Colin McDonald has been involved in market research for some 35 years, both on the client side (Reckitt & Sons Ltd) and with leading agencies (BMRB and later Communication Research Ltd, finally as chairman). In 1991 he started his own research consultancy, McDonald Research, which specialises in advertising, media and communication studies. His clients over the years have included companies in many consumer and industrial markets, government departments (including the Central Office of Information), media owners (print, television and poster), advertising agencies and media independents. He is a non-executive director of the advertising research agency Hall & Partners Limited.
In the late 1960s Colin was responsible for the analysis and reporting of an experimental diary panel study supported by JWT (London), which for the first time related purchasing and the receipt of 'opportunities to see' (OTS) from the same persons on a single-source basis over time. A convincing relationship was found, and as a result the study became a landmark case, being published in the United States by the Marketing Science Institute and, later, in Effective Frequency by M. J. Naples (Association of National Advertisers, New York, 1979). He was commissioned by the ANA to prepare a revised and updated edition of this work, which was published in 1995 under the title Advertising Reach and Frequency. The JWT panel findings have been called upon during much of the controversy surrounding the problem of frequency in media planning, including the recent work of Professor John Philip Jones based on his recent analyses of US Nielsen single-source data. He very much supports John Philip Jones' work but with some reservations about some of the implications being drawn, and a conviction that we are still a long way from seeing the end of this story. He is currently engaged, with the support of Carlton Television, on the further analysis of another single-source database (the Central TV Adlab), in which he is attempting to push out the boundaries farther than John Philip Jones was able to do.
Colin has had some 50 articles and papers published, mostly on advertising research and related matters, and a recent book How Advertising Works: A review of current thinking, commissioned by the Advertising Association, was published in 1992. He has spoken many times at conferences and seminars sponsored by, among others, the Market Research Society, ESOMAR, the Advertising Association (UK), the Advertising Research Foundation (USA), and Admap (for which he is a commissioning editor). He has been a full member of the British Market Research Society since 1967 and holds the Society's 1974 Gold Medal award. With Stephen King, he was commissioned to write Sampling the Universe: The growth, development and influence of market research in Britain since 1945, published in November 1996 in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Market Research Society. He was also co-editor, with Mike Monkman, of the Media Research Group's Guide to Media Research, published 1995.
Colin is a graduate and MA of Christ Church, Oxford, where he read Greats ('Literae Humaniores', or classics, ancient history and philosophy). Before starting his market research career with Reckitt & Sons in 1961, he did two years national service in the army, followed by a period in the printed books department of the British Museum, and then a short time as an administrative officer with Distillers Company Ltd (Chemical Division).