 2024
Diane Okrent tells about a able crafts show focus group. To qualify, respondents had to be interested in crafts. Going around the table, Okrent came to a participant who said, “I’m really not crafty.” Of course, that respondent couldn’t contribute much to the discussion.
At the end of the group, Okrent asked the respondent to stay while she retrieved her screener. Before she got back, though, the respondent had collected her incentive and disappeared.
The next day, Okrent called the project manager and asked for an explanation of how the unqualified respondent got into the group. After some research, it turned out that the actual respondent had been detained at work and she told her sister-in-law to show up in her place (and make some money).
"I liked it fine"
March 5, 2024
Chuck Teaman tells about being a new researcher who had occasion to accompany an interviewer door-to-door in sub-zero Midwestern weather on a home placement callback interview.
When the interviewer came to the overall rating question (a 5-point asymmetrical scale) and read the scale choices, the respondent answered, "I liked it fine," The interviewer said, "Oh, you mean excellent," promptly circled "Excellent" and went on to the next question. Teaman didn't want to interrupt so he spoke to the interviewer afterward, who assured him that, "Well, everybody knows 'fine' means 'excellent' in Peoria, Ill.!"
Passing out business cards
February 20, 2024
Betsy Bernstein of Bernstein Research Group recalls a focus group among small business owners, where the owner of a boxing firm – a former prizefighter – started actively using his phone for e-mails and texting. The boxer had arrived at the session late and missed the initial phones off reminder, so to keep him engaged with the session, Bernstein politely asked him to turn his phone off. He said no; he needed to stay in touch with his business. OK. Small business. He had already said that his business is his life.
A few minutes later he proceeded to stand up and pass out business cards to everyone in the group. Bernstein again asked him if he could defer this activity until the end of the session, at which point this prizefighter said she was "really beginning to piss him off." The group helped reach a detente and the session ended without incident.
An hour after the session ended, the facility received an call from the boxer with an apology. He thought he had been invited to a networking event where he was paying $250 to attend. Imagine his surprise when he received $250 instead.
The morale of the story? Even though we think we are explaining the research process – many times and through many channels – to the inexperienced respondent, coming to a focus group isn't always what they expect it to be.
Pros and cons
February 6, 2024
Erin Read says she is often torn between cursing and loving open-ended questions. Pros: unfettered truths that amuse and inspire. Cons: 27 different ways of spelling Facebook.
Very strange looks
January 23, 2024
Rob Podhurst was conducting an in-store intercept study for a brand of toilet bowl cleaner. When he got to the store where the interviews were to take place, he discovered that the store was out of stock on the product. Quickly improvising, Podhurst headed over to a rival supermarket and filled a shopping cart with the needed product.
As he stood in line to pay, he noticed he was getting some very strange looks from the woman in line behind him. Seizing the moment, he leaned over to her and whispered, "I've got a very busy day ahead of me!"
When purchasing beer
January 8, 2024
Gail Fleenor tells of conducting in-store surveys in two small towns and receiving two types of refusals she’d never received before. One man refused to be interviewed because he was purchasing beer and was sure that somehow through the survey (which of course was anonymous) his pastor would find out that he drank.