The general idea is reasonable ("in product study, make sure your sample is representative") but the recommendations are problematic.
Obviously if you just put a product in a store for a certain period of time, only pay attention to the sales numbers, and then try to make claims about the number of potential buyers in a larger population, you're going to have a bad time. (hello selection bias)
But watching out specifically for people with niche preferences in some area is not at all the answer. Barring some very strong data showing otherwise, there's absolutely no reason to suppose that a person with niche movie tastes also has unorthodox tastes in dish cleaning liquids. Now, of course, if you're about to market a Swiffer-lookalike product, whether a certain study participant likes Swiffer is an interesting variable to record. But then, you probably don't need that study all that much in the first place compared to someone who's about to bring to market a bold new product.
And of course this is just basic statistics -- do a good job randomizing your sample, and pick sample size that's large enough for your desired confidence interval.
Oh ok, there's a linked research paper and it's more nuanced. It might actually have some data to support their claim that if a buyer has kinky tastes in toothbrushes, it also spreads to toilet paper.
Obviously if you just put a product in a store for a certain period of time, only pay attention to the sales numbers, and then try to make claims about the number of potential buyers in a larger population, you're going to have a bad time. (hello selection bias)
But watching out specifically for people with niche preferences in some area is not at all the answer. Barring some very strong data showing otherwise, there's absolutely no reason to suppose that a person with niche movie tastes also has unorthodox tastes in dish cleaning liquids. Now, of course, if you're about to market a Swiffer-lookalike product, whether a certain study participant likes Swiffer is an interesting variable to record. But then, you probably don't need that study all that much in the first place compared to someone who's about to bring to market a bold new product.
And of course this is just basic statistics -- do a good job randomizing your sample, and pick sample size that's large enough for your desired confidence interval.