Consumer Insight: Special Report.(Brief article)

The feature on this page could make people who work in market research growl a little. This is because the observations made are precisely that, observations. And observations made by journalists, of all people.

They are not, as any researcher will tell you, based on a scientific methodology of any use to marketers or agency planning departments. It isn't real research, they'll grumble.

Of course, others would disagree. Dan Halliday, who commissioned the 'research', argues that most of the 1,000-page reports churned out to satisfy the marketing community's thirst for 'proof' are, by their nature, dishonest. The questions put in surveys and the ways they are …