Editor’s note: "War Stories" is a regular feature in which Art Shulman, president of Shulman Research, Van Nuys, Calif., presents humorous stories of life in the research trenches.
Ben Pine of Pine Company tells about his beginnings as a market researcher back in the 1950s, working for one of the pioneers of market research on the West Coast, Dorothy Corey. He was the project director on a beer product placement study to be conducted in San Francisco. At that time, there were not many trained interviewers around, and the ones that existed were being used on another study (coincidentally, being managed by the woman Pine ultimately married). So, Pine had to hire a batch of students from San Francisco State to place the product.
Pine reports that for some unexplained reason, much of the product was never actually placed. Several of the college students never returned his calls, while others gave mysterious excuses such as being in an accident and having their car impounded.
On this same study, Pine reports, the beer cans for the competitive product were supposed to be sandblasted to remove all brand identification, since this was to be a blind test. But, instead of sandblasting, the manager of their San Francisco office decided to have the cans acid-dipped.
When the client heard about this, he became furious, concerned that acid might have leaked into the beer. So Pine, an inexperienced 21-year-old, bearing the brunt of the client’s anger, called Dorothy Corey, his big boss, who took the next flight up to San Francisco from Los Angeles.
Corey met with the client, poured beer from the acid-dipped cans into 12 cups, and proceeded to down them all, telling the client beforehand, "If I die, then you’re right!"
Corey passed away, but not until over 40 years later, at the ripe age of 93.
Mark Michelson of Michelson & Associates tells about recently having a mystery shopper who revealed his true identity in a most unusual way. Seems this shopper had a preference for wearing women’s clothing and doing cabaret performances. He decided to perform a little song and dance routine in the store about being a mystery shopper.
Jewel Alderton of Facts Consolidated tells about when she moderated a focus group in Texas. She was sitting in the respondent waiting room about 10 minutes past the scheduled start time for her group, making some last-minute changes to the discussion guide. The respondents had already been ushered into the room where the discussion would take place, leaving her alone to finish her notes. Just then, the door opened and a man entered the facility, looked at Alderton and asked, "You here for the focus group?"
"Yes," Alderton replied, "everyone’s already in the other room."
"Oh, good," he said, assuming Alderton was another respondent. "I always make it a practice to come 10 or 15 minutes late to these things. Then they pay me off and I don’t have to stay."
The guy probably does this lots of times and can honestly respond in the negative when asked if he’s participated in a focus group in the recent past.
Alderton also tells about conducting focus groups among women who were at least 25 pounds overweight. When discussing barriers to successful weight loss, one woman confided, "The only thing that keeps me faithful to my husband is the fact that I’m 40 pounds overweight. Just the thought of getting naked and exposing my body with these extra pounds keeps me out of trouble."
Charles Ferguson of The CIA Market Research Company tells about the time his company was recruiting mock juries in a small southern town. When one respondent was told she’d be participating in a mock jury, she responded in true southern form, "Honey, I’m in the jewry business."
Taken aback, the recruiter asked, "How can you be in the jury business?"
The reply: "I sell rings and necklaces, and all sorts of things."
Of course, if she’d sold Stars of David, she’d have been in the Jewry business in a different way.