Surveys on products from the market

Within the implementation of the opinion polls to marketing and market research prominently occupy surveys on products.
A survey of product, as part of a plan of marketing of a company or a more general market study, usually only one cog in the processes of research and decision-making process of a company, but they can - of course - be analysed separately.
We will mention some common survey carrying out market research on products sold.

• Pilot surveys on new products. Here, there are innumerable variants, some of which are true social experiments, and which can be combined with the display, tasting, etc. of products as well as quantitative studies.


• Surveys on the concept of a service, product: meaning, social representations to generate conscious and unconscious associations.


• Brand-product surveys: new marcas-producto, variations in branding or analysis of changes in the perception of the consumer of a brand-product.


• Surveys on acceptability of products: new products, variations on the same product.


• Surveys on packaging: the presentation changes, changes in content, slogans, in the amount of product. They can be of acceptability or preliminary investigation of changes in packaging, or changes in course.


• Survey on marks independently of products and his names. Surveys about products or services: marks internet, naming, slogans, social representations of consumers and customers linked to the product.


• Surveys on sales and distribution: on the structure of the sale of the product, on points of sale, how to sell it.

These are some typical ways in which surveys public - not, but customers, users or consumers of products - can be used in research of market or marketing products.

Surveys and accidental sampling

Opinion polls carried out by accidental sampling of the survey is not random.

Accidental sampling are characterized method is selected without the person being surveyed, cases are chosen to have at hand.

Examples of accidental sample surveys are what make the radio and television journalists.

These surveys are not representative and can never know how reliable the sample is selected.

As a research about public opinion is unreliable.

Provided that presents the opinion of the way we run a double risk of having a biased sample.

First, as the sample is casual, may not be at all representative, and even that interested people try to be surveyed.

In that case, the bias of the sample increases.

But secondly, if the survey is planned or executed from a media or institution with a clear profile or defined interests, who agree to be interviewed by such means shall be persons of similar ideological.

An example of this is the surveys of online newspapers, where readers vote who they are, a universe is clearly not representative.

Opinion polls as a way of sampling

Today mention an error that is usually found frequently in the literature on surveys and opinion polls.
The same is to confuse all the surveys for opinion polls or social surveys. If we wish to clarify what is a survey, or provide a definition, we must make it clear that by no means something that applies to people necessarily.
In fact, the survey is a technique of data collection (some might question how far the data are "collected" as one who takes something that's already been out there and are not created, at least to some extent by those who do research, but that is another problem that will address later) that derives or is an application of the sampling procedure.
Specifically is the use of certain standardized and validated procedures under which the research takes information on a representative sample of a population or universe, as is usually called the total haw investigated.
It is clear that the purpose of such research procedures is to improve our insight of some phenomenon, say a good explanation.
One can conduct a survey in which sample is selected books from a library upon which a questionnaire is completed in some information, because what matters is that the procedure and representative sample.
This, as already mentioned, results from the application of the mathematical theory of probabilities to the investigation of phenomena, whether or not social.
A sample survey differs from a census in which it is to administer a questionnaire to all people concerned, while the survey is always applied to a sample, the best representative.

Technical data of a survey

The technical specifications or technical data from a survey is a description, brief but compendious, the most important factors relating to the way it was done the same. It is important to remember that opinion polls is a social research, or rather a part of a process of social research, and as such is the correct application of certain scientific methods and validated a theoretical knowledge.
In particular, the data sheet, usually seen in a recuadrito or a footnote in the report with the results of the survey provides information on the time of the survey data (when people were surveyed), the period if it was during the weekend or on weekdays (this, we shall see, can be very important) in what place, how the respondents were selected and what was the total population on which the survey.
This is because, for example, the results of a survey of adolescents can be very different if the survey is administered to adolescents in a city that would be obtained if you apply to the entire adult population of that city, that very probably have a different view on the issue, and even different from the results that may shed a survey of adolescents in the country.
The sheet reveals the methodology that was carried on the survey data and, if this was done with the appropriate technical rigor, these procedures should yield similar results if we repeat the data collection work under the same guidelines. Public and replicable This is typical of scientific knowledge.
That a work is not that a sheet is a good reason to have some caution about its reliability.

Are political polls reliable?

The degree of reliability that we must give a political survey depends on several factors, such as company, Institute or consultant to conduct the survey, the way as has done it, the use of the results and the source from which we obtain information about their results.
The trap or error can be in several of these aspects, can be a phantom company or "ad hoc" (recognized companies even have an alternative name to sign when do things well to reduce risk), may be carried out with little professionalism is bad, intentionally, or be failure at any stage of the research process.
Additionally you may own responsible for Institute, the client that has hired it or a journalist or Communicator, knowingly or not, provide partial information or directly to distort the results.

Opinion surveys

Opinion surveys
Surveys of public opinion and policy surveys.
Methodology, theory and analysis of public opinion polls.