Preeper’s Blog

An interesting reponse to the increasing consumer interest in knowing where their food comes from.

Sourcing The Milk You Drink - Forbes.com.

I am pleased to announce that I will be appearing on the Nanos Report on CPAC this Sunday, October 25. The show will air at both 11:30 AM and 9:00 PM Atlantic Time. I’ll be part of a Pollster Panel with Nik Nanos and Barb Justason of Justason Marketing Intelligence. The idea behind the segment is to bring together independent pollsters from across the country to discuss what’s hot in their respective regions. I’ll be providing the Atlantic Canadian perspective.

I am thrilled to announce that our first podcast is now available for download. This the first of a regular series of podcasts we will be making available on our site.

We took advantage of some downtime between our Halifax Club event and a reception on Tuesday to record an interview with Nik Nanos (and me) about a number of trends in public opinion on a local and national level. Hope you enjoy it.

 episode 1: Download

Just a quick note of thanks to Nik Nanos for taking time out of his busy schedule to join me in presenting some “numbers” at the Halifax Club yesterday.  It was a lot of fun. The event was a sellout, and the feedback we received has been extremely positive and encouraging.

I also want to thank the members of the Thinkwell and Think Usability teams for their assistance in pulling the event together, the Halifax Club for hosting the session, and Eleanor Beaton for the lovely introductions.

A special thank you as well to all of the attendees. It was great to see so many familiar faces, and a lot of new ones too.

Thanks again.

I’m excited to announce that I’ll be joining Nik Nanos of Nanos Research at a speaking event later this month.

The event will showcase some recent polling data our two firms have collected. The event will take place on Tuesday, September 29^th, at 12 PM at the Halifax Club.

Details of the event are on page 4 of the Club’s September newsletter (link below). You can reserve your seat through the club directly.  Seating is limited, so don’t delay if you are interested in attending.

http://www.halifaxclub.ns.ca/file/09%20September%202009(5).pdf

Looking forward to seeing you there.

At the same time that we were conducting our traditional Nextbus telephone survey (see below), we were conducting the same questionnaire with an Internet panel of Nova Scotians, to see how the results would compare.

The results to the first United Breaks Guitars question were similar: 72% of Internet panel respondents said they were aware of the story, compared to 67% of the phone sample. However, a higher proportion of Internet panellists aware of the story had watched the video personally (46%, versus 32% in the phone survey). This difference holds even when we control for Internet access in our phone sample. Furthermore, Internet panellists were much more likely to report that their opinion of United was negatively affected by the story than those in our phone sample (57% compared to 38%).   

With Dave Carroll’s United Breaks Guitars: Song Two hitting the web last night, it’s a good time to consider the impact of the first segment of the planned trilogy.

According to the results of our most recent province-wide omnibus telephone survey conducted in mid-July, an impressive two-thirds (67%) of Nova Scotians reported that they had seen or heard something about the United Breaks Guitars YouTube video. Awareness of the video increased with income and education level, which is not particularly surprising.

What did surprise us was that this awareness also increased with age, peaking at 73% among those 55 years of age and older. This likely reflects the fact that this was no ordinary viral video. It received a great deal of so-called “mainstream” media coverage, locally and beyond. This is underscored by the fact that only about one-third (32%) of those who had heard about the story had actually watched the video at the time of interviewing (despite the fact 83% of those who were aware of the video reported that they have access to the Internet at home or at work). On this question, responses fell into a more predictable age pattern – those older than 55 were less likely to have watched the video.

Whether they watched the video personally or not, the story certainly gave United a public relations black eye. Nearly four in ten (38%) Nova Scotians said the story left them with a more negative impression of United Airlines than they had previously, versus only 2% who were left with a more positive view. The remainder said it made no difference (54%) or were unsure (6%).  Among those who had actually seen the video, the verdict was harsher - 59% were left with a more negative impression of the airline.

These questions were included as part of the July 2009 Nextbus Survey, a monthly syndicated survey conducted by Thinkwell Research. The survey was conducted by telephone with a random, representative sample of 403 adult Nova Scotians (18+) between July 16 and July 21, 2009. A sample of this size is expected to yield a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Survey questions (Note: Percentages may not add up to 100 due to rounding)

SM1. Recently, a musician named Dave Carroll - a member of the Halifax group “The Sons of Maxwell” -  recorded a video that was released on YouTube that described the difficulties he has had obtaining compensation from United Airlines for a broken guitar. Do you recall seeing or hearing anything about this video?

SM2 .[IF YES IN SM1] Have you personally watched the video on YouTube?

SM3. [IF YES IN SM1] Did the story leave you with a more positive impression of  United Airlines than you held previously, a more negative impression than you held previously, or did it make no difference?

Many Nova Scotians still unconcerned about swine flu

Despite recent warnings from health officials, many Nova Scotians remain unworried about the swine flu virus -  at least in the short term -  according to the results of a series of questions asked by Thinkwell Research as part of its syndicated Nextbus survey.

Four in ten Nova Scotians say they are either very (14%) or somewhat (26%) concerned that they or someone in their family will contract swine flu in the next month. Nearly six in ten are not very (29%) or not at all (30%) concerned. These results are nearly identical to those collected in early May of this year.

There are some indications, however, that Nova Scotians are taking the swine flu virus more seriously than in the spring. The survey also asked how likely it was that somebody in Nova Scotia would die from the swine flu in the next month (the survey was completed 3 days before it was announced that a Cape Breton woman had died from the virus). At the time, 59% of Nova Scotians thought it was either very or somewhat likely that someone would die from the swine flu in the next 30 days, a 21 percentage point increase from May. Just over one-third (36%) thought it was either not very likely or not likely at all, and another 5% were unsure.

Furthermore, one in ten (10%) Nova Scotians say that at some point over the past few weeks they have been worried they may be coming down with the swine flu. This is a slight increase from 6% in the May survey. 

When the results of all three questions are taken into account, one-quarter (25%) of the population can be considered completely unconcerned about the virus. These are Nova Scotians who: 1. are not concerned that they or someone else will get the swine flu in the next month; 2. were not worried that they had contacted the virus personally in the two weeks prior to taking the survey; and 3. did not believe at the time of surveying that it was likely that someone in Nova Scotia would die from the swine flu in the next month. Members of the completely unconcerned group are younger than the provincial average, and are less likely to have children under age 18 living in the household.

These questions were included as part of the July 2009 Nextbus Survey, a monthly syndicated survey conducted by Thinkwell Research. The survey was conducted with a random, representative sample of 403 adult Nova Scotians (18+) between July 16 and July 21, 2009. The May Nextbus survey was conducted with a random, representative sample of 400 adult Nova Scotians (18+) between April 30 and May 4, 2009. In both cases, samples of these sizes are expected to yield a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Survey questions (Note: Percentages may not add up to 100 due to rounding)

SF1.        There has been a lot of talk lately about the swine flu in North America. How concerned are you that someone in your family will get the swine flu in the next month?

 SF2.       At any point over the past few weeks, have you ever been worried that you may be coming down with the swine flu?

 SF3.        And how likely do you think it is that somebody in Nova Scotia will die from the swine flu in the next month?

Yesterday, we released data on the awareness levels in Nova Scotia of a wide range of social networking sites. Today, we’re releasing the membership numbers for the same sites.

As the table below reveals, Facebook remains the social networking site of choice for Nova Scotians, with a 5 percentage point increase in membership since February 2008. Consistent with other published research, women (46%) are more likely than men (37%) to be Facebook members.

In early May, we conducted 400 surveys with a random, representative sample of adult (18+) Nova Scotians as part of our monthly Nextbus survey. The survey included a number of questions about the use and awareness of common social media sites, which we first asked in February 2008. Both surveys were conducted by telephone.

Not surprisingly, Facebook is the best known. LinkedIn (which is mainly confined to the world of professionals), not so much. Twitter may be the one to watch, as it finished a strong third despite being the newest service on our list. It wasn’t even included on our February 2008 survey.

We’ll release the usage numbers tomorrow.