Prefer Rating Scales to Preference Polls

Telling shoppers that 82% of people similar to them prefer your offering compared to a parallel offering from another supplier does not tell the shoppers by how much more the similar others prefer yours. Researchers at National University of Singapore, Universitat Ramon Llull, and Università Bocconi say this limitation can be used by marketers to accentuate the appeal of their items.
     Unlike data from rating scales, in which people assess items on a continuum from 1 to 10 for instance, data from polls are simpler for respondents to provide and simpler for marketers to present. Further, it makes intuitive sense that if 90% of consumers prefer Pepsi to Coke, for example, the difference which would be shown on a rating scale is likely to be larger than if 60% of consumers prefer Pepsi to Coke. Using the size of polled preference as a measure of the underlying rating scale preference is a good way to save time and mental effort.
     However, problems arise in circumstances where consumers overestimate the difference in preferences. People frequently misinterpret the results of polls. The researchers found this happens even with consumers who have expertise about the item category and when the consumers are knowledgeable about data analytics.
     Small differences in preferences between two items are more likely than are large differences. This is true when considering only a statistical analysis, independent of how consumers make decisions. In my email exchange about the study with Prof. Graham N. Overton, the primary researcher, he adds, “Our real-world data also suggests this is often true even when one does consider how consumers make decisions. I believe our datasets on votes, beers, movies, and jokes demonstrate smaller differences are often more likely than larger ones.”
     This finding also makes intuitive sense: We compare a liking for Pepsi with that for Coke because both have been considered promising candidates to satisfy a desire. We’re not interested in reading a poll that says whether consumers prefer to drink Pepsi rather than drink vinegar.
     The researchers also found that this overestimation is greatly reduced after the consumer sees a graph of the frequency of various differences in liking which can lead to an overall poll average of a 50% preference. But since marketers are unlikely to conduct this demonstration, a more practical implication from the findings is for ethical marketers to report rating scale results.

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