Happy Birthday GfK - 75 Years

For 75 years, the name GfK has been synonymous with responsibility, initiative and innovative spirit in the field of market research. The company has succeeded in growing from a small association with close university links to one of the leading global market research organizations.

Milestones

In 1936, GfK started out with a survey into the level of recognition of the Bayer company logo. Continuous consumer research began in 1957, when the company Henkel commissioned GfK to establish the first household panel in Germany. This panel initially comprised 1000 households that reported regularly to GfK on their purchasing behavior, and it has since grown to include 30,000 households. Further milestones included the start of retail panel research in 1970 and the takeoff of TV research in 1984. The past decade, in particular, has seen rapid growth: in 1999 GfK was launched on the stock exchange and in the same year, the company took the leap over the big pond, acquiring GfK Custom Research Inc. in the USA.

No Future Without a Past

Many GfK subsidiary companies also have traditions that go back a long way. The oldest company is GfK Custom Research North America: its origins date as far back as 1923, when Dr Daniel Starch carried the first global advertising effectiveness surveys. The first foreign subsidiary of the GfK Group was GfK Austria, which in 1960 ushered in the new international era of GfK.

Subsequent years saw a continuous expansion of the GfK network, with the initial focus on Western European countries widening after 1989 to include Eastern Europe. In 1992, GfK ventured to the other side of the globe and integrated the first Australian subsidiary into the GfK network.

GfK then went on to extend its network into Asia, the Middle East and Africa. In 2002 it was the first company to enter the Latin American market of Brazil, and experienced rapid growth there. In the meantime, GfK Brazil has become the number 4 company in the country‘s market research industry.

GfK pursues its strategy with consistency and expands its global network by acquiring market research companies that are well rooted and established in their domestic markets. Today, the GfK Group is the number 4 market research company worldwide, and operates in more than 100 countries.

The full press release is available for download.