Qualitative research has a long history in marketing. Ernest Dichter, one of the early pioneers in consumer psychoanalytic research, first applied these research principles in a study for Plymouth automobiles in the 1930s. Some of his assertions were fairly controversial. For instance, he equated convertibles with youth, freedom, and the secret wish for mistresses; argued that women used Ivory soap to wash away their sins before a date; and maintained that baking was an expression of femininity and pulling a cake or loaf out of an oven for women was “in a sense like giving birth.” His suggested tagline “Putting a Tiger in the Tank” for Exxon resulting in a long-running and successful ad campaign, however.

(Keller 2013:327) For personal record purpose only.