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Marketing and Social Research meet Fiction

The contamination between marketing research and fiction

Film 2004 Bent Hamer
Paolo's advice

During the post-war period, experts of house and home found out that simply by organizing the kitchen's workstations properly, based on the assembly-line layout of factories, the financial benefits for a household could be enormous. Or, as a Swedish ad for the new ideal kitchen put it: instead of a housewife having to walk the equivalent of Sweden to the Congo during a year of cooking, she now only needs to walk to northern Italy in order to get food on the table.

After thoroughly mapping the Swedish housewife's behavior in the kitchen, scientists at the Home Research Institute in Sweden felt ready to venture beyond their own geographic and gender-based limitations. In the early '50s they send 18 observers to the rural district of Landstad, Norway, with its surplus of bachelors, to study the kitchen routines of single men.

In order to be on 24-hour call, the observers will live in egg-shaped campers outside each subject's house. From high, custom-made observation chairs strategically placed in each kitchen, few activities will escape this new science. The observers must be allowed to come and go as they please, and under no circumstances must they be spoken to or included in kitchen activities...

Donald Duck - The Shoppers - Disney Studio S71183 (1971) - comics

Text by Dick Kenney, pencils by Al Hubbard
Donald Duck, Fethry Duck and Uncle Scrooge survey sales promotion in the mall with a "mystery shopper" technique. Very unusual for the neutral political bias of the Disney duck-world the satire of the sexual rights movements (it's a seventies story).

"The Squares of the city", John Brunner (1969) - science fiction novel (new review expanded after Bruno's advice)

This novel, written in the seventies, takes place on the eve of the end of the millennium. Lew Nichols is a professional researcher, CEO of a company specialized in social and economic trend analysis. His strength is the intuition that allows him to extract from the problematic chaos the outline of the things to come. When the young, ambitious and charismatic Paul Quinn asks his service for his campaign to become mayor of New York. Lew is fascinated by the possibility to influence world's destiny. Since the beginning Quinn, despite his young age, has very high ambitions; Mayor of New York for him is only a springboard, his true goal is the White House. Lew, excited by Quinn's dynamism and strong leadership, wants to follow him in getting power. But it's the meeting with Martin Carvajal that changes Lew's life; Carvajal has no intuitions about the future, he sees it before his eyes, he already knows it. Carvajal lives following a play-script, without emotions and without hopes, he already knows what life will reserve him, he knows his own death. In order to assist Quinn in the best way, Lew accepts to obey Carvajal and all his predictions. The first future visions that Lew, with the Carvajal's help, receives shows Quinn as a new totalitarian despot.

"L'aria serena dell'Ovest" (The quiet air of the west), Sergio Soldini (1990) - italian movie

The movie takes place during the downfall of the communist regimes. “The Calm Air of West side” explores, instead, the absence of meaning and the existential inconclusiveness in the other part of the world through the crossed destinies of characters that meet the protagonist without knowing him. Caesar, a uninspired researcher specialised in motivational interviews, spends the night with a young nurse that forgets her phonebook in his home, full of addresses, phone numbers, and a ticket for the lottery.

"Market Report", Alexander Joblokov - science fiction short story, Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, September 1998

Companies are more and more in need of information on consumer purchase behaviours and about their lifestyles, as the protagonist of the story knows. He was president of a company specialised in analysis and definition of emergent trends in the Internet and in newsgroups, lost after the divorce to his ex-wife, collaborator and partner. He looks for shelter with his parents and he discovers them involved in an underground micro-community, removed from the virtual plan of the Internet to a new social and ecological niche, an utopia of precarious legality, its survival really threatened from the spyware that he and his ex-wife had spread on the Internet.

"Kitchen", Film 2004 Bent Hamer
Paolo's advice

Written, published and took place in the mid 80's, during the maximum opposition between the west and the soviet block, Watchmen tells the desperate efforts of a group of masked heroes to stop the impending atomic apocalypse. Made up of 12 chapters - each one opens and closes with the image of the hands of a clock that approach (nuclear) midnight. Watchmen answers with dramatic intensity the absurd question: "Can masked heroes save the world?". It is not possible to explicate the marketing connection without compromising the suspense. We recommend, however, an extraordinary scene of trend consumption analysis through the simultaneous observation of couple of dozens of monitors, casually changing its tuning (a kind of oracle of marketing of the XX century). In the apocalyptic ending, the line of toiletries for man and woman Nostalgia (expression of the concept of loss, renouncement and regret) will be replaced by Millennium, the new line of toiletries expression of the concept of waiting for a new era, of the promise of a technological utopia.

"Pattern recognition", William Gibson (2004) - novel

Cayce Pollard is a professional woman highly remunerated for her pathological sensibility towards brands (she is allergic to the brands). She becomes, therefore, a sought after "cool hunter", a huntress of tendencies, able to realize only with a shiver if a product will conquer or not the mind of the consumers. Cayce is in London, entrusted with the restyling of a brand of sneakers when she is offered a very different charge: to uncover the mysterious creator of enigmatic and hypnotic video-clips anonymously introduced on the Net.

"The Santaroga Barrier", Frank Herbert (1968) - science fiction novel

The protagonist is a researcher sent by a network of GDO retailers to explore the mystery of Santaroga Valley, an area that keeps itself apart, where they don't succeed in penetrating commercially. The researcher discovers that Santaroga Valley's population is under the effect of a substance that conditions their perception of reality, separating Santaroga Valley from the rest of the country, which is running towards self-destruction, in an imminent apocalypse where only Santaroga Valley and its inhabitants will survive.

"Midas World", Friederik Pohl (1954) - science fiction novel

In this society robots are to work while poor people are forced to use their time spending money and consuming. Only the rich ones can live in the way they like, without the obligation to consume. The injustice of this condition seems to lead to a revolution. But the robots, responsible of the overproduction, shall free the people from the obligatory consumption.

"Ask any girl" (USA, 1959), movie

Director: Charles Walters
Actors: Shirley Maclaine, David Niven, Gig Young
From a satirical novel by Winifred Wolfe.
The only movie (as far as we know) that takes place in an institute of market research. Meg (Shirley Maclaine) is looking for a job and a husband. Employed in the marketing firm of brothers Miles (David Niven) and Evan, (Gig Young) she proposes to Miles to do motivational research on his playboy brother Evan to turn herself into his ideal woman. After interviewing many ex-sweethearts of Evan, Meg, step by step, adjusts her hair, make-up, smile, perfume, and dressing. But when Evan falls in love with her, Meg has fallen in love with Miles.

"It should happen to you" (USA 1954), movie

Director: George Cukor
Actors: Judy Holliday, Gladys Glover, Peter Lawford, Evan Adams III, Jack Lemmon, Pete Sheppard
A jobless model rents a giant advertising billboard to write her name on and immediately becomes a celebrity. The protagonist of the movie, focused on mass-media manipulative power and marketing strategies, is Judy Holliday (one of Cukor's favourite actresses). It is also the debut for Jack Lemmon. Despite the half-century of its exisitence, the movie hasn't lost neither its power of entertainment or its satirical sharpness.

"The Servant Problem", (1953) William Tenn - science fiction short story, Galaxy, April 1955

Only ten pages for this lethal satire of the totalitarian universe and the control techniques for opinion manipulation. There is only one man who has the power, Garomma, the Servant of Everybody, the Good Shepherd, unhappy because his index of consent has been blocked for 99.99...% years; his hope is to see the day when he has total, absolute control and when the flock will rest united under the protection of the Good Shepherd. But Garomma is only an unaware puppet, manipulated in his more intimate thoughts from a circular chain of executioners of his will, more and more of lower rank.

"The Investigation", (1959) Stanislaw Lem - novel

From the author of Solaris. A mathematical, statistical mystery story. Investigating a bizarre case of missing and apparently resurrected bodies, an investigator at Scotland Yard consults mystics, philosophers, and (most significantly) a statistician. As the statistician explains, he is the only one able to say something really worthwhile about this mystery.

"Franchise",(1955) Isaac Asimov - science fiction short story

How small of a sample do you need to make an accurate prediction? One man can be sufficient, says Asimov, if he is well selected. Asimov wrote Franchise when the Univac computer was used to predict the outcome of 1952 presidential election using a small, representative, sample of the voting public.

"Magic Town", (1947), movie
Director William A. Wellman
Actors: James Stewart , Jane Wyman

A pollster (James Stewart) finds a small town ("a mathematical miracle") whose citizens opinions exactly reflect those of the entire country. He and his assistants go there to run never-failing polls, in total secrecy, cheaply and easily. But once the secret is out, and the town becomes aware of its distinguishing trait, all goes awry.

"The stochastic man", (1975), Robert Silverberg - science fiction novel

(new review expanded after Bruno's advice)

This novel, written in the seventies, takes place on the eve of the end of the millennium. Lew Nichols is a professional researcher, CEO of a company specialized in social and economic trends analysis. His strength is the intuition that allows him to extract from the chaos the outline of the things to come. When the young, ambitious and charismatic Paul Quinn asks his service for his campaign to become mayor of New York. Lew is fascinated by the possibility to influence world's destiny. Since the beginning Quinn, despite his young age, has very high ambitions; Mayor of New York for him is only a springboard, his true goal is the White House. Lew, excited by Quinn's dynamism and strong leadership, wants to follow him in getting power. But it's the meeting with Martin Carvajal that changes Lew's life; Carvajal has no intuitions about the future, he sees it before his eyes, he already knows it. Carvajal lives following a play-script, without emotions and without hopes, he already knows what life will reserve him, he knows his own death. In order to assist Quinn in the best way, Lew accepts to obey Carvajal and all his predictions. But the first future visions that Lew, with the Carvajal's help, receives shows Quinn as a new totalitarian despot.

"Things, a Story of the Sixties", (1965), Georges Perec - novel

Perec studied sociology at the Sorbonne and later worked as a public-opinion pollster. The two main characters are a couple of interviewers; their job consists of asking people about their needs and consumptions, collecting the answers and elaborating them. In this role they lose the sense of their own lives and of their relationship. A history about the mass society in the sixties.

"Advancements in Kasrilevke", Shalom Aleichem

Kasrilevke is a fictitious Eastern European town that is the setting of the stories of the 19th-century Yiddish writer Shalom Aleichem. In the town of Kasrilevke two newspapers are competing for readership of the jewish community: one traditionalist paper, The Skullcap, and one more secular paper, The Bowler Hat. When The Bowler Hat asks its readers their preferences about the dimension of the capital letter of its name, the Skullcap does the same. The findings are the same for both newspaper: the readers don't want any change. In fact, they aren't able anymore to distinguish the two newspapers because they have lost their distinguishing traits.

"The Pale Horse", (1961), Agatha Christie - novel

On his way home from the theatre, Mark Easterbrook stumbles upon a mortally wounded priest. When the police find him with the body, he becomes their prime suspect. All the victims have been interviewed in a market survey about their home buying habits.

"Captain Pantoja and the Special Service", (1973), Mario Vargas Llosa - novel

The Peruvian army captain Pantaleon Pantoja, a very serious and efficient officer, is chosen by his superiors to set up a service of (female) 'visitors' to satisfy the sexual needs of the soldiers posted on remote jungle outposts. Captain Pantoja carries out a market research on the sexual requests of its soldiers using a questionnaire and setting up a very successful service.

"The Days of Perky Pat", (1963), Philip K. Dick - science fiction short story

After an atomic devastation, people survive restricted inside wells, playing with dolls and imaging an idyllic life no longer available for Earth's real inhabitants. In the Pinole Well the current doll is the teenager Perky Pat, but crisis arrives with Connie, an older doll that works as psychologist in a marketing research firm. Connie is married, pregnant and emancipated. The change from the teen-ager's games to the adulthood's rites deranges the delicate psychic balance of the community and the owners of Connie quit the Pinone Well.

"Weekend", Fay Weldon - short story issued on "The Penguin book of modern women's short stories" (1991)

Martha is a market researcher but also a wife, a mother, and a housewife, with many unpaid social and familiar chores, especially during the weekend in the country house. When her daughter has her first period Martha bursts in tears for the hard condition of woman befalling on her.
The story is available on line at the address:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/download/britlit/weekend/weekend.pdf

"The Foundation Trilogy" (1951), Isaac Asimov - novel

Almost considered the eponym text of science fiction, the Foundation Trilogy puts in its center the philosophical stone of all social sciences: psychohistory, a science which is able not only to analyze past and present time with geometric rigor, but it's also able to explore (and to model!) the future. Originally published as a series of novellas in “Astounding” magazine from the 40's to the 50's, the Foundation Trilogy still preserves today the magic of the golden age of science fiction.