I used to work for a market research* company that sold industry reports that sold for a thousand pound and upwards (this was over 10 years ago). We made lots of our figures up

It always amuses me when the same company I worked for is quoted in the press or one of their "analysts" is interviewed on the TV/radio.

* the research amounted to reading trade journals and badgering marketing managers on the phone for their opinion on industry trends and their own sales. It really did come down to guessing whether a given market sector had gone up or down and phoning them and saying "I think the Italian fish food market has gone up by 2% this year" and waiting to hear their reaction.

Oh and if we didn't get any data on Italian fish food for the year, we'd just assume it was going the same way as Spanish fish food (assuming we'd got a figure for that) and just tweak the figures a bit so they didn't look too suspicious.