Ask the Expert: Marketing Intelligence to Guide Your Efforts

The BSA’s Marketing Intelligence Manager Scott Olson spends his days sifting through info related to the ever-changing youth and family market the BSA serves. Now, he’s passing on his insights to you.

In our new Scouting Wire series Ask the Expert, Scott delivers a real world perspective of what parents value and children crave. This week we’re talking honesty. Read on as Scott gives you the rundown on recent studies showing how the American family values honest marketing approaches and honesty-instilling education for kids. Here’s what he has to say:

Parents Have the Toughest Job in the World.

In a recent Rasmussen survey, 93% of parents with children at home believe being seen as ‘honest and trustworthy’ is very important for success, compared to 4% who thought ‘getting rich’ is very important. More than 84% of adults agreed that parents play the biggest role in determining future success and happiness of a child. ¹

Teaching Honesty

Seventy-one percent of adults claim to have returned a lost wallet they found to its rightful owner, but only 31% say they have had a lost wallet returned to them. We may claim the virtues of telling the the truth and being honorable for our own lives, but the same poll recorded only 52% of respondents say most Americans are basically honest. ²

In The (Honest) Truth about Dishonesty, Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics Dan Ariely measured honesty. Students solved puzzles to establish a baseline for how many an average person could complete. Then different sets of students were given the same test with various opportunities to cheat.

It was discovered that students cheat a little (not too much to be noticed but measurable enough to note behavior change). However, reciting the Ten Commandments before the task resulted in no cheating. When another group was asked to sign an honor code pledge, the students who did not sign the pledge cheated a little bit while the honor code bound students did not cheat at all. The introduction of morality is a powerful tool to shape behavior. ³ 

Children Learn Truth by Observation

In a new Johns Hopkins Study, toddlers were shown experiments that defied their expectations – surprises such as rolling balls that stopped suddenly on a downward sloping ramp or objects suspended in mid air. Cognitive Psychologists Aimee Stahl and Lisa Feigenson noted, ‘Our research suggests that infants use what they already know about the world to form predictions. When these predictions are shown to be wrong, infants use this as a special opportunity for learning.’ So isn’t this what every parent seeks? Hundreds of individual learning experiences parceled out continually throughout development.

What Cub Scouts Offers

In a study conducted by national polling firm Forrester Research, more than half of parents responded positively when asked if their Cub Scout aged boys (6-10 years old) should have more exposure to ‘the outdoors’, ‘fitness’, and ‘learning responsibility’, three core elements of the Cub Scout program. Results of executive surveys also demonstrate that integrity is most highly admired in strong leaders.

Let’s Hear From You

I’ll get back to scouring studies for insights to bolster the hard work of BSA volunteers and employees. For now, I’d like to hear which of the statistics above you think are most valuable in your marketing and recruiting efforts. Please share your thoughts in the comments.

– Scott Olson

1 Americans see Honesty, good Parenting as tops when it comes to success” National Survey of 1000 adults. February 25-26, 2013.

2 http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/lifestyle/general_lifestyle/september_2013/31_have_had_a_lost_wallet_returned_to_them

3 Dan Ariely, The (Honest) Truth about Dishonesty, Harper Collins, 2012, p42

4  Johns Hopkins Study, April 2, 2015 http://hub.jhu.edu/2015/04/02/surprise-babies-learning