[Mick]

And, frankly, some of the jurors were morons. One made much of the fact that McDonald's had a few hundred letters of complaint about the coffee being too hot. When a reporter said, yeah, but a few hundred out of approximately a billion cups brewed. The juror replied that they should have changed it in response to even one complaint. Trying running even a business by that standard, much less a worldwide conglomerate.

Man, I hope I never have to rely upon the "wisdom of the common man."

My occupation of choice involves professional services marketing, and as a courtesy to a friend who teaches graduate school-level marketing classes, I administered a test case over the course of a couple of classes.  The students were to create a new service, perform market research around it and recommend a go/no-go strategy.  One specific service (amounting to very proactive discounting in a student buyer market) was proposed and tested out at a 92% positive rate.  46 of 50 students polled strongly desired such a service.  The conclusion of the head of the product team?  In his mind, a 92% approval rating was a clear signal to not start such a service, because the consumer positive rate was "only" 92% and not 100%!

[Mick]

And, frankly, some of the jurors were morons. One made much of the fact that McDonald's had a few hundred letters of complaint about the coffee being too hot. When a reporter said, yeah, but a few hundred out of approximately a billion cups brewed. The juror replied that they should have changed it in response to even one complaint. Trying running even a business by that standard, much less a worldwide conglomerate.

Man, I hope I never have to rely upon the "wisdom of the common man."

My occupation of choice involves professional services marketing, and as a courtesy to a friend who teaches graduate school-level marketing classes, I administered a test case over the course of a couple of classes.  The students were to create a new service, perform market research around it and recommend a go/no-go strategy.  One specific service (amounting to very proactive discounting in a student buyer market) was proposed and tested out at a 92% positive rate.  46 of 50 students polled strongly desired such a service.  The conclusion of the head of the product team?  In his mind, a 92% approval rating was a clear signal to not start such a service, because the consumer positive rate was "only" 92% and not 100%!