Appreciate you sending us the link and updating this post.

Thanks.

Merrill

Here we go again…

Merrill

Finally, at the risk of piling on… My first reaction to Ford Motor Co’s recent ad campaign was probably the same as yours. It couldn’t happen for legal reasons, but how would Ford react to a competitor borrowing the image of Henry Ford to trick people into doing something for one of their campaigns? They’d feel used, as the MR profession did in the automaker’s “Swap Your Ride” commercials.

Thanks for letting us ad this to the conversation Bob.

Merrill

As the newest addition to MRA’s staff (Director of Communications), I am only beginning to understand the breadth and depth of the MR field. There’s a lot to learn and your blog is a good jump-off point.

It strikes me that the MR industry needs a healthy shot of positive PR, especially in light of an article from Pantagraph.com on 12/9 (Everyone’s got a cell phone, so who are pollsters polling? Mobile phones, caller ID create new challenges for pollsters; here is the link to the full article: http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/12/09/news/doc475a45ce33810354435677.txt).

I have some questions about what this article means to the industry and to the public:
1) With response rates plunging for phone surveys, what does this mean for the accuracy of political polling as we enter the heart of the primary season—and into the national election cycle?
2) What are some of the innovative and creative ways (be they tools or techniques) research marketers are taking to overcome resistance to surveying?
3) Is Internet polling accurate and reliable? If not, why not, and what’s the industry doing to fix it?
4) Why are young people so hard to reach for polling purposes, and what’s the industry doing to reach this highly skeptical audience?

I look forward to your further comments on this and other matters.

There has been a lot of interest in this story, both on this blog, and throughout various circles within the profession. From everything that is public about the Ford commercial, there is nothing that would allow us to conclude that Ford was not conducting legitimate research. In fact, there is at least one interview with Ford that refers to the research they did in this advertisement, beginning with their intention to perform actual marketing research.

Unfortunately, the advert conveys the idea that (esp. to the public) that there may have been some below-board activity. As a profession, we realize that the public sentiment affects us deeply- with respect to legislation, respondent cooperation, and our general identity. For this reason, CMOR’s official response to Ford is through communications designed to educate them to be sensitive to how opinion research is portrayed. It’s not enough for us to maintain high ethics and standards- we need to communicate our legitimacy to the public effectively as well.

http://www.mrweb.com/drno/news7437.htm

http://bloombergmarketing.blogs.com/bloomberg_marketing/2007/10/what-is-wrong-w.html