My Olympic Gripe

Like many people, I have spent way too many hours watching the Olympics over the past two weeks. I know NBC was going for the “Media Gold” with the broadcast; but their attempt to cover more, make it flashier, deliver quick sound bites, etc. left me cold. They have eliminated so much of the human element. I wonder where their research was on this. I can’t believe I am the only one that misses it. For example…

• They rarely showed the medal ceremony for any events or athletes. In years past, this was always part of our household’s favorite part of the broadcast. It gave you a chance to see the emotions of the athletes. It helped build your respect for their accomplishments.
  


• My second point uncovers my inner research nerd. Why have they stopped showing individual judge scores for competition such as gymnastics or diving? It was always exciting to watch the returns build as each judge voted. And of course there was always the controversy over whether a judge may be holding any biases. Now, you don’t see the judges and have no idea what countries they are from.
  


• Finally, the closing ceremony was spectacular. I doubt if another country will top that in a long time. But the athletes were an afterthought, almost treated as a nuisance to the performance. There were no close-ups on the athletes. We didn’t get to see the camaraderie that has built over the past weeks – among team mates and across countries. We didn’t see that enemies can become friends, when they interact one-on-one.
  

I love the Olympics, but please bring back the human element!

¿Se Habla Español? Part Two

So as soon as I talk about not being able to find a representative sample of Hispanics online, Knowledge Networks comes along and introduces KnowledgePanel Latino™. As they have done with other groups, they are attempting to fill the void I mentioned by including non-web Hispanic households. They provide a laptop computer and web connection to those who do not have Internet access.

Short-term, I think this is a brilliant idea. I also think they are putting a top-notch effort behind this. My concern is whether giving these individuals Internet access will inherently change them. Will it accelerate their acculturation? Will they start acting differently than Hispanic households without Internet access? I’m sure Knowledge Networks has thought about this and hopefully has safeguards in place.

This reminds me of an idea we had in our office that we dubbed The 24th Street Project ™. Named after the 24th Street section of San Francisco’s heavily Hispanic Mission district, our idea was to open store fronts in major Hispanic neighborhoods around the country. Each site would serve as a computer literacy education center for the community. At the same time, it would give us access to an audience that has not been reachable online. We never got this off the ground, but to this day, I have my eye on a vacant store front.

In the meantime, I congratulate Knowledge Networks. Not only is this progress for the marketing research world, but it will hopefully enhance the lives of the individuals receiving the free laptop and web connection.

¿Se Habla Español?

It was recently reported that the growth of the U.S. Hispanic population on the Internet in recent years has accelerated faster than previously expected. Fifty-two percent of the U.S. Hispanic population is now online, representing 23 million users, according to a new report by eMarketer.

So, is it time to move more research among Hispanics online? I don’t believe so. While their presence online is growing, it is not a representative sample of the broader Hispanic population. Much of the growth is fueled by younger, bilingual, U.S. born Hispanics. A study completed online could result in extremely distorted results.

We have been fortunate to have several clients run parallel studies among Hispanics both by telephone and online. In each case, they threw out the online results and only relied on the telephone study. The difference in findings across the two methodologies was tremendous. And many findings from the online approach just didn’t pass the “gut” test. Some of these differences are likely due to socio-economic and acculturation differences between Hispanics who are online and those who are not.

For now, if Hispanics are part of our research assignment, we are likely to recommend telephone or in-person. I would be interested to hear of others’ experience with different data collection methods among Hispanics.