Market Research Articles

Listen is a song from the 2006 movie Dreamgirls. It is sung with mesmerizing beauty by Beyoncé—who stars in the film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4gimHC7fKs At one point the lyrics call on Jamie Fox, Beyoncé’s mentor and later controlling husband, to Listen.  She’s had enough. Oh the time has come for my dreams to be heard They will not be pushed aside and turned Into your own, all 'cause you won't listen It may be literary heresy to bridge from the artistic splendor of that song to…

Recently two different clients of mine mentioned that they had previously surveyed a public and had gotten a positive response to a potential new product offering. These were different companies, in wildly different industry sectors, but in each case the owner had come up with an idea for a new product, surveyed his customers who had responded positively—Yes, they wanted such a product. In both cases, the company created the product, offered it for sale, and…customers stayed away in droves.…

I’m a history guy. At 22, I was teaching Western American history at San Jose State University. I read voraciously about the westward movement of the American frontier. I was fascinated following Lewis and Clark as they hiked across the United States to the Pacific Ocean after Thomas Jefferson pulled off the best real estate deal in America History – buying the 530,000,000 million acres of the American Midwest from France for $15,000,000 in 1803. Let me save you the…

“It’s the economy stupid.” The iconic campaign slogan was created by James Carville, Bill Clinton’s campaign chairman in his successful ousting of George H. W. Bush in the 1992 presidential election. Bush’s popularity had soared to 90% in March of 1991, shortly after the invasion of Iraq. But by the Summer of 1992, with the country trying to emerge from a post war recession, a stunning reversal had taken place with a whopping 64% of the country disapproving of the…

The definition of aficionado is: a person who is very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about an activity, subject, or pastime: aficionados of the finest wines. Synonyms include: connoisseur, expert, authority, specialist, pundit, enthusiast, devotee. There are pizza aficionados, hand gun aficionados, aficionados of bourbon, bottled water, daffodils, fine writing instruments, NFL quarterbacks, and just about any category or commodity you can think of. Me? I’m a fan of hand guns, daffodils and high-end roller ball pens. But as the definition includes someone who is “very knowledgeable” I couldn’t really call myself…

  The Information Age has created its share of billionaires: Jeff Bezos ($130 B), Bill Gates ($90 B), Mark Zuckerberg ($71 B), Larry Ellison ($58.5B), Michael Dell ($22.7B,) to name a handful. And why not. They created a historic revolution in global communication and a titanic shift in commerce. I mean it wasn’t that long ago that the Pony Express, was carrying mail from St. Joseph Missouri to Sacramento (about 1,800 miles) at the blistering pace of 10 days from start…