And since I can't be the only one with this predilection, companies that persist in applying a top-down approach to marketing are bound to find it increasingly difficult to deal with customers. Because these customers now have a worldwide selection. Because it evolved in sync with a certain business structure. Prior to Henry Ford, automobiles were the hand-made playthings of a few of the very rich. To allow the use of cars and other industrial products by the broad public, these goods had to be produced at lower prices, which required making large quantities of identical products.
Market research is conducted.
Simply put, this means distilling the wants and needs of tens of thousands of individuals into a statistically averaged standard product. Businesses don't ask an individual what he or she wants. Meanwhile, the few real people subjected to the standardized market survey have forgotten they were ever asked, or have developed entirely different interests. Markets don't have search engines. And if you're wrong, your inventory turns into scrap.