"What Do Consumers Want? Whatever You Do, Don't Just Ask" reads the headline of a March, 1996 article in the Los Angeles Times. The piece explores "the postmodern fringe of 'nontraditional market research,'" which a Harvard sociologist describes as the attempt to unearth "hidden thoughts, thoughts [consumers] didn't know they had." Last year, a Detroit advertising agency hired a group of cultural anthropologists to move in with Chevrolet owners, "to observe them and analyze their relationships with their cars." You're forgiven if you think this sounds like the premise of an old Albert Brooks film.