Market research - how it began1914. The automobile industry needed more fuel. Purchasers were starting to become picky over the vehicles they bought, and dealerships could only afford to buy cars that they knew the consumer wanted. Charles Coolidge Parlin was hired to check the tires of the US automobile market and discover what was happening; by all accounts, he was a charismatic individual, with a flair for speaking and an unrestrained, enthusiastic energy. Armed with only his teacher training, he travelled the width and breadth of the USA to interview hundreds of car dealers. The result was a humbly described 2,500 page document that dissected the US car market, ultimately kickstarting the market research profession and introducing an incredibly useful tool to businesses at large.

Recommended Market Research Methodologies during the Pandemic: Work goes on as normal and will continue at MRFGR during the Corona outbreak. We’re still busy as usual with any offline / in-person research projects being continually managed and adapted according to the current situation with our teams easily & seamlessly working remotely without affecting service quality. Scroll down for more information on what we are doing to safeguard our clients, respondents and employees through these unprecedented times. If you have any additional concerns that aren't addressed here, then it's always best to contact a member of the MRFGR team directly and we'll do the best we can to assist you.

It’s no secret that finding people for market research projects is a tricky business, and respondent recruitment really is an art. Not only do companies often need to speak with a very specific - and sometimes hard-to-reach - target audience, but the industry is littered with time-wasters and ‘professional respondents**’ who continue to make the process increasingly difficult. **Professional Respondent - Noun An individual who provides false answers to a recruitment screener in order to take part in market research and thus receive the incentive, despite not truly fitting the desired criteria. MRFGR has over a decade of experience in respondent recruitment. It might be a tough job, but here are our top tips for making sure it’s done properly.

MRFGR’S guide on the best practice for market research moderation. Moderator (Noun) Someone who makes certain that a formal discussion happens without problems and follows the rules. Before 1950, companies primarily approached market research in one way: they tried to quantify what their customers were doing (now known as quantitative studies) - how many liked this flavour, how many would buy this - but Ernest Dichter had another idea: instead of focusing on what people were saying, we should examine why they’re saying it. Thus, the qualitative research method (as we know it today) began to hit its stride, and with it came the requirement of market research moderators - skillful individuals, capable of mastering the direction of a conversation and bringing a group of independent thinkers into one, easily understood consensus. The truth is that moderating is a skill like no other. It’s finding the balance between bringing a discussion to life, while being careful not to influence the outcome. Dichter called the focus group his ‘living laboratory’ - filled with passions, ideas, and opinions; but how can a moderator direct these into something consumable as market research?