Why many are skeptical about survey results
IN the exit- poll survey that a high- profile opinion firm conducted in the 2004 presidential election, it proclaimed that FPJ won. It was a dud. In the 2010 contest, two outfits favored Mar Roxas to snatch the vice presidency over Jojo Binay. The result proved their crystal ball scenario was a monumental faux pas.
These two botches committed by political survey outfits are still fresh in the memory of million of voters. They are not about to forget them easily. And so are their adverse impression about pollsters.
Pilloried because of the two embarrassing incidents, survey findings continue to be viewed with reservation by the public in general.
Some years ago, I was sober enough to save in memory what a neighbor said during an evening gathering of our homeowners association that surveys should be viewed like a lamppost that would guide drunks – not lean on it – in going home at night.
Fine. But pollsters today talk in a strange “language.” It appears that it is crafted not to be understood by just anybody.
This leaves listening or reading their findings published in media more than enough to daze even the sober. A homeward-bound drunk will realize that the world in front of him has turned upside down.
Another hazy concern is the manner in which survey makers mesmerize the public with seemingly grandiose “universe.” They claim that in each survey, for example, on voters’ preference the process is conducted “nationwide.” And the number of respondents? One thousand two hundred.
What they don’t tell us is whether the audience is a cross section of the populace – each one a representative of various income levels, gender, education, status of domicile – nothing of that sort.
Two weeks ago in Cubao, I bumped into a former college classmate who now lives in Albay, who to me, “Sa tanang buhay ko, ’ di pa ako nai- interview ng Pulse Asia o SWS man!”
How big is the sector interviewed in a Tuguegarao town, for instance, compared to the one in Takurong, Cotabato?
The nationwide interview is conducted two days. It is assumed that survey firms have a battalion of trained interviewers in every city and capital towns from Aparri to Jolo.
Collating the findings may take three days and the results are announced to media by the outfits in a week’s time.
The skeptics in many Filipinos will promptly dismiss the conclusions, taking into consideration that names of national candidates involved in the survey are more than 50. Not even the fastest e- mails and SMS’s can deliver the figures in just a few days from virtually all corners of the archipelago.
How survey firms frame the questions leave respondents like unthinking humans.
For instance, they don’t ask why respondents prefer a particular candidate. It would be sensible if such question is fielded because this would jibe with the usual premise in the questionnaire that begins, “If the elections were held today…”
Besides, the answers can be a gauge as to how the electorate are influenced by what kind of information has reached them, or by what means.
I have no quarrel with survey firms. In fact, I admire their practice of the uncommon profession.
Conducting field studies on product and brand preferences for agency clients was one of the first assignments given to me, aside from being a publicity writer, when I was new in advertising.
One of those clients of the agency I worked for was an old European company that was planning to bring in a brand of an Israeli juice drink. I made a market research study of existing competing brands and market share of each brand in the metropolis.
Three months after our agency submitted our findings, the client decided to import and distribute the brand in cans and the product itself exclusively in Metro Manila.