A funny market research related story

Today, a message asking for funny market research related stories showed up in my LinkedIn feed. It's from a market research colleague, who is compiling memorable, funny, challenging, mind-blowing market research related stories for a book she is writing.

So I decided to write my particular anecdote and send this story, which happened to me some years ago. I thought it might also be interesting to share it here. I hope you enjoy it.

It is 1997-1998, I'm about 27 y.o. and I'm working as a marketing consultant in a marketing consultancy specialized in tourism. So one day there is this middle-aged guy giving a lecture about special market research techniques. He is the General Manager at a worldwide known manufacturer in the pharmaceutical industry.

The auditorium is full. About 200 people, 80% middle-aged men. And this guy starts talking with a first Powerpoint slide behind him just showing a Viagra bottle containing those famous blue little pills. 

I don't know what happens with Americans but you already like them when they are talking to you in your language. Maybe it is because of their American accent, which sounds nice and funny at the same time, maybe it is the effort they make speaking in your language. Maybe both. But you already like them when you listen to them. So when the keynote speaker starts asking for people who regularly consume Viagra for a market research survey, addressing the question to the mainly middle-aged men auditorium, everybody goes on shock. The speech doesn't sound outrageous, though. We like him with all his staging. We are just puzzled. Needless to say that nobody is volunteering, so he insists: "Oh, let me say it once again, in case not everybody was hearing me. You know, uuhh, I'm the Product Manager of Viagra and I want to conduct a survey about the consumption of this product in Spain. Obviously I'm in the right place so please, would you mind raising your hand those of you who have ever tried the product? I would like to make you a few questions about your experience". Attendants remain silent and quiet, it is a mix of an embarrassing and a funny situation, at least for me (a 27 y.o woman, remember), so I can't help chuckling all the time. 

The show goes on. "I don't understand anything at all in here. Pharmacies in Andorra are running out of these pills (Andorra is a country located next to Spain, and at that time the product was not available in the Spanish market, so legend says that Spanish men used to go to Andorra to buy Viagra), articles on newspapers in Spain claiming "Where did our 'macho ibérico' go?" (sort of "what happenned to that REAL Spanish man") but I have a 200 middle-aged Spanish men auditorium in front of me and nobody consumes Viagra??!" "I'm gonna go to the CEO and tell him sorry sir, there is no market for Viagra in Spain". "And then there is no work for me here, so I'm probably going to get fired within the next few days". And all that story told in Spanish by an American middle-aged General Manager at a big corporate dressed in a suit and tie with the California American accent. It was memorable.

With that comical introduction he just wanted to convey the key message of his entire presentation. Obviously he succeeded, since I remember an anecdote with all details of something that happened 20 years ago. The main takeaway therefore was that for some products you cannot use conventional market research. For some products people tend to hold back in their comments because they do not feel comfortable talking about them: toilet paper, condoms ... and Viagra, of course. That's why he chose that example. This was also happening to them in their company with some medicines, the ones for treating rhinitis, for instance, because people do not tend to like accepting the idea they are allergic. And he continued explaining us how they conducted non-conventional focus groups, for instance, where participants were invited to relax and feel comfortable taking their shoes off and sitting down on the floor, instead of doing it around the table. This was creating a more informal atmosphere where participants could talk about themselves with more confidence.

I can close my eyes and perfectly remember the slides, with the picture of people sitting down on the floor and talking among them. No doubt it turned out a shocking but also an effective way to let us learn that lesson.