If you’re bored of those plain Forrester charts, then take a look at this gem from Ruder Finn. The pro’s of the research is the interactive data visualisation that lets you view the details of any data point and compare ‘intent’ across demographics and categories. The huge con of the research is the methodology. Ruder Finn runs a census style research of a mere 500 US adults 18+, in a nation with a population of 303 million, of which 251 million are online. That means that the validity of the research is based on 0.000002% of the US online population. Which is in essence, the entire problem with surveys of this nature. Digital companies continue to throw up miniscule statistics and present them as representative of the total online space, when in reality, nothing could be father from the truth.

In an age where you can get 100s of million views on YouTube for a video of an overweight kid goofing around with a fake lightsaber, any research based on small numbers should be taken with a very large grain of salt. In the UK, YouGov runs surveys with an online sample of 250 000 plus! That in a nation with an online population of just 43 million. Even though this is still 0.0058% of the online population, you still have to admit it’s far better than what Ruder Finn has put forward.

So here are the take-outs. Learn from the data visualisation approach, but ignore the results of the data itself.

Ruder Finn Intent Index

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