May I have your opinion?

Everyone likes to be popular and none more so than companies which have products on the market. They positively wallow in popularity. You will see ads plastered with the slogan ‘Voted the most popular by….’ And the products range from shampoos to car tyres to newspapers and sometimes even educational institutes!

Every now and then the credentials to popularity will be bolstered by a mention of the polling agency, the demographics of the people polled and the total number culled from a ‘random sampling’. This random sampling covers some remarkable people – opinionated certainly - but anonymous and faceless nonetheless.

So I asked my neighbours, “Have you been polled?” They shook their heads, “No!” I asked my friends: “Never!” they replied. I chatted up my fellow passengers in the train compartment – now there’s a more than average cross-section for you – and brought the topic round to opinion polls. Had anyone been polled? Some had been accosted by college students asking what brand of detergent they used and were proffered an unbranded powder to test. But had they been asked searching questions about shampoos, newspapers, tyres, et al? The general response was a definite negative.

So, who are these sapient people who get to tell us which is the best product for us to buy, which paper to read and which institute to study at, among other things? I have a sneaky feeling that they must be the ‘Great Indian Family’. After all, the pollsters must possess that uncle’s sister-in-law’s cousin brother’s son’s girlfriend’s mother who is quite capable of having her say!

As for the man or woman on the street, I cannot speak for them. I know that I have never been ‘opinion-polled’. Have you?