The Green Bay Packers are among the sexiest fans in the NFL and the Milwaukee Gen-Zers are No. 1 in the country for leaving the nest.
As a state, Wisconsin has bragging rights beyond cheese. We’re one of the “least clunky” states, according to a ranking, and we’re fifth in the nation among age-friendly job markets.
These are just a few of the dozens of surveys, rankings and studies that flood into journalists’ emails, some serious and others little more than clickbait. Some result in stories while others fail.
Even the zombies weighed in on the action.
In one study, Milwaukee was ranked 66th among the American cities most likely to survive a zombie apocalypse.
Huntington Beach, California, was No. 1, followed by Bellevue, Washington; Alexandria, Virginia; and Minneapolis.
California Lawn Care Company Uses Surveys for Marketing
The zombie study was conducted by Lawn Love, an online lawn care company and prolific publisher of city and state rankings, some of which actually include topics like lawn irrigation.
“We compared the 200 largest cities on 23 key indicators of zombie preparedness – from the share of population in good physical health, to the share of available housing with basements, to access to hunting equipment” , said John Schmidt of San Diego. Lawn Love said in an email to the Journal Sentinel.
Lawn Love put together a ranking of the best places for witches, vampires, remote workers, bagel lovers, beer drinkers, and runners. They ranked cities based on outdoor yoga and residential views. In the ranking of the best cities to cure a hangover, Milwaukee ranked 59th and Madison 80th. Part of the score came from the availability of outdoor sleeping and all-night dining.
Sexiest Football Fans, Best Night for a Bucks Win
Sports stadiums and fans are a lightning rod for rankings.
BonusFinder.com, a casino reviews publisher, surveyed 1,027 NFL fans and found that the Packers have the fifth sexiest fans in the league, behind the Dallas Cowboys, Chicago Bears, Dolphins Miami and the Arizona Cardinals.
“Yes, you would think that bright orange hunting gear and layers of winter clothing would be disqualifying, but apparently not,” Green Bay Press-Gazette sportswriter Richard Ryman wrote of the rankings.
In another survey, BonusFinder found that Packers fans were most attached to romance, with less than 6% saying they would disappoint their partner if they watched football on Valentine’s Day.
Lambeau Field has been ranked among the NFL’s most “iconic” stadiums, based in part on reviewer ratings from Google, Trip Advisor and Yelp, as well as hashtags on Instagram.
Saturday was the “luckiest” day of the week for the Milwaukee Bucks, who won a higher percentage of games on Saturdays, according to a study of NBA teams over the past five seasons.
Milwaukee had the highest rate of Gen Zers spreading their wings and leaving the nest, according to Rent Café, an online rental housing website.
The same study showed that 14% of Millennials in Milwaukee lived with relatives, compared to 35% in Los Angeles and 28% in New York.
Wisconsin declared 5th best state to live in
Wisconsin is the 5th best state in the country to live in, ahead of Connecticut but behind Rhode Island, with the lowest average home price of the top five states, according to a study by Journo Research based in Oxfordshire, England. England, and sponsored by a New York Times. York Immigration Law Firm.
But our drivers are the 4th worst in the country, according to a survey by QuoteWizard, an online insurance marketplace. Its key findings ranked Wisconsin 4th worst in DUIs, 5th speeding, and 22sd in accidents.
And we’re among the least “clumsy” states, ranked 9th, in online searches for terms like “broken nose symptoms” and “emergency room near me,” Journo Research says.
On a lighter note, we are the most festival-obsessed state in the country, according to a survey by Wealth of Geeks, a financial planning service and entertainment news source. Additionally, other studies indicate that we are 11th in the country for friendliest campgrounds and #1 for campground activities.
In a “politeness index,” Wisconsin ranked 6th, behind Massachusetts and ahead of North Carolina. He scanned small business invoices for the words “please” and “thank you.”
Bloggers, marketers and PR firms make the rankings
Who makes all this up and why do they do it?
The surveys and rankings are carried out by individual bloggers, public relations companies, marketing agencies, SEO (search engine optimization) specialists and city promotion groups.
“We are just one of thousands of PR and communications agencies around the world that offer this type of service,” Andrew Mitchell of Journo Research said in an email to the Journal Sentinel.
“It’s common for brands to employ companies like Journo Research to create PR campaigns and distribute them to media on their behalf,” he said.
The cost depends on the nature of the work. “In many cases, our clients provide us with data that we then write into a press release and share with the media,” Mitchell said.
With Lawn Love, they couldn’t do much about topics like lawn irrigation, so they expanded their scope to include zombies, the best cities to cure hangovers, outdoor yoga, outdoor weddings, women pioneers of the outdoors and other topics, some serious. , others ironic.
“It’s obviously to gain brand recognition, but often we just find funny stories that we want to do,” said editor-in-chief Sharon Sullivan.
Sullivan said Lawn Love does real research for all of his studies. For example, its ranking of “safest cities for running” was based on pedestrian deaths, access to running trails and health statistics.
“We pull data from legitimate sources,” she said.
Some people are unhappy with the rankings, although Sullivan says it’s a badge of honor to be included in something like a best cities list, even if you’re at the bottom.
“And, you know, it’s not set in stone,” she said.
Useful, annoying or harmful?
Is there anything wrong with the rankings on everything from our favorite color, which in Wisconsin is “red,” to the best and worst cities for recovering from a hangover?
If content “raises dust,” it disrespects readers and insults their intelligence, said Gene Laczniak, professor emeritus of marketing at Marquette University.
And if it’s selling something under the guise of research, that’s unethical, he said.
Often, rankings are done for SEO and link-building purposes, said Edlyn Collanto, a market research specialist at UpCity, a Chicago company that helps businesses find service providers.
To get as many clicks as possible, ranking generators serve content to mailing lists they have purchased or collected. The more viral the content, the more links come back.
“So overall, the email flood serves a purpose both for the senders and sometimes also for the recipients,” Collanto said. “As long as the content itself has value, the dissemination of city news and survey data has its place.”
