Modern saturated markets differ from the old markets in many respects. The rules of success and failure have changed. Conservative marketing confined to the perfecting and variation of old product categories often degenerates into fruitless games which don't dynamize the market and bore the consumers.

Changes in the existing market conditions can only be achieved by substantial innovations. The basis for successful innovations lies in activating the ''invisible'' latent consumer expectations: Expectations that are subconscious, vague and not yet expressed.

There is no lack of such latent expectations even in saturated markets. On the contrary, analysis reveals that there are progress gaps in many sectors because manufacturers fail to keep pace with the development of these expectations.

Lack of visions or anti-progressive structures in many companies are one of the causes of this progress gap. But also many instruments of marketing research have an anti-progressive effect or are unsuitable to detect latent consumer expectations and give the producers reliable guidance for long-term planning.

Marketing research for innovations has to make use of theoretical assumptions and methods other than marketing research for the administration or control of established markets.