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I was checking in on Facebook Saturday evening, when I noticed a wall post sent via mobile phone by colleague and friend Charity Tran. A USC footall fan, she was at ESPN’s premiere “3-D” event at the Galen Center, and was more than a little piqued with ESPN’s marketing team:
I have to wonder how many of the men in attendance were asked, “So, how big of a football fan are you?” Knowing Charity, I can only imagine her reply:
Oh, I’m not really a fan. I just paid good money for this ticket because I heard there would one of those giant flat TVs you can hang on the wall, and it would be a great chance to get jostled around the room by a giant crowd of screaming, sweaty men. You never know where you’ll find Mr. Right…”
Get your head out of the Astroturf, ESPN. There’s no more fertile ground for increasing your female sports channel audience than college football. It sounds like you’re not only in danger of ignoring this critical market segment, you’re asking culturally-stereotypical questions that should have been thrown out decades ago.
Maybe this episode was unintentional, but then again maybe you would benefit from taking a look at the training your marketing teams go through in preparation for events like the one on Saturday. Showing respect to your attendees by including them in your surveys and asking intelligent, non-gender-based questions would be a good start.
Michele Miller is a writer, speaker, and consultant on ways to capture the heart of the female customer. The co-author of The Soccer Mom Myth, she consults with businesses of all sizes across North America
Excellent post … I had several female friends who had to beg for a survey, and I walked out and was stopped and asked if I wanted to fill out a survey … very biased process indeed!
Could it be that they were modeling the sample to correspond to the demographics they get in their ratings?
Obviously I wasn’t there, but I don’t think this is all that cut and dried. Let’s assume that ESPN wants to survey respondents to see whether or not this has value for their TV audience. They’d want a sample that’s representative across a number of demographics, gender included, to generate an accurate picture of their viewing audience.
For example, in a market I happen to have current Nielsen’s handy for, male viewers 35+ in Prime Time are slightly over 75% of the viewership. So why would I want a sample that has more than 25% women if I’m trying to gauge interest/satisfaction within the existing audience?
Should I be upset if I’m somehow dragged to a tampon event and the survey quota for men is low? Well, I’d be upset simply for being there, granted, but not for not being polled since I’m not really representative of the larger universe of users.
Interesting to hear, Andrew. Especially from a man who was there with a group of women.
I see where you’re going with this, Brett (you left-brained, logical machine, you), and I would hope that was the case. My instinct tells me that you’re giving them too much credit, but it would be interesting to see what their plan was, if they had one. As Charity notes in her FB comment, was the female quota THAT small that a woman couldn’t even get a survey at the end of the 1st quarter?
As for the “tampon event,” you are too funny. Apples and oranges as far as I’m concerned. Yes, there are events for a high majority of women, as well as events for a high majority of men (Viagra?). But football just doesn’t fall into that category, in my opinion. I see too many marketers missing out on a very lucrative market with women, sporting events included. Some franchises are working hard to bring women into the fold (including NASCAR) and having big success. How will ESPN ever know what it’s missing if it doesn’t put a higher quota level on surveys?
You are assuming that the question ESPN is asking is the question you are asking which is, “how will they know what’s missing,” or something to that effect. That may not be the question they sought answers to in the survey in question. To ask your question would require more women. But if answering that question is not the goal of the study, then changing the gender ratios of the sample only serves to undermine the validity of the final answers.
Surveying prospective viewers would be a different sort of survey instrument than you would use to model existing viewers. If I am looking to understand the impact of something on my existing audience, I want to model my existing audience. If I want to understand whether or not something would appeal to people not currently part of my existing audience, then I am going to use a different sampling model.
Is ESPN missing out on a lucrative market? Maybe, although the rates they command from cable operators to carry the signal and the spot rates the command from advertisers say they are doing very nicely, thank you, relative to most any other cable channel. Also, keep in mind that cable networks, are in almost every case, niche products. What would be the point of LIFETIME surveying men about what would make the network more interesting to them? Almost anything they might answer would cause them to lose market share from their current audience of miserable haus fraus who watch in order to take a break from Harlequin romances while their curlers set.
It may be that ESPN does not see the long term value of growing female market share because they have research to show that it would come at the expense of male marketshare. After all, it is often the case that when you change a messaging strategy to pursue a new group, you alienate a portion of the old group. If ESPN were to find out that they could get more women if they showed more female athletics during prime time, they may draw more female viewers, but unless it is a beach volleyball marathon, male viewers are going to be turning to something else.
I suspect they had a very clear and definite research plan. The corporate owners of ESPN are very marketing-savvy and have access to very precise market research tools and techniques. I suspect they knew exactly what they were doing.
Now, there was a way to avoid the problem in all this. They could have taken all the surveys from women they wanted to and then weighted them down in the final analysis to their proper percentage within the sample. While not 100% ideal, it is still statistically valid and no one would have been the wiser.
All excellent points, Brett. That’s why you the master of the voodoo that you do so well.
And sexist remarks aside (haus fraus? ay, ay ay), ESPN could use your wisdom on their marketing team. I still feel that the network could attract more female viewers (thus, more ad dollars) without having to change its messaging in the slightest. But that’s a discussion for another post, not on this one with regard to surveys.
Those were not sexist remarks. They were a fair and accurate representation of the bitter women who make up the viewership of the LIFETIME (and OXYGEN) networks…
I agree that Brett provides a number of great points to how, why, and improvements to ESPN’s surveying (or my perception of their surveying perhaps, and I will ignore the “Lifetime audience” references), but I suppose in addition to feeling like an insignificant demographic as a woman, I also felt that the event itself didn’t necessarily hold up to regular broadcast standards. It was broadcast in a handful of locations, there were a number of families and students there to experience the game in 3-D, the “commercials” (except for one on the X-Games 3D) were Disney animated 3-D trailers.
In an inaugural event, as a surveyor – in addition to my “standard” market – I’d be interested in the motivation of everyone in attendance. It’s easy enough to par down a particular set of results from just the men only and do comparisons to women who may have felt the same or differently.
Granted, they were also paying people $5 for a survey. Maybe the women just got greedy. Maybe I’m just bitter I didn’t get my $5. J/K.
Like I’ve said before, Brett – you are definitely the illegitimate child of Don Rickles.
Charity – great insights on the event itself. And you crack me up.
I was also at the event with Charity and Andrew and I’d like to add that I had to practically beg the survey man for a survey, although they asked everyone, men and women, how big of a football fan they were before handing out the survey.
My problem is with this “female quota.” I heard some of the survey-givers mention this quota, but while standing in line to return my survey for my $5 reward, a woman asked for a survey and was denied. When she saw me standing in line to return one, she said, “well she has one.” The survey collector replied, “I know, they aren’t supposed to have them. It’s a real problem.” That leads me to believe that there was no female quota, women weren’t supposed to get them period. How else would a large number of volunteers know when to stop giving them to women unless they were only allowed to personally hand out a set number to women.
Quota or not, I think that ESPN handled the situation poorly. I’m sure they had enough surveys and $5 rewards for everyone in attendance, so why not just let women fill one out? If ESPN doesn’t care about our opinions, what’s the harm in letting us just take the survey? Or did they not want to hand over the $5? Why risk alienating the USC female population?
Charity:
1. How you “felt” as an “insignificant demographic” is irrelevant to survey research. Your self-esteem is not the researcher’s concern. It might be your therapist’s, however.
2. I stand by my description of LIFETIME viewers as bitter Thelma and Louise wannabes with curlers in their hair covered by the turbie twist they bought during the commercial break of some man-hating movie that promotes in-bedroom involuntary castration.
3. If the event sucked, I imagine that those surveyed would have told them that.
4. A survey is done to turn a question into answer (to paraphrase the slogan of a polling firm I have worked with). It may be that they SHOULD have asked the question you raise, but that may not be the question THEY were seeking an answer to.
5. Paying for the respondent can create a sampling methodology problem if not weighted and adjusted properly. The incentive can skew the sample above and beyond the inherent skew that exists due to normal refusal rates. Also, if people could volunteer themselves to be surveyed rather than chosen under a methodology devised by the researcher, that too can bias the outcome.
6. The idea of watching baseball pitchers scratching their balls in 3-D could kill the concept’s use in any sport.
Ah, the plot thickens.
Great to hear your part of the story, Gennifer. Interesting how this could have been prevented if, as Brett suggested, they give everyone a survey then weighted and analyzed the percentage on the QT.
Do I make a comment about the woman who “practically beg[ged]” the survey “man” for a $5 survey chance in light of my LIFETIME comments? The temptation is so strong…and yet…
You are right and you need to keep pushing to be included. My daughters are the same way. There are some men who don’t think women should be involved in football, or say it’s too complicated, but it’s not. Ladies, if this happens, don’t be intimidated because football is too much fun.
The game needs to be inclusive. If nothing else, it’s good business to bring more women into the sport, because of ticket and jersey sales, but it’s also the right thing to do.
Ron Petrovich http://iamawomanandiknowfootball.com
Creator, I Am A Woman and I Know Football
Thanks for your comment, Ron. I see this is your specialty! It’s nice to hear a supportive voice and you’re right – I think ESPN and the NFL would be astounded to know the true numbers of female fans.