There are plenty of other ways to rig the results.

Convening a biased focus group of 9 respondents, and 8 say the new program is better, would also give you the stated 8:1 result.

Of course, focus groups aren't "data", and presenting something similar would, yes, be a lie to customers and to investors.

Again - there is no way this 8:1 claim can be generated in a truthful, representative manner.

Numbers, when tortured, will always submit.

While I also doubt that they have done a statistically relevant survey that suggests people like Bonvoy better than SPG/MR by a wide margin - with the right questions asked you can have any result.

Do you think adding free breakfast is a valuable new benefit of Marriott Bonvoy?
Do you feel that adding "no black out dates" greatly increases flexibility for Marriott Bonvoy members?
Do you think customers appreciate all the new additional redemption options giving members a wider choice of properties for vacation redemptions?
Do you think Marriott Bonvoy is now more valuable than the old program?

or

Do you miss the days when customer service seemed to care about your issues?
Are you happy that the value of your points went down?
Does it bother you that award redemptions are now depending on peak/off peak season and your favorite hotels might no longer be available at reasonable redemption levels?
Do you think Marriott Bonvoy is now more valuable than the old program?

And then you publish the results of the last question. Of course with a little thinking one could come up with more effective leading questions... But this should illustrate the point.

Agreed, most likely the survey questions was geared towards certain result such as comparing previous program (MR RCR to Bonvoy or SPG to Bonvoy)

And I believe MR/RCR members would find Bonvoy is better than the previous program.

Why is this so hard to believe? It is 100% inappropriate to accuse our Lord and Savior Arne of lying without any evidence. You may disagree with the poll's findings as you have stated but there is no evidence that the numbers are false. State that you disagree and move on to Hilton where the grass may not be any greener.

And there is no way that your statement is anything more than conjecture unsupported by any facts that we've seen.

Do I prefer Bonvoy to Marriot Rewards the day before the merger became final? Yes. Do I prefer it to Marriott Rewards of 6 or 7 years ago, absolutely not.

It defies anything approaching common sense to look at the combined customer base and objective issues and mix of upgrades and downgrades and believe that nearly 90% of the customers think it’s in a better place.

Comments on OMAAT and VFTW, while full of some savvy and some more novice travelers, would suggest 8:1 in the opposite direction.

But I guess Pravda had its loyal and fervent believers too...

If you have evidence that this is a lie, you should report it to the SEC. It is a public company and a false and misleading statement of this magnitude by the CEO is actionable.

If you do not, then, you should know better than to use the language you used.

I 100% stand by what I write.

(believe the kids would say these days “thanks Boomer”)

In this day and age of saying what you want on FB and twitter, why should this surprise anyone, LOL

Any survey clever in questions and interpretation any conclusion can be made, good to know the CEO is good at reality distortion, I'm sure it'll lead to more Bonvoyed moments for us all!

If Marriott Rewards had 8 to 10 times as many members as SPG, can't say I'm surprised. Even otherwise, I would expect that most Marriott Rewards and most SPG members weren't so vested and informed about SPG and Marriott Bonvoy to really care much or experience much in the terms of negative outcomes from the program combination. So an 80% non-disapproval rating from people whose focus is elsewhere in life than the miles&points-focused crowd really isn't shockingly high. What's surprising to me is that the figure isn't more like a 90+% non-disapproval rating.

SEC enforcement about such things is a joke when it comes to the biggest industry players. There is no way that even a misleading marketing statement about this from the Marriott CEO would lead to the SEC doing anything that materially hits Marriott's CEO or earnings.

Yes, 100% agree. But I prefer Bonvoy to any era of SPG.

Ok, Arne 8:1 - but why I see on Bonvoy TV promo chanel most recordings is from old SPG hotels ??? You don't like your old hotels or you like SPG vibe ???

A few misleading tweets from Elon Musk regarding Tesla sort of caught the SEC's attention!

But, the larger point is that if OP is correct, not only is this an SEC matter, but oodles of class action plaintiffs lawyers would be ahead of OP and FT. And they are not.