Anita effect

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Anita effect states that in a survey environment dominated by men, the response rates to online studies are higher if the sender of the invitation and reminder e-mail can apparently be clearly identified as "female".

Using the Anita Effect is just one of many possible strategies for increasing response rates. There are indications that the mentioned effect works best in the B2B environment as well as in Europe and North America.

The Anita effect is one of the survey effects .

background

The Anita effect goes back to a customer survey by the market research team at Lufthansa Technik (LHT) in 2004. According to the project manager at the time, Stefan Althoff (which can be read in the specialist articles published on this subject), a number of things were done wrongly in this study (including an uninteresting topic, questionnaire that was too long). In particular, the survey period (summer 2004) turned out to be very unfavorable. When an LHT trainee - first name Julia - sent the reminder email on her behalf, the response rate increased significantly.

This phenomenon, which had not been scientifically proven at the time, was named after an intern in the Lufthansa Technik market research department.

Investigation of the effect

At the online research conference GOR05 in Zurich , Stefan Althoff presented the Anita effect as part of his report on online studies in the field of b2b - experiences from the aviation industry , which dealt with the first experiences of Lufthansa Technik market research with online studies. During the conference, Althoff agreed with Bernad Batinic ( Johannes Kepler University , Linz ) to get to the bottom of the Anita effect or to prove it scientifically. Subsequently, the Anita effect was examined as part of a diploma thesis by Victoria Greif (Johannes Kepler University). There were also further test studies in which Bodo Griel (webfrager, Bochum ) participated. The work on the Anita effect is a joint project between the university, company and institute market research.

The examinations carried out between the GOR05 and GOR06 mostly did not show a clear picture. Those involved suspected that the Anita effect could be overlaid by other factors such as the subject of the survey, the date of dispatch and / or the volume of e-mails in an e-mail account and is therefore difficult to make visible in isolation. In particular, a study in the webfrager panel indicated that the effect plays a subordinate role in the B2C environment .

The results of these test studies and those of the diploma thesis were presented by Althoff, Batinic, Greif and Griel under the title Determinants of Response Rates of Online Surveys - The Anita Effect - Results of a Joint Project at GOR06 in Bielefeld . The Anita effect is considered to be proven particularly through the work of Victoria Greif.

restrictions

In the GOR06 presentation, Althoff pointed out restrictions:

  • The Anita effect is just one of many influencing factors that affect response rates. It is therefore advisable to combine the Anita effect with other strategies to increase response rates (e.g. choosing the right dispatch day, personalizing the invitation and reminder mail).
  • Female sender addresses that are suspected of being spam , even if they are real, cannot have a positive influence.
  • First names are not always clearly female (for example the first name Andrea in Italy) or can be recognized as such.
  • Intercultural influences cannot be ruled out. There is evidence that the Anita effect is most likely to work in Europe and North America, but not in other regions of the world.
  • The opposite situation has also not been clarified: What effects does a clearly male sender have in an environment that is primarily dominated by women?
  • It cannot be ruled out that the findings can be transferred to email marketing, but this was not investigated by those involved.

literature

  • The Anita Effect; in: planning & analysis (Deutscher Fachverlag), issue 2/2006
  • Does the Survey Sender's Gender Matter? in Quirk's Marketing Research Review, Issue 2/2007

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Anita Effect. In: www.marktforschung.de. Retrieved June 2, 2016 .
  2. ↑ GOR05 program. (PDF) Retrieved June 1, 2016 .
  3. ^ GOR - General Online Research. In: www.gor.de. Retrieved June 2, 2016 .
  4. ↑ By The Numbers: Does the survey sender's gender matter? In: Quirks Marketing Research Media. Retrieved June 2, 2016 .