The grande dame of European market research, Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, wrote her memoirs. A wonderful book, because aside from professional information it is also a very interesting history book on the young Federal Republic of Germany and as such easy and interesting to read. Regrettably, so far the book has only been published in German. What is also a pity is that Noelle-Neumann remembered the great formers of market research of the past century, Nielsen and Gallup, but not the fathers and companions of Ludwig Erhard, Prof. Vershoven and Prof. Bergler, the founding fathers of the ‘Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung’ in Nuremberg and most of all Ernest Dichter, to whom I refer in the following text.

Ernest Dichter is considered the father of motivation research. In the United States he developed a theory of dynamic psychology which later formed the basis of the concept for motivation research. Dichter did not take any stock in questionnaire-market-research. He wanted to delve deeper into the realm of secret wishes of human beings. And he succeeded in doing so. In the 60’s and 70’s of the past century he actually revolutionized market research.

Ernest Dichter was born 100 years ago in Vienna. As luck would have it, he was able to study under the last protagonists of the intellectual zenith of the Vienna University. However, since he was a Jew, he had to flee from the Nazi tyrants. He found a new home and room for his studies in America.

For decades, Ernest Dichter was consultant to practically all big manufacturers of consumer goods. He was a gifted missionary of his message. And this is why I brought him up today: Ernest Dichter’s way of detecting people’s secret wishes, but also to create the prerequisite for the development and production of better and even best products, truly serving the needs of people, is as current as ever.

Ernest Dichter was not a pseudo-scientist. Not a busybody or do-gooder. His answers even to the most complex questions or problems were clear and convincing. His suggestions were valuable guideposts. Ernest Dichter had a deep grasp of anything that moved people and especially for that reason we should pay attention once more to ‘his kind’ of motivational research and integrate it into our work. We would do ourselves a favor and a big one at that.