Humour: The deadly serious role it can play in market research

Room 2 | 3:15 pm - 3:45 pm | Wednesday, May 3, 2023

Humour is something not readily associated with market research. As researchers we strive to create balanced, precise and unbiased surveys. To ensure clarity, we can sometimes find ourselves using a lot of pedantic details. As a result, the tone of surveys can read like legal documents; serious, earnest and, I am afraid to admit, rather dull.

This dry approach hinders us in our ability to truly connect with participants. We ask respondents to share intimate details about their lives and thoughts, and yet, so often, their answers often mirror the serious tone of our questions.

My presentation explores the ways in which humour can be used in research. Humour opens up respondents, helping them to feel more comfortable in sharing their true feelings and behaviors. It can be effectively used to engage respondents in what may seem to them to be rather boring tasks. Humour can humanize your research.

Did you hear the one about the Irishman, Englishman and Scotsman? …No sorry, although this session is about humour, advance warning, it is going to be a serious, evidence based presentation filled with bar charts!!

Key takeaways:

1. Improve survey design.
2. Better data.
3. Thinking differently about how to ask questions.