A year ago, I got mailed a questionnaire from a very popular media tracking company (I can’t mention name.) I sort of like filling out easy TV related questionnaires so I filled it out. Plus it had something like a $5 bill in the envelope and promised me I’d get $10 if I filled it out and sent it in. I filled it out and a a month later, I got a 2nd questionnaire and the $10. I sent that in and never heard from them again.
Fast forward to about a month ago, I got another similar questionnaire with money; I filled it out and sent it in. Then they followed up saying I was invited to join the panel that tracks my media (TV, radio, etc) viewing habits. It involved them sending me a pager to wear all day that would detect what I listened to (not as involved as Alexa I don’t think.) Anyway, they sent one to my wife too since the entire household has to be involved.
I must have gotten 3 long phone calls discussing the entire process. Eventually I learned that I had to wear the clip-on pager almost all day for 7 days a week to get paid. You want to know how much I get paid to do that? $2.50! NOT $2.50 per hour which makes sense, but TWO FREAKING DOLLARS AND 50 CENTS A WEEK! I immediately remember back to this article about what my time is worth.
The most annoying things about the pay were a) the thing only tracks you when there’s motion, so you can’t leave it on your desk, b) it BEEPS AT YOU if you don’t wear it and c) IT’S A FUCKING BEEPER THAT YOU CLIP ON. It’s not the 90’s. I’m not wearing a beeper. If they want me to install an app, then maybe I’d do that instead. Even then, I think my data/time/effort is worth more than $2.50 A WEEK! I think I’d be okay with $2.50 an hour, but not per week.
I plan on wearing it long enough to get my new user bonus (I’m not sure how much that is, but if that’s $2.50 also, I’m quitting now.) After that, I’m done. The inconvenience isn’t worth $2.50 A WEEK! Screw you media data gathering company!
All your data is valuable to someone. All these companies have trained us that we should give it away for peanuts. I really wish they would start clamping down on these big data breaches that happen monthly/weekly now.
Exactly. My data is definitely worth more than $2.50 a week. This is HUGE margin for them. I also forgot to note that because of such a low payout, who would inconvenience themself to wear one of these?
C’mon, billions give away information for FREEEEEEE to google, FB, Linkedin etc. It’s a marketing department’s wet dream come true. They are selecting a phenotype by only offering $2.5 and that should tell you the value of the numbers they are collecting. In general, the ROI on TV advertisement is poorer than Google, IG or FB.
Google’s best investment was doubleclick.