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ProTip: Green Prizing for Surveys

By crooky | January 2, 2008

I had an engrossing conversation with a client this afternoon over what constitutes a “green” survey prize. I had recommended that she give away a digital picture frame to boost her survey response rate. She asked an important question - “how environmentally friendly are these digital picture frames”? I had to be honest with her - they’re not very green. With all of the brominated flame retardants and the chemicals that make up a liquid crystal display, any new electronics are not all that green. I wrote a paper while finishing my Masters on the topic, if you’re interested in seeing that. By the end of the discussion, we’d decided that a basket of environmentally sustainable goods is probably a much better proposition considering that the audience for this survey is very environmentally conscious. Giving them something that could end up as a toxin in landfill is like sending a condom bouquet to the Vatican.

In discussion of what constitutes a “green” prize, I mentioned some goods that my friends at Saltspring Coffee Co. sell because I worked on a business case for them several years ago to help their goods become greener. Their product offerings include organic, free-trade coffee, hemp clothing and organic chocolate. Their delivery vans use biodiesel and no, they didn’t go for my “take a mug, leave a mug” scheme even though I thought it was brilliant. They’re not the only company that distributes green goods. Here are a few other places you can look for ideas:

1. Treehugger

Treehugger (a popular environmental blog) puts out a Green Gift Guide every year just before Christmas and rank the goods from “light green” to “dark green” to indicate how environmentally conscious they are. There’s some great ideas from this years’ list and the previous two lists are good as well.

2. Yahoo

Yahoo has their annual green gifts guide. It’s got some great ideas in it - most of which are available online.

3. Freecycle

Most people aren’t anti used goods and Freecycle is a great place to find things to give away. Just find a group close to your geographic location and browse the literally hundreds of goods that are free for the taking in your area.

These are just a few sources of ideas. If you Google “Green Gifts”, you’ll come across some other lists with equally good ideas. While I usually recommend personal electronics for survey prizing, my New Years resolution may be to start recommending environmentally sustainable goods.

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Aaron “Crooky” Cruikshank is the Principal and Founder of Friuch Consulting. He has written professionally about science and technology for ten years.

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Topics: Research Methodologies |

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