State of the Industry Report
Published 6/12/2012
Author: Jack Honomichl
Author Biography
Jack Honomichl is founder of the Inside Research industry newsletter, a market research trade publication based in Barrington, IL.
Summary
The main purpose of this annual compilation, now in its 39th year, is to accurately track spending on marketing/advertising/public-opinion research services within the United States through for profit firms based in the U.S., and this topic is especially interesting given the economy’s continued weakness.
The base for this 2011 analysis is revenue reported by 204 research companies for U.S. operations only (as much as possible, the nonresearch revenues of some of these companies have been edited out). The largest 50 firms get line-item identity; the balance is based on input from the Council of American Survey Research Organizations (CASRO) member firms that had, on average, revenues of $5.3 million in 2011. (Larger CASRO member firms are on the Top 50 list.)
These 204 firms, in aggregate, had U.S.-based revenues of $9.2 billion in 2011, up 5.1% from 2010. After adjustment for inflation based on the consumer price index, which was 2.9%, their so-called “real growth” was 2.9%, compared with a real-growth rate of 3.1% in 2010. If we focus on the Top 50 alone, their revenue growth also was 5.1%, or an inflation-adjusted 2.9%. These positive returns were reinforced by the state of the research industry’s payroll. The 204 firms reported 38,305 full-time employees in 2011, an estimated increase of 7.9% from 2010.
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