When to Market Research
Mark offers up some good advice on when market research is appropriate:
It’s only if – as classical economics and many of our ‘commonsense’ rule of thumb “I’m-just-a-practical-fella” kinds of models assume – individuals are actually choosing independently of each other that you might find asking them what they like about the thing or what they feel etc of some use.
This is something I’ve tried to explain often to folks in reference to brand tags. I won’t add brands that no one knows about because the data you get back will be useless: If people don’t yet have a perception of your brand than asking them will only force a false response.