Does market research work any more?

David Penn

David Penn, managing director of Conquest Research, sets out to show (1) that in the last 20 years, neuroscience and evolutionary psychology have challenged the view of how the conscious mind works; (2) that the ‘standard social science’ model of MR makes us resist these ideas; and (3) that this is not as scary as it seems and rather than invalidating MR it may help us improve current practice and understanding.

Does market research work any more?

David Penn Conquest Research

Is there a 'theory' of market research? Can we explain how MR works? There is certainly a growing concern that conventional research based on question and answer does not work, or only goes so far. Several speakers at last year's Market Research Society Conference expressed these doubts. One asked us to 'stop asking silly questions of unreliable witnesses, or at least stop listening to the answers' [1]. Another told us that 'listening to people (which is much of conventional research) only gets you so far:...

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