ESOMAR is an organization that was established in 1948 after the war. For those who don’t know or might not remember the war, one of the things that made the Holocaust possible was this collection of data by the states, which was essentially us against lots of communities. And so, when the war ended, there was a need to understand where people stood on things. The market research sector grew out of that. But there was a huge piece of work to do to build public trust and confidence that the data isn’t going to be used against them. That’s essentially the role that ESOMAR played in the early days and continues to play today. It was a place for the industry to discuss how to maintain public trust and confidence as an essential ingredient to making successful market research work.
Fast forward to 75 years later, and that mission still stays true. And I think it’s probably more relevant than ever before– to maintain public trust and confidence. Digital tech players are undermining that trust, and there are all kinds of scandals about how data is being misused. ESOMAR is trying to guide businesses to state it just right, and at the same time have a safe space to exchange new ideas and innovations. The fact that ESOMAR is global, also enables global best practice sharing to happen and there are very few organizations around the world that can do that.
