Abstract
In this 1974 letter, pollster Burns ("Bud") Roper of the Roper Organization describes to William Kloepfer (President of the Tobacco Institute) a stealthy way his firm could survey children to help the Institute find out "the extent to which kids smoke." Roper suggests the Institute "offer to enter into a cooperative study with the Cancer Society, Heart Association of whoever" as cover to conduct a personal interview study among 12-17 year olds. Roper then suggests a method of conducting interviews with children that would evade parents' eavesdropping and (he hopes) avoid parental objections to the line of questioning. Roper proposes,
"We would design and administer about a fifteen minute questionnaire which would be 'kid-oriented.' It might deal with such things as clothing styles, pop singers, recreational activities, etc. About the thirteenth minute of the fifteen minute interview would be devoted to a list of activities about which two questions might be asked. The list of activities might include such things as ridden on a motorcycle, participated in a student protest, smoked marijuana, drunk beer, smoked cigarettes, drunk hard liquor, been arrested, driven a car, stayed out all night, run away from home, etc. These activities would be listed on a card, each one preceded by a large capital letter (A, B, C, D, etc.). The card would be given to kids about the thirteenth minute and they would be asked a question along the following lines (wording subject to change and hopefully improvement): "Here is a list of things that some young people do, even though their parents don't look on them with favor. Would you go down that list and for each item tell me whether you have ever done it. Just call off the letter of the item and then tell me yes or no." After they had answered the question, they would be asked a second question along these lines, "Now for each item you have ever done, would you tell me whether you have happened to do it in the last two weeks. Just call off the letter of each item you have done in the last two weeks." Our thesis is that almost everyone who has done a given item in the last two weeks can be regarded as a "regular." It is, of course, possible that in a few cases someone will have done an item in the last two weeks and it will be the first and only time either he or she has done it. But that would have to be a very small percentage of the cases. By stressing the letters with which the items were designated and asking people to call off the letter using yes or no, we would avoid the problem of kids having to say out loud that they had or had not done the item if they were in the presence of their parents. Moreover, we would further reduce the significance of these questions, both in the kid's mind and in his parents' minds, assuming he was in earshot of his parents, by preceding them with twelve minutes of youth activities questions and following them with two more minutes of comparatively innocuous questions and questions about demographic characteristics. Thus, to the kids and any eavesdropping parents, these two questions would be incidental to the study. From your point of view, of course, they would be the entire study..."
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Fields
- Notes
Thanks to Ray Goldstein, who referred this item to Doc-Alert.
- Quotes
As above
- Company
- Tobacco Institute
- Author
- Roper, Burns W. 1 (President, the Roper Organization)
Polling/Survey firm
- Recipient
- Kloepfer, William J., Jr. 2 (TI Public Affairs VP, c. 1988)
Senior Vice President of Public Affairs Relations for the Tobacco Institute
RegionUnited States
Named OrganizationCancer Society
Heart Association
LitigationMinnesota AG
Named PersonShirley
TypeLETTER
Subjecttarget market
Target/Youth (pre-18) (Target Groups)
Annotations
- 1. Roper, Burns W. Author
- Affiliation:
Roper Organization
- 2. Kloepfer, William J., Jr. Recipient
- Affiliation:
Tobacco Institute
Document Images
Page 1: TOB10921.22
THE ROPER ORGANIZATION INC.
BURNS W. ROPER
President
November ll, 1974
Mr. William Kloepfer
Tobacco Institute
1776 If Street, N.W. ,
Washington, D.C. 20006
Dear Bill,
Since seeing you in Washington, Shirley and I have discussed further
the matter of determining how many teenagers smoke. While we have refined
our thinking somewhat, we come up with exactly the same alternatives that
you and I discussed--namely:
i. Taking the position with the Cancer Society and others,
that you have no knowledge of the incidence of smoking
among the young because you have scrupulously avoided
researching them in order to avoid any appearances of
trying to exploit youth--but that you would be happy to
enter into a cooperative study with the Cancer Society,
Heart Association or whoever, to conduct a national in-
school study along the lines of the San Mateo study.
2. Replicating insofar as possible the telephone study done
by Chilton, though possibly improving on it in question
wording, etc. (assuming we can learn exactly how their's
was done ) .
3. Conducting a personal interview study, the main thrust
of which is an exploration of youth
activities and atti-
tudes but which in the process, also
determines the
extent to which kids smoke.
The challenge to the Cancer Society, Heart Association, etc. would
probably not be picked up by them, but the mere fact of making the
challenge might get you off the hook. If the challenge was accepted, of
course, you would then be in the position of having to publish the results
and that might or might not be good from your point of view.
CONFIDENTIAL:
MINNE.SOTA TOBACCO LITIGATION
. . 2
ONE PARK AVENUE NEW YORK NEW YORK 10016
212 OREGON 9.3523
TIMN 262415
Page 2: TOB10921.23
Mr. William Kloepfer
November ii, 1974
Page 2
Replicating the Chilton study would serve to satisfy your curiosity
as to whether the reported results of the Chilton study are accurate, but
it probably wouldn't do much else. If it confirmed the Chilton results,
it would be nothing new. If it disputed the C~ilton results, then it
would become a battle of which survey was more accurate, and your survey--
our survey--might well be the suspect survey, even though Z think our
organization has generally better credibility than Chilton does. I say
that our survey would likely be the suspect one because you represent the
forces of evil and the National Clearinghouse represents the forces of
virtue.
This, therefore, leads us to favor the third approach, because that
would represent quite different methodology and methodology which would
widely be recognized as superior to Chilton's telephone approach. As
Shirley and I have considered it, what we would suggest would be a personal
interview survey using a strict national ~robability sample, with up to
three call backs to obtain designated respondents, to be conducted among
a cross section of boys and girls of, let's say, 12-17 years of age (or
whatever ages you want). We would design and administer about a fifteen
minute questionnaire which would be "kid-oriented". It might deal with
such things as clothing styles, pop singers, recreational activities, etc.
About the thirteenth minute of the fifteen minute interview would be
devoted to a list of activities about which two questions might be asked.
The list of activities might include such things as ridden on a motorcycle,
participated in a student protest, smoked marijuana, drunk beer, smoked
cigarettes, drunk hard liquor, been arrested, driven a car, stayed out all
night, run aw~y from ~ome, etc. These activities would be listed on a card,
each one preceded by a large capital letter (A, B, C, D, etc.). The card
would be given to kids about the thirteenth minute and they would be asked
a question along the following lines (wording subject to change and hope-
fully improvement): "Here is a list ofthings that some young people do,
even though their parents don't look on them with favor. Would you go
down that list and for each item tell me whether you have ever done it.
Just call off the letter of the item and then tell me yes or no". After
they had answered the question, they would be asked a second question along
these lines, "Now for each item you have ever done, would you tell me
whether you have happened to do it in the last two weeks.
Just call off the
letter of each item you have done in the last two weeks."
Our thesis is t~at almost everyone who has done a given item in the
last two weeks can be regarded as a "regular". It is, of course, possible
that in a few cases someone will have done an item in the last two weeks
and it will be the first and only time either he or she has done it. But
that would have to be a very small percentage of the cases. By stressing
the letters with which the items were designated and asking people to call
off the letter using yes or no, we would avoid the problem of kids having
to say out loud that they had or had not done the item if they were in the
presence of their parents.
CONFIDENTIAL:
MINNESOTA TOBACCO LITIGATION
TININ 262416
Page 3: TOB10921.24
Mr. William Kloepfer
November ii, 1974
Page 3
Moreover, we would further reduce the significance of these questions,
both in the kid's mind a/%d in his parents' minds, assuming he was in earshot
of his parents, by preceding them with twelve minutes of youth activities
questions and following them with two more minutes of comparatively innocuous
questions and questions about demographic characteristics. Thus, to the kids
and any eavesdropping parents, these two questions would be incidental to
the study. From your point of view, of course, they would be the entire
study--they and the demographic analysis that would make them meaningful.
Conducting the study in this fashion, by personal interview with
several call backs, would be superior to the Chilton methodologies and would
avoid any questions about non-telephone homes, unlisted phones, not at home
biases, etc. While Chilton started out using a 5,000 sample, they have now
dropped down to a 2,500 sample. It is our feeling that a sample of 1,500
along the lines that we are suggesting would stack up competitively to the
Chilton sample.
The personal interviews and call backs would more than offset the
larger sample size. Moreover, 1,500 has become the standard by which surveys
are judged, since that is what Gallup and Harris traditionally use. Finally,
a 1,500 sample would give us at least I00 kids of each sex in each single
year age group.
A study along these lines would cost $37,500, plus or minus 10%. This
is a high cost relative to the regular biennial Tobacco Institute Study.
That is more like a forty-five minute questionnaire and employs a 2,500
saxnple and yet costs less than twice as much. The cost disparity results from
the fact that probability samples with repeated call backs are expensive
indeed. As a rule we do not recommend a probability sample. But in view of
~audience we are trying to reach on the one hand and the fact that the
study results may be publicized and hence should be "unassailable" on the
other hand, we would recommend this more expensive sampling method in this
instance.
Questions, reactions, comments will be gratefully received.
Cordia iI~,,
Burns W. Roper
CONFIDENTIAL:
MINNESOTA TOBACCO LITIGATION
TIMN 262417
