03 June 2006

Skewed Results

Many years back I participated in a product research. The survey company was gathering feedback on a new type of potato chips quite similar to Pringles. It may come as a surprise, but there was a time when I fit the demographic for potato chips' eaters. Anyway, as is common with huge surveys, they had more than a hundred questions with many of them being repeated in order to filter out random answers. The researcher asked me questions in broken English and I replied in broken Malay.

Halfway through the survey I was asked to sample a few of the new chips. The researcher was looking at me intently so I wanted to know what he was looking for. As I put the chip into my mouth, I noticed he ticked something in the survey form. I paid closer attention and saw that he ticked the option "Saddle up". I immediately knew it was referring to how I was eating the chips. Because as you know, chips like Pringles have a definitive saddle shape. They were probably assessing how to show their advertisements based on how people usually eat. I know, how sublime of them!

To express my individuality, I ate the other chips saddle down. I'm not sure if the product is already on sale, but I certainly know I wasn't one of their valued respondents.

1 comment:

William said...

Saddle up, saddle down?! You should have screwed with their minds more. Put it in vertically then regurgitate it and put the stuff in your pocket and say, "For later".