Readers' Digest magazine recently conducted a comprehensive, mothodical survey to see if that thing called civility is still alive in this blue planet of ours. The results of this survey, which I happened to catch on last night's news, has thrown quite a few surprises!
But first, the methodology of the survey itself. Sheer brilliance. Gandhiji would've quoted this as an example of simple whatever and great whatever. My Marketing Research Professor who spent three months of my life, and seventy of his trying to cram into heads, the way you go about doing a market research - he'll be eating his words for dinner today. And following it up with humble pie for dessert. This survey just throws, well I'll just say, something dirty, on the face of market research. It shows how great results can be churned out by conducting simple experiments, and combining ah well, a secret ingredient that starts with an 's', ends with a 'y' and also has the following letters, not necessarily in this order 't','p','u','t','d','i' in it.
So here's how it goes.
Readers' Digest first takes a couple of quid from me, and from every other unwitting reader with indigestion, every other week (well, thankfully from my friendly local library in my particular case) and uses the loot to send this dude and this damsel on a freaking 'business trip' to 35 countries.
So what do these lucky travellers do? It's simple. The lady wakes up bright on her first rainy morning in the city, goes and stands five feet away from a Starbucks shop with the missionary zeal of finding out who is going to open the door for her. And when some guy who is too lazy to shut the door behind him goes in, she squeezes in too, and tells him he rocks and doles out twenty points to his city.
Our dude meanwhile is trying to hop in behind her, but oh, these bloody hinges, the door comes and hits him smack on the face. The lazy guy lost twenty points for his city. And this damned city maybe chivalrous but is not civil.
But no, we're not yet done with our jaunt. The damsel, stressed by standing out in the cold and rain for someone to open the door for her, in so distressed, that she drops the bundle of papers she's carrying. Unfortunately for her, the guy behind her, smart ass that he is, suspects she dropped them on purpose - so, well damn him, damn his family, damn his culture, and damn his, now twice damned city (our dude already damned it).
Meanwhile, our dude unfortunately can't quite figured out that a door which slams on your face as you're entering a store (and doesn't hit your ass) has a statistically significant probability of opening inwards (as against the doors of the ass-smacking variety which probably open outwards). So he gives up on the cup of coffee he was planning for, and instead goes up to the shop nextdoor, that's well a.....ahmmm.......Victoria's Secret.
He's a little embarrassed, but hey, duty is duty, and you have to do what it takes. So he spends a few more of those more than a couple of dollars someone gave RD, on buying a gift for his wife. When he goes for billing, the girl at the counter who has never met a red nosed, ruffle haired panty-under-suit wearing executive, forgets her manners in her amusement and doesn't thank him for his purchase.
And slam! The city lost another twenty points. Our damsel meanwhile has got her coffee and given another good twenty to the handsome guy('s city) who was admiring her figure (oh so chivalrous, this city is!), and now it's time to go on to the next city.
And so thirty five cities in thirty five countries later, this guy picks up a Tiger Balm in Changi airport hoping it'll help his broken nose and the couple head back home with their results. Thankfully the damsel is no longer in distress and doesn't drop all her papers with the results, in which case the results of the survey could, well, have been different. Or maybe, not.
So they come home, sit at their computer and realize it's too much work. So they outsource the computations to Bangalore and go to sleep. Next morning, RD has a 'research based story' to publish.
So this folks, is the new way you do Market Research. Three simple straight tests. No complex research forms, no questioning the gimme-a-chance-to-swear-at-you populace. No ANOVA. No Normal Distributions and other complex statistical techniques to arrive at results. It's pure, simple and idiot proof. Any idiot can do it. Never mind, non-idiots probably cannot understand it.
(contd...)
Coming next - Results and Reactions!!!!
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