Pipe News

Pipe Smoker Survey 2010

Kevin Godbee
Posted onSep 5, 2011 at 9:12 AM

Last year, in September 2010, PipesMagazine.com conducted a survey of 867 pipe smokers. We are not aware of any other present-day market research available for this micro-niche market, with one exception. Dr. Michael Garr is director of the Wilkes University Survey Research Center. He is also a pipe smoker and member of the online pipe community known as "Doc Garr". He is a highly trained and skilled professional in surveys and market research. He conducted a survey a few years ago of 339 pipe smokers.

It is his original survey, along with his assistance and mentoring, that our new study was based on. The reason for the delay in publishing the results is that we desired to produce the final report in a high quality glossy format with striking graphics. Although we used the most professional software for processing the results, it produces what we felt were unsightly charts and graphs. Now, a year later, with only half of the report re-designed to look pretty, we have decided to no longer withhold the results and make them available in their original form. Below is an example of the type of charts we were creating from scratch to look nice.

Aside from looking attractive, another element that will be missing from the raw report is additional analytical and editorial information. For example, we feel it is important to add comments to some of the results, like question number 3, which asks; What / Who influenced you to start smoking a pipe?

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Key Point: While the largest portion of respondents (35%) said that they started smoking a pipe out of curiosity, and the smallest amount, less than 1% said they were influenced by advertising to start smoking a pipe. This begs the question – What exactly creates the curiosity to try a pipe? It is worth noting that even if advertising does not influence someone to start smoking a pipe, other numerous studies have shown that advertising does influence brand preferences and where they purchase.

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Without further adieu, we bring you the results of the Pipe Smoker Survey 2010 in a downloadable PDF.

You can view and download the Pipe Smoker Survey 2010 here.

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    classicgeek
  • September 5, 2011
I just read through the full report, and I found it fascinating. I myself did participate in the survey, and it's interesting to see where my answers fell with regards to everybody else. I was particularly blown away by the average level of education of the members. Probably the highest on average of any self-selected group that I have ever seen.
Looking forward to the 2012 survey to see if there are trends. :)
Simon
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    jimbo
  • September 5, 2011
Very kewl survey! (Yes, I participated.)
No real surprises, except... that my home state of Texas ranks #1 in number of pipe smokers (or at least of those who responded). I wish I knew where they were hiding. I haven't seen one in years. :0
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    group7
  • September 5, 2011
Fantastic job Kevin! I just printed off the whole report. Thanks for sharing this with the whole pipe smoking community. This is the best survey I've ever seen done on pipe smoking. I wish I had this 25 years ago when I had a store. Thanks Hans
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    Doc Garr
  • September 5, 2011
Simon makes an important point. The participants in the survey were self-selected. It is not a random sample and therefore the results cannot be generalized to the entire population of pipe and cigar smokers. I would say that the survey probably captures respondents who take their pipe smoking more seriously than less-serious pipe smokers due to participants had a greater interest in reading on-line sources or belonged to pipe clubs.
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    Jim Bagley
  • September 5, 2011
Have been smoking a pipe for over 50yrs. Never did smoke cigs., will smoke a good cigar about once a month. Do not remember what got me smoking a pipe. But my mother gave me a Nimrod pipe lighter for my 17th birthday....she said that if I had to smoke a pipe would be better than the other because a pipe smoker took so much time fooling with his pipe that he wouldn't smoke as much as a cig. smoker!
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    Kevin
  • September 5, 2011
I'm glad you guys found the information interesting. Thanks Doc for your help. Maybe we'll get to do the cross tabs next time.
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    tomdavis
  • September 5, 2011
Very interesting and comforting as I actually know no other pipers in my circles but find I fall into the majority in many of the questions. In particular, the common image I grew up with is that pipe smokers are the professor-in-rumpled-sport-coat kind of guy; but the survey does not support that image.
The cross-tab analysis would also be interesting and many of the internet based survey tools do them automatically. Once I input all the survey results and used the feature to generate the tabs. I am sure that is blasphemy to the good doctor who helped you but with my limited understanding of proper surveys it seemed to work.
Well done!
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    winton
  • September 5, 2011
This survey confirmed my limited experience. Thanks for collecting the data and analyizing if for us.
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    cortezattic
  • September 5, 2011
There were a few surprises; but I was dismayed to learn how many pipesters described themselves as political moderates and liberals. :(
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Thanks for publishing a very informative survey.
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    Aristocob
  • September 5, 2011
Very interesting data. I'll be sure to plug it on my blog and in an upcoming YT video. Thank you for work on this!
Scott
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    Jim Murray
  • September 6, 2011
It's always nice to see such data and information on pipe smoking, since there seems to little of such data available. However, I printed the PDF file and it's really badly formatted, making it hard to read. There seems to be very little if any page margins and the copy and pie charts/table data are on wrong pages or cut off. To improve the readability of this document, I would advise it be re-formatted.
Despite this minor detail, it's great information...if nothing else, fun to read.
Happy Puffing!
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    captainblack1
  • November 6, 2011
Very interesting article learned a lot !!
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