Burke, Inc.

was created in 1931 by Alberta Burke, who

had previously worked in P&G's marketing
department. Not only in the United States, but also
around the world, there were few structured
marketing research organisations at the time. Burke,
situated in Cincinnati, Ohio, is a marketing research
and decision-support firm that assists companies in
better understanding and implementing their business
operations. Employee owners at Burke add value to
research and consulting projects by employing superior
thinking to assist customers in solving business
problems. Burke is entirely owned by its employees.
Burke's implementation of the various phases of
marketing research is traced in this video case. More
than a century ago, in 1895 or 1896, the first known
marketing research took place. A professor forwarded
questions regarding the future of advertising to
advertising agencies via telegram. He received
approximately ten responses and drafted a paper
outlining what was going on. The majority of marketing
research done in the early years was a spin-off of
Bureau of Census data, and the analysis was essentially
restricted to counting.
In the early 1930s, the next wave of marketing
research began, with ladies in white gloves knocking on
doors and asking about cake mixes. The primary
research approach was door-to-door surveys, as the
telephone was not extensively used at the time.