Procter & Gamble all but invented marketing research in 1924, when William Cooper Procter told his product-development team to go out and knock on doors to learn – first hand – what consumers wanted and needed.
For decades, such “eyes on the consumer” studies gave the world’s largest advertiser an up-close and intensely personal set of consumer insights.
But, as Kirti Singh, Procter & Gamble’s chief analytics and insights officer, observes, the marketing-research toolkit is much deeper and richer than it was when P&G kept on a slow, steady march to consumer understanding.
And, instead of solely asking...