How long has Nielsen been bribing people to participate in one of their surveys?

[CatWoman]

Just got the mail and there's a letter/survey from Nielsen, along with $2.

The letter says if I fill out the survey and return it by June 15, they will send me another $5.

[Midnight Writer]

1. A long, long time. 30 years at least.

[Generic Brad]

2. I've been a Nielsen household for at least four years now

I don't get any perks or rewards. They just passively monitor whatever we watch as part of our cable package (unless they stopped doing that without informing us).

If you think your viewing selection really sucks, you may have me and my wife to partially thank.

[Jerry2144]

3. Bribe didn't keep up with inflation

Just like minimum wage. I remember the first time we did it was in 1984. Back then, the bribe was $1

[Dream Girl]

4. This is standard marketing research protocol. The $2 "gift" is to gain your cooperation by creating

A sense of obligation. It also gets your attention. The $5 is a incentive to follow through. I assume the survey is to get your demographic in order to report tv ratings by key demographic subgroups, age, gender, geography, income etc.I’ve been in marketing research 30+ years and always want to be recruited to be on the Nielsen household panel. Never happened.

[Sneederbunk]

5. Got two bucks in '74.

[unc70]

6. Certainly around since early 1960s

[brooklynite]

7. Why do you call it a bribe? Are you being asked to do something improper?

FWIW- I get paid to participate in focus groups. My agency pays people to participate in focus groups. More bribery?

[CatWoman]

13. I suppose because I never had this happen to me

and i've done many polls, surveys, focus groups -- not once was i offered payment beforehand.

that ok with you?

[doc03]

8. I took their dollar and started filling it out

but it looked like it would at least an hour. I do CIVIcs surveys all the time just a few questions.

[C OH Dem]

9. I got a dollar

[Eugene]

10. Arbitron sent $5 back in the early 2000's.

.

[blogslug]

11. If they expected specific survey answers, then it would be a bribe.

IMHO, they are paying you for your time.

[twin_ghost]

12. I did this back in the 90's

It is incentive to the viewer and radio listener. Today most of their measurments are by cable tv monitoring.

[dixiegrrrrl]

14. I got paid 50.00 to attend focus groups

In 2000-2005, San francisco Bay area.Mebbe 4x a year, different agency each time. gas and mileage and my time was paid for.
Never felt under obligation to rate anything because of the payment.

Political survey payments is different, in my mind.