Why would anyone bother talking about polls ever again after the Irish abortion vote?

Last Thursday the Wall Street Journal ran an article about the Irish abortion vote, saying that it was expected to be close and included these polling results in support of that statement.

Per the footnotes, the poll was fielded by the Irish Times and Ipsos MRBI, both reputable companies.  The sample size was 1,200, a fairly decent size that should have yielded a statistically significant result.  And the margin of error was 3%.  So at best, support for “Yes” should have been 47%. (Hannon & Rocca, 208)

And yet, when the votes were counted 66.4% voted “Yes.” (McDonald, Graham-Harrison & Baker, 2018)

So what went wrong here?

For starters, the poll was taken on May 16, a week and a half before the actual vote.  If all the undecideds voted “Yes,” that brings the total to 61% - 64% if you include the margin of error.  That’s closer.  But what are the odds that all the undecideds voted “Yes?”

More likely the problem was the same thing that went wrong with the polls for Brexit and the U.S. Presidential election.  Our polling techniques are broken. 

 

They rely on companies being able to get a reliable sample from calling people on landlines.  But these days when you rely on landlines, you get a disproportionate amount of older, poorer, less educated voters.  They are anything but a random sample.

Adding online surveys to the mix can help capture younger voters, but here too, the people who respond are not necessarily representative of the whole.  And, deciding how to merge the data from the different sources presents problems as well. (Knutson, 2016)

So, where does that leave us? 

When looking at research, pay attention to sample size, sponsoring companies, and dates.  But even if all those criteria look good, it’s probably better not to rely on poll results anymore.  They could be just more Fake News.

Hannon, P. & Rocca, F. (2018, May 23)  Catholic Church Takes a Background Role Ahead of Ireland’s Abortion Vote.  wsj.com.  Retrieved May 29, 2018, from

https://www.wsj.com/articles/catholic-church-takes-a-background-role-ahead-of-irelands-abortion-vote-1527077777

McDonald, H., Graham-Harrison, E., Baker, S. (2018, May 26)  Ireland votes by landslide to legalise abortion.  theguardian.com.  Retrieved May 29, 2018, from

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/26/ireland-votes-by-landslide-to-legalise-abortion

Knutson, R. (2016, October 27)  Pollsters Scramble As Fewer People Take Their Phone Calls. wsj.com  Retrieved May 29, 2018, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/pollsters-scramble-as-fewer-people-take-their-phone-calls-1477577832

 

The Russians sure know how to market to the tribe – just look at their Facebook ads.

In two blogs that I posted in March, I discussed the idea of marketing to tribes rather than individuals.  The concept was based on the fact that the need to belong has been magnified by social media, which has increased both FOMO (fear of missing out) and a sense of loneliness.

I also discussed the role that personality type plays in the need to belong to a group.  And the fact that many companies have already had success with this approach. You can check out those posts here if you missed them…

http://pjlehrer.blogspot.com/2018/03/is-there-any-individual-thought-anymore_14.html

http://pjlehrer.blogspot.com/2018/03/is-it-time-to-market-to-tribe-instead.html

 

Last week Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee made public for the first time the full cache of more than 3,000 ads that Facebook Inc. said were purchased by a pro-Kremlin group, the Internet Research Agency.  A discussion about why Facebook accepted political advertising from foreign powers, in possible violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act, is best left for another time.

What I want to focus on today is how successfully the Russians used the technique of marketing to the tribe.  This is a perfect example.

You don’t even need to read this ad, which was targeted to people in Allentown, Erie, and Scranton, PA., with the job title coal miner, to understand the message, since the visual says it all – Miners like you support Trump.  (Seetharaman, 2018)

Not only will doing the same make them part of the tribe.  But it also makes a difficult decision – who to vote for - easier by suggesting that everyone else is doing it.  We call this “social proof.”  And when people are uncertain about what to do, they often turn to others to tell them.  It’s a short cut.  A way to ease the fatigue that comes from making difficult decisions.

Even more ingenious is this ad targeted to African-Americans designed to suppress turnout by suggesting that Hilary is just as racist as Trump – despite ample evidence to the contrary.

Newly released census data shows the effect of this effort and others like it, with African-American turnout declining by 7.1% in 2016, to its lowest level since 2000 – 59.6%.  (Frey, 2018)

There’s no doubt that marketing to the tribe can be a successful strategy.  Here’s hoping that in the future it will be used for the greater good.

Seetharaman, D.; Wells, G.; Tau, B. (2018, May 10)  Release of Thousands of Russia-Linked Facebook Ads Show How Propaganda Sharpened   wsj.com.  Retrieved May 23, 2018, from

https://www.wsj.com/articles/full-stock-of-russia-linked-facebook-ads-shows-how-propaganda-sharpened-1525960804

Frey, W. (2018, May 15) Census shows pervasive decline in 2016 minority voter turnout.  brookings.edu.  Retrieved May 23, 2018, from

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2017/05/18/census-shows-pervasive-decline-in-2016-minority-voter-turnout/