Here mass production is most famous, most honored,
and has the greatest impact on the entire
society. The industry has hitched its fortune to
the relentless requirements of the annual model
change, a policy that makes customer orientation
an especially urgent necessity. Consequently the
auto companies annually spend millions of dollars
on consumer research. But the fact that the new
compact cars are selling so well in their first year
indicates that Detroit's vast researches have for a
long time failed to reveal what the customer really
wanted. Detroit was not persuaded that he wanted
anything different from what he had been getting
until it lost millions of customers to other small-car manufacturers.