Sample – 2000 per week
We aim to create a high quality sample of 2000 adults aged 15+, representative of the population at both a national and a regional level, on each week that the survey operates.

This enables us to conduct 6,000 to 8,000 face-to-face interviews with fully representative samples of the adult population every month, to provide the most up to date and robust understanding of the population currently available.
(A subset of 1,000 of these interviews on one week per month forms The British Marketing Survey).

Data Capture - Face to Face

As we wish our data to be representative of the whole of the population we chose to collect our data by face to face, in home interviews. Surveys are conducted by trained field personnel via a preset questionnaire on the Interviewer’s computer, the programme running intuitively as it analyses responses to avoid duplication or time wasting. (This is typically referred to as ‘CAPI’ – Computer Assisted Personal Interview)

The other reason we collect our data face to face is that we wish to understand which communication channels people respond to and find acceptable. This precludes us from using any of those channels, such as internet, mailed out questionairs etc as this would inevitably scew the results to that channel. That is not to say that we never use these methods, just that we do not feel that they are appropriate for this type of work. 

Weighting
However fine the aim of the Sample Selection, it is inevitable that there will be minor ‘discrepancies’ in the final results of each wave of the survey. To correct for these discrepancies, we use a ‘weighting’ system to correct the data totals and avoid any unintentional bias creeping into the results.

To download an Information Sheet providing a more detailed description of our Methodology, Sample Selection and Weighting protocols click HERE.