Critique of research study methodology and findings

Marketing service provider Enpocket conducted research in the UK on consumer attitudes toward SMS advertising. The organization published the results of their study in a 2002 report entitled "Consumer Preferences for SMS Marketing in the UK." The eight page report is succinct and does contain visual elements such as graphs. Yet in spite of its brevity, the report is hard to follow. The authors do not provide an adequate explanation of terms and therefore overly complicate what could be straightforward data. Similarly, the wording and sentence structure used in the report is clumsy and the document is structured poorly. For example, the inadequate "Methodology" section follows the conclusion of the report. Enpocket's "Consumer Preferences for SMS Marketing in the UK" is wrought with structural, presentational, and organizational flaws, making an otherwise useful study difficult to read.

The report opens with a brief one-page synopsis. Instead of offering readers a quick glimpse into the background, major findings, and implications of the study, the authors instead bombard readers with long sentences and an inadequate definition of terms. For example, the first sentence reads, "In order to ascertain users' preferences in relation to SMS advertising it is necessary to expose them to a period of time in which they experience a variety of SMS marketing campaigns, and then determine their reactions to the medium," (p.2). The synopsis would be more effective if the opening sentence were punchier and introduced the concept of SMS. The authors also should have stated outright in the introductory synopsis section or elsewhere the definition of SMS. Not once in the report is the core acronym of the study explained. Similarly, words like "carrier" and "portal" should be given a working definition. The so-called synopsis also includes the following sentence as part of a bulleted list: "Amongst the potential controllers of the medium, there is a strong consumer preference for the carriers to become the definitive media owners and permission holders," (p. 2). Summaries should be far clearer and more succinct, presenting complex data in language that is easy to understand.

Enpocket's report is littered with long sentences that make the study difficult to read. To make the report easier to read, the author(s) should have alternated long complex sentences with shorter, simpler ones. Furthermore, the data should be placed in a broader context, so that the reader can understand why the study is meaningful. Scholarly or technical writing does not have to be oblique.

Sections 2, 3, and 4 of the report contain the results of the data collected in the study. Section 2 describes "SMS acceptance compared to other media," Section 3 describes results related to "Desired Frequency of Messaging," and Section 4 discusses "Which Media Owners Do Consumers Prefer?"

At a glance, these three sections seem well-produced and offer summaries of the data along with graphs. However, the authors describe their findings using clunky sentences that make the report virtually impossible to understand. For example: "Highest levels of acceptance, on par with TV and radio, among those regularly receiving marketer messages and knowing these are controlled by their carrier/portal" is a daunting sentence (3). In a report as brief as this, sentences should be compact, succinct, and easy to read.

Furthermore, the visual aids in these three sections offer little help. The three-dimensional bar graphs are confusing, even if they are pleasing to the eye. The graphs do little to enhance the verbal explanations because the verbal explanations are themselves lacking in clarity. Furthermore, the authors also use terms like "negligible rejection" and "some issues" in their study, when they could have selected more common phrases like "strongly dislike."

Finally, "Consumer Preferences for SMS Marketing in the UK" could be organized in a manner that better explains the details of the research experiment. In particular, the methodology section should come before the conclusion, as explaining methodology is essential to any credible research report, not ancillary to it. Although the authors state that the participants were contacted by telephone and given interviews, they do not state how the sample was selected. Readers do not know the demographics of the sample nor the exact questions that were asked. The report would have been structured better with the methodology following the synopsis and the conclusion should include a more thorough discussion of the implications of the study

Furthermore, the synopsis section should read more like an abstract. It should contain more succinct statements. The conclusion of the report is basically just a long quote from the Enpocket CEO. Concluding remarks should extend beyond a CEO statement to include broader implications for the research.