It’s a new year and a new decade with new challenges awaiting all of us as the economy looks to recover and maintain a firmer footing.

And maybe I’m being a little naive here…. but as a new decade dawns, wouldn’t it be refreshing if there was more transparency and honesty washed through marketing in brands, both established and new?

Why the little ramble? Ok….. the weekend saw a trip to Kew Gardens (had brighter ideas with the temperature at -4!) and a lengthy spell on the District Line.

What caught my eye was an advertisement. You know the ones that sit either side of the tube route? There was a statement from plusnet (the broadband provider) stating that 8 out of 10 customers would recommend a friend to join plusnet.

Scrolling down to the details at the bottom it did indeed say that 79% of polled customers would refer a friend. The research had been independently done by uSwitch.

Now I don’t want to cast aspersions here. But a few things made me question this. Firstly….. don’t uSwitch generate money from clickthroughs and uptake of products?

So it doesn’t really make sense for uSwitch to go throwing about derogatory statistics that might lead to reduced clickthroughs on their price comparison site.

But I also wondered when this research had been undertaken. My ISP hadn’t contacted me to do a survey. So was this just a plusnet piece of research jointly put together by the two organisations?

The sad fact is…. I couldn’t tell. The main devotion was to the headline. 8 out of 10 ……

What if only 50 customers had been asked? Or it was positioned to people who have been with them for a month? Where was the research conducted, London, Sheffield, the whole of the UK?

Again, it was impossible to tell.  We always hope these pieces of work are done for the right reasons and show great service when it’s happening.  If we don’t know the detail though, how can we know for sure?