The newest season of Dr. Who is underway, and the series in general has a few lessons for market research. But what can we learn from a time-traveling, two-hearted alien obsessed with Britain?
The first thing that we can learn is the sheer constancy of human nature. Even humanoid nature. Wherever and whenever the Doctor travels in space and time, humans and humanoids act in the mix of rational and irrational ways that we’ve observed here on Earth.
Contrast this with the pundits who often make the mistake of identifying market research with its most popular methods, and saying that since surveys and focus groups will become obsolete therefore market research will become obsolete. In fact, it seems that, to be fashionable, any market research conference has to have at least one presenter making the case that “market research is dead!”