Iraqi Video Poll Analysis

What follows is my brief analysis of a recent post I wrote asking readers to view two short videos of constructive things being done by Coalition forces in Iraq and vote on which they preferred.

A poll was taken on two videos that had come out of Iraq. One was a heavily produced version created by the Army Corps of Engineers discussing the construction of an Iraqi kindergarten. The other was a candid, home-movie style video of some soldiers handing out soccer balls to kids. The post offering the poll was widely marketed and garnered about 500 hits. Following the standard statistics of Internet users, only 10% of the viewers voted and about 1.5% of the viewers left comments. The poll was linked at several high-traffic blogs, most of which are conservative-leaning and pro-Iraqi Freedom. The vote ended up tied, 22-22. An insufficient sample of written opinions was given to allow objective analysis. The author offers some conjectures based on personal experience.

Given the sources of the visitors, mostly conservative and pro-Iraqi Freedom blogs, it’s reasonable to assume that the visitors were already pro-military and inclined to support the effort. The fact that the candid video did as well as the produced one indicates a substantial demand by the public for information direct from the field without editing from military authorities. Speculating further, information insertion by the rear echelons decreases the trustworthiness of the video. Consumers do not buy willingly from sources they do not trust. Any indication that the information, which in this case is the consumable, has been tampered with reduces the confidence in the viewers that what they are seeing is real.


Conclusion: The market for information can be segmented into two substantial groups – those that prefer videos with high production values and those that prefer candid videos straight from the field. A third group of people who will not want to see anything pro-Iraqi Freedom under any circumstances exists, but they’re not potential consumers of this information and do not impact this study.

The author’s struggle to find source material for the candid video portion of this poll indicates that the market for information direct from the field is extremely under-served. Coalition forces are making a huge mistake not supporting this kind of information sharing. Influence Operations, which is crucial to any anti-terrorism campaign, cannot succeed with large segments of the market underserved.

I want to thank the bloggers that supported this effort, Laurence Simon, Rusty Shackleford, Mark Shea, Jeff Miller , Ogre and Mog. If you linked to this video and I've forgotten, please drop me an email and I'll add you to this list. I also want to thank CPT Anthony Deiss, U.S. Central Command Forward Headquarters, CENTCOM Public Affairs for his very kind reply and recommendations for finding official DoD videos. Brent Walker, the MNF-Iraq webmaster, also sent me a very kind note. I hope to continue this relationship with all of you. I believe that victory over Islamofascism will require a sophisticated information campaign and we all play a part in it.

A more detailed discussion of market segmentation in this context can be found at this post.