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Discovering the Consumer

This article discusses the use of market and consumer research at Lever/Unilever and its advertising agency in Britain and the United States, J. Walter Thompson (JWT), in the interwar period. Research surveys conducted by JWT in the 1920s and 1930s helped Lever reposition its international soap brand Lux. The case demonstrates that Lever deployed qualitative market research techniques much earlier than usually acknowledged. Qualitative and quantitative consumer research methods allowed marketers at Lever and JWT to take account of autonomous consumer practices that limited the scope of management. The article also shows that marketing's cultural practices often predate its conceptualization and academic theorization.