Text Analytics Poll™ Shows What We’d Like Instead of Presidents Day
It’s been less than a week since our Valentine’s Day poll unearthed what people dislike most about their sweethearts, and already another holiday is upon us! Though apparently for most of us it’s not much of a holiday at all; well over half of Americans say they do nothing to commemorate ‘Presidents Day.’
You’ll note I put the holiday in single quotes. That’s because there’s some confusion around the name. Federally, it’s recognized as Washington’s Birthday. At the state level, it’s known by a variety of names—President’s Day, Presidents’ Day, Presidents Day and others, again, depending on the state.
But the name is not the only inconsistency about Presidents Day. If you’re a federal employee OR you happen to be a state employee in a state where the holiday is observed OR you work for an employer who honors it, you get the day off work with pay. Schools may or may not be closed, but that again depends on where you live.
As for what we’re observing exactly, well, that also depends on the state, but people generally regard the holiday as an occasion to honor either George Washington, alone, or Washington and Abraham Lincoln, or U.S. presidents, in general.
Perhaps the one consistent aspect of this holiday is the sales? It’s particularly popular among purveyors of automobiles, mattresses, and furniture.
Yes, it’s a patriotic sort of holiday, but on the whole, we suspected that ‘Presidents Day’ fell on the weaker end of the American holiday spectrum, so we investigated a little bit…
About this Text Analytics Poll™
In this example for our ongoing series demonstrating the efficiency, flexibility, and practicality of the Text Analytics Poll™ for insights generation, we opted for a light-hearted poll using a smaller sample* than usual. While text analytics have obvious value when applied to larger-scale data where human reading or coding is impossible or too expensive, you’ll see here that OdinText also works very effectively with smaller samples!
I’ll also emphasize that the goal of these little Text Analytics Polls™ is not to conduct a perfect study, but to very quickly design and field a survey with only one open-ended question, analyze the results with OdinText, and report the findings in here on this blog. (The only thing that takes a little time—usually 2-3 days—is the data collection.)
So while the research is representative of the general online population, and the text analytics coding applied with 100% consistency throughout the entire sample, this very speedy exercise is meant to inspire users of OdinText to use the software in new ways to answer new questions. It is not meant to be an exhaustive exploration of the topic. We welcome our users to comment and suggest improvements in the questions we ask and make suggestions for future topics!
Enough said, on to the results…
A Holiday In Search of a Celebrant in Search of a Holiday…
Poll I: Americans Celebrate on the Slopes, Not in Stores
When we asked Americans how they typically celebrate Presidents Day, the vast majority told us they don’t. And those few of us lucky enough to have the day off from work tend to not do much outside of sleeping.
But the surprise came from those few who actually said they do something on Presidents Day!
We expected people to say they go shopping on Presidents Day, but the most popular activity mentioned (after nothing and sleeping) was skiing! And skiing was followed by 2) barbecuing and 3) spending time with friends—not shopping.
Poll II: Change it to Family Day?
So, maybe as far as holidays go, Presidents Day is a tad lackluster? Could we do better?
We asked Americans:
Q. If we could create a new holiday instead of Presidents Day, what new holiday would you suggest we celebrate?
While some people indicated Presidents Day is fine as is, among those who suggested a new holiday there was no shortage of creativity!
The three most frequently mentioned ideas by large margins for replacement of Presidents Day were 1) Leaders/Heroes Day, 2) Native American Day (this holiday already exists, so maybe it could benefit from some publicity?) and 3) Family Day (which is celebrated in parts of Canada and other countries).
People also seemed to like the idea of shifting the date and making a holiday out of other important annually occurring events that lent themselves to a day off in practical terms like Election Day, Super Bowl Monday and, my personal favorite, Taxpayer Day on April 15!
Poll III: From Celebrity Apprentice to Celebrity POTUS
Donald Trump isn’t the first person in history to have not held elected office before becoming president, but he is definitely the first POTUS to have had his own reality TV show! Being Presidents Day, we thought it might be fun to see who else from outside of politics might interest Americans…
Q: If you could pick any celebrity outside of politics to be President, who would it be?
Looks like we could have our first female president if Oprah ever decides to run. The media mogul’s name just rolled off people’s tongues, followed very closely by George Clooney, with Morgan Freeman in a respectable third.
Let Them Tell You in Their Own Words
In closing, I’ll remind you that none of these data were generated by a multiple-choice instrument, but via unaided text comments from people in their own words.
What never ceases to amaze me about these exercises is how even when we give people license to say whatever crazy thing they can think up—without any prompts or restrictions—people often have the same thoughts. And so open-ends lend themselves nicely to quantification using a platform like OdinText.
If you’re among the lucky folks who have the holiday off, enjoy the slopes!
Until next time, Happy Presidents Day!
PS. Do you have an idea for our next Text Analytics Poll™? We’d love to hear from you. Or, why not use OdinText to analyze your own data!
[*Today’s OdinText Text Analytics PollTM sample of n=500 U.S. online representative respondents has been sourced through of Google Surveys. The sample has a confidence interval of +/- 4.38 at the 95% Confidence Level. Larger samples have a smaller confidence level. Subgroup analyses within the sample have a larger confidence interval.]
About Tom H. C. Anderson
Tom H. C. Anderson is the founder and managing partner of OdinText, a venture-backed firm based in Stamford, CT whose eponymous, patented SAS platform is used by Fortune 500 companies like Disney, Coca-Cola and Shell Oil to mine insights from complex, unstructured and mixed data. A recognized authority and pioneer in the field of text analytics with more than two decades of experience in market research, Anderson is the recipient of numerous awards for innovation from industry associations such as CASRO, ESOMAR, and the ARF. He was named one of the “Four under 40” market research leaders by the American Marketing Association in 2010. He tweets under the handle @tomhcanderson
0 Responses
Yeah … that doesn’t make me feel any better. The goal here is preventing the unsanctioned murder of innocent black people. Nothing short of this can be considered progress. Nothing short of this is worthy of celebration. Nothing short of this should allow us to sleep peacefully at night.
A fun little poll. Obviously President’s Day doesn’t mean much anymore, if it ever did. I agree that Native American Day should get more publicity and generate more awareness. The trick is to make it a National Holiday.