The Netherlands can be characterised as a small, heavily urbanised country, with a quickly growing population. On one hand the population is very young, + 28% below 14 years of age, on the other hand rather old; 14% over 65 years. The western part of the country is threatening to become one very big conurbation, consisting of 6 or more major cities with Amsterdam, The Hague , and Rotterdam as centres of gravity. Contrary to the existing image abroad of Holland the main sources of income are industry and services.
The historical perspective in the realm of psychological market research is more restricted than that of "ordinary" market research. It is true that the hesitant beginnings of psychological research occurred around the thirties, but there was scarcely any development to speak of until the fifties. In the Netherlands this branch of market research was scarcely known until Vance Packard's book made its mark. From 1960 to the present day psychological market research has been developing successfully in the Netherlands -at least if measured by the volume of its turnover. It is however noteworthy that specialisation in this form of research is less frequently met with at present than at the beginning of the sixties. Some organisations , originally set up as specialised research establishments in marketing psychology, have since extended their sphere of operations to other forms of market research, whereas, on the other hand, established organisations have included psychological market research among their services.
This paper deals with problems encountered in trying to fit mathematical line projections to the trends of available data and in combining these projections into an objective forecast of the most probable developments which may effect retail trade over the next ten, twenty and thirty years. The paper describes how various problems were overcome and how progress was made towards developing the projections into a form suitable for a computer programme and continuous revision. This paper deals only with the development of a method to produce a long term forecast of the grocery and provision market, with two specific uses: 1. To discover what economic levels will result if all projected trends continue unchanged; and 2. to be modified as soon as there is a change in the current trend of any of the projected component series.
These comments are naturally coloured by my viewpoint - that of a researcher in a large international company manufacturing and marketing a wide range of (mainly) consumer products. However, I have tried to pick out a number of points which strike me as generally relevant. Even though it is an obvious one, there is an important point worth stressing cat the outset. The market research industry provides a service to marketing organisations. It therefore has to adapt its approach to changes in its clients' needs. In this brief paper there is no scope for discussing trends in marketing during the next decade, but one example will serve.
This paper gives a comprehensive picture of the development and more important stages of market research in Hungary. We do not deny that there is still much to do in respect of both the methods applied and in the processing of the information by means of electronic computers. We should like therefore to rely even more in future on the methodological experience of foreign market research institutes, which have been doing successful work for decades and which are prepared to exchange their experience with us.
One of the sacred institutions of American grocery and drug product marketing today is the test market. Virtually no products ai-e extended to national distribution and placed into major product runs without extensive test market ing experience. The high cost of marketing failures have made this s corner stone of today's marketing plans. Yet, the test market has not been an unqualified success. Often, managements are faced with a difficult series of decisions after examining test marketing results as virtually existed prior to the test marketing effort.
This year has seen not only the continued growth of market research in the U.K. hut also a number of developments which consolidate the scientific status of the profession. On a more general level two related developments are of considerable interest for the future. The first of these is the increasing interest that is being shown in an operational research approach to marketing and in the formulation of marketing models.
The present Yearbook will give further illustrations of some of the tendencies signalled last year.