After work one day last week, I reluctantly answered the phone, foolishly letting my guard down. Reluctant because I don't like answering the phone if the number isn't familiar and that time it wasn't. The woman on the other end of the line immediately assured me that she was not going to try to sell me anything. The call was a request to participate in an audience study. "Sure", I answered, knowing that I was now stuck on the phone unless I unexpectedly hung up. After answering some demographic questions, the survey lady wanted to send me a video cassette tape of a television program for me to review. She was adamant about watching it on a specific day and then calling me the next to talk about it. The idea was that I was going to review the show so that they would gather feedback about. I immediately thought that this was going to be a pilot of some kind and I was lucky enough to possibly see it before anyone else. Plus, the idea of providing feedback about a new program seemed pretty cool. So after thinking through any potential scams I could be falling for, I gave the lady my address and that was that.
A few days later the tape arrived with some paperwork. There were two packets, two different colors, with several grocery store items listed in categories. Hmmmm. The instructions were very specific about selecting preferred brands in one booklet before watching the tape and then fill out the other booklet after watching the tape. Ahhh, so this is about commercials? There was also a question sheet about the sitcom I was about to watch, just some basic questions about the show. The tape itself was interesting. Instructions were specific with it as well. DO NOT FAST FORWARD OR REWIND. The tape also claimed to erase as it played. I considered copying it just because they didn't want me to, a favorite albeit juvenile motivation. Feeling a bit lazy, I decided not to copy it, and I'm glad.
The show was "Dads" and was pretty lame. One of the Golden Girls was in it and she didn't look much older than when she was on Golden Girls. No, I didn't watch Golden Girls, but I still recognized the lady. As suspected, the show had commercials throughout, like any regular program. I had TIVO withdrawals but worked through it and just sat through them. At the end of the show I noticed the date in the credits was 1997, which explained the lady not aging as she should have. STOP TAPE NOW. What the hell? This definitely not a new show. The products listed in the pamphlets I filled out before and after the show weren't featured in the commercials, at least I don't think they were.
The next day, the lady called at 6:01 of my 6:00 to 9:00 call window. The call lasted for 30-40 minutes. We spent 3 of those minutes talking about the show, 5 minutes talking about me and 30 minutes or so talking about fertilizer. Specifically, we talked about Scotts fertilizer. She asked me a bunch of questions about a Scotts commercial that ran during the show that I barely remembered. Then, while I was on the phone, she had me play the tape again, from where I had stopped it at the end of the show. Sure enough, the Scotts commercial was magically cued up for me to watch. While she is on the phone, I re-watched the commercial again and answered a whole bunch more questions. There was one more step where I read back some of the answers I gave in those pamphlets. I never actually checked to see if the tape was erased. What's the point?
The whole thing was simple. The "review a show for us" was a rouse. For one, it's more enticing than "review a commercial". Also, if I knew what they were really doing, it would skew my opinion and it would be impossible to get a real reaction to the commercial in terms of my awareness of it. The cost of contracting the audience study companies to go through the lengths they do must be pretty high. This post is too long. So if this ever happens to you, just know that you probably aren't going to review the next "Friends" or "Everybody Loves Raymond".