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Looks cool – but looks can be deceiving!

In this article, called XBOX Visa Case, the benefit of Visa’s sponsorship of the XBOX live tournament is discussed. The data analyzed is reported in the text and represented through histograms. The histograms are interwoven with other tournament displays down the side of the article suggesting that they are not the focal point for readers. Rather, the represented data seems meant to offer the numerical support for the stated benefits of Visa’s sponsorship. Also, they lend bright colors to the article. I do think the histogram approach is appropriate for highlighting the findings, however, there are some issues with the displays as will be discussed below. Specifically, I am going to focus on the areas where histograms are used in addition to the text.

1. The section “Visa’s Success With XBOX LIVE Tournament Sponsorship” talks about the attitude towards Visa. It appears that data was collected from two groups, those in the age group from 18-34 and those in the age group from 35-49. From the text, we might assume that all respondents were mostly male. It is not clear how many respondents there were, nor how data from respondents outside of these ranges were handled. This brings me to some questions: Does minimalizing other age groups matter? Perhaps the rationale was that people under 18 cannot get a Visa, but what about 50 and over?

Additionally, the way attitudes were measured could be problematic. It appears that all respondents could choose whether they agreed or not to each type of attitude (i.e., cool, fund, innovative/cutting edge, for someone like me). An initial problem for me is that these terms do not necessarily represent “attitudes” for me. To further look into this, I went to Wikipedia and found this statement about the measurement of attitudes “An attitude can be defined as a positive or negative evaluation of people, objects, event, activities, ideas, or just about anything in your environment, but there is debate about precise definitions” (located at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attitude_%28psychology%29, accessed 09/17/2012). As such, it is not clear to me that “fun” is an appropriate attitude to assess (but you may think otherwise!). But looking beyond that point it does not surprise me that the numbers are so close (around 70-80%) for all items. Indeed, wouldn’t it seem likely that someone who said Visa was Cool would also say they were Fun, Innovative, and For Someone Like Me? Also, it makes me think of a bigger similarity in terms of people in these age groups; is it that the 35-49 year olds have the same attitudes/mentality as the younger crowd? Interesting!

 2. The section “Cementing Brand Loyalty” surveyed American adults that are current card holders, past card holders, and those that have never had a card. Two surveys were administered. The first was given before the tournament and the second was given after the tournament. When I look at the “attitudes” of respondents from pre and post surveys, there do seem to be differences. Moreover, it is reported in the graphic that a capital letter is used to indicate significant differences. Interestingly they use a confidence level of 90% which is less rigorous than typical (usually researchers use 95% confidence levels) so why the relaxation of this test? This is where I start to wonder if they are trying to make us believe there are differences when there really aren’t (especially given the sample sizes being large). Speaking of sample sizes, I note that 304 people filled out the pre-survey and 485 people filled out the post survey. This raises a red flag for me because it seems that people may have filled out one or the other – and indeed, because more people filled out the post-survey it is obvious that some of them did not fill out the pre-survey. What does this mean for the “change” in attitudes? Really, there should be some assurance that the same people were surveyed before and after in order for these results to be meaningful.

3. Next to the final section called “Tournament Sponsorship is a Winning Proposition” there is a histogram showing the “Perception of Visa Knowing Brand Sponsored Madden Tournament.” The sample used for this histogram appear to be (based on the sample size) the same sample used to complete the post survey for assessing brand loyalty. Overall, the measurement scale to assess people’s perception of Visa sponsorship seemed the most appropriate, valid, and reliable of all the scales used. This is because the five-point scale where the anchors are opposites with seemingly equal gradations between each middle label exists.  Great start! However, it is confusing as to how the data was compared. It seems that within each category there was a test of whether the proportion of respondents on that label differed. Weird. This might be meaningful but we have no idea how many people are represented in each stratification of the sample. For example, in the “Very Positive” bucket, 68% of current card holders chose this answer. But 68% of what total sample size?  This may or may not be important but worth knowing more (just wait till we look at the equations for the proportion tests), to consider it in more depth check out the book How to Lie with Statistics  which discusses how small samples may not be convincing so if sample size is not explicitly given – be careful.

Two other issues arise from this final graphic. My first issue is with the capital letters. What do they mean and why are they different/the same? Another issue is with the percentages. Why don’t they add up to 100%? Specifically, for current card holders 68%+19%+13%+1% = 101%; for Past card holders 39%+35%+25% = 99%; for never card holders 46%+29%+22%+3% = 100%. Even if the reason is rounding, there should be some acknowledgement of this fact.

In summary, there are many issues with this article that concern me. What’s more is that this document is promoting Visa by showcasing attitudes and perceptions about Visa’s sponsorship of the XBOX Live tournament. While it may be that legitimate findings were made that should promote Visa in the minds of customers new and old; the number of oversights in this article make me skeptical about the ethical use of data. Admittedly this article alone isn’t going to make me cancel my Visa – but it makes me (and hopefully you too!) more alert about these types of practices.

Reference

Microsoft Corporation (2008). XBOX Visa Case. Accessed online on 09/24/2012 at http://advertising.microsoft.com/research/xbox-visa.