Thursday, October 13, 2016

who’s watching?...no-one, apparently

What can you do if you need to convince someone of something, but you don’t have proper evidence?

One simple way is to demonstrate something else to be true and then just pretend it’s the same thing.

In statistics this method is referred to as a ‘semi-attached figure’.

Simply pick a couple of things that sound kind of the same – though they aren’t (this is the important point) – and make a comparison between them to validate your conclusion.

An everyday example would be the number of reports that contrast hours spent TV viewing with internet use - and represent the numbers as though it was the same thing. This fallacy is further compounded by the fact that these activities increasingly occur simultaneously.

Among other examples of this particular ‘bait-and-switch'- now you know it you'll see them everywhere - this one from a Hall & Partners report for the on-demand offer of Aussie TV channel SBS particularly caught our eye.



As Zoe - in our strategy team - duly noted ‘Who’s watching?...No-one, apparently’.

Happy spotting.

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