Justine it’s an interesting set of words people and paper. Real People’s faces are everywhere now, YouTube, blogs, and message boards. If you don’t have an organizational structure to respond to the people already talking, I guess it makes sense that it would be hard for brand X to value people over paper.

Having said that, there is comfort in numbers. I think marketing unfortunately too often trades quality of information for this sense of comfort - a way to justify quantitatively the decisions they make (that understandably are often expensive ones).

I for one believe there is a place for surveys - depending on the question you want to ask. But I also believe you can’t know people through paper. Putting people in a “test taking” mode immediately biases the kind of information the brain is going to respond with.

Geno raises an excellent point about market research and consumer insight being an opportunity to not only learn from your customers, but also start a two-way conversation. Maybe if more marketers put a face on the consumer - they’ll see them as people to develop relationships with and not just consumers to transact with.

I’m better about that today,but I’ve been told I’m a community purist. Maybe I could turn that into a party.