Presidential polling
10/21/08 / David Kennedy
Yep, it’s political polling season. But if you’re tired of Gallup, Rasmussen, Zogby and others, here are some different “polls” we’ve recently run across.
Methodologically robust? Not quite. Entertaining? Absolutely.
NOTE: Many links removed because they were no longer active.
- Amazon Meters measures support by comparing Halloween face mask sales. (For a related article, click here). Don’t think face masks are a good predictor? Then how about t-shirts or coffee?
- 7-11 is polling by cup selection. (allegedly 7-11 coffee drinkers have accurately predicted the outcome of the last two elections …)
- How about some donuts with that coffee?
- Or cookies?
- Finally, my favorite. Using MotiveQuest’s Online Promoter Score (TM), the BrandAdvocacy08 Website measures each candidate’s brand by monitoring online conversations.
While each one of these seems absurd in isolation, they each tap into a different section of the voting zeitgiest. And in aggregate, perhaps they are a good secondary measure of political preference. After all, these “voters” are willing to put their money (often literally) where their mouth is!
Are there more of these “polls” floating around on the internet that we didn’t find? Type your own in the comments below …
Hi David:
Thanks for the mention – we launched BrandAdvocacy 08 because we believe that naturally occuring brand advocacy in the online conversations is more honest and accurate that polling – or marketing research surveys.
Tom O’Brien
MotiveQuest LLC
Thanks for the shout out. I can’t believe we are competing with coffee cups and Haloween masks for credibility 🙂
Cheers
David
We agree that not all polls are created equal, but a good survey has the potential to get at beliefs and behavior that any of the observational measures may miss. Further, tracking only online behavior leaves out anybody that doesn’t live online, as well as those who don’t participate in chat rooms or message boards online. And often it’s a pretty big stretch to assume that those who are participating online are completely representative of those who aren’t. Nevertheless, observational research is a lot more informative than a push poll, any day.