Book Review: Consumption Values and Market Choices: Theory and Applications

to preempt the audience's reaching an unintended conclusion. The last paper, by Mike Sargent, on uses and abuses starts well with a nice story about denture wearers being upset with how they were portrayed in test ad copy. However, rather than illustrating a misuse as the author claims, the example demonstrates how qualitative research gets at the true feelings of the consumer. A better example of abuse involves soft drinks and the difficulty of having consumers design products by reacting to unfamiliar concepts. Like most of the others, this paper could benefit by including other examples and taking a more specific and less general perspective. In summary, JMR readers should consider this book but realize that it is intended as an introduction. Much of it may be old hat or obvious to the experienced qualitative researcher. Also, the perspective is clearly from Great Britain, where qualitative research (and probably all marketing research) is much less technically sophisticated than in the United States. There, focus groups still tend to be conducted among neighbors meeting in homes, not strangers recruited to central facilities with one-way mirrors and concealed sound and video recording equipment. For the beginning or would-be qualitative researcher, this book is a fine introduction. It will not provide you with the abilities of an Ernest Dichter, but you will be more aware of the limits of qualitative research and that good qualitative research does not just happen. Apparently, neither does an advanced book on qualitative research. RICHARD F. YALCH University of Washington