The ecological fallacy, the drawing of inferences about
individuals based on aggregate level data, was discovered over 50 years
ago but is still present in a surprising number of commonly employed
marketing and advertising research tools. In this article, we examine
three specific manifestations of the ecological
fallacy—gap/grid analysis, leverage analysis, and the misuse
of indexes from syndicated research. Our analysis will demonstrate that
the approaches represent parallel paths to an analysis procedure that
results in correct conclusions only by accident.We acknowledge Kathryn Britney for contributions to an
earlier draft of this article.