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August 23, 2008 3:59 PM

Help me, I want to be a corporate guinea pig! A friend of mine is headed to a city known for its preponderance of market testing (Columbus, OH), which got me thinking... are there any sites or blogs that could inform me as to chains undergoing market testing in particular regions of the country? I'd love to sample some of these wacky, soon-to-abandoned products of retail R&D departments everywhere... if only when I visit my friend in a few months. Any ideas as to how I can do this?
posted by Keter to shopping (3 comments total)

State Fairs often have product testing centers, but of course you have to pay to get into the State Fair. On the other hand, State Fairs can be extremely entertaining, what with the piglet races, butter cows, and of course, product testing.
posted by nax at 6:47 PM on August 23, 2008

This is a brilliant plan, and I wish you nothing but luck. If there is any other good reason to go to Ohio, I've never heard of it.
posted by paisley henosis at 3:13 AM on August 24, 2008

You need to get on the list of a market research recruiting firm; companies with products to test virtually never recruit subjects/participants directly.

However, to rain on this parade, this is a really bad plan. Market researchers specifically avoid people who are repeat/'professional' participants. The screener questionnaires almost always include something along the lines of "have you participated in a focus group (etc) any time in the last six months?", and considering that most major cities only have a limited number of recruiters, you will run out of people to lie to pretty quickly. Besides, recruiters are often looking for a specific profile (ie Male 25-35 yrs, who own their own home and do their own car maintenance), and because your profile is kept on file, you probably wouldn't fit for enough variety to get lots of chances to participate. Unless you go to a very large city (New York, Chicago, etc), there will probably be fewer than ten recruiter companies, and even if you are a super excellent liar, you probably won't be able to get more than one or two opportunities a month, at 50-100 bucks a pop. (If you aren't a super-excellent liar, you'll only get one or two opportunities a year.)
posted by Kololo at 11:17 AM on August 24, 2008