Survey Says....

A friend of mine who used to own a radio station now owns a research company and we were discussing a few years ago the limitations of surveys.

Michele Miller asks similar questions on her WonderBranding blog:

Survey On Gender Desire For Brands: Fuzzy Logic?

Posted: 03 Feb 2011 08:50 AM PST

WalletPop reported on a new study just out from Buyology marketing group, listing the “20 Most Desired Brands” for each gender.

Here are the results:

Top 20 Most Desired Brands in the World: Women

1. Johnson & Johnson
2. Sony
3. Kleenex
4. National Geographic
5. MasterCard
6. Google
7. Amazon
8. Visa
9. General Electric
10. Toshiba
11. Crest
12. Microsoft
13. Disney
14. Target
15. Tropicana
16. BMW
17. Febreze
18. Ford
19. Olay
20. Chase

Top 20 Most Desired Brands in the World: Men

1. Crest
2. BMW
3. National Geographic
4. Panasonic
5. Hyundai
6. Kleenex
7. Coca-Cola
8. Microsoft
9. Tide
10. Lexus
11. Apple
12. Bed Bath & Beyond
13. Ford
14. Animal Planet
15. Hitachi
16. Mercedes-Benz
17. FedEx
18. Procter & Gamble
19. Hallmark
20. Geico

You can read the entire article on the study, but some questions came to mind as I reviewed the results.

• Are these really the most desired brands in the world? According the article, the survey was given to consumers in America and Japan.
• The survey was presented to 5,000 consumers. Were they evenly divided among gender? Among country?
• What were the qualifications for brand identity? There seems to be a mixture of conglomerate brands and product brands – for example, Proctor & Gamble, which owns Tide.

Finally: How were survey questions posed to consumers? Were questions worded differently for women than men? Female consumers definitely speak a different language than male consumers.

The reason I ask this is because I was so surprised at the results in the men’s category. Tide is a more “desired” brand than Lexus? Bed Bath & Beyond? And it beats Mercedes?

While I appreciate the time and effort put into this survey, I strongly question the methodology and results. Not having had an opportunity to view the study’s platform or parameters, my marketing intuition tells me that it was either hastily put together or created without regard for posing questions in a language suitable for each gender.

What do you think? How do these lists reflect with your own “desire?” I’d particularly love to hear from the men out there.

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