I have experienced, on numerous occasions, the blank looks or utter condescension from the researchers working on a social marketing project with me. The trigger occurs during the process of designing formative research or outcome studies where I'm assuming (silly me) that they are bringing some knowledge about the audience to the discussion or planning session. A prevailing belief among many of these people is that they should know as little about the target audiences as possible in order to maintain their 'objectivity.' Now the problems with this approach to the work are many, including conducting research that asks the wrong questions (you can always tell these folks from the first draft of the questionnaire/interview guide that could be asking about anything from anybody) or designing an evaluation that neglects to factor in the most crucial information: like focusing the sampling on representatives of the target audience and not the general population. And I can't tell you how maddening that is, especially when decisions about whether the programs works (aka receives additional funding) lie in the balance.
So with that introduction, here's what set it off - a timely reminder from the ABC News Polling Director about why tonight (or tomorrow) will not be good times to assess the response to the President's State of the Union (SOTU for the inside-the-beltway crowd) address.
ABC News' Polling Director Gary Langer also offers these two contextual points.
1. "Partisans watch these things; rather than torturing themselves, people who don't like the guy can just turn to another of their 100 channels. When we polled on the SOTU in 2003, we found that the president's approval rating among speech watchers was 70 percent, versus 47 percent among those who didn't watch. As we put it at the time: 'Simply put, people who don't like a particular president are considerably less apt to tune him in.'"
2. "These speeches tend to be composed of poll-tested applause lines, so the people who watch are already predisposed to like what they hear."
"We haven't done immediate post-SOTU reax polls in years (pre-war 2003 was an exception) because, given 1 and 2 above, they are so dreadfully predictable." ABC News The Note.
Researchers who know their (audience) stuff and can provide wise counsel to social marketing research and evaluation efforts should post on their bulletin boards: " We haven't done a research study like that since ... because it's so [outdated, inappropriate, misleading, not targeted on your audience or behaviors] .. instead, we recommend you consider ...[note: 'nothing' can be a good answer sometimes]." Program designers and managers, if you hear this, or a riff on it, immediately invite them out to lunch.
Knowing your audience goes for everyone on the project team and in the organization - including your volunteers. When everyone is committed (and not just involved) and contributes their perspective on the target audience (NOT just what they learned in school) it brings us all closer to the insights, actions and results that improve health and social conditions.
Technorati Tags: Audience Research, Program Evaluation, Social Marketing
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