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The Radar project describes what developments are taking place in areas relevant for agricultural research. In the political sphere, it can be seen that the importance of the state is diminishing. Technological progress is continuing and is evident, for example, in a rise in the global cultivation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). In the economic area, the exchange of goods and services between national economies is increasing. Society is showing less solidarity, living a more unhealthy lifestyle, yet buying with more awareness of the environment. The melting of the Swiss glaciers is a sign of global warming. The investment of large multinational companies in research is on the increase. Conclusions for agricultural research are drawn from the observed trends. It is planned to continue the Radar project as a permanent monitoring system and to update it periodically.

Purpose: This chapter investigates how researchers assemble market research test towns as hybrid sociotechnical arrangements. Researchers use various strategies in order to purify such hybrids into simplified representations of a fetishized imaginary, namely the average consumer.

Methodology/approach: The chapter is based on an analysis of secondary sources such as company documents. Theoretically, it draws on the concept of consumption assemblages and on anthropological theories of fetish.

Findings: Fetishization is a powerful way for both researchers and their clients to purify the hybrid assemblages they are part of into easily digestible categories such as “the real” and “the average.” In that process, the test town and its consumers emerge as a fetish that allows corporate clients to alleviate decision-making anxiety. Because of the nature of fetish, purification as a process remains incomplete.

Research Implications: These findings call for more social studies of market research as a set of practices that shape the identities of those who do the testing and forecasting. This chapter thus opens up test marketing and so-called test towns in particular as a field for consumer culture theory research.

Originality/value: This chapter provides insights into how market research creates test sites to simulate purchase behavior and pre-test consumer products. This chapter maps how different groups of actors and different technologies are enrolled in order to enact an ideal-type consumer averageness on an ongoing basis in a particular test town.