chief justice corona’s approval rating suffers a catastrophic meltdown – Pulse Asia Poll

source Pulse Asia : http://pulseasia.com.ph/pulseasia/story.asp?ID=748

• chief justice corona’s approval rating plunges to 14% from previous 38% and his disapproval rating took an upward sizzle from 24% to 58%. those can only be described as a catastrophic meltdown all due to the impeachment case t oust him being held at the senate. there is no other way to describe in approval rating  by more than  half  and a more than doubling of number of responding disapproving of corona.’s performance.
• results on corona in this poll is highly consistent with the other Pulse Asia that showed a high 47% of the respondent found corona guilty versus only a 5% of the respondents found him innocent of the charges filed at the impeachment court.
• this is the court of public opinion, not the impeachment court so many things can come into play on this resulting approval/disapproval rating of corona by the respondents.
• over at twitter, we had said corona should form his own professional Crisis Management Team very early during the impeachment case. we had called out for this need almost on the first day the case was filed at the house of representatives. we figured the prosecution team obviously had their own team operating prior to day 1 of the whole process. the actions and messages of the prosecution team was so well crafted and well planned that there was a strategy in play and that can only come from a professional team of PR practitioners or media managers.
•  the need for corona to have his own Crisis Management Team was not only necessary because of their adversary, but also this was obviously a very major development in the chief justice’s career. something as major as an impeachment case needed major efforts to protect his interests. the impeachment case was something very public, live tv coverage has been announced and that meant corona needed professionals to manage the media aspect of it.
• the need for a professional Crisis Management Team to handle corona’s affairs was highlighted when he decided to deliver a speech in front of the Supreme Court premises attacking President Noynoy Aquino. corona with that speech decided to be a politician and effectively declared a media war and opened the court of public opinion.  moves like that should not be done without careful thinking and professional handling.

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more on this next….

Pulse Asia’s Chief Justice Corona Trial Poll results – the people sees past through prosecution’s incompetence

source: http://pulseasia.com.ph/pulseasia/story.asp?ID=747

• we are surprised at the high number of 84% of the respondents following the developments of the impeachment rial of chief  justice corona. we thought it would not be this high. after all this is not the president of the country like the erap estrada impeachment, just the chief justice. the erap impeachment getting high numbers will not be a surprise but a chief justice impeachment is.
• a high number of those who follow the developments say tv is their media choice at 80%. that means many of the people are watching the live coverage of the impeachment trial. they are getting the developments first hand, seeing the drama unfold in front of their eyes.
• internet for some reason got a very low number – just 1%, we think this is mostly a function of low computer incidence and low internet usage among the poor who accounts for a large majority of the philippine population.
• radio coming in only at 12% is a shock. radio is the dominant media ownership in the country, almost 100% of homes have radio. for radio to be a non factor in medium choice is very surprising. this means tv has become a most important medium in the country. (the advertising industry need to retool some of theoir thinking on this one.)

• the defense was trying to make something out of their charge that the impeachment complaint was fast-tracked at the Hour Of Representatives. we really don’t understand why this is important and what it is for but they seem to be saying because it was railroaded at the house, the complaint is invalid, don’t ask us why because we can;t explain it.
• also we do not think it really matters, the fact is the senate has opened an impeachment court. whether it has been fast-tracked or not no longer matters.
• this table is a practically a split where respondents can’t decide whether it was fast-tracked or not at he HOR. the numbers are practically tied with 32% saying it was fast-tracked while 38% do not think it was fast-tracked.
• looks like the defense team has lost his battle.

this chart to us the most important findings of the poll – how people feel about the guilt or innocence of the the chief justice on the charges brought to him bu the HOR (House Of Representatives).

it is important to take note of this from the Pulse Asia website:

The survey fieldwork was conducted from February 26 to March 9, 2012 using face-to-face interviews. The following developments preoccupied Filipinos immediately prior to and during the conduct of the interviews for this survey: (1) the ongoing impeachment trial of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato C. Corona* ; (2) the arraignment for electoral fraud of former President and incumbent Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo; (3) the death and destruction caused by a 6.9 intensity earthquake in the Visayas on 06 February 2012; (4) the commemoration of the 26th anniversary of EDSA People Power I; (5) the controversies involving a few presidential appointees; (6) the death of Negros Occidental Representative Ignacio Arroyo and the fight over his remains; and (7)  the increase in oil prices, fluctuating power rates, declining headline inflation rate, and the record-breaking performance of the Philippine Stock Exchange.

this survey was conducted while the prosecution was still presenting their witnesses and evidence to the court. the defense has not started any of their presentations yet.

• the significant difference in those who believe corona is guilty at 47% versus those who believe he is innocent at 5% is a very significant finding. that means at that point in time when the poll was taken, when the prosecution was still making their case, the people was seeing corona as guilty.
•  we were of the view that the prosecution team was screwing up big time.  we are not lawyers but we can tell they were doing a very bad job. the only time the prosecution did well was when neil tupas, the lead prosecutor delivered his opening speech during the trial. everything after that speech was horrible for the prosecution. he did well because he read a written speech.
• the corona trial became a sad telenovela of “what did the prosecution do wrong this time? the prosecution delivered – they seemed to have done something new that was wrong on a daily basis. we knew that as senator miriam defensor santiago and the presiding judge himself, senator juan ponce enrile  delivered their most impassioned speeches in the trial berating the prosecution team on their latest blunders, incompetence or errors, senator santiago didn;t even bother to sugar coat her words, she just said it in plain, actually elegant and biting english. wha?!
• over and beyond that thick muck of prosecution incompetence, the prosecution in reality was able to get past the court evidence and testimonies that to say the least corona needed to explain to the court and the country or evidence and testimony that can be used by the senator judges to convict corona.
• for the respondents to see through that thick muck of prosecution incompetence and find corona guilty to us is just short of being a miracle or brilliance on the part of the respondents.
• to be fair the incompetence the prosecution showed was not really on the main point of their existence in the impeachment court, but on the almost and everything  they did outside the court and before the impeachment court came into being.  the fact is they were able to get the court to accept testimony and evidence that the senator judges can use to convict corona.
• okay,  we stand corrected, the prosecution also showed incompetence during the trial as they were constantly berated by senators santiago and enrile on their lack of knowledge and skills in presenting evidence and testimony of their witnesses. in other words, the senator judges were saying the prosecution did not know how to properly conduct a trial. that of course was a surprise considering the prosecutors are lawyers who were elected congressmen in their districts. apparently, not all lawyers are created equal and these congressmen who are also lawyers were shortchanged on that aspect when God made them lawyers.
• does that mean the respondents were so brilliantly gifted that they were able to separate the garbage from the prosecution on their lawyering skills versus the evidence they were able to get the court accepted?
• there is no other explanation for it. it looks like the respondents know what a corrupt official is versus one that is not. or an impeachable chief  justice versus one who is not.
• we think the people are just so fed up with corrupt and incompetent government officials that it did not matter even if the messenger of the message is being faulted by santiago on a daily basis.

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more on this next….

bad news for mar roxas – both SWS and Pulse Asia exit polls show a Jejomar Binay win

the current COMELEC and GMA7 unofficial partial tally of votes put jejomar  binay and mar roxas to close to call with a spread of only 800T votes with binay leading but 6 million votes still uncounted. binay has claimed victory, saying only an electronic garci can change the outcome while roxas says he will win by a squeaker when the votes from visayas are counted, roxas’ bailiwick. both are saying these are based on reports from their supporters who are in the field.

however, both SWS and Pulse Asia exit polls point to a binay win with pulse asia giving it to binay with a 5.3% points margin. with a 1% sampling error, that puts binay a slight winner. SWS gives it to binay a 2.4% points margin.

roxas saying the visayas as his bailiwick is being confirmed by the pulse asia exit poll where he dominates with 54.7% versus binay’s 25.4%. however, binay dominates roxas almost with the same large margin in all other areas – NCR, Luzon and Mindanao. 

source: http://pulseasia.com.ph/pulseasia/story.asp?ID=720

source: http://www.sws.org.ph/

noynoy aquino – the teflon presidentiable, nothing sticks!

the 2010 election is probably one of the nastiest philippine presidential election in its history. not that philippine elections are known for intelligent debates on national issues, but noynoy aquino in particular have received the worst kinds of negative attacks.

there is a very long laundry list of negative and even personal attacks on noynoy aquino that started almost on the day after he announced his candidacy. almost all the attacks were personal – lack of achievements,  lack of experience, being a bachelor, being autistic,  his cigarette smoking, his hair or lack of it, his use of his parents credentials and  the most recent, the double fake psyche reports.

but none of it, not a single negative attack  got to stick to aquino. that makes aquino a teflon presidentiable.

aquino’s standing in the polls since the very start has not changed  - he has been the front runner. while his current rating may not be as high as what it was at the start, he continue to dominate the other presidentiables.  shrinkage from his going in rating is normal and expected. what is unusual and admirable is that he has maintained his front runner status from day one till now even though black propaganda against aquino was always there in various and new forms.

how was aquino able to survive such atttacks?

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this is next at The 2010 Presidentiables Blog….

SWS’ mahar mangahas answers richard gordon

it’s hard to believe richard gordon do not have an appreciation of surveys and he is that ignorant of it. he has been a politician for a long time and his previous job at the private sector (procter & gamble) must have given him a good dose of knowledge on it.

but he has taken SWS and Pulse Asia to court, so we can assume he does not know a lot of things. mahar mangahas of SWS gives him an answer, for his knowledge:

source: http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20100430-267410/Ignorant-columnists-may-not-be-TROd

Social Climate
Ignorant columnists may not be TRO’d

by Mahar Mangahas
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:34:00 04/30/2010

ABOUT COLUMNISTS. EVERY THREE YEARS, IN the Philippines, comes a silly season when some columnists excel in misinforming the public about survey science. These are the ones who assert, for instance, that “a survey of only one or two thousand respondents cannot possibly represent many millions of voters.” Despite repeated demonstrations that a properly conducted sample survey is indeed representative of the whole population, they will not accept it, and would rather bask in their ignorance.

Now, is there a way for a columnist who propagates falsehoods to be legally suppressed? For instance, may professional statisticians petition a court for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) to stop a columnist from vilifying statistical research about voters’ preferences? The answer to this is NO.

A columnist has a constitutional right to display his ignorance, without prior restraint. This is because the right of free expression is a preferred right—“prior restraint” and “preferred right” being legal phrases.

The statisticians’ legal remedy for a columnist’s abuse of free speech would be to sue for damages afterwards. But they don’t bother, because a statistically-challenged columnist doesn’t fool the people who really count.

About Gordon’s complaint. Last week, Sen. Richard “Dick” Gordon asked a Regional Trial Court to issue a TRO against Social Weather Stations and another survey entity, to desist from conducting and publishing their election surveys, which he called “false, inaccurate and flawed,” causing him “grave and irreparable injury.”

Gordon’s suit is ridiculously sloppy. Above all, it is ignorant of the Supreme Court’s affirmation that election surveys are constitutionally protected (see my April 17 column). In SWS v. Comelec (G.R. 147571, May 5, 2001), the Court nullified the section of the 2001 Fair Election Act that attempted to ban publication of election surveys. It ruled that such a ban “imposes a prior restraint on the freedom of expression” and forms “a direct and total suppression of a category of expression” during the elections.

Gordon claims that “surveys issued by the defendants … showed him only at the 29th spot,” and yet he won as senator in 2004. Actually, the SWS surveys of the 2004 senatorial race had him as 14th in Jan. 18-22, tied for 16th on Feb. 17-25, 14th on March 21-29, tied for 8th on April 10-17, and tied for 9th (with 29 percent of the vote) on May 1-4. It looks like 29 percent was misread as 29th place. Thus he was already in the winning circle in the last two SWS pre-election surveys.

Gordon’s complaints about methodology are false. (1) My column of March 6, 2010 reported that SWS received two awards from the Gallup World Poll for excellence in field methodology, among all of Gallup’s Asian field providers. (2) Face-to-face interviewing, which we always do, and which Gordon thinks “outmoded,” is part of Gallup’s job order to SWS. (3) We agree with Gordon that sampling should be done by probability, and not by quota. Apparently he doesn’t know that SWS always does the former, and never does the latter.

Gordon calls it “highly improbable” that SWS did two national surveys over as short a period as March 19-30, 2010. Actually, SWS did eight national surveys, not all about elections, over January-April 2010, plus several local surveys.

Gordon alleges that, last April 14, an unidentified SWS pollster in Cebu asked a respondent to choose between only two presidential candidates, instead of among 10. Comments: (1) SWS had no election survey in Cebu on that date; (2) all SWS interviewers have ID cards—tell us her name so that we can check; (3) the published SWS election surveys always feature the 10 candidates; (4) in any case, it is legitimate for anyone to inquire how a voter would choose between two candidates.

Gordon’s claim that SWS fails to disclose its sponsors is false. Check the website, www.sws. org.ph. The SWS Survey Data Library is open to the public. Its staff helps visitors, short of serving as research assistants. The library fee is affordable even to students. Users should come personally, and not expect their technical questions to be answered by mail.

Gordon’s citations of survey errors in past elections are very few; they are the exceptions that prove the rule, like the failure of US pollsters to predict Truman’s win over Dewey in 1948, which he cites as though it was SWS’ fault too. My 2009 paper, “The challenge of election surveys in the Philippines,” summarizes our election survey record; see our website. The error of the 2004 exit poll in Metro Manila was investigated by an independent group of scientists, and no fraudulence was found; see their report on the website.

Gordon’s claim that “there are no associations of professional pollsters and polling firms which regulate, control, and sanction defendants … for their violation of the code of professional ethics …” is false. Seems he hasn’t heard of the Marketing and Opinion Research Society of the Philippines (MORES), founded in 1977. Both MORES and the World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR), to which key SWS staff members belong, have Codes of Ethics. Last Wednesday, the MORES board of directors issued a press statement denouncing Gordon’s petition for striking at the heart of our democratic process.

If the SWS election surveys were not true, accurate, and best-quality, I wonder if Gordon would still be interested in a TRO. Maybe he would just grant us the same freedom of speech that we allow to ignorant columnists.

april 2010 pulse asia survey for senators – awareness matters

the april 2010 results of asia pulse’s poll for senators is is a lesson in advertising & marketing 101 – (brand) awareness is the number one issue and achieving it is the first goal of any election campaign.

except for 2, the rest of  the first 14 candidates who have the possibility of entering the top 12 in this election  have high awareness, at least an  80%+ level and most of  them are at the 90%+ level.  the two, biazon and guingona have 52% and 74% respectively.

on the other hand, the rest of the senatorial candidates below the top 14 have very low awareness, many of them below 30%.

awareness is the most basic requirement of any brand in any market and that includes political elections. if the voters do not know you or are not aware of you, how can they prefer or vote for you? after awareness is preference.

the goal of advertising are those things – build awareness and build preference. while not all of the top 14 have tv ads. almost all of them are already known by the voters.

for those wanting to win this election, they will need to fix these two components and advertising is the answer. however, with just a few days till election time, achieving anything even with advertising might be too difficult.  

Pulse Asia April 2010 Presidentiables Poll : estrada ties villar at 2nd, aquino widens lead

The survey fieldwork was conducted from April 23 to 25, 2010 using face-to-face interviews. Key developments in April 2010 include the following: (1) defections from the Lakas-Kampi Christian Muslim Democrats (CMD) mostly to the Nacionalista Party (NP) and the Liberal Party (LP); (2) election-related issues such as the purchase of ultraviolet lamps (UV) because the UV readers of the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machines were unable to read the UV markings on the ballots, the scrapping of the P 700 million contract for the purchase of ballot secrecy folders, and the re-bidding of the contract for the purchase of indelible ink; (3) completion of the printing of ballots for the May 2010 elections; (4) various incidents of election-related violence across the country; (5) Senator Francis G. Escudero’s endorsement of Senator Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III for president and Makati City Mayor Jejomar C. Binay for vice-president; (6) accusations made by former President Joseph E. Estrada and Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile against Senator Manuel B. Villar, Jr. that while serving as Senate President in 2007, Senator Villar used his position to pressure the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) to decide in his favor on a matter concerning the public offering of his real estate company’s shares; (7) Senator Richard J. Gordon’s filing of charges against two survey groups; (8) petitions from various sectors for a parallel manual count of votes; (9) the Supreme Court’s final ruling allowing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to appoint the next chief justice (but not the next Sandiganbayan Justice); (10) calls for the resignation and disbarment of Department of Justice (DOJ) Acting Secretary Alberto Agra following his decision to clear two key suspects in the Maguindanao massacre; and (11) increase in power rates despite rotating brownouts in Metro Manila and other parts of the country.

http://pulseasia.com.ph/pulseasia/story.asp?ID=716

pulse asia march 2010 presidentiables poll results : point of no return – an election for aquino to lose and villar to win

the results of this latest pulse asia poll, march 21 to 28, 2010 is highly consistent with the march 2010 poll of  SWS for the same month – villar’s ratings dropping, aquino holding and the effect aquino the front runner is widening his lead over villar.

not much has changed for the others. teodoro continue to be stuck at 7% rating but gordon has shown improvement going to now 2% from 1%. however, with the +/- 2% pts margin of error, that means no change for gordon.

we think we have reached a point of no return for most of the presidentiables, starting from teodoro, gordon and down the rest.  with lack of funds, lack of time and lack of support, these presidentiables have no luck at this election.

what we previously said stands – this election is for noynoy to lose, villar to win and estrada as the dark horse.

even on estrada, with little movement on his ratings, the dark horse label may have been lost as well. he is probably destined to join the rest.

The survey fieldwork was conducted from March 21 to 28, 2010 using face to face interviews.  Prior to and during the conduct of the survey, several events grabbed the headlines and these are as follows: (1) the Supreme Court’s declaration that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has the authority to appoint the successor of Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno and the protests that followed the high court’s decision; (2) various appointments made by the President following the Supreme Court’s ruling; (3) the start of the official campaign season for the local elections; (4) election-related concerns including double registrants in the voters’ list, downgrading of security features in the ballot, and questions regarding the nominees of several party-list groups and Commission on Elections (COMELEC) Chairperson Jose A.R. Melo’s dismissal of a “failure of elections” scenario despite these and other problems; (5) the possible disqualification of several presidential candidates due to failure to abide by election laws regarding airtime limits on their campaign advertisements and placement and size of their campaign materials (e.g., billboards); (6) the expression of support for the Nacionalista Party’s (NP) presidential candidate, Senator Manuel B. Villar, Jr., by some allies of President Arroyo in Cebu; (7) reports regarding the falling-out between President Arroyo and Philippine National Police (PNP) Director General Jesus Versoza following the latter’s declaration that he will not support any attempt to extend the President’s term should there be a failure of elections in May 2010; (8) the government’s decision to retain its original growth target of 2.6% to 3.6% despite the El Niño phenomenon; and (9) continued oil price hikes.

source: http://pulseasia.com.ph/pulseasia/story.asp?ID=712

is richard gordon from outer space?

we thought it was an interesting idea that the gordon-fernando presidential team called themselves “the transformers” at the start of the campaign. it was a name that many, specially the young know about coming behind the just released hollywood sequel hit movie with the same name.

gordon, together with his running mate fernando kept talking about the idea of the pair of them being transformational candidates and a pair that was blessed with action and political will.

or so we thought that was what they meant.

with recent developments and actions of gordon, we now think it is very possible gordon was not just referring  to the hollywood movie animation characters, it’s very possible he was referring to himself as coming from outer space, just like the transformers.

gordon seems to live in in his own world, created exclusively by him, populated exclusively by him.

he has taken the path of don quixote, going against the windmills of media, front runner villar, survey firms and tv stations.

we are in search of answer on why gordon seem to be on  a perpetual loop of spending time and energy on such small minded issues when the biggest issue facing his political career is still before him, right in his eyes – he is losing the presidential election.

gordon, to our huge disappointment, is getting no more than 2% in the polls and it’s just a few weeks to go until election time. we are disappointed as we like godron very much. we thought he has the guts and the energy to the right things for the country. we were also expecting his ratings will surge to a good double digit number, pulling away from teodoro who is in fourth and  becoming the dark horse in this election, his poll ratings simply puts him in the dark, winning over the likes of villanueva, madrigal, perlas and de los reyes.

we even scaled back that expectation. from being a dark horse to win the election, we said he will at the end get more votes than teodoro. but even that hugely scaled down expectation will not happen on earth. we don’t know if outer space holds elections, so we can’t comment on it.

where is richard gordon? we don’t know either. he seems to be out there somewhere creating, actually forcing upon us issues that are non-issues but forcing us and the media to make them issues.

he may have a point on ad spending, suing SWS and Pulse Asia and charging villar offered him a bribe to withdraw from the campaign even though it did not make sense that villar will make an offer to him when his ratings are way down,  but do these things matter to others, like the voters?

rather than waste his time and brain cells on these small mind issues, he should instead spend them on issues that will get him elected or even on the not so small matter of getting funds for his campaign, something he obviously do not have a lot of.

we think he has been doing these earth outwardly things to get media attention. he probably figures the way to get out of 2% in the polls is to get media exposure. he knows media exposure is his problem. so he drums up this tiny issues to get media to interview him.

it’s a fine objective but he has forgotten to look at what he is being transformed into by his action. these are issues with no legs. these will get him one day, two days at the most in media coverage. more importantly,  he will be building a brand image, but it will be one that is not suitable for a president. bottom line – it will not get him elected. it will be sending the wrong message, not like saying “ET, phone home.”

the transformation of richard gordon

what he is doing is reminding people he is a marginalized candidate out there in space desperately trying to crash unto earth’s atmosphere and hopefully landing in the philippine’s presidential election.

our favorite  of gordon is this abs-cbn tv partol world video where the topic gordon wanted to whine about was poor or lack of media coverage of hiss events. he was at one of the domestic airports to go to a public meeting and there was only one media person covering the event. they stopped walking for awhile and the lady reporter started to interview him.

gordon launched on the topic of lack of media support for candidates like him but at the middle of his statement, the public address system at the airport  gave out a series of announcements that was loud that it muffled gordon and he could barely be heard. gordon was visibly distracted by it. he rolls his eyes, shakes his head and CURSES the PA system announcement right in front of the tv camera.

tv patrol world included it in their report but placed the beeping sound when he cursed.

true enough, gordon is a transformer, one from being human to one from outer space. it’s nice to have your own world, but that will not get him elected president on earth, at the philippines. “gordon, phone home?”

revilla, estrada and santiago tops pulse aisa poll for senators

the list of senatorial candidates topping the march 2010 pulse asia poll is a mixture of personalities who cannot be any more different. just like the presidentiables, there is no unity or even sameness among them. as in previous senatorial elections, the list is dominated by opposition senators with just a few coming from lakas-kampi.

The survey fieldwork was conducted from March 21 to 28, 2010 using face to face interviews.  Prior to and during the conduct of the survey, several events grabbed the headlines and these are as follows: (1) the Supreme Court’s declaration that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has the authority to appoint the successor of Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno and the protests that followed the high court’s decision; (2) various appointments made by the President following the Supreme Court’s ruling; (3) the start of the official campaign season for the local elections; (4) election-related concerns including double registrants in the voters’ list, downgrading of security features in the ballot, and questions regarding the nominees of several party-list groups and Commission on Elections (COMELEC) Chairperson Jose A.R. Melo’s dismissal of a “failure of elections” scenario despite these and other problems; (5) the possible disqualification of several presidential candidates due to failure to abide by election laws regarding airtime limits on their campaign advertisements and placement and size of their campaign materials (e.g., billboards); (6) the expression of support for the Nacionalista Party’s (NP) presidential candidate, Senator Manuel B. Villar, Jr., by some allies of President Arroyo in Cebu; (7) reports regarding the falling-out between President Arroyo and Philippine National Police (PNP) Director General Jesus Versoza following the latter’s declaration that he will not support any attempt to extend the President’s term should there be a failure of elections in May 2010; (8) the government’s decision to retain its original growth target of 2.6% to 3.6% despite the El Niño phenomenon; and (9) continued oil price hikes.

source: http://pulseasia.com.ph/pulseasia/story.asp?ID=713

March 2010 Pulse Asia Poll: villar rating drops, aquino lead widens, no change among laggards – point of no return?

villar’s rating in the latest pulse asia poll drops 4% points while aquino’s rating moves up by 1% point, giving aquino a wider lead, by + 7%. these results are highly consistent with the SWS poll (click here: march 2010 SWS presidentiables poll – erap magic works, villar magic fails, aquino magic stays)

villar’s weakening position here confirms the red warning flag we raised on villar (read here: march 2010 SWS poll results – a big red flag is up for manny villar). there is a fundamental weakness that has emerged in villar’s campaign and it is showing now that may show itself smartly in the next poll if not addressed.

the widening lead being enjoyed by aquino, however, is not enough reason for celebration for aquino. the lead is not due to aquino strengthening but rather villar weakening. it may indicate that aquino has a large base of fiercely loyal supporters or that his opponents has not yet discovered aquino’s weakness. however, the poll results seem indicate villar’s supporters are vulnerable.

that is good news for erap estrada who is following villar at 3rd. in fact that is good news for everyone else, specially those at the laggards group.

we think we have reached a point of no return here. unless major developments or major screw ups occur, the standings are most likely going to hold until election time. with just a few weeks before election, there is simply not enough time to do anything else.

polls & surveys on presidentiable preference : losing out on the formula to win (part 1)

we are publishing here an email we received from a reader, carlo arvisu who is a marketing and advertising practitioner.

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election polls is the rage these days – it is the stuff of newspaper headlines and tv newscasts. presidentiables are asked about them and predictably those in the lead are thankful for the results while those at the bottom or not improving are all against it casting doubt on the results by attacking the research agency, those who commissioned the poll and the methodology.

the irony of it all is that most of the major candidates and even the laggards actually subscribe to the election polls we read in the papers. the election polls conducted by SWS and Pulse Asia are syndicated polls. they run this on their own but they make available to the candidates its results on a subscription basis. not only can candidates subscribe to it, anyone else who has the money can subscribe to them.

the rate of subscription vary on the kind of service a presidentiable wants. the rates differ on how  the presidentiables want the results presented to them or what results they want to have.

the biggest clients of research agencies are mass consumer marketing companies like uni-lever, jollibee and procter & gamble, although they use other research agencies like TNS and AC Nielsen. SWS and Pulse Asia do these types of research but very seldom, their specialization is polls on political and national issues.

the problem with surveys and research both for mass consumer marketing companies  and presidential campaigns is how to answer  two  questi0ns, the last one being   -  what do we do, what steps do we take as a reaction to the research results.

research and polls give a snapshot or a profile of the consumer mind and voters mind at a certain point in time. the consumer and voter mind is a living thing, it is dynamic and can change in whatever direction in no time depending on the stimulus or what the voter or consumer experience.

change in the consumer mind may not happen often and not as quickly but change in the voter mind can happen very often and very quickly.  current events is the stimulus for this change and current can mean something yesterday, today or in a few hours time.

with readily available , evolving news reported and brought to the consciousness of voters, change in the voter mind can occur in a beat. we not only have tv, radio and print now,  there is the internet, the social websites, blogs and even cellphone text.  all of the above can influence the voter mind in an instant. 

we saw the power of instant communication  during EDSA DOS where  hundreds of thousands of people exchanged cell phone text  to express their disgust on the developments regarding the unopened brown envelope during estrada’s hearings at congress. from disgust, the text content turned into people asking others to converge at EDSA and that led to the eventual ouster of estrada.

having the data gives the political campaign a picture of the current state of mind of the voter. with a picture in front of you, you can now plot your actions to change that picture. 

the problem is very few know how to do it properly. that problem is not limited to political campaigns but it is also true to mass consumer marketing companies.

knowing what to do or not knowing what to do is actually the second of two questions. the first question is this – what is the meaning of the poll results? and the twin question which is more important – what are the insights that we can draw from these results?

research and poll agencies will give the subscriber results, basically statements or answers to the questions asked of the respondents with corresponding numbers or ratings.  these are in essence the statistically analyzed raw data. the poll and research agency will not give them the meanings and more importantly the insights from the data.

the data will need interpretation and that is supposed to be done by the client. and there lie the other problem.  even mass consumer marketing companies are not very good at this, in fact many of these companies do not even have competencies to do this. we do not think political campaigns have these as well.

insights is a very elusive thing for many. in fact the marketing and advertising managers we have encountered do not really know what insights are. many of them think research data and results are already insights. when they are really just raw data that they will need to draw insights from.

the political campaign now has the data from the polls, what will they do with it now? this is next in part 2.

~~  a mindscape landmark ~~
 carlo arvisu