Abstract:

Since the Treaty of Rome, there has been a considerable number of marketing studies concerning Europe: six countries were sometimes concerned, during the sixties. Nowadays respondents quite often represent twelve nationalities. The development of national studies was important also during the last 35 years. At one time, a local piece of research was exhaustive, at another time it was reduced to basic essentials. In this second case, Paris and Lyon often are the organ of France; London and Edinburgh quite often represent Great Britain; Rome and Milan can be the ambassadors of Italy; Frankfurt, Munich and the newcomer Leipzig sometimes represent Germany. Mutatis mutandis, in international matters, Belgium could be the most favoured country to represent Western Europe or better the neighbouring European countries; Belgium could be used a.o. to carry out European guidance research and European market tests. This point of view is attractive also when considering management, time and cost quite often consumed by international research which has to cross co-ordination difficulties, modifications and oppositions. This prospect is consistent too with the thoughts of several famous marketing researchers who betoken substantial similarities are often greater than superficial differences in Western Europe. It is clear all these considerations are necessary to get Belgium accepted as an area for European experiments. Such arguments, however, are not sufficient and, of course, must be confirmed in practice. Fortunately, several actual cases are in line with our belief. This paper, with prudence, describes all these aspects of the theme.