Marketers looking for the most representative test market in the U.S. might want to try heading to Wichita, Kan.-then turn south and keep going until they get to Wichita Falls, Texas.
For years, marketers have flocked to small markets to test products, advertising concepts or other marketing initiatives in the most representative microcosms they can find of the U.S. market. The trouble is that most of these markets are ethnically unbalanced compared with the U.S., usually with a larger proportion of whites than the nation as a whole.
Finding the perfect ethnic balance in any metro area is hard. Large coastal cities have above-average minority representation. Cities and ...