Stupid Marketing Studies
Example- Ottawa Senators Circa 1990
A market survey was done before the modern reincarnation of the Sens. Marketers asked: "If the NHL returned to Ottawa, would you buy a season's ticket?" When extrapolated over the entire market, the answer was that the Sens could sell more than 100,000 season's tickets.
Well, of course, people were excited about the NHL returning to Ottawa but the number of projected season's tickets was ridiculous. Chicago, a great old NHL city, was selling 15,000 season tickets at the time and most other NHL cities were less than 12,000 and it was a struggle every year.
Example- BC Lions Circa 2000
The BC Lions did a market survey: "What day of the week and what start time do fans prefer for CFL games at BC Place before Labour Day?" They asked only fans who attended Saturday evening games in the summer and found out the obvious. In 2001, the owner, David Braley, said: "The previous management did a survey and I guess I didn't look very closely at it." In fact, games in the summer need to be on a week night to avoid conflicts with the weekend cottaging crowd. "Now we know this experiment wasn't right. We wanted to do what the fans wanted but this information was not collected from the people who don't come to games," Braley concluded.
Example- Operations Research in World War II
A famous study of returning aircraft looked at where the bullets were hitting and damaging Allied aircraft. Those areas were then strengthened in the manufacturing process. Obviously this didn't do much good- they needed, rather, to look at downed aircraft (a much harder job) to see which areas of the aircraft were especially vulnerable.
Example- Intentionally Stupid Marketing Study
A large mining company wishes to convey its commitment to the environment and to the community. Any answer benefits the company's goal in this regards.