Category: Mystery Shopping

 

I heard about this commercial not long after the Superbowl, and thought it was an interesting way to quietly go viral. I’m sure Old Spice was hoping that word would spread faster than its creepy commercials of recent past, and it seemed to work.

 

I may be dating myself, but for those of you who remember dialing 867-5309 back in the day to see if you could really talk to “Jenny” as the popular song goes, this commercial was reminiscent of that.

 

Old Spice ran a commercial, which is still slightly creepy in nature, as the man’s hair scoots across the table to get a female colleague’s phone number, but take a look at what’s different:

 

 

 

Did you catch it? If not, the screen shot below points out the one minor detail in this commercial that makes viewers curious, if they’re paying attention that is:

 

 

 

Unlike phone numbers shown on TV, this one doesn’t follow the standard 555-5555 protocol. It’s a real number, and as one lucky viewer shared, it was more curious because it was a toll-free number.

 

Curiosity got the best of many, but one lucky viewer called the number and was awarded with free tickets to the Superbowl, as well as spending money and a few other perks. There is reportedly one other person who won tickets, and according to reports, over 12,000 viewers were curious enough to call the number in the commercial to see what happened.

 

This is quite a unique promotional move on Old Spice’s part; something very simple, with a nice reward is a sure fire way for the brand to get some viral attention!

 

 

 

Google Consumer Surveys are a great, inexpensive tool to capture some broad feedback from consumers. This survey program has been around for some time, and according to Google’s website, it shows that you can create surveys, target the demographic you’d like to get data from, and Google will pretty much take care of the rest.

 

Our company has tested this service in the past and thought it to be easy to use, and gave us some data on a broad level to work with for a small study we conducted last year. However, I recently came across a method of using Google Consumer Surveys that gave me pause, as I realized that this particular methodology might me giving us some invalid results.

 

Let me back up a step and say that once demographics are selected, Google will strategically place survey questions on partner sites that cater to the demographic you’re interested in. It will display one question from your survey for the user to respond to. When placed appropriately, it may draw attention and encourage a response.
However, when used as a gatekeeper, as I call it, the results might be different. I was browsing the online publications last week, as there is news regarding a local high school that I have been following. I came across a local online publication that had a recent article. Interested, I clicked on the link to read it. This is what I saw:

 

 

 

Looks like I can read the article, but only if I answer the question at hand or login as a member. If I’m a member, I guess this is no problem – I login and move on to read the rest. But I’m not a member, and don’t want to register, so I’m left with the option to answer the question or find another article.

 

In this case, it’s a question that could be relevant to me, and I might be inclined to answer if I really wanted to read the article. But, what if I was in a hurry, or for whatever reason wanted to get to the article. I could just click on any response and move on. Quick for me, but not very useful for the company who is running the survey.

 

This is one way in which I do not think placement is very effective and may be giving companies false data, or at least not the most accurate data possible. It’s important to make sure that responses are voluntary, and not used as a gatekeeper of sorts to get where the user ultimately wants to be.

 

Like I said, Google Consumer Surveys can be a great tool to capture broad consumer data; being careful with placement makes a difference, and it’s something to keep in mind when using this product and looking at the data coming in.

 

From our family to yours, have a very Merry Christmas! We wish you all the best, along with some time spent making memories with family & friends!