Research is beloved by the media as a means of providing an insight into the attitude of the public to a topic of current news interest.
Sometimes it can also provide a sample of the attitude of a specialist niche audience that would be hard to reach unless you have special access.
When I did the first one I called it ‘News catalyst research’ in other words it was research conducted for no other reason but to create a news story.
It was for a client that operated an organisation of CEOs who met to discuss situations of mutual interest and new innovations and developments relevant to management.
The news catalyst opportunity came in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 when we did a quick research exercise of the membership of CEOs on what the impact of the attack on the Twin Towers in New York would be on their business in terms of expansion, cost cutting, including redundancies and so on.
We turned the results around by the next day and the resulting story was featured on the major business pages including page 3 of the Financial Review, the perfect audience for a corporate audience. In fact, the AFR used the survey results five times in the next week.
As well as this situation, ‘News catalyst research’ can be used to sample public opinion on any subject that is relevant to the client and can establish a benchmark for future surveys to check on changes in attitude. And by getting separate results for each state you can create stories of local interest, as well as compare those results to Australia-wide and for future variations.