We can imagine that BusinessWeek media columnist Jon Fine receives a lot of press releases. So when Fine received a release today from "Hypnosis Focus Groups," it must've really stood out from the crowd, and we can see why. He writes:

For all I know this is an elaborate hoax. But there's no way I'm gonna let the facts get in the way of posting the following, which I received from an AOL address at 12:19 Eastern time. Extra points awarded for usage of the phrases "compelled to tell the truth" and "the battle to come."

The release copy is as follows:

We all know focus group respondents lie and this is especially true during recessions.

They just don't want to admit in a focus group that they are squeezed and are thinking about switching to lower cost and lower value brands - it's an ego and face-saving thing.

And therefore researchers can't explore their true feelings on this issue. So, companies get misleading information which leads to incorrect brand strategies and tactics.

Hypnosis Focus Groups (tm) solves this problem - under hypnosis respondents are compelled to tell the truth about their economic situation and their true feelings. With this information management will be better armed for the battle to come.

To learn more , please go to www.hypnosisfocusgroups.com.

Please, brainwash (er, hypnotize) us into giving up the information you really want. Now that is some market research.