How to Measure Popularity of So Called Leaders and Celebrities the Easy Way?

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Use Shoe and Flower (Instead of Elaborate Questionnaires)

Sometime ago a news item with its audio visual became pretty popular all over the world. Someone, during a well guarded press conference, had thrown a shoe at a political leader of a big country perhaps to express his disliking of the so called leader and celebrity.

These methods of showing dislike of a person in powerful position has been employed by the general public in different parts of the world a number of times in the past too. Perhaps, instead of throwing a shoe, they might have used other substitutes like a rotten egg etc.

So the agencies conducting the opinion surveys or popularity polls can take a clue from these instances and work out an easier way to carry out such surveys.

Take a life size cutout of the person whose popularity one wishes to ascertain. Place it in front of the demographically and statistically selected respondents, give each of them a shoe and a flower and ask them to throw either the shoe or the flower at the cutout of the subject.

Count the shoes thrown at the cutout as well as the flowers thrown at the cutout. Calculate the percentages. You can then infer the popularity of the so called leader or celebrity, write a long thesis and publicize it all over the place (whatever worth the popularity polls are, any way).