Watch this amazing example of vintage PR Polling.

The story behind this ad campaign is fascinating.

In the 1920s and '30s, cigarette manufacturers were among the first to use “research” based brand claims in mass communications. But the company that did it best was the maker of Camels - that's right, tasty, delicious (and healthy?) Camels.

1946-1951 - R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company featured research in their commercials in order to ease consumer fears about smoking. They surveyed doctors as they entered a physician's convention asking, in part, "What cigarettes are you carrying?" Many doctors reported carrying Camels. Why? Because RJR also planted cartons of Camels in their hotel rooms.

Thankfully, a PR agency (way to go Hill & Knowlton!) actually killed the practice in 1953 by organizing industry leading brands in a mass rejection of the advertising tactic.

Size matters, especially in the field of statistics.

And 9,981,259 is a very big number. It illustrates what the King of Pop meant to the world.

More precisely, that number represents the number of times during the week ending June 27 that someone went online and typed "Michael Jackson" in an search engine, news portal or social networking site.

If you want details on the Jackson search-surge, just check out these charts, courtesy of Alex Patriquin of Compete. The headline on this CNN article said it all:

Michael Jackson Dies, Almost Takes Internet With Him

Twitter was forced to disable both its search box and a sidebar link for 4 hours in order to survive the avalanche of tweets that were sent after Jackson's death.

One of the reasons this blog is named Stats & Storylines is because Wakefield believes that statistics tell stories.

In this case, a gloomy one.

This article from Crain's N.Y. Business shares several stats that reveal the current "quicksand" status of the magazine world:

In the first half of 2009, a total of 279 magazines ceased publication, according to a report from MediaFinder.com ...

An additional 43 titles, including Crain Communications' TV Week, shut down their print editions and continued publishing online. ... In the same period, just 187 new magazines launched.

For the entire year of 2008, the net change in the number of magazine titles was a drop of 148. That doesn't include 18 mags that went to online only.

"Hey, Hey, Hey . . ."

Sixty-eight years ago this summer, baseball player Joe DiMaggio was well on his way to achieving one of the most celebrated streaks in sports history. Joltin' Joe would eventually get at least one hit in 56 consecutive baseball games.

It seems pretty incredible. And it was. Yet maybe DiMaggio's streak shouldn't have surprised fans quite as much as it did.

Writing in this weekend's edition of the Wall Street Journal, Leonard Mlodinow explains:

. . . Recent academic studies have questioned whether DiMaggio's streak is unambiguous evidence of a spurt of ability that exceeded his everyday talent, rather than an anomaly to be expected from some highly talented player, in some year, by chance, something like the occasional 150-yard drive in golf that culminates in a hole in one.

. . . That randomness naturally leads to streaks contradicts people's intuition. If we were to picture randomness, we might think of a graph that looks jerky, not smooth like a straight line. But random processes do display periods of order.

In a toss of 100 coins, for example, the chances are more than 75% that you will see a streak of six or more heads or tails, and almost 10% that you'll produce a streak of 10 or more. As a result a streak can look quite impressive even if it is due to nothing more than chance.

It's an interesting article, and I hope Yankee fans or other readers don't misinterpret Mlodinow's views. In fact, he agrees that DiMaggio's "great ability" played a role in the 56-game streak "for if we are to compare DiMaggio's performance to a coin, it must be a weighted coin."

Maybe some ideas are so good that the economic climate is irrelevant (like the Manzier) but kudos to anyone with the cojones to start a business in this economy.

But that's exactly what some brave souls have done. In the midst of one of the worst economies in national history, more than four in 10 Americans (42%) have considered starting their own business since the start of the downturn.

I guess when life gives one lemons, some people react by planting their own lemon tree (or something like that). Roughly a third of Americans (30%) who started or considered starting their own businesses during the downturn did so because they lost their job, or were afraid that they were going to lose their job.

The survey was recently conducted by Wakefield for Alibaba.com, the global leader in business-to-business e-commerce, and Inc. magazine in support of the “Newpreneur of the Year” contest. The contest will award a total of $100,000 to small business owners who see the recession as an opportunity to start a new venture. The contest is hosted at www.inc.com/alibaba where entries can be submitted until August 14, 2009.

Parents – or anyone under 35 - might think of Wi-Fi on college campuses as a luxury – like clean laundry and food that has nutritional value. Yet for today's undergrads, it's essential to their college experience. A Wakefield poll for the Wi-Fi Alliance found that they would sacrifice dating, money, & beer for their Wi-Fi.

Frank the Tank would be so disappointed. Check this out: nearly half (48%) of college students would give up beer before giving up Wi-Fi.

They’ll even ditch dating. Yep, if it means saving their Wi-Fi, nearly half (49%) would give up dating for a semester, and nearly three quarters (72%) would wear their school rival’s team colors for a day rather than give it up.

Wi-Fi even competes with the holy grail of college living: money from home. More than two in five (42%) college students say that Wi-Fi is more helpful in getting them through the day-to-day than money from mom and dad.

Has waiting on hold for customer service ever made you want to hit yourself in the head with a sack full of doorknobs?

Me too -- there’s nothing more frustrating than a long wait time while trying to resolve a problem. Just how long have Americans waited to have their issues resolved? According to a survey Wakefield conducted on behalf of Jacada, roughly a quarter (26%) have “made a meal,” or “watched a full episode of a TV show” (25%) while waiting, and more than a third of Americans (36%) have gone to the bathroom while waiting for a customer service representative to solve their issue! Nearly two in ten were waiting for so long that they were able to completely clean a room in their house (17%), play two or more games of solitaire on their computer (16%), or read an entire magazine or newspaper (14%).

Wakefield recently conducted a survey on behalf of Bliss-Phillips on the subject of bikini-line shaving.  It found that 80 percent of women have tried it at least once. It turns out that bikini-line grooming is one of the most widely practiced beauty routines in America. Who knew?

If this surprises you, then perhaps you didn’t realize the importance of bikini-line grooming to American women. Consider this: When asked which is more embarrassing during a day at the beach, a majority of women (59%) say that being seen with an ungroomed bikini-line is worse than their top slipping off in the surf. They’d literally rather be naked in public.

The Bliss-Phillips study found that cash-strapped consumers will be "trimming" costs at home. Four in five (80%) women will be skipping spa or salon visits in the next year in order to cut down on expenses.

One other interesting/fun fact that emerged from the study: these ladies are resourceful in a pinch. The survey found that more than a third (34%) of women who groom their bikini-line admit to using their significant other’s razor to groom “down there.” Maybe that's what the 5th razor blade is for on my Mach 5?

A lot of us. According to the N.Y. Times, a new survey reveals that one in three adults admit that they take a nap on the average day.

Not surprisingly, napping was more common for those who had experienced trouble sleeping the night before. And nappers tend to be poorer, older and less happy than the rest of us. (If I could take a nap once a day, I'd probably feel a heck of a lot happier.)

But let's not forget that some pretty famous people have been confirmed nappers -- Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill, to name a few.