I was involved in the preparation & release of some market research data earlier this week and whilst the overall results were positive, I was a little surprised to read the backlash that it generated from some posters on social sites.
First of all some context - the report focused on how women use the internet on their mobile phone and what they want from it in the future. Sensing the potential risk for multiple faux pas, the language was checked beforehand by a (female) diversity expert to ensure that our Neanderthal writing skills had not inadvertently offended more than half the population. Despite this, once the info was published we still found quite a few comments appearing slating the report as being sexist because it (a) only considered women and (b) happened to mention their views on shopping.
So, help me out here. The research data was gathered from visitors to a shopping service whose content is targeted at women; this seemed sensible given that the end client was interested in women's views on mobile shopping. If we'd claimed that the results in any way reflected the opinions of men, or even of a balanced audience, then I would expect to be justifiably shot down by the first person to note that 92% of responses came from women! Did we say that men don't shop or that women shop too much? No, we just asked people about the activity that they had already chosen to engage in. Perhaps we should have diluted it down to a report that found that an unspecified percentage of indeterminate people have an opinion on something - is that better?
I'm sure there's a closer here about the challenges of pleasing all of the people, all of the time, but right now a more apt simile would be something that noted how the collective mind is as mad as a sackful of badgers that you poke at your peril!
Rant over.
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