Bad Research or Bad Press?

The PR giant Weber Shandwick released findings from their latest research among 500 Baby Boomers that reports that Boomers like to talk to each other about products and services.

Stop the presses!

Oh, wait, isn't this what some might call "word-of-mouth?"

We call it bad research. Or bad PR.

Here's why. The research is seemingly only among Boomers, so the key finding that 89% of them are likely to tell their friends about products or services isn't particularly illuminating. Is that more than other generations communicate, or less?

They don't know. But we do.

Actually, it's the same. At least that's what the SIMM9 Study of simultaneous media consumption conducted among 15,000 Americans in January 2007 by BIGresearch says.

The point is that you need to be careful getting too excited about research findings appearing about Boomers unless you have a broader perspective. We talk about this in Chapter 14 in the book.

We'll keep our eyes peeled for more bad examples.

Augh.