Talking Point

Break out the popcorn: Your movie choice (supposedly) reveals who you are

By Craig Regan

You are what you watch, apparently. The New York Times carries “news” (termed applied loosely) about market research claiming your choice of movie reveals your personality.

“Fans of ‘The Avengers,’ for instance, are 18 percent more likely than the general public to…try new experiences,” research company Meebo says.

Then again, they might be fans of Marvel Comics.

“People looking forward to…’The Amazing Spider-Man’ are 34 percent more likely to be optimistic than the general public.”

Who makes up the “general public” and why they’re so down on the world remains a mystery.  

Meebo has even compiled its research into a pretty picture (they are called Infograms these days and they’re the hot online PR trend in the US) to make it easy to digest.

A couple of things to note here: Meebo isn’t really a research company. It’s another social media platform that pulls together a number of channel feeds in one place.

Apart from some cursory media reportage, there’s scarcely any information available about how Meebo reached its conclusions other than it conducted a survey.

Going on these lines, fans of 'Titanic' probably have a liking for holidaying in West Africa (there's no ice there) and people queing for 'The Hunger Games' need to go on a diet. 

While all this makes a Today Tonight phone poll look like an admission exam for Mensa, you have to question how it's going to sell movie tickets - if that was ever the intention.

More likely, it's a stunt to get people talking about Meebo. Getting them to join the platform is goign to need a whole different script.

 

Tatts not such great research

By Craig Regan

PR people and journalists love research and polls. From France comes this academic study that finds people with tattoos and piercings drink more alcohol than most.

Researchers breathalysed 2,000 people as they left bars in the province of Brittany. Patrons with body art and adornments returned higher alcohol readings than those without.

These differences in readings between the inked people and the cleanskins suggested that tatts may be a “marker” for alcoholism, according to scientists.

I suppose that's why they call boozing "getting on the ink".

Previous research had shown that people with tattoos and piercings were more likely to engage in unsafe sex, fighting and heavy drinking, the rationale being they are risk takers.  

People do like a drink in Brittany. An expat Australian mate owned a bar in a place called Morlaix (population 15,000) and when I visited a few years ago, his venue was in the top ten of French sales of Jack Daniels.

He was the only person in town who liked bourbon whiskey, so there was a message right there.

So is this (more) flawed research posing as news on a slow media day? Lighthouse’s preferred research partner Neil Stollznow of StollzNow Research:

"The problem is that it’s not a good sample. It is a big sample, but only of those who go out drinking. There could be a large number of people with tattoos and piercings who are at home watching the television.

"To make the conclusion they do you would have to randomly sample the population and then track them to see whether they go out, drink or get into trouble.

"The best you can say is that of the population who go out at night to bars those with tattoos and piercings are more likely to drink more – and although the differences in alcohol levels are statistically significant, they’re under the recommended level for confidence."

The bottom line is that there’s a strong case for research of almost any kind coming with an explanatory label.

Photo credit: Inkarttattoos

Meeting Michael J Fox in the Big Apple

By John Hanrahan

For some, the appeal of visiting the Big Apple is the ritzy restaurants, shows on Broadway or a peek at the New York skyline from atop the Empire State building. But when it comes down to it, your age and personal interests are clearly the deciding factors.

One recent visitor to America’s biggest city certainly wasn’t overwhelmed despite the fact she was about to meet one of the world’s most famous movie and TV stars and appear with him on a television story.

Oh no, for 10 year old Zoe Campbell It wasn’t meeting celebrity movie and TV star, Michael J. Fox, or appearing on television, that turned out to be best thing about going to New York. It was meeting another kid.

Zoe flew to New York with her father, Clyde Campbell, Sydney businessman and founder of the Shake It Up Parkinson Disease Foundation, to be part of Channel Seven’s Sunday Night program. It will feature an interview with Fox (who has Parkinson's) and the work Shake It Up is doing in Australia to find a cure. 

Clyde was diagnosed with the disease a couple of years ago and set up the Foundation, to partner with Michael J. Fox in a global medical research effort.

The real fun for Zoe was meeting one of Fox’s four children, Esme, who was the same age as her. Clyde told me when Seven’s reporter, Rahni Sadler, introduced her to Michael, Zoe was able to name Back to the Future as one of his films because she’d just seen it on the plane going over.

Michael J Fox, Zoe and dad Clyde.

Zoe and Esme got on like old mates and had a lot of fun together while dad and Michael talked about more serious things. 

Seven’s program airs this Sunday night (18 March).

The research work by the Shake It Up Foundation in Australia to find a cure takes its next big step after Sunday, calling for Parkinson’s Disease patients to be part of a global research program.

The Shake It Up Foundation, together with Macquarie Neurology at Macquarie University in Sydney, is ready to accept enquiries from Monday from patients with recent diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease into the Australian medical research trials.

More detail about the study is on the MJFF and Macqaurie Neurology websites. You can learn more about Shake It Up and make a donation here.

 

 

Fly a flag for poor research

By Craig Regan

A lot's being made of a study by a West Australian academic that supposedly says Australians with Aussie flags on their cars tend to be more racist than those whose vehicles are flagless.

What it actually says is that 100 people in a Perth park on Australia Day will give a range of responses to loaded questions about immigration and multi-culturalism.

Using research as a hook for media is nothing new. It cuts both ways - PR gains a client or issue some profile while media have some news to run. 

Pitching flimsy research as something substantial when it ain't just leaves a bad taste in everybody's mouth.

Here at Lighthouse we're planning to conduct some research on Australia Day into people wearing those ugly blue bucket hats.

The tip is they'll be Sunday Telegraph readers.