This seems, at least, to be aimed primarily at market research professionals at the sort of level who would be able to access things like loyalty program data and so forth to provide an initial pool for focus groups, etc. The advice is predictive in the sense that it says "eliminate people whose purchase patterns have consistently exhibited product loyalty to failed products in the past from the pool", and that the people who insisted that "butterscotch sardine supreme" would be a killer flavour for potato chips in your last market test, losing you millions (since your hundred positive testers were the entire market for the flavour), probably shouldn't be part of your next market test.
Product tests are a lot like private software betas - people who actively participate and provide more than the minimum feedback tend to be called on again and again. The advice here is to stop calling on people who tell you to do stupid things.
Your explanation makes far more sense than the article: when you're looking at your pool of informants, weed out the ones with a track recording of previously liking failed products. Basically you're selecting for selective fitness. The article doesn't put this very clearly at all.
I felt the same way. I basically got that point from the article, but there's a lot of verbiage to weed through. Could have been much more concise and direct.
Product tests are a lot like private software betas - people who actively participate and provide more than the minimum feedback tend to be called on again and again. The advice here is to stop calling on people who tell you to do stupid things.