The dad rushed in to grab his kid, but it was too late…
The headline isn’t as dark as it appears to be.
Last week, I watched episode 2 of Squid Game.
In this scene, a young woman working at a carnival in a massive cartoon costume trudges into a break room where she removes her mask.
She’s exhausted and drenched in sweat.
I’ve been thinking about this moment because it speaks to something fundamental in market research: the difference between our public and private selves.
I’m not talking about hidden motives.
What interests me is right on the surface – the contents of our minds that we carry wherever we go, yet conceal.
The primary reason researchers struggle to access this inner reality is not bad methodology, but jargon.
It cuts off the person “under the mask.”
Something else I did last week: I conducted an experiment (n=295) that measures the effects of removing jargon from a survey question.
It involved two versions of a question asking about cold and flu symptoms.
One version, A, was filled with jargon. It asked respondents if they had “experienced any sleep disruptions” that they would “attribute to a respiratory tract infection.”
The other version, B, simply asked, "Did a cold or flu keep you up last night?"
The results were striking in two ways.
The first was time.
While Version A took respondents an average of 13.2 seconds to answer, Version B took just 5.8 seconds – a 54% reduction that would translate directly to cost savings, as most vendors charge by survey length.
The second was accuracy.
Since Version B specified "last night," it filtered out everyone not currently experiencing symptoms – Version B’s results (14%) aligned much closer to actual winter cold and flu rates (3-10%) than Version A's inflated 58%.
Knowing who's currently experiencing symptoms matters. If you’re a cold and flu brand, you can now ask a question guaranteed to yield valuable insights. ‘What did your cold or flu stop you from doing today?’
This follow up is powerful because it targets people in the midst of the experience, not those with fuzzy memories of past illnesses.
Remember the Squid Game scene I mentioned? After the young woman takes her mask off, a young boy from the carnival unexpectedly wanders into the break room.
The father rushes in, grabs him, and hurries away to preserve the illusion.
Much of the survey industry behaves the same way. We avoid plain language as if it threatens some necessary illusion of expertise.
But the best insights emerge when we find the right people and ask straightforward questions.
If we're willing to see and speak to people without jargon, the mask comes off.
Steal-This Resource:
• Link to the data visualization (re-use and edit with a free DataWrapper account)
Need help with your surveys?
If you gather insights through surveys, do you:
• Struggle to find the right words that will get honest answers?
• Wonder if respondents really understand what you're asking?
• Need clearer, more actionable feedback?
Consider booking a Survey Roast.
For $145, send me your survey draft and I'll create a 15-minute video with specific, ready-to-use edits that will improve your data quality and response rates.
Cheers,
Sam