Any company’s marketing strategy must include market research. It directs strategy, guides resource allocation, and aids in brand comprehension and consumer connection in ways that previously would have appeared unachievable. Amazingly, this fundamental component of every successful marketing strategy didn’t even have a formal name until quite recently.

Understanding the roots, patterns, and logical evolution of thought in market research is a key requirement for comprehending its current state, as is the case with any subject.

In this period, the Internet has had the greatest influence.

Even though not everyone has the chance to enrol in a course on the background of market research, there is always time for a brief summary.

Use this market research timeline to learn about the history of the approaches we use today:

First: The Quantitative Questionnaire Era, 1900–1940

Understanding the Masses

When a man by the name of Daniel Starch created a thesis that advertising had to be seen, read, believed, remembered, and most crucially, acted upon, it gave rise to the first real examples of market research.

When approaching strangers on the street, Starch and his companions would inquire as to whether they read particular periodicals and, if so, whether they could recall any particular ads that appeared in them. To determine how successful those advertisements were in reaching consumers, they would next compare the number of subjects they questioned with the magazine’s readership.

A man named George Gallup, a contemporary of Starch, further developed the practice with his rival theory of aided recall, which prompted people interviewed to recall an ad seen in a publication without actually showing it to them. This system would later be adapted and used to measure the effectiveness of radio and television advertising.

Second: Qualitative Consumer Era (1940s–1960s)

Understanding the Individual

In America, consumerism significantly increased during the post-World War II economic boom. This led to a clear need to gain a deeper, more in-depth understanding of consumers and their choices.

Despite the fact that quantitative surveys, particularly usage and attitude studies, remained the norm, researchers began to create innovative procedures to go beyond the data. More people started to use methods like the focus group (developed by Robert Merton and Paul Lazarsfeld at Columbia University in the late 1930s) gained more traction. However, researchers noticed that there were discrepancies between what people said they did, thought, or liked and what they actually did.

In response, Ernest Dichter pioneered a new form of consumer research in the late 1940s, called Motivational Research. Based on Freudian psychoanalytic concepts, Dichter believed that consumer’s held within their minds hidden realm of desires, taboos, repressions, and secrets. He also believed that every product had an image, even a ‘soul’, and was bought not merely for the purpose it served but for the values and symbolic meanings it embodied. Dichter’s message to advertisers was: figure out the personality of a product, and you will understand how to market it.”

Dichter’s practice focused largely on conducting Depth Interviews, which were essentially ethnographies that more closely resembled therapy sessions, and on observing consumers interact with products in simulated or real environments.

Yet Dichter’s insights and recommendations– such as telling Proctor and Gamble that consumers used soap to cleanse themselves of sin and other undesired character traits– became a bit too strange to be considered practical by some clients. As a result, the industry began to again favor methodologies that emphasized careful statistical procedures to produce hard data—techniques that seemed more sensible and were made even more alluring by the advent of accessible computing machines.

Third: Refining the Process (1960s – 1980s)

Understanding Consumer Mindsets

Quantitative methods returned to the foreground in the 1960’s, and methodologies continued to develop with the advent and assistance of new technology— particularly the computer, phone systems, and the Internet. Qualitative methods took a backseat during this time period, but continued to be refined.

Marketing academic John Howard began to incorporate perspectives from other social sciences into his research, including psychology, sociology, anthropology, semiotics, economics, and management science. His work ultimately encouraged multi-disciplinary approaches in the field. During this time period, researchers also began focusing on the experiential part of being a consumer– not just the process of buying, but the actual experience of owning and consuming a product/service. They studied the role of emotions, feelings, moods, and other affective aspects of consumption, in order to understand customers. Instilled with a newfound way of thinking about consumer behavior, marketers turned to focus groups as the preferred form of qualitative research in the 1970s.

Researchers also refined Dichter’s theory of hidden symbolism in products, applying the same theory to broader brands. This remains an idea that researchers still largely subscribe to today.

Fourth: The Digital Era (Present)

Understanding Context

Market research companies today draw from a vast ecosystem of methodologies and technologies to create a far more thorough picture of the consumer thanks to the abundance of tools and processes at our disposal. Marketers can better understand consumers by combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies to study them both individually and collectively. Semiotics, social listening, and communications are now tools we can utilize to better understand how consumers respond to media and brand messages.

The biggest influence in this era has been the Internet, which has allowed us to conduct surveys on much larger scales, easily explore news, communications, and culture, and construct hyper-segments on the smallest scales.

Recognizing that customers don’t live in a hoover is maybe the most significant change in modern ideas.

Understanding the environment in which consumers operate is as crucial as researching their preferences and actions. Researchers can now build a thorough analysis of the ecosystem in which the customer functions with the help of techniques like Cultural Insights.