Digitisation of MRS Journal - free archive of papers from 1959-1990 available
26 September 2019

I will be retiring as Editor in Chief of IJMR when the final issue for this year is published in late November, so this will be my final Editor’s blog. As you will see below, it is rather different than the others I’ve written over the years as it celebrates a very important decision recently agreed by Sage Publishing and the MRS which gives the Archive of Market and Social Research permission to digitise issues of the Journal published pre-1991.

The article below provides an introduction to this archive, including a summary of how the MRS Journal developed over that period and references to a selection of papers that readers might find useful, including a full list of all papers written, or co-written, by the late Andrew Ehrenberg for reasons described in the article – but there is lots of other content there for you to explore.

An introduction to the AMSR MRS Journal digital archive (1959-1990)

Peter Mouncey, Editor in Chief, 2005-2019
(with input from James Rothman, Joint Honorary Editor 1975-2004)

Until now, the only digitally available access to IJMR content is for post 1991 issues, via Sage Publishing (current publisher of IJMR), Warc (Warc.com database) or for academics, the EBSCO database of publications. Access to earlier issues has been limited to print copies, or limited coverage on EBSCO. However, MRS and Sage Publishing have now granted permission to the Archive of Market and Social Research (AMSR) to digitise pre 1991 issues, facilitating access to an archive of journals stretching back to 1959, covering a period of major innovation and rapid development within the market (and social) research sector.

You can access this archive of MRS Journals here.

The purpose of this article is to provide readers with an introduction to this new section of the AMSR, describing why MRS decided to launch a Journal, how it has evolved over time plus references to a selection of content to demonstrate the range of topics covered over the first 31 years of publication.  

Why did the MRS launch a journal?

The then MRS Council took the decision in 1958 to publish a journal, with at least three issues a year. The rationale behind this decision was described by John Downham, MRS Chair in 1958, in an article published in IJMR to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the journal. This article is reproduced below:  

How did the MRS Journal start?
By John Downham
Commentary from International Journal of Market Research Vol. 50 No. 1, 2008 p.7–10

After 50 years there will be few members of the present-day MRS who can recall the background to its launch.

What was the research world like into which it was born?

When the Society was set up in 1946 the 23 founding members represented virtually the entire UK profession, and monthly luncheon meetings were, mostly, sufficient to keep them in touch with research developments in this country. At the time there were no regular UK publications dealing specifically with market research – the industry was still small and resources very limited. There were a number of UK textbooks dealing with statistics and sampling theory, but none dealing in any depth with survey research other than Redmayne and Weeks' Market Research , published in 1931. No research textbooks of significance were to be published post-war in this country until John Madge's The Tools of Social Science in 1953, followed by Claus Moser's Survey Methods in Social Investigation in 1958.

In the US there was of course a rapidly growing number of such textbooks and also various regular research publications – for example, the International Journal of Opinion and Attitude Research and the Public Opinion Quarterly . Business publications such as the Harvard Business Review and the Journal of Marketing also contained articles on research topics. UK researchers – especially those working on opinion polling – from time to time published articles in the US journals but, on the whole, the American research world at that time took little interest in what was happening this side of the Atlantic.

The main UK periodicals to contain articles about market research were those dealing primarily with advertising, media and general marketing issues, but such articles were mostly occasional and usually non-technical. The single most important source of published material on survey research methodology during the years immediately following the war was probably the Government Social Survey. Under Louis Moss this produced a series of high-quality technical papers on random sampling, fieldwork and other research subjects. The Market Research Society itself set up a Publications Committee in 1952, but a plan for this to produce a research textbook was dropped, partly 'for lack of suitable material'. The Society did however publish a few monographs during the 1950s: on Readership Research in 1954, Statistical Sources for Market Research in 1957, and the papers resulting from its first two Annual Conferences in 1957 and 1958, on Business Forecasting and Attitude Scaling.

During the 1950s there were growing opportunities for presenting papers at MRS meetings, and also on platforms at educational events such as the Winter Courses (from 1951) and Summer Schools (from 1955), but relatively few such papers enjoyed general circulation. In the early 1950s more important publication channels for such work were in fact the journals of the Royal Statistical Society – primarily for sampling and other statistical papers – and the Association of Incorporated Statisticians. The latter published a number of survey research papers and in 1955 a small volume, Modern Sample Survey Methods , based on a weekend school it had run. (Somewhat unexpectedly, the field of publications on market research was later widened by the introduction of commercial television in 1955; in particular one of the major TV contractors, Granada, commissioned a series of booklets on a variety of market research subjects ranging far wider than media research.)

As far as major public platforms for speakers on research were concerned, the first MRS Annual Conference was not held until 1957. Before then many UK researchers found that the annual ESOMAR Congresses, which began in 1947, provided one of the most useful forums for presenting papers based on UK research developments, which could then be given more general publicity. For the most part, however, UK researchers had few channels in this country or publishing technical papers in printed form to a wider audience.

Meanwhile the membership of the MRS was growing exponentially throughout this period: from fewer than 100 in 1950 to over 700 by 1960. UK market research turnover, and the number of research companies, likewise escalated. However, although in 1959 the Society acquired a fulltime secretary, based in the offices of a research agency, it did not have a permanent Secretariat with its own offices until 1961. Before that the Society depended almost entirely on voluntary help from its members and support from their companies. Despite the growing needs of the profession, this limited the range of new activities, such as a regular publication, which the MRS could consider undertaking before the later 1950s.

The second half of the decade was a time of rapid change in the UK research environment. Hand tabulation and punch-cards were beginning to give way to computers. Motivation research started to move in on the more traditional methods of measuring attitudes and understanding behaviour – initially by drawing heavily on the principles of psychoanalysis but quickly adopting a more controlled and experimental approach, exemplified for example in Harry Henry's classic 1958 book Motivation Research: Its Practice and Uses . More sophisticated approaches to segmentation, the development of modelling techniques, new forms of continuous and panel research, changes in distribution channels – these and other developments were turning market

research into a much more complex (and to some extent fragmented) business with differing specialisations and interests. It had become increasingly difficult for researchers generally to keep in touch with what was happening in the different sectors of their profession.

From the mid-1950s there was therefore considerable discussion about the ways in which the MRS now needed to evolve, and in 1958 the Council determined that the Society's activities must be firmly focused on professional development and training, the encouragement of technical progress and the dissemination of technical knowledge. Plans were introduced for an examinations structure to underpin membership of the profession, and there was a greatly increased emphasis on the need to improve technical standards generally.

Against this background it was clear that the UK industry required some regularly published professional journal of its own to help service these changing needs. Until then the only moderately regular publications had been relatively simple newsletters. The available resources – both human and financial – to support such a venture were, however, still restricted. In 1959–60 the Society's total income was just over £2500, the annual subscriptions being only three guineas (£3.15) for Full Members and two guineas (£2.10) for Associates. (These were raised to five and three guineas respectively in 1960 in order to help finance the new Secretariat.) After two years of discussion, what it was hoped would become the MRS's flagship journal was therefore launched in the summer of 1959 with a target of just three issues per year, under a title that reflected a perhaps somewhat toe-in-the-water approach: Commentary . A slim publication of 40 pages, printed in a very economical format, it was initially planned to contain short summaries

of talks and papers previously given elsewhere, and two or so meatier original technical papers on research topics. It was provided free to members and priced at 7/6d (less than 40p) to non-members.

A very modest start for what has grown over 50 years into what is today the far more substantial, wide-ranging and professionally produced International Journal of Market Research.

REFERENCES

1. Association of Incorporated Statisticians (1955) Modern Sample Survey Methods . London: Association of Incorporated Statisticians.
2. Henry, H. (1958) Motivation Research: Its Practice and Uses . London: Crosby Lockwood &Son Ltd.
3. Madge, J. (1953) The Tools of Social Science . London: Longmans, Green and Co.
4. The Market Research Society (1954) Readership Research. London: The Market Research Society in association with Oakwood Press.
5. The Market Research Society (1957) Business Forecasting. London: The Market Research Society in association with Oakwood Press.
6. The Market Research Society (1957) Statistical Sources for Market Research . London:

The Market Research Society in association with Oakwood Press.

7. The Market Research Society (1958) Attitude Scaling. London: The Market Research

Society in association with Oakwood Press.

8. Moser, C. A. (1958) Survey Methods in Social Investigation . London: Heinemann.
9. Redmayne, P. & Weeks, H. (1931) Market Research . London: Butterworth & Co Publishers Ltd.

 John Downham joined BMRB in 1948 as its first Research Officer, becoming its Managing

Director in 1960. In 1963 he moved to Unilever's International Marketing Division as the senior manager responsible for monitoring the company's use of market research worldwide. He retired from Unilever in 1986, then working as a consultant. A member of the Market Research Society since 1952, and now a Fellow, he was its Chairman in 1959–60. He served on various MRS Committees including Professional Standards, and in 2001 was awarded the Society's Gold Medal for his contributions to the profession.

© Copyright Warc 2017

Two other leading professional bodies in the field of marketing also launched key journals around the same time that continue to compete with the MRS Journal to this day. The American Marketing Association (AMA) launched the Journal of Marketing Research at the start of 1964, and the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) launched the Journal of Advertising Research at the start of 1960.

The MRS published the Journal until publishing was transferred to NTC from January 1986. NTC later became Warc, who continued publication until Sage Publications was appointed in late 2017.

Titles

 The MRS Journal has had several titles in its life to date. It was launched as ‘Commentary’, with the sub-title ‘Journal of the Market Research Society’ in the summer of 1959. For 1968, these titles were reversed. From 1969-1974 (January) it was titled ‘Journal of the Market Research Society’, J.M.R.S, after which the initials became JMRS. From January 1987 (Vol. 29) it became ‘JMRS’, with the sub-title ‘Journal of the Market Research Society’ until it became the ‘International Journal of Market Research’ (IJMR), from issue 42/1, Winter 1999/2000. The sub-title ‘Journal of the Market Research Society’ was finally dropped from January 2005 (Vol. 48/1).

Frequency and numbering

Up until the end of 1964, publication was more ad hoc when there was sufficient content to warrant publication, the numbering being sequential 1-14:

1959: summer and autumn

1960: summer and winter

1961: spring and summer

1962: spring, summer and winter

1963: spring, summer and winter

1964: spring and summer

However, as described in the Editorial in the January 1965 issue (becoming Vol. V11 No.1), a more formal approach was then introduced, with publishing frequency set at January/April/July and October (except for November in 1967, Vol. 9, No. 4). This quarterly frequency lasted until the end of 2004 (Vol. 47), after which it has been published six times a year. Up until the end of 1999, the publication month was used in addition to volume and issue numbers. For 2000 only, this changed to winter/spring; spring/summer; summer/autumn; winter, after which quarterly numbers were used until 2005 when volume and issue only numbers have been used. Issue numbers only (1-14) were used until the end of 1964, with roman numerals for volumes being introduced at the start of 1965 until replaced by numbers from the start of Vol. 10 (January 1968).

Editors

John Downham wrote the introduction to the first issue. Further early Editorials were written by John Davis, Peter Breedon, George Wigglesworth and Bert De Vos, with Andrew McIntosh serving as Editor from Spring 1964 until April 1967. Stephan Buck and Ian Haldane followed on as joint editors from McIntosh, Haldane being replaced by Peter Bartram for one issue (Vol 16/1, January 1974). James Rothman then joined Buck, a partnership that lasted for 30 years until the spring of 2004 when Stephan Buck retired and was replaced by Martin Callingham until the end of 2004, when I took over as Editor in Chief (from issue Vol. 47 Issue 1, January 2005). Buck and Rothman’s role was retitled as Honorary Editors in October 1978 (Vol. 20/4), with Phyllis Vangelder appointed Executive Editor (retitled Managing Editor or Consultant Editor over time). Michael Warren replaced Vangelder as Executive Editor from Vol.42/1 to Vol. 43/4.   

Submission review process

In the early years, papers were reviewed by the editor(s) and possibly one other reviewer.

There was no editorial review/advisory board as such as there is today, only a small overseeing Editorial Board being listed, supported by an unpublished roster of reviewers. Some issues contained reprints of MRS annual conference papers (or from other conferences, including ESOMAR), which would have been only reviewed by the conference committee. There was a small editorial board who peer reviewed submissions (apart from re-printed conference papers) from the early days of the journal, with full double-blind peer reviews of all formal content being introduced from the beginning of 2005. Full electronic submission processing was introduced by Warc in the late 2000s (Editorial Manager), now replaced under Sage Publishing by Scholar 1 (SageTrack).

Content

Perhaps not surprisingly, there is no comprehensive index to this archive of the Journal, so it will be necessary to search for what you want! There is an index of content from the launch issue in 1959 to the end of 1964 in the first issue of 1965 (Vol. V11, January 1965).  However, from January 1979, an index to the previous year’s contents was introduced, running through to the end of this AMSR archive (and continuing until Vol. 49/1, January 2007, covering 2006 content).  What I’ve tried to identify in the following summary are special issues, key themes and seminal papers. Whilst many of the authors who submitted content to the journal were thought leaders of their day, either as practitioners or academics, I’ve also singled out the many contributions over that period from one key author.

Early issues included an eclectic mix of content: papers (2-4 per issue); summaries of market research industry conferences/meetings/keynote speeches and MRS meetings on methodological topics; ad hoc notes (or ‘Communications’); summery of content for recent issues of other journals in relevant fields (before the MRS launched a regular abstracts publication); book reviews; Miscellany (short papers/opinion pieces) and letters. As such, the earlier issues provide more of a snapshot of the market research sector, rather than simply a selection of methodological papers. The journal rapidly evolved into a more formal publication with an increasing focus on papers, with the average of three per issue rising to 5/6. Unsolicited submissions averaged around 30 per year between 1980-2000 (the total for 2019 will be approaching 300). Occasional themed special issues began to appear and selected papers from the annual MRS conference started to be included, the latter being a feature until the late 1990s. An analysis of submissions for 1980-1990 shows that the largest proportion were ‘UK non-academic’ (43%), followed by ‘USA academic’ (27%) and ‘UK academic’ (18%). The split between academic and non-academic was around 50:50, submissions from the UK averaging around 60%. The overall acceptance rate over this period for unsolicited submissions was 41%.  

A few early papers are already within the Warc/Sage databases, as two special issues of JMRS were published in October 1996 (Vol. 38/4) and January 1997 (Vol. 39/1) to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the MRS, each one containing fourteen papers from either the Journal, or the main annual MRS conference, originally published pre-1990, that were considered to provide a seminal contribution to the body of knowledge in the field of market research (‘Milestones in Market Research’). Each paper was proceeded by an introduction written by the original author. I’ve selected some of these in the past as my quarterly IJMR Landmark Papers, republished on the MRS website with an introductory blog (https://www.mrs.org.uk/blog-archive/ijmr). Other Classic/Landmark Papers can also be found there from IJMR issues published between 1991-early 2000s. In the lists of papers below, those selected for these two special issues are shown with both publication dates.

The MRS Gold Medal was initially awarded for the best paper on market research (not just publication in the MRS journal), James Rothman, for example, being awarded this medal in 1964. This was between 1961-end 1977, after which the Gold Medal has been awarded for service to the market research sector (awarded to James Rothman and Stephan Buck in 2004). After 1977, the annual MRS Silver Medal was instituted for the best paper published in the previous year’s issues of the JMRS, a practice that continues today. A complete list of past winners for both awards can be found at https://www.mrs.org.uk/awards/past-winners

An abstract, or summary, for each paper was introduced from January 1975.

Special/themed issues

In the new archive you will find twenty four special, or themed issues. These are as follows:

• Supplement on media research: ESOMAR Seminar, Oxford, March 1964, 14, Summer 1964: Four papers plus three other contributions.
• ‘Validation techniques’, Vol. 7/3 July 1965: Five papers covering television, readership, test marketing and validating new research methods.
• ‘Marketing models’, 7/4, October 1965: three papers.
• ‘Designing efficient samples’, Vol.8/2, April 1966: six papers.
• Television viewing, Vol. 11, No. 1, January 1969, five papers.
• ‘Costs and pricing in market research’, Vol. 14/4, October 1972: Five papers examining how research is costed and priced.
• Thomson Medals and Awards for Marketing and Advertising Research, Vol 16/3, July 1974 and Vol. 17/3, July 1975: reprints of award-winning papers for 1973 and 1974/75 respectively.
• Political opinion polling, JMRS Vol16/4 October 1974: five papers by leading pollsters
• Social research, Vol.21/1, January 1979: Five papers covering social marketing and case studies in different social fields.
• Media research, Vol.21/4, October 1979: Three papers, including one by Ehrenberg, Barwise and Goodhardt
• Marketing research in non-Western economies, 24/2, April 1982: Six papers.
• ‘Challenge of change’, Vol. 24/3, July 1982: Two papers - Special Award winner and Supplementary paper. Technology focused.
• ‘Researching the elderly’, Vol.25/3, July 1983: Five papers.
• ‘Literacy and numeracy’, Vol. 26/2, April 1984: Six papers covering questionnaire design, coding/follow ups, adult numeracy, implications of literacy and numeracy for research design, language and diversity (‘Use of interactive coding and follow-up interviews to investigate comprehension of survey questions’, Jean Morton-Williams & Wendy Sykes also in JMRS Vol. 39, N0. 1, January 1997).
• ‘Postal Research’, Vol. 27/1, January 1985: Five papers.
• ‘Survey data and the law’, Vol. 27/3, July 1985: Five papers from two Market Research Development Fund (MRDF) seminars, including research used in expert witness testimonies.
• ‘Readership research’, Vol. 28/2, April 1986: Six papers.
• ‘Planning tomorrow today’, Vol. 28/4, October 1986: Six papers. Seminal researchers from (including Liz Nelson, Mark Abrams, Nigel Piercy, Jonathon Gershuny) looked to the future, discussing the likely impact of new technologies, changes in the structure of society, time use, the consumer of the future and how retailing was likely to evolve.
• ‘Research into pricing’, Vol. 29/2, April 1987: Four papers, including econometrics, trade-off methods, a review of pricing research methodologies.
• ‘Political opinion polling’, Vol. 29/4, October 1987: Six papers, including an MRDF/MRS Technical And Development Committee sponsored experiment on telephone polling; the relationship between academics and pollsters; setting up an advisory group on polling; a review of ‘phone polling; a tribute to Henry Durrant (who introduced polling into the UK).
• ‘Developments in consumer research’, Vol. 30/2, April 1988: Five papers (including a contribution by Richard Bagozzi on attitude research).
• ‘Geodemographics’, Vol.31/1, January 1989: Seven papers on methodologies and applications by leaders in this field including Richard Webber, Clive Humby, Peter Sleight, Maureen Johnson, JMRS, Vol. 31, No. 1, January 1989 (and in JMRS, Vol. 39, No. 1), Barry Leventhal, Stan Openshaw, plus Ken Baker, Pym Cornish and Maureen Johnson (‘The application of geodemographics to retailing – meeting the needs of the catchment’, also in JMRS, Vol. 39, No. 1, January 1997).
• ‘Transatlantic interchange’, Vol. 31/4, October 1989: Ten papers from a seminar held in Boston (USA) in July 1989. Ten themes (MR industry structure, sampling, data collection, single source data, qualitative, advertising research, tracking, technology, public statistics, public relations) with a speaker from each country providing UK and USA perspectives.
• ‘Indian contribution to marketing research’, Vol. 32/2, April 1990: Nine papers covering research from India covering - political polling, TV adverting, pricing, researching children, semiotics, psychographics, personnel (human resources). 
  
  

Key themes

To keep it simple, six themes have been used to list this selection of papers, in addition to those within the themed issues (listed above):

• Technology and market research
• Miscellaneous papers of historic interest
• Applying methods from other fields
• Media and advertising research
• Key developments in/reviews of methodology
• Political opinion polling
  
  

Technology and market research

• ‘The use of a computer for media research’, RM Shields, Commentary No. 2, Autumn 1959
• ‘Market research and computers’, DL Lamberth, Commentary, No. 5, Spring 1961
• ‘The psychologist in market research’,
• ‘Computers and market research: the prospect before us’, Henry Durant, Commentary No. 10, Spring 1963
• ‘Advertising and computers – American experience, Simon Broadbent, Commentary No. 11, Summer 1963
• ‘Some observations on, and developments in, the analysis of multivariate survey data’, Jim Inglis & Douglas Johnson, JMRS, Vol. 12, No. 2, April 1970
• ‘The use of optical mark readers in market research’, Malcolm Brighton, JMRS, Vol. 13 No. 4, October 1971
• ‘Questionnaire administration by computer’, Terry O’Brien & Valerie Dugdale, JMRS, Vol. 20 N0. 4, October 1978
• ‘The technical revolution of the 1970s – will it happen in the 1980s?’, Peter Sampson, JMRS Vol. 22, No. 3, July 1980
• ‘Point of scale scanners and their implications for market research’, Derek Bloom, JMRS Vol. 22 No. 4, October 1980
• ‘Listening to complexity – analyzing qualitative marketing research data’, Sue Jones, JMRS Vol. 23 No. 1, January 1981
• ‘Coding open-ended answers with the help of a computer’, Colin McDonald, JMRS Vol. 24 No. 1, January 1982
• ‘Methods in artificial intelligence – some applications for market research’, Rory P Morgan & Julian R Bond, JMRS Vol. 31 No. 3, July 1989
  
  

Miscellaneous papers of historical interest

• ‘Closer look at British shops’, GW Blackall, Commentary No. 13, Spring 1964
• ‘The origins of marketing research’, David Bottomley, No. 13, Spring 1964
• ‘Market research in India’, K Parameswaran & David Lowe Watson, Commentary, No. 13, Spring 1964
• ‘The identity crisis of the market researcher’, Kenn Roger, Commentary, Vol. 8, No. 1, January 1966
• ‘A second survey of market research in Great Britain’, John Treasure, Commentary Vol. 8, No. 3, July 1966
• ‘The psychologist in market research’, Peter Sampson, Progress Notes, Commentary Vol. 8, No. 4, October 1966
• ‘The development of industrial market research and marketing’, E Shankleman, Commentary, Vol.9 No. 1, January 1967
• ‘The development of market research in South East Asia’, DC Beaton, Commentary, Vol. 9 No. 2, April 1967
• ‘Shopping centre surveys in Great Britain’, Peggie Sharp, Commentary, Vol. 9, No. 4, November 1967
• ‘The Market Research Society. Analysis of data concerning the Society and comments on the Society’s development’, E Adler, JMRS Vol. 11 No. 2, April 1969
• ‘Changes in the working population of England and Wales’, C Holmes, JMRS, Vol. 11 No. 3, July 1969
• ‘Can consumers create new products?’, Peter Sampson, JMRS, Vol. 12, No. 1, January 1970
• ‘Survey data in courts of law’, Peter Meneer, JMRS, Vol.13 No. 2, April 1971
• ‘Men and women are different’, JE Turle & R Falconer, JMRS, Vol. 14 No. 2, April 1972
• ‘The Market Research Society’s early days’, Henry Durant, JMRS Vol. 14 No. 2, April 1972
• ‘The British market research industry’, Martin Simmons, JMRS, Vol. 20 No. 3, July 1978
• ‘A survey of the general public’s attitudes to market research’, Jennifer M Bowen, JMRS, Vol. 21 No. 2, April 1979
• ‘The MRS Diploma’, Margaret Crimp, JMRS, Vol. 21 No. 2, April 1979
• ‘Report of the second working party on respondent co-operation: 1970-80’, MRS Research and Development Committee, JMRS Vol. 23 No. 1, January 1981 (also see ‘Response rates in sample surveys’, JMRS Vol 18, No. 3, July 1976)
• ‘Research in the USA’, Philip Barnard, JMRS Vol. 26 No. 4, October 1984
• A practical guide to gathering USA marketing information and the current status of marketing research in the US’, Frederick A Goldstein, JMRS Vol. 27 No. 4 October 1985
• ‘Developing survey methods’, Gerald Hoinville, JMRS Vol. 28 No. 1, January 1986
• ‘Obtaining the survey interview – an analysis of tape-recorded doorstep introductions’, Jean Morton Williams & Penny Young, JMRS, Vol. 29 No. 1, January 1987
• ‘Opinion bandwagons in attitudes towards the Common Market’, Catherine Marsh & John O’Brien, JMRS, Vol. 31 No. 3, July 1989
  
  

 Applying methods from other fields

• Three papers covering the application of methods from the fields of personality, behavioural science and psychology, Commentary No 3, Summer 1960 
  
  

Media and advertising research

• ‘Measuring television viewing of individuals’, DR Aitchison, Commentary No. 2, Autumn 1959
• ‘Readership estimates: concord or dissonance’, Michael M Brown, Commentary, Vol. 7 No. 2, April 1965
• ‘Thoughts on readership research’, Harry Henry, Commentary, Vol. 8 No. 2, April 1966 (and JMRS 38/4, October 1996)
• ‘Some experiences of using ‘single source’ data’, Tom Corlett, JMRS, Vol. 10 No. 1, January 1968
• ‘Some recent evidence in television audience research’, Guy Consterdine, JMRS, Vol. 10 No. 1, January 1968
• ‘Consistency of purchasing and television viewing: optimum periods of study’, SF Buck & MJ West, JMRS, Vol. 10 No. 4, October 1968
• ‘Towards a validation of the poster audience model for Greater London’, BD Copeland, JMRS, Vol. 11, No. 4, October 1968
• ‘Designing advertising research for marketing decisions’, WA Twyman, JMRS, Vol. 15 No. 2, April 1973 (and JMRS Vol. 38, No. 4, October 1996)
• ‘One way TV advertisements work’, Simon Broadbent, JMRS, Vol. 21 No. 3, July 1979
• ‘Advertising tracking studies and sales effects’, Stephen Colman and Gordon Brown, JMRS, Vol. 25 No. 2, April 1983
• ‘Modelling with adstock’, Simon Broadbent, JMRS Vol. 26 No. 4, October 1984
• ‘Television audience measurement research – yesterday, today and tomorrow’, Stephan Buck, JMRS, Vol. 29 No. 3, July 1987
• ‘Can we at last say goodbye to social class?’, Sarah O’Brien & Rosemary Ford, JMRS, Vol. 30 No. 3, July 1988
• ‘Modelling the blip’, Simon Broadbent, JMRS, Vol. 32 No. 1, January 1990 (and see follow-on exchanges in Communications section, JMRS, Vol. 32 No. 3, July 1990)
  
  

Key developments in/reviews of methodology

• ‘Scientific matching made easy’, William Belson, Commentary No. 1, Summer 1959
• ‘Matching and prediction on the principle of biological classification’, William Belson, Commentary, No. 5, Spring 1961 (and JMRS Vol. 38. No. 4, October 1996)
• ‘Sampling errors in practice’, Tom Corlett, Commentary, Vol. 7 No. 3, July 1965 (and JMRS Vol. 38/4, October 1996)
• ‘Commonsense in qualitative research’, Peter Sampson, Commentary Vol. 9 No. 1, January 1967 (and JMRS Vol 38/4, October 1996)
• ‘The application of the repertory grid to problems in market research’, WAK Frost & RL Braine, Commentary, Vol. 9 No. 3, July 1967
• ‘Wheeling and dealing – a new approach to the use of attitude and motivational data by the use of semantic differential scales’, RE Thomas, Joan Macfarlane Smith & PA Spence, JMRS, Vol. 10 No. 2, April 1968
• ‘Some considerations affecting the use of factor analysis in market research’, LJ Rothman, JMRS, Vol. 10 No. 3, July 1968 (and JMRS 38/4, October 1996)
• ‘The paradox of memory in market research’, Henry Durrant & M Simmons, JMRS, Vol.10 No.4, October 1968 (and JMRS Vol. 38 No. 4, October 1996)
• ‘Perspectives in attitude research: methods and applications’, JA Lunn, JMRS, Vol. 11 No. 3, July 1969
• ‘Whatever happened to motivational research? End of the messianic hope’, Leslie Collins & Caroline Montgomery, JMRS, Vol. 12, No. 1, January 1970
• ‘Some observations on, and developments in, the analysis of multivariate survey data’, J Inglis & D Johnson, JMRS, Vol. 12 No. 2, April 1970 (and JMRS, Vol. 38/4, October 1996)
• ‘A user’s guide to Fishbein’, Peter Sampson & Paul Harris, JMRS, Vol. 12 No. 3, July 1970
• ‘The sampling of non domestic populations, Andrew R McIntosh & Roger J Davies, JMRS, Vol. 12 No. 4, October 1970 (and JMRS Vol. 38/4, October 1996)
• ‘Market segmentation – the realities of buyer behaviour’, Martin Collins, JMRS, Vol. 13 No. 3, July 1971
• ‘Product testing in relation to marketing problems’, JC Penny, IM Hunt & WA Twyman, JMRS, Vol. 14 No 1, January 1972
• ‘Evaluating community preferences’, G Hoinville, JMRS, Vol. 15, No. 1, January 1973 (and JMRS Vol. 38/4, October 1996)
• ‘Monadic testing of new products – an old problem and some partial solutions’, Gordon Brown, Tony Copeland & Maurice Millward, JMRS, Vol 15, No. 2, April 1973
• ‘Linguistic coding – a new solution to an old problem’, CDP McDonald, JMRS, Vol. 15 No. 3, July 1973 (and JMRS Vol. 38/4, October 1996)
• ‘A self-weighting random sampling technique’, WG Blyth & LJ Marchant, JMRS, Vol. 15 No. 3, July 1973 (and JMRS Vol. 38/4, October 1996)
• ‘A statistical evaluation of rating scales’, Cliff Holmes, JMRS, Vol. 16 No. 2, April 1974
• ‘The trade-off model and its extension’, Dick Westwood, Tony Lunn & David Beazley, IJMR Vol. 16 No. 3, July 1974 (and JMRS, Vol. 39/1, January 1997)
• ‘Sequential analysis: a reappraisal for market research’, EJ Anderton, R Tudor & K Gorton, JMRS Vol. 18 No. 4, October 1976
• ‘An investigation of alternative methods of applying the trade-off model’, Walle M Oppedijk van Veen & David Beazley, JMRS, Vol. 19 No. 1, January 1977
• ‘Conditioning and bias in consumer panels – some new results’, SF Buck, EH Fairclough, J. St.G. Jephcott & DWC Ringer, JMRS, Vol. 19 No. 2, April 1977 (and JMRS, Vol. 39/1, January 1997)
• ‘The effect of clustering on costs and sampling errors of random samples’, Paul Harris, JMRS, Vol. 19 No. 3, July 1977 (and JMRS, Vol. 39/1, January 1997)
• ‘Qualitative research – a summary of the concepts involved’, MRS R&D sub-committee on qualitative research, JMRS, Vol. 21 No. 2, April 1979
• ‘Interviewer variability’: a review of the problem’, Martin Collins, JMRS Vol. 22 No. 2, April 1980 (and JMRS Vol. 39/1, January 1997)
• ‘Pricing research techniques: a review and a new approach, Chris Blamires, JMRS Vol. 23 No. 3, July 1981 (and JMRS Vol. 39/1, January 1997)
• ‘A discussion of the use of sensitivity panels in marketing research’, Bill Schlackman, JMRS Vol. 26 No. 3, July 1984 (and JMRS Vol. 39/1, January 1997)
• ‘Farmstat: an approach to monitoring the market for crop chemicals and fertilisers’, HW Biggs, JMRS, Vol. 26 No. 4, October 1984
• ‘How do you like your data: raw, al dente or stewed?’, Tim Bowles & Bill Blyth, JMRS, Vol. 27 No. 4, October 1985 (and JMRS Vol. 39/1, January 1997)
• ‘What we learnt from researching AIDS’, Simon Orton & John Samuels, JMRS, Vol. 30. No. 1, January 1988 (and JMRS Vol. 39/1, January 1997)
• Data fusion: an appraisal and experimental evaluation’, Ken Baker, Paul Harris & John O’Brien, JMRS, Vol. 31 No. 2, April 1989 (and JMRS, Vol. 39/1, January 1997)
• ‘Small is beautiful, but difficult: towards cost-effective research for small businesses’, David Smith, JMRS, Vol. 3 No. 1, January 1990 (and JMRS, Vol. 39/1, January 1997)
• ‘Validity and reliability in qualitative market research: a review of the literature’, Wendy Sykes, JMRS Vol. 32 No. 3, July 1990
• ‘Testing nine hypotheses about quota sampling’, Catherine Marsh & Elinor Scarbrough, JMRS, Vol. 32 No. 4, October 1990
  
  

Political opinion polling

• ‘A dynamic trend analysis of the opinion polls predicted the correct result’, LCW Dixon, Miscellany, JMRS, Vol. 13 No. 1, January 1971
• ‘The British voter and the telephone at the 1983 election’, William L Miller, JMRS, Vol. 29 No. 1, January 1987 
  
  

Contributions from the late A.S.C. (Andrew) Ehrenberg

Andrew Ehrenberg was one of the founding fathers of marketing science (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_S._C._Ehrenberg). He started his career as a lecturer, then worked on the agency side in the UK before returning to academia. His contribution to marketing science is enshrined in the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science at the University of South Australia. Ehrenberg was very closely associated with the journal in its early years. Ehrenberg also served as MRS Chairman in the mid-1960s. He was awarded the original MRS Gold Medal in 1969 for a paper, and a further MRS Gold Medal in 1996 for services to the sector/MRS. Andrew died in August 2010.

• ‘Relative merits of independent matched samples and of the panel techniques for before and after studies’, Commentary No. 1, Summer 1959
• ‘Verified predictions of consumer purchasing patterns’, Commentary No. 10, Spring 1963
• ‘A review of 7-day recall’, Commentary, No. 12, Winter 1963
• ‘Knowledge as our discipline’, Commentary, Vol. 7, No. 4, October 1965
• ‘America and the rest – some comparisons’, Commentary, Vol. 9 No.1, January 1967
• ‘On not understanding media/product date’, Commentary, Vol. 9 No. 4, November 1967
• ‘Media men don’t want to know’, JMRS, Vol. 10 No. 1, January 1968
• ‘The amount bought by above-average buyers: a communications case-history’, with GJ Goodhart, JMRS, No. 10 No. 3, July 1968
• ‘Practical applications of the duplication of viewing law’, with GJ Goodhardt, JMRS, Vol. 11 No. 1, January 1969
• ‘Towards an integrated theory of consumer behaviour’, JMRS, Vol. 11 No. 4, October 1969 (and JMRS 38/4, October 1996)
• ‘Consumer attitudes to brand usage’, with M Bird as lead, JMRS, Vol. 12 No. 4, October 1970 (plus discussion in Miscellany: JMRS, Vol. 13 No. 2, April 1971 & Vol. 14 No.1, January 1972)
• Buyer behavior under mini-test conditions’, with P Charlton (lead) & B Pymont, JMRS, Vol.14 No. 3, July 1972
• ‘Audience appreciation and audience size’, with TP Barwise (lead) & GJ Goodhardt, JMRS, Vol. 21 No. 4, October 1979
• ‘Attitudes to episodes and programmes’, with GJ Goodhardt, JMRS Vol. 23 No. 4, October 1981
• ‘Extended sales tests of product quality’, with Stephen B Castleberry (lead) & WH Motes, JMRS, Vol. 29 No. 1, January 1987
• ‘A successful new brand: Shield’, with Dee M Wellan (lead), JMRS, Vol. 30 No. 1, January 1988