Why would you even want to read this?: How many times have you seen crucial decisions being taken on gut and nothing else? How many times have you sat in a meeting where decisions were taken with assumptions that the target consumer would think and act like the decision makers? – ‘If I were to buy I would choose this over others. What do you think?’ Have you ever counted on the times such decisions have failed/ backfired? If you have not witnessed even one such act in your career, feel blessed – You are God’s own child. Not many are that blessed though. They would have at times, in their career, seen powerful and often intelligent people sidetracking hard consumer data (primary or secondary) to make an important decision on gut. The justifications in most of these cases are – ‘Experience counts’, ‘Consumers do not know what they want’, ‘Consumer Researches are Bullshit’ etc. At times and to some, these justifications would seem fair – especially when some of these decisions wor...