Here’s Why Market Research is Weird

The topic at hand is something called Liquid Smoke.  It’s basically stuff in a bottle that imitates the flavor of barbecuing, you know, with that smoky flavor, so you can just dump a bit of it onto a chicken in the oven and it’s like you cooked the damn thing outside in the wild.  Here is the piece that has so impressed me.

http://bit.ly/1W3GnFA

Matthew Sedacca wrote the piece and it appeared in Eater, one of my favorite oddball websites, which is devoted to all things food (restaurants, all the kooky celebrities in the food world), and it was rather nice and had far more words than you’d ever think could possibly be devoted to the subject of “Liquid Smoke”.

Mr. Sedacca earned the price of every word he wrote, of course, but what got me was when he pulled this one out:

“In a report published this past April by Future Market Insights, a market intelligence and consulting firm, the global liquid smoke market was valued at $65 million in 2015. FMI predicts that liquid smoke's market value will increase at a compound annual growth rate of 8.1 percent over the next decade, citing drivers like ‘rising disposable income, growing pet ownership, increasing consumption of meat products and lowered total production cost.’ “

I’m OK with some of this, and I have no idea who or what Future Market Insights is other than that they are providing priceless insights on Liquid Smoke, but what the hell does “growing pet ownership” have to do with Liquid Smoke?

Are these geniuses predicting that we’re going to roast cats and dribble Liquid Smoke on them?  Maybe parakeets.  Oh (just thought of this), companies that make pet food need it for that added BBQ flavor for your Corgi.  Or you need it while roasting your Corgi.  I don’t know what their Future Market Insight research process is, but whatever it is, it’s pretty suspect. 

And I don’t know how these guys arrive at their “global compound annual growth rate of 8.1 percent” number, because China and India, the two largest markets outside of the dumb U.S. have nothing but smoke day and night, and India has had a raging coal mine fire for over 100 years and can’t put it out.  Maybe a few million dollars of Liquid Smoke might do the trick.