I suppose I should clarify that I speak of the evolution of marketing, not the marketing of evolution (“Darwin — it’s the natural selection!”). Stupid no-genitive-case-having English.
Anyway, I observed today that a local survey company has actually succeeded in getting me to not beg off twice now. The trick: the framing of the endeavor. It’s a company doing research on musical tastes for local radio stations; they play me snippets of songs being played on the stations I listen to, and ask me to rate them.
Here’s the trick. They don’t just ask me to rate the quality of a song. They also ask me to rate how tired I am of hearing it on the radio. Who can pass up the opportunity to tell Big Radio “Don’t play that honkin’ song anymore, damn it!”? It’s like the recall election; how often do you get a chance to vote *against* a politician?
They also have better surveyors than some companies; their people banter with me about how profoundly played out some songs are, and tell me about songs I wasn’t familiar with. It’s not a deep relationship, but it’s better than the droning people asking me about local bond initiatives. (And embarrassing me when I realize I’m not sure if the district that I voted to approve a bond measure for is K-8 or K-12.)