If you have not seen the results of last night’s research polls (CBS, CNN, et al) taken among people who saw the State of the Union speech, President Obama’s popularity rose significantly from his post-inauguration benchmarks. And those gains were measured among both Democrats and Republicans. I think the prez is making in-roads on the bipartisan scene.
One thing that really got my attention during his speech was the electronic audience reaction meter at the bottom of the screen. Apparently a group of Virginia residents, half of whom were Obama voters and the other half McCain voters, were reacting to his speech in real time. The polling firm conducting this focus group used a dial test used to capture feedback on key topics, allowing participants to turn their handheld dial up during parts of the speech they liked and down for moments they did not. Their responses were showcased in a line chart, with Republican respondents’ reactions being captured in a red line and the Democrats’ sentiments in a green line.
I think this could be a great application for measuring the effectiveness of infomercials, TV spots or product sales videos. This is definitely something I’m interested in learning more about, so please feel free to respond to this post or contact me if you have experience with this methodology.
This video has more information on the dial testing and the results from the focus group:
Tags: Brian Arnold, CNN, Dial Testing, Measurement, Research
This is very interesting!
Interesting post, this research is fascinating and the video is helpful in understanding how they conducted the research! I think the idea of live polling could have a lot of cool applications.
You know, I saw “Obama voters” and McCain voters” in the corner of the screen during the President’s speech but did not know what it was all about. Thanks for clearing that up! And, I agree this tool could be very useful in the applications you mentioned.
The topic is quite hot on the Internet right now. What do you pay the most attention to while choosing what to write ?
Compliments on your photo, which eminates warmth and optimism, and on your insightful posts. Keep blogging.