Update: Nokia Survey Reveals Most “Lost” Cities, Disoriented Countries
Update 12/1/08: Nokia released the press release last week, after the cited article appeared.
—- original post 11/26/08—————-
A press release (likely released only in Europe, this version is nicely tailored to the UAE) touts a study Nokia commissioned to determine experiences and opinions on getting lost, one’s sense of direction and the like. This is another of those surveys that lets the commissioner talk about their solution to whatever the indicated issue is. (See my primer on using this technique for your own press relations.)
Here are the details of the survey:
Research conducted by ICM among 12,500 people in 13 countries during the period of 1 - 23 October 2008. Countries where research was conducted: UK, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Australia, Brazil, China, UAE, Russia, Singapore, India, South Africa.
Now the “highlights”:
- “People from the UAE are the most disorientated in the world when they get lost”
- “One in ten people (ten percent) find it impossible to navigate around London, followed closely by Paris (nine percent), Bangkok (five percent), Hong Kong (five percent) and Beijing (four percent), making up the top five ‘lost cities’ on the planet.”
- “The country with the world’s best sense of direction is Germany, where a third of people claim to have never lost their way. Unsurprisingly, it is also the country with the highest reliance on satellite navigation. One in ten women admits to not being able to read a traditional map, twice the number of men. This suggests that the end of the traditional map and compass is fast approaching with map reading skills across the world generally considered poor.”
- “One in five people believe a sense of direction is genetic and those that have a bad sense of direction are simply born that way. However having a good sense of direction seems rare and despite huge advances in online maps and mobile navigation, almost everyone surveyed (93 percent) still get lost regularly, with the average person wasting 13 minutes each time they do. This has big implications for some, with one in ten missing a job interview, an important business meeting or flight because they lost their way.”
This all bodes well for selling more Nokia navigation solutions!
