Today many companies prefer to enter into partnerships, cooperation arrangements or joint ventures even in industrially advanced countries, and these are often the only ways for a permanent market presence in the East European socialist and in some of the developing countries. Cooperation may also contribute to the solution of some domestic production or procurement problems. Several surveys show that the most important motives inducing a company to seek cooperation are in the marketing field. Cooperation has become a marketing strategy, although a company may derive a number of other - not strictly marketing - benefits from cooperation. Once the strategic decision has been taken the tasks of formulating the cooperation objective, selecting the most suitable country and finding the partner must be solved. A number of institutions already exist for this purpose, but do not make up for the services that market research organisations can provide. Industrial cooperation is a fast growing new form of international economic relations. It is worth the attention of marketing experts, as the best methods for promoting cooperation are still being worked out.
For the purpose of this paper the communications industry includes the press, radio, television and fairs. All these media have a substantial secondary market. The primary market is represented by the audience, the communication targets; the secondary market by those organisations which wish to use established means of communication to reach the primary targets.
The paper covers five "planned economy" countries. While significant differences exist among these countries, the considerations that justify the investigation of the choice of media on a regional basis, apply to them equally. Due to the relatively low volume of advertising, media research is generally still in its infancy. The special features of media selection due to the characteristics of the socialist planned economy, exist less in the methods and techniques than in the analysis and interpretation of the data.