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markgius's review against another edition
Well written and researched, but 30 years out of date.
chilg1128's review against another edition
4.0
Not my favorite Larson, but it was also more of a deep dive into the inner workings of market researchers and what exactly they use at their disposal. Since I work in the market research field, some of it was actually kind of interesting to see what data is considered influential and how they retrieve this data.
The part of the book that got a little tired on me was the screaming issue of privacy. Like people shouldn't be allowed to know where I work, where I live, or what cereal I buy. I understand that something more sensitive like my overall income or my credit score could be a bit over the top, but most of the things that I had learned that researchers are after are things that anyone could see with casual observation (and they often do) or simply willingness to comply with the research company. What they do with that data is up to them.
Given the fact that this book was written about 25 years ago, it does tend to be a bit dated. But I think that overall trend of tracking spending habits, whereabouts, and overall impression of products is still used in every sense of the imagination today. Some people may not like it or feel some sort of violation because the grocery store camera saw them with two types of coffee in their hands before they settled on one of them. Me, I'm not sure why that sort of thing will matter... but maybe someday they'll be an email that gets sent that changes my mind.
The part of the book that got a little tired on me was the screaming issue of privacy. Like people shouldn't be allowed to know where I work, where I live, or what cereal I buy. I understand that something more sensitive like my overall income or my credit score could be a bit over the top, but most of the things that I had learned that researchers are after are things that anyone could see with casual observation (and they often do) or simply willingness to comply with the research company. What they do with that data is up to them.
Given the fact that this book was written about 25 years ago, it does tend to be a bit dated. But I think that overall trend of tracking spending habits, whereabouts, and overall impression of products is still used in every sense of the imagination today. Some people may not like it or feel some sort of violation because the grocery store camera saw them with two types of coffee in their hands before they settled on one of them. Me, I'm not sure why that sort of thing will matter... but maybe someday they'll be an email that gets sent that changes my mind.
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