Friday 12 December 2008

Fascinating alcohol survey

When I find myself with a few minutes of spare time, I sometimes do an online survey or two - the type run by established marketing companies in Australia, and usually concerned with finding out what I think of the latest Pajero or Westpac banking product. The company that runs them usually asks me to do 2 or 3 surveys a week, but I ditch most of them as they are the same boring surveys about:

  • which energy company do I prefer
  • which bank I prefer
  • which phone company I prefer
This week, I finally got something different - a survey on alcohol. It was all about liquers, of which we have quite a few in our bar cabinet. I think most of them will evaporate before we drink them. But that's not the interesting part.

This is what I found fascinating - this is a list of words that the survey company came up with for me to select from when thinking about the type of people that drink certain liquers:

  • Mature
  • Quiet
  • Sensual
  • Sociable
  • Sophisticated
  • Successful
  • Vibrant
  • Young
  • Someone like me
  • Admired by others
  • Approachable
  • Confident
  • Daring
  • Discerning
  • Down to earth
  • Fashionable
  • Flirtatious
  • Genuine
Hmm. That's not the sort of list that I would have come up with when I think of drinking.

How about:

  • immature
  • obnoxiously loud and rude
  • slut
  • sociopath
  • unsophisticated bogan westie mutant
  • unsuccesful drunken loser
  • vibrating (having taken too much ice)
  • too young to be drinking
  • avoided by others
  • approachable (for a root)
  • a vomit waiting to happen
  • idiotic
  • undiscerning
  • lying flat on the earth
  • gang-bangable
  • ready to fight
What a fascinating disconnect between how many people behave when they get on the turps, and the image that the marketing companies want to project - especially in this age of beat-ups about binge drinking.

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