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In the annals of marketing history and the history of marketing thought, there is a key figure whose influence from the mid‐twentieth century through to the present day is worthy of note, Dr Ernest Dichter. The purpose of this paper is to place Dichter's writings in appropriate context and posit that arguably more insight into this charismatic figure can be discerned by taking greater account of the Cold War (1946‐1991) climate in which he was working and writing.

This paper is best thought of as an example of biographically inflected research. The paper focuses on the “socially progressive” aspect of his writings in order to display Dichter's support for the American economic system in the Cold War climate of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The author highlights how Dichter came to the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the mid‐1950s. What this paper underscores above and beyond all those that have explored aspects of Dichter's life is that his character was interpreted by respondents to FBI questioning in ways that reflected geopolitical circumstance.

Some of those interviewed by the Bureau praised him highly, whilst others labelled him a Communist, and accused his organisation of employing people with similar leanings. While Dichter may have had some limited associations with socialist doctrines in his early youth, such accusations were misplaced. But, overall, what this paper highlights is a highly malleable practitioner whose practices and writings both contributed to the society in which they were disseminated, but also shifted with the circumstances in which they circulated.

This paper adds an important dimension to the biography of Ernest Dichter which has not previously been explored.

This paper aims to chart the influence of McCarthyism and of FBI surveillance practices on a number of prominent American social scientists, market researchers, opinion pollsters and survey research practitioners during the post-war years. Hitherto disparate sets of historical evidence on how Red Scare tactics influenced social researchers and marketing scientists are brought together and updated with evidence from original archival research.

The paper draws on the existing secondary literature on how social research practitioners and social scientists reacted to the unusually high pressures on academic freedom during the McCarthy era. It supplements this review with evidence obtained from archival research, including declassified FBI files. The focus of this paper is set on prominent individuals, mainly Bernard Berelson, Samuel Stouffer, Hadley Cantril, Robert S. Lynd, Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Herta Herzog, Ernest Dichter, but also the Frankfurt School in exile.

Although some of the historiography presents American social scientists and practitioners in the marketing research sector as victims of McCarthyism and FBI surveillance, it can also be shown that virtually all individuals in focus here also developed strategies of accommodation, compromise and even opportunism to benefit from the climate of suspicion brought about by the prevailing anti-Communism.

Anyone interested in questions about the morality of marketing, market research and opinion polling as part of the social sciences practiced in vivo will need to pay attention to the way these social-scientific practices became tarnished by the way prominent researchers accommodated and at times even abetted McCarthyism.

Against the view of social scientists as harassed academic minority, evidence is presented in this paper which shows American social scientists who researched market-related phenomena, like media, voters choices and consumer behaviour, in a different light. Most importantly, this paper for the first time presents archival evidence on the scale of Paul F. Lazarsfeld’s surveillance by the FBI.

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/eb038824. When citing the article, please cite: Ernest Dichter, (1985), “What’s In An Image”, Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 2 Iss: 1, pp. 75 - 81.

The purpose of this paper is an examination of the role of brand personification in the development of the concepts of brand personality and brand relationships.

The paper is a critical evaluation of literature from the 1950s and onwards, examining the evolution and development of brand personality and brand relationship theory and the role of brand personification.

The major finding is that brand personification was developed as a research “gimmick” and that this “gimmick” provided the foundations for the development of the brand personality and brand relationship concepts. Further, the paper traces the evolution of the brand personality concept and identifies the ways in which it has been adapted from its original meaning.

The paper contributes to the branding literature by providing a critical evaluation of the history of marketing concepts and by providing insights into the role that motivation research played in the development of modern brand theory.

The purpose of this paper is to examine motivational research (MR) – the most maligned and misunderstood branch of market research. It argues that MR has been too easily dismissed by researchers. In so doing, they have ignored a potentially significant insight into the post World War II consumer's motivations and domestic life.

This paper utilises previously unexamined primary source material to examine David T. Bottomley's construction of MR.

By looking at in‐depth market research studies, a greater, more rounded picture of the postwar consumer can be gained. Throughout the 1960s, some market researchers turned to consumer motivations to uncover the psychological dimensions of purchasing behaviour by determining the symbolic meanings goods had to their consumers. Rather than viewing consumer behaviour as predictable by factors such as economic class, motivational researchers held that consumers are multi‐faceted subjects and life‐stage and attitudes to colour are important factors influencing consumer behaviour.

Research that considers consumer motivations should not be so easily dismissed as deceptive or corruptive research without genuine merit for historical research. Nor should Dichter's style of research be considered to be the only version of MR.

Previous scholars have largely ignored the significance of market research to the development of the consumer market and the construction of the postwar consumer. Given the dearth of scholarly examinations, the paper is based almost entirely on primary research data.

The purpose of this paper is to show how 1940s and 1950s motivation research laid the foundations of present day consumer behavior as a discipline.

This research uses standard historical methodology – heavy reliance upon primary sources, avoidance of anachronism, heavy use of contemporary quotations, and effort to explain and interpret.

Using sociology, anthropology, and clinical psychology to explain how and why consumers buy, motivation research provided business with valuable information, and, in the long run, began today's consumer behavior field of study.

This paper offers a different view of motivation research, stressing its use of sociology and anthropology. It offers a corrective to the prevailing over‐emphasis on Ernest Dichter.

This paper aims to show the genesis of motivation research in work done from the 1920s through 1954, especially with the growth in reception of European “depth psychology”. This has been followed up by Fullerton (2013).

Standard historical methodology – heavy reliance on sources written at the time (primary resources), avoidance of anachronism, heavy use of contemporary quotations, efforts to explain and interpret.

Motivation research dates to the 1920s with the work of Paul F. Lazarsfeld and others. It grew rapidly in the USA, part of the great expansion of the behavioral sciences, and amidst a zeitgeist of growing discontent with older psychologies and of Economic Man.

This paper takes motivation research back to its origins for the first time, placing it clearly in line with contemporary intellectual developments.

Offers the results of an attempt to trace and characterise the origins of what is sometimes termed motivational research. Proclaims that motivational research, complementing formal market research, arises in economic conditions of competitive mass‐production associated with relative affluence and herein is an historical guide to the part played by psychology in modern marketing. Maintains that research effort prior to the introduction of motivational research was concerned with defining markets and developing survey techniques, especially in relation to sampling, questionnaire design, structured interviewing, etc. Concludes that the treatment of many matters of interest here, have had to be relatively condensed but a future article proposes to adjust this.