Market research as ascetic detachment: product testing in a German market test town

ABSTRACT

The work that market research companies conduct on behalf of their clients is often understood in terms of market intermediaries that help clients identify both marketing strategies and new marketing opportunities. This article challenges this understanding by interpreting market research work in terms of detachment from the market. Drawing on the example of an experimental market research test town in Germany, the article identifies the role of market researchers as that of slowly taking new product concepts out of the hands of their clients and transforming these concepts into test objects. Market researchers who use consumer panels in the test town apply various detachment and immunization strategies that help absorb products into their own test systems. From the perspective of research clients, the detachment from their product concepts is of an ascetic nature as it involves an exercise to give up control in order to master the world.

KEYWORDS:

• Detachment
• ascesis
• monasticism
• professionalism
• consumer sovereignty
• immunization
• test marketing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stefan Schwarzkopf

Stefan Schwarzkopf is Associate Professor at the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy at Copenhagen Business School. His research is concerned with the sociology of markets, consumption, simulations, and the import of theological concepts for economic-sociological research.