A New Brand of Business
Charles Coolidge Parlin, Curtis Publishing Company, and the Origins of Market Research
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
A New Brand of Business
Charles Coolidge Parlin, Curtis Publishing Company, and the Origins of Market Research
About This Book
Charles Coolidge Parlin was considered by many to be the founder of market research. Working for the dominant Curtis Publishing Company, he revolutionized the industry by providing added value to advertisers through information about the racial, ethnic, and regional biases of readers and consumers. By maintaining contact with both businesses and customers, Parlin and Curtis publications were able to turn consumer wants into corporate profits.
In A New Brand of Business, Douglas Ward provides an intriguing business history that explains how and why Curtis developed its market research division. He reveals the evolution and impact of Parlin's work, which understood how readers and advertisers in the emerging consumer economy looked at magazines and advertisements. Ward also examines the cultural and social reasons for the development and use of market researchâparticularly in regard to Curtis' readership of upper-income elites. The result weaves the stories of Parlin and Curtis into the changes taking place in American business and advertising in the early twentieth century.
Frequently asked questions
Information
Table of contents
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 A New Era of Business
- 2 An Unlikely Leader
- 3 What Was Commercial Research?
- 4 Winning over the Skeptics
- 5 Barbarians, Farmers, and Consumers
- 6 Readers as Consumers
- 7 Chasing the Consumer, Protecting the Company
- 8 The Legacy of Commercial Research
- Epilogue
- Notes
- Index