One of the advantages of being a profligate is that when a pollster approaches me in the mall and asks if I have forty minutes free to do a survey I can pause for a second, feign disinterest and then (gleefully) say “Yes!”
In fact I like to think I acted so well she had no idea it was I that hooked her into asking me and not vice versa.
I was led along some labyrinthine hall deep into unknown halls somewhere inside Crossgates Mall and sat with my interviewer (a charming grandmother named Joann) while the survey proceeded.
It began with the usual mix of questions such as how many bottles of pain reliever (and which brands) we had bought in the last 3 months or what brand of soda would I probably never buy (7-Up). There were a couple of dozen of these, which took the first few minutes.
I then looked through a big book of photographs of various products and had to answer questions about them:
“Of the five car manufacturers listed, which one would you buy a car from?” (Toyota)
“Which snack product would you be more likely to buy?” (Wavy Lays)
“Which credit card would you be more likely to apply for?” (Mastercard)
After this came the interesting part: the watching TV segment.
I had three shows that I could freely switch between; The Simpsons, 30 Rock and Forbes Magazine Top 20 Celebrity Weddings. While I am sure valuable data about what show I watched was collected (the wedding one…) the meat and potatoes of the study was the advertisements, no doubt selectively fed to me as I was watching (the entire process being controlled by a computer). I watched about 20 minutes of TV, and afterwards had to answer questions about the ads I had seen.
Fairly quickly the questions narrowed themselves down to one single advert, and specifically one product. This was the ad:
Dull eh?
The questions went on ad infinitum. What did I think of the advert? Of the product? Did you trust the ad? The product? Which of the following words would you use to describe the ad? The product? How do you feel about the product? Etcetera, etcetera.
Many of the questions I had to answer again (the same questions) holding an image of the product in my hands whilst doing so. All told; I’d guess there were 50 odd Wheat Thins related questions.
This wrapped up the survey, for which I was paid $15. I answered the questions as honestly as I could and hope my data is in some way useful, but I have to say I found the experience intriguing enough I didn’t even care about remuneration.
Perhaps the most disturbing thing to come from this was overhearing another interviewee who gave his salary as $25,000-$35,000 and his occupation as ‘sniper’. (And yes, he meant sniper in the military).
Uncle Sam wants him to kill people for a living and they only pay him up to $35,000? Something about that just doesn’t add up.
