The lies hiding in your customer data

The data problem nobody sees

Big brands are drowning in consumer data they have little use for, all built on lies people tell about themselves. Serious money goes to the wrong places.

The insights industry by the numbers

The insights industry was worth one hundred fifty billion dollars last year, with fifty six billion spent on market research alone. How many leaders know if they're getting value?

A startup learns the hard way

Alfred Malmros ran Anyone, an app offering five-minute advice calls. His product-market-fit survey showed strong demand, but downloads peaked at twenty five thousand and fell to one thousand active users.

Why people lie to researchers

At a dinner party, most people agree with the group rather than admit their true concerns. We lie to make sense of ourselves to others, not from moral failing but from social pressure.

The watch example

Ask people why they want an expensive watch, they say craftsmanship. Ask why others want one, they say status. The same person gives different answers depending on who is being asked about.

Solution one: ask about others

When people answer questions on behalf of their social circle instead of themselves, they report on many people beyond themselves. This tells researchers far more about society than direct questions.

Solution two: ask about time

Stop asking what people think only now.Ask the same question about five years ago, today and three years from now.You get data on direction of travel in beliefs and behavior, not just a snapshot.

The synthetic audience problem

AI-generated simulations of real consumers let businesses test ideas before launch. But when these audiences are trained on flawed consumer data, the consequences are catastrophic and results look good but are fundamentally inaccurate.

Bad data plus AI equals faster failure

Taking a broken methodology and feeding it bad data will only make the wrong answers arrive faster.

“Taking a broken methodology and feeding it bad data will only make the wrong answers arrive faster.”

The competitive advantage ahead

Companies that solve for an imagined version of their consumer will lose to companies solving for the real one.Breaking the cycle of bad data and bad decisions requires asking the right questions from the start.

“The companies that continue to solve for an imagined version of their consumer will lose to the companies solving for the real one.”