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Your Vote Counts
"Thinking isn't agreeing or disagreeing. That's voting."
—Robert Frost
Welcome to this edition of M45 Momentum, a bi-monthly
e-newsletter for the business community featuring tips, trends and trivia from the experts at M45 Marketing Services.
 The votes are cast, the winners decided. And, whether "your" candidates won or lost, you're probably happy election season has ended. Or has it...? The truth be told, you "vote" all the time...with your dollars, your words, and what might seem to be mundane choices about what brand to buy or which radio station to select. Within your workplace, your home, your local establishments, you may have more power than you think. Lots of people care about your opinion—your vote—if you care to cast it. Read on to find out more about how the concept of voting and the playbooks of politics can apply to everyday life.
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Newspaper subscribers provide feedback in
focus groups
Just like many of us grumble when the local grocery store rearranges the aisles (and the location of the soup and
cereal), newspaper readers can have trouble adapting to a change in design. Though it might improve the publication overall, it's tough for some to give up the familiar format and columns for a new look. Others want something new...but they're not quite sure how to articulate their wishes.
The Monroe Times, a daily newspaper in Monroe, Wisconsin, was facing this very dilemma when they contacted M45. Excited to be introducing a new layout and fresh content, they wanted to gather subscriber input to maximize acceptance of their newspaper's redesign and collect fodder for final tweaks.
M45 conducted focus groups on the newspaper's behalf, querying
subscribers about several subjects determined by M45's research arm and
newspaper executives. By asking for readers' "votes" on the planned changes, the
publication expects broader acceptance as the changes are rolled out. According
to editor Jeff Rogers, "We received more useful information out of these focus
groups than we had in previous efforts. We were very pleased with the results."
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Using email to vote
If you use Microsoft Outlook, you can have employees (or others tied to your Exchange server) cast votes via email. It's easy! You can even use it in concert with Excel spreadsheets for many applications. To give it a try, type "voting buttons" in your Outlook help box for directions.
We at M45 regularly use this email feature to vote on everything from lunch options to leadership opportunities. Go ahead...VOTE!
Speaking the language: the power of popular words
Now that the election season has drawn to a close for 2006, have you heard enough of global warming, conservative politics, liberal politics, raising taxes, cutting taxes, the left and the right?
Buzzwords and other language trends are regularly tracked by a team of professional linguists and wordsmiths as a way to monitor the evolution (and demise) of languages, word usage, and word choices. Their list is updated on a regular basis and used by professionals around the world to determine the impact of words on politics, culture, and business.
Likely voters work the web
The number of people who go online for political news is rising, with more than one-third saying they check the Internet for such information.
Thirty-five percent say they look to the Internet for political news—a number that rises to 43 percent among likely voters. Online political browsers are most likely to go to news sites such as those operated by the newspapers, networks and news magazines—with almost nine in 10 saying they check such sites. More than one-third go to candidates’ sites and almost half check out political sites.
Source: http://www.startribune.com/587/story/774135.html |
NOVEMBER 2006
During campaigns, professional pollsters peddle statistics at every turn. Their product—measuring public opinion—is a valuable tool for candidates and the media. Though not a perfect science, their work provides a platform on which to gauge perception vs. reality.
As a business person, gathering opinions can be beneficial to you, too. Would it help to know what your customers think about your service? What potential customers know about your products? What employees value about your benefits package? What competitors do to gain favor in the marketplace?
M45's research department can find answers to these questions. Like pollsters, our experts can help you identify a target audience, determine a contact strategy, gather information, and tabulate results. We get your audience to ‘cast their votes' using tactics such as:
- focus groups (local, regional, national, global)
- printed surveys
- phone surveys
- web surveys
- email initiatives
- customized programs
In addition, we can help you make sense of the results of these types of research and formulate a plan to address them.
Do you want some answers as you develop next year's plans? Then do the logical thing...ASK!
VOTE:
Have you participated in a survey or focus group in the last 12 months?
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 Although this wasn't a presidential election year in the U.S., there was no shortage of campaign ads this month for just about every other political office in the land. Some ads effectively utilized campaign slogans, while others didn't stick to any steady message (maybe other than mud-slinging!).
A good slogan, used consistently, can help make a message memorable...and a campaign successful. Test your knowledge of these presidential campaign slogans from past elections by matching the slogan with the nominee:
(answers at bottom)
| 1. Tippecanoe and Tyler Too |
c. Woodrow Wilson |
| 2. Vote Yourself a Farm |
a. Dwight Eisenhower |
3. Don't Stop Thinking
About Tomorrow |
f. Barry Goldwater |
| 4. Real Plans for Real People |
i. Jimmy Carter |
| 5. I Like Ike |
h. Herbert Hoover |
| 6. He Kept Us Out Of War |
e. William Henry Harrison |
7. In Your Heart You Know
He's Right |
b. George Bush |
| 8. A Leader, For a Change |
d. Abraham Lincoln |
9. A Chicken in Every Pot,
A Car in Every Garage |
g. George W. Bush |
10. A Kinder, Gentler
Nation |
j. Bill Clinton |
Voting for idols and island dwellers
The American TV landscape has changed, and voting has become an integral part of it. Whether we are voting for people to stay on talent-type shows (like American Idol) or rooting for contestants to be voted ‘off an island’ (as on Survivor), savvy television creatives are counting on the viewing public to become the voting public. In doing so, they have produced a national phenomenon.
The League of Women Voters in Minnesota played off this trend in their
recent election advertising. Clever...and right on target...they made their
point in a humorous way. Check it out!
Answers to presidential slogan quiz:
1. e; 2. d; 3. j; 4. g; 5. a; 6. c; 7. f; 8. i; 9.h; 10b
"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost."
—John Quincy Adams, 6th US President (1825-29) |
