Surveys are an activity designed to justify some marketing VPs existence. Or to justify some decision he made arbitrarily, or because he felt he had to do something because he has a big salary and no matter how well the product is doing he has to look busy or he won't have a job.

Since marketers are supposed to "study the market", surveys also can provide data. You can't study anything without gathering data, right? That's what makes marketing a science. So in order to look scientific, to make it appear as if you are doing your job, you wave around computer printouts, spreadsheets, graphs, charts, and other evidence of your crisp management efficiency and executive brilliance. If a rival questions your reason to exist, or the wisdom of your decision, you can always say "Our surveys have shown...", end of argument. You have DATA.

I don't want to apear flippant here. I concede that learning about the people who buy your stuff, or about people in general, you can figure out ways to sell more stuff. Potentially, it might even help you learn what's right or what's wrong about your stuff, so you can give them more of the former and fix the latter, which has got to be good for business. Yeah, that's what a survey might do, what it's supposed to do. But that doesn't mean that's what happens. But mostly, its put out there so some worthless drone can get a bigger budget next year.

I'm reminded of the story of some Russian entrepreneurs, after the fall of the Soviet Union, who hired some American marketing consultants. The product was just ready for roll-out, and the Americans asked, "What are you going to sell it for?"

The Russians responded, "We're going to figure out exactly how much it takes to make and distribute each unit, and then we're going to add a reasonable profit on top of that, which we will adjust up or down depending on how successful it is with customers, and how well we estimated what it would cost to make and sell it."

The Americans responded, "Oh no, you can't do that. First, we'll have to conduct a market survey, and after sales begin, we'll have to conduct a follow-up customer survey. In fact, we're going to need to have a survey office, and a survey budget."

I understand something similar happens in politics.