Printed Page 484

Marketing research emerged in the 1920s, when advertisers and consumer-product companies began conducting surveys on consumer buying habits and other behaviors. For example, ratings systems arose that measured how many people were listening to commercial radio on a given night. By the 1930s, radio networks, advertisers, large stations, and advertising agencies all subscribed to ratings services. However, compared with print media, whose circulation departments kept track of customers’ names and addresses, radio listeners were more difficult to trace. The problem prompted experts to develop increasingly sophisticated marketing research methods to determine consumer preferences and media use, such as direct-mail diaries, television meters, phone surveys, telemarketing, and eventually Internet tracking. In many instances, product companies paid consumers a small fee to take part in these studies.