Wacky Wireless Carrier Father Day Surveys

With Father’s Day quick approaching both At&t and Verizon have released the results their interesting Father’s day surveys. I haven’t noticed this type of information put out by either of these companies in the past, though I haven’t dedicated this much time to reading wireless carrier press releases until recently. The backend to these releases serves to sell handhelds for Father’s Day and to build a positive brand by playing up the company’s social responsibility at least in the case of Verizon.

Verizon’s Father’s Day survey focused on domestic abuse, which Verizon currently fights with its Hopeline phone donation program. Unsurprisingly to me Verizon’s survey shows that *surprise* the majority of men care about domestic violence. The majority also would be willing to get involved in the prevention of domestic violence, including donating an old phone. I’ll bring this out to the front for you, if you buy a new phone from Verizon dad can show he cares about domestic violence and donate his old phone.

snippet:

* Two-thirds of men (67 percent) say domestic violence and sexual assault are very or fairly common in the United States. Just 15 percent of men (and just 12 percent of young men) say it is not likely that, at some point, a woman or girl they know will be a victim.
* Seven in ten men are willing to talk to children about healthy relationships (up from 55 percent in a poll conducted in 2000) and an equal proportion are willing to donate old wireless telephones to programs that help victims and prevent violence. Two-thirds say they would sign a pledge; an equal number would sign a petition or contact lawmakers about the issue.
* Men give no institutions high marks for doing enough to raise awareness and address domestic violence and sexual assault. More than 60 percent say the sports and entertainment industries, government, school and colleges, the news media and businesses should do more.
* 87 percent want employers to provide information for victims, 83 percent want employers to adopt policies to help victims, 77 percent want supervisors and managers to be trained to support victims, and 72 percent want employers to provide resources to employees on how to talk to children about healthy, violence-free relationships.

At&t’s Father’s Day survey focused on the differences in how the two sexes use phones. At&t has found that for the 6th straight year men talk more than women on cell phones, though they note that women are catching up. The survey also shows that women are more likely to use the game, texting and camera functions of their phones. This survey like Verizon’s hints at the fact you should buy dad a new phone, he talks the most anyway, until its Mother’s day and you should buy a phone for mom cause you love her!

snippet:

According to the survey of approximately 1,000 users, men average 458 minutes of monthly wireless phone usage, and women average 453 minutes. The largest historical gaps since the survey’s inception in 2001 were in 2002, when men averaged 589 minutes and women talked only 394 minutes, and in 2005, when men averaged 571 minutes and women talked only 424 minutes.

The survey results also indicate that 45 percent of wireless subscribers use the text- messaging features on their device and 44 percent use the camera feature; 17 percent of subscribers play games on their wireless device and 11 percent access wireless e-mail. Women use the gaming, camera and text-messaging features more frequently, and men use their device for wireless e-mail and accessing the Internet more frequently than women.

Overall, both men and women continue to use cell phones more than home phones on average (455 minutes compared with 394 minutes), a trend that began in 2005.

I don’t think many people will find the results of either survey mind blowing, but the At&t survey is somewhat of a surprise as far as who talks more on their phones based on my personal experience. I think the money behind these veiled marketing efforts could have been better spent on releasing and promoting the Samsung SCH-I760!