Abstract:

Consumer panels have by this time become a relatively classical device for investigating buying habits in the field of mass-consumption goods: it occurred to us that a rather different type of panel could be devised with a view to checking on sales of less popularised products. The foundations of the SOFRES Panel started to be laid in the late Sixties, on the basis of new mailing questionnaires techniques which led to renewed interest in the psychological forces underlying refusal or acceptance of response to ad hoc questionnaires. The special technique behind the SOFRES Panel was thus built up by reference to two sources of practical experience: - conventional consumer panels, - the ad hoc questionnaire.