‘Readers choice’ restaurant awards spark online backlash
May 14th, 2008, 3:13 pm · 3 Comments · posted by Jess Harter
Our competitor in downtown Phoenix hasn’t even run its annual Readers Choice Awards in print yet, but the online version already is prompting quite a backlash from Valley diners. (Check out the discussion on Chowhound’s forum here.)
At issue: One local chain, Oregano’s Pizza Bistro, wins more than one-third of the restaurant awards.
Yes, Oregano’s is very good. I love the place and frequently visit its numerous Valley locations, including one just last week. But Oregano’s obviously benefitted from some type of stuff-the-ballot-box hijinks that pretty much destroys any credibility these “awards” might have had. It’s too bad, because I’m sure some people cast legitimate votes.
Newspapers (as well as magazines, radio stations and TV stations) all are trying to cultivate “reader interaction” nowadays. Some methods work fairly well - allowing readers to leave comments on online stories, for example - while others are of dubious value - think TV polls (”We want to hear what you think! Turn in at 10 p.m. to see the results!”).
For my money, though, nothing is as consistently useless as “reader choice” awards, especially when its comes to restaurants.
I love the idea of finding out what places are favorites of our readers. But until someone can figure out a way to conduct such a survey in a legitimate way, I’m not wasting my time.
May 15th, 2008 at 5:59 am
Agreed 100% Jess! Reader Choice awards are probably the most useless and time wasting of any accolade. Ill have to make a note to myself.. self, if you ever go to a place and they have a Reader’s Choice plaque on the wall, run away, run away as fast as you can!
May 15th, 2008 at 6:00 am
I think the only way to legitimize a survey of this type is to force participants to vote for a specific location of a restaurant, not just a restaurant name. That way, each location of a chain would be evaluated as it were a standalone restaurant. If, for example, the Oregano’s at Southern and Dobson is really great, then it would legitimately rise to the top. What we would avoid, however, is letting the aggregated totals for multiple locations of Oregano’s place it above the single location results for independent restaurants. It would be a much fairer comparison, and it would force participants to really think about actual visits they have made to a restaurant instead of just brand identification based on seeing billboards and signs all over town.
May 17th, 2008 at 11:11 am
agreed! I was asked to help oreganos and vote for them! ha! Oregano’s just ok, but I think Barro’s is wayyyyyyy better pizza….. so I voted for them!