Page 526 - Encyclopedia of Business and Finance

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Marketing Research

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Research and Analysis by Lyndon O. Brown, published in approaches to probability sampling slowly gained accept-
1937, became one of the most popular college textbooks ance in this period.
of the period, reflecting the growing interest in marketing From 1950 through the early 1960s, methodological
research on the college campus. After 1940, numerous innovations occurred at a fairly steady pace. At this time,
research textbooks were published and the number of a major development occurred: the commercial availabil-
business schools offering research courses grew rapidly. ity of large-scale digital computers. The computer was
Following World War II (1939–1945), the growth of responsible for rapidly increasing the pace of methodolog-
marketing research increased dramatically. By 1948 more ical innovation, especially in the area of quantitative mar-
than 200 marketing research organizations had been cre- keting research. As the field of marketing research
ated in the United States. An estimated $50 million was attracted increasing interest, two new journals began pub-
spent on marketing research activities in 1947. Over the lication in the 1960s: the Journal of Marketing Research
next three decades this expenditure level increased more and the Journal of Advertising Research. Technological
than tenfold. advances have had a major impact on many aspects of the
marketing research profession. These innovations have
Methodological Development. Major advances in mar- included checkout scanners in supermarkets, computer-
keting research methodology were made from 1910 to assisted telephone interviewing, database marketing, data
1920. Questionnaires, or surveys, became a popular analysis by computers, data collection on the Internet,
method of data collection. With the growth of survey and Web-based surveys.
research came improvements in questionnaire design and The second decade of the Internet age has confirmed
question construction. During the 1930s sampling the Internet as a consumer and business communications
became a serious methodological issue. Modern medium. In 2005 companies were projected to spend

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BUSINESS AND FINANCE, SECOND EDITION 503